Po l i ti c a l H i s to ry o f

Seces s i on

To the Beginning of the American Civi l War

Dan iel Wa it HowePresident of the Ind iana Historical Society

Author of The Puritan Republic," Civil War Times

77m best way to come to truth being to examine thing s as really they

are, and no ! to conclude they are as we fancy of ourselves or have been

taught by others to imagine."- LOCKE .

G . P . Putnam’s Sons

New York and London

(the knickerbocket Dress

19 14

COPYRIGHT, 19 1 4

BY

DANIEL WA IT HOWE

‘Cbc R ntchcrbockcr press, fl ewDork

PREFACE

RELIMINARY EGOTISM i s the title that HoraceGreeley gives to the preface of The GreatAmeri can

Conflict. Few authors can aff ord to be as frank in their

prefaces as Horace Greeley was in hi s , for he had the

advantage of knowing that many would be interested inhearing whatever he might have to say and that therewas some foundation for any seeming egoti sm .

The preface to a volume like this is usually the lastand the hardest thing to write. I have repeatedly rewri ttenthis , in a vain effort to make it satisfactory to myself . I

do not propose to expand it by telling what the book isabout , or to apologize for wri ting it . The title and tableof contents su fficiently indicate its general character .

I have endeavored in a volume of moderate size to givea concise history of the development of the causes , of whichslavery was the chief , but not the only one, that culm inatedin the Civil War .Although it is difiicult to find new facts, it is still possible

to array old facts in such a way as to give them a new

interest , and to develop new theories more or less interesting and instructi ve. But to avoid writing toomuch or toolittle ; to escape the cri ticism that what is good is not newand what i s new is not good ; above all to make what iswri tten as accurate as poss ible, —to do all this i s not an

easy task .

One of the chief d ifficulties in the preparation of a bookof this kind is in estimating the relative importance of the

events narrated , so that the significance of each may be

clearly understood , and to do this wi thout allotting tooii i

iv Preface

much space to one and too little to another . Therefore,while endeavoring to avoid prolixity , I have also tried toavoid sacrificing accuracy to brevity , believing that anyevent of sufficient historical importance to merit referenceshould be stated fully enough to make its importanceunderstood . For example, I have devoted much morespace to the history of the Dred Scott case than is g iven toit by most historians , because it is impossible for anyhistorian to convey in two or three pages a correct understandi ng of this important and far-reachi ng case.

Tastes vary as to the best method of presenting hi story .

I have little to say abou t my own . While never losing sightof the necessity of accuracy in record ing historical facts , I

have endeavored to state them in such a way as not to repelthe general reader by giving the bookthe appearance of onedesigned only for schools of the Gradgrind kind wherefacts and “nothing but facts are taught— hard , dry factswithout a touch of coloring that art , poetry, humor , or

fancy might lend to make the story of them attractive.

As I write from the standpoint of onewho is a descendantof old Massachusetts Puritan stockand who served in theCivil War as a sold ier of the Union Army , it is not to beexpected that my opinions will receive the assent of thosewho View the subject from a Southern standpoint . On theother hand ,

it is probable that some of my opinions of men

and events will not receive the assent of all Northernreaders .In consequence of new historical facts that are every

day com ing to light , few men in either the North or the

South now entertain the same opinions of men prominentin and of events significant to the history of secession thatthey entertained in earlier years . It is not yet possible,

however , for Northern and Southern writers to agree intheir conclusions . They will , therefore, continue to advo

cate their special theories and the little that each con

tributes will add to the fund of knowled ge from whichfuture historians will construct their histories .

Preface v

Something has been gained for history in the fifty yearsfollowing the Civi l War . A marked improvement in toneis to be noted in the books about secession written in recentyears over that of the books wri tten soon after the close of

the war . Rhodes is much fairer to the South than wasGreeley or Von Holst or Henry Wilson , and we of the

North , while not concurring in the theories advanced byHerbert in his Aboli tion Crusade, can at least recogni ze hiscandor and sincerity , and we can see in the general tone ofhis book a vast change from the bitter spirit which characterized Pollard 's Lost Cause.

More still has been gained ; and i t is probably safe to saythat the great body of conservative men in both the Northand the South now rejoice that the Union safely passedthrough the Civil War and the horrible ni ghtmare of

Reconstruction and survived the peri ls of both .

While I do not expect general assent to any of my con

elusions , I trust that not many inaccuracies will be foundin my statement of facts and that I may be given cred it forhaving tried to write fairly and honestly .

With thi s explanation the present volumemust speak fori tself . I am under special obli gations to my friend , Mr .Charles R . Williams , long and favorably known as edi torof the Indianapoli s News For the third time he has beenmy trusted pilot to guide me in my li terary voyages . I

have also been greatly aided by the personal advi ce and

suggestions of Doctor James A . Woodburn of the

Indi ana University .

DANIEL WAIT HOWE .

INDIANAPOLIS , INDIANA.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

ENTRANCE OF SLAVERY INTO AMERICAN POLITICSrxcn

Difierence between people of Northern and those of Southerncolonies, I . Rural life in the North and in the South, 2.

Early introduction of slavery in the Southern colonies, 2.

Relations of owners of great plantations in the South totheir dependents, 2 . Virginia and South Carolina incolonial times, 2 . Eff ect of slavery on social life and

character, 3 , 4 . Eff ects of slavery in South Carolina andGeorgia, 4 . Concessions to slavery inUnited StatesConsti tution, and in early territorial cessions, 9. Progress ofemancipation in Southern states, 10. Colonizationsocieties in the South, 10. Effect on South of the antislavery societies of the North, 10. Growing belief inSouth of righteousness of slavery, I I . Eff ect on slaveryof introduction of the cotton-gin and other improvementsin the production of cotton, 1 1 . Political antagonismbetween New England and slave States, I I . Eventsprior to the election of Monroe that di stracted attentionfrom slavery

,12 . Acquisition of LouisianaTerritory, 12.

Opposition of New England Federalists, 12. Protectionand extension of slavery becomes paramount questionin the South, 13 . Failure to get foothold for slavery intheNorthwest Territory, 13 . Election of JamesMonroeas President, 13

CHAPTER II

THE BEGINNINGS OF SECESSION

Gains of North over South in commercial prosperity, 15 . The

doctrine of secession in the North, 17. Opposition of

vii

V111 Tab le of Contents

New England Federalists to Louisiana Purchase, 17.

Talkin New England of Northern Confederacy in War

of 18 12 , 17. The Hartford Convention, 17. Contrastbetweenmanner inwhich doctrine of secessionwas viewedinNorth and in the South, 1 8. Political doctrines peculiarto South, 19 . Right of secession as vi ewed in the South,19. Basis of doctrine, 20. TheAlien and SeditionActs,20. The Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, 2 1 . Re

Spouses of other state legislatures, 23 . How far the

resolutions justify doctrine of nullifica tion, 25 . Madison’s and Jeff erson’s construction of the Virginia and

Kentucky resolutions, 27. Principle of , adopted bySouth Carolina political leaders, 27. Also adopted byDemocratic party, 27. The great debate on nullifica

tion between Webster and Hayne, 28 . Nullification in

South Carolina in 1832 , 28. The Force Bill, 29. Cal

houn’

s resolution and speech, 29. Webster’s reply, 30.

Clay’s compromise tariff bill of 1833 , 36 . Calhoun'sdoctrine adopted for extension and protection of slavery,36

CHAPTER III

SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES

Question early becomes prominent, 37. Southern sentimentfavoring prohibition of slavery in territories speedilydisappears, 37. Reservations of rights of slavery incessions to United States by Virginia, North Carolina,and Georg ia, 37. Demand of South for preservation of

the equilibrium , 38. Questionassumes new importanceafteracquisitions from Mexico, 38 . Southern doctrine of“equality of rights ” in the territories, 40. Calhoun’sarguments in favor of , 40. D ifficulties in way of set

tling question, 43 . Efiorts to devise some compromisepolicy, 43. The question from slave-holder’s point ofView, 43 . Doctrine of

“popular sovereignty," 44 .

Doctrine of“non-interference

,

”

45 . Doctrine thatConstitution of United States guaranteed right of slaveryin territories, 48. Calhoun's and Webster’s argumentson question, 48 . Fallacy of Calhoun’s arguments, 50.

Views of D ix, Webster, and Clay, 50 . Calhoun mainadvocate of doctrine, 52 . Estimate of Calhoun, 53 .

PAGE

Tab le of Contents ix

CHAPTER IV

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE ; BEGINNING A NEW POLITICALERA

PAGEDivision of Louisiana Territory, 55 . Petitions for admi ssnon

of Missouri and Arkansas, 55 . Tallmadge’s proposedamendment prohibiting slavery in territories, 55. Arguments of those opposed to Tallmadge's amendment, 56.

Jeff erson’s argument against it, 57. Threats in the

South of d isunion, 57. D ivision of parties on geographical lines, 58. Jefierson

’s forebod ings, 58 . Maine and

Arkansas admitted , 59. The M issouri Compromisefinally agreed on, 59. The questions submitted by

President Monroe to his cabinet, 59 . The MissouriConstitution, 60 . Quarrel between Clay and Randolph,60 . The Compromise favored by Southern leaders, 60 .

Excitement in the North over the Compromise, 60 .

Subsidence of excitement and inauguration of“era of

good feeling ,

”6 1 . Douglas ’s eulogy upon the Missouri

Compromise, 6 1 . Slavery now becomes an importantfactor in American politics, 6 1

CHAPTER V

FROM 1820 TO 1 840 ; GROWTH OF ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTIN THE NORTH

Era of good feeling , 62 . Andrew Jackson and his admini stration, 62. Organization in North of anti-slaverysocieties, 63 . Establishing abolition newspapers, 64.

Garrison's Liberator; its creed , 64 . Nat Turner’s insurrection, 66 . Stringent slave legislation in the South, 66.

Rewards off ered in South for Northern Abolitionists, 66.

Slave-holders' appeals to Northern legislatures to sup

press Abolitionists , 67. Attempt to suppress circulationof Abolition pamphlets and papers through themails, 67.

Attempts to suppress right of petition, 68. Abolition petitions and memorials to Congress, 69 . John QuincyAdams advocate of right of petition, 69 . His resolution for a constitutional amendment prohibiting slavery,and other anti-slavery resolutions

, 69 . Slade’s resolution,

x Tab le of ContentsPAGE

71 . TheAtherton Gag , 72 . Adams presents petition fordissolution Of the Union, 72 . Opposition Of

‘Northern

Democrats to gag rule, 73 . HowAbolition petitionsweredisposed of after gag rulewas abolished , 73 . Calhoun’sargument in favor of suppressing Abolition petitions, 73.

On petitionpresented by JamesBuchanan, 75 . NorthernOpposition to Abolitionists, 76. Attitude of Northernchurches to Abolitionism, 76 . Garrison and his fri endsburn the Constitution, 77. They advocate dissolution ofUnion, 78 . Refuse to vote, 78. Excuse given by clergyfor not preaching against slavery, 78. Other isms"advocated by Abolitionists render them unpopular, 79.

The mob year 79. Mobbing of Garrison, 80.

Murder of Lovejoy, 80. The meeting in Faneuil Hall,80. Wendell Phillips 's speech, 80. Dissolution of American Anti-Slavery Society in 1840, 8 1 . Last number ofthe Li berator, 82 . Estimate of Garrison, 82 . He and

Abolitioni sts not responsible for theCivilWar, 83

CHAPTER VI

THE POLITICAL CAMPAIGN OF 1840 ; TIPPECANOETYLER TOO

Estimate Of Martin Van Buren, 85 . Disasters of his administration, 85 . Changes in politica l parties prior to end of

hi s term, 86 . TheWhig National Convention of 1839, 86.

Convention fails to adopt any platform of principles, 87.

Nomination of Harrison for President and Tyler forVice-President, 87. Tyler's political antecedents, 87.

Harrison’s prior military and civil record , 88. Demo

cratic National Convention of 1840 ; nominates VanBuren for President ; its platform on slavery, 89.

Abolitionists nominate James G. Birney for President,89. Van Buren’5 record on slavery question, 89 . Harrison

’

s record on slavery question, 89. Personal characteristics of Harrison and Van Buren, 92. Characteri stics Of campaign, 93 . Popular campaign oratory.96. Speeches of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, 96.

Harrison’s speeches, 97. Preeminently a singingcampaign, 98. Campaign a carnival of hilarity, 100.

Eff ort of politicians to smother slavery agitation, 103.

Harrison elected , 103 . His inaugural, 103. Harrison

Tab le Of Contents xi

PAGEdies and troubles Of Whigs begin, 104 . Tyler's course,104. Changes in his cabinet, 104. Efiorts for annexation of Texas , 104 . Opposition to annexation in the

North, 105. Democratic National Convention Of 1844 ;nominates James K. Polk and favors annexation Of

Texas and occupation Of Oregon, 106 . Whigs nominateHenry Clay ; causes of his defeat, 107. Liberty partynominates James G . Birney, 107. Rise of NativeAmerican party, 107. William H. Seward in this campaign,108. Estimate Of Seward , 108. Seward 's speeches inthis campaign, 109. Passage Of joint resolution forannexation of Texas, 1 10. James Buchanan's gratification forreestablishing theMi ssouri Compromise, 1 10 85

-1 10

CHAPTER VII

THE OREGON BOUNDARY QUESTION ; PoLx’s BACKDOWN

Slavery question important factor, 1 1 1 . Long-pendingcontroversy, between Great Britain and Uni tedStates, 1 1 1 . Treaties of 18 18 and 1 827, 1 12 . FailureOf efiorts to arbitrate or compromise, 1 12. Increasingdanger of confli ct Of jurisdiction, 1 I 3 . Growing demandin United States for occupation byFederal government,1 13. Convention at Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1843 , 1 14.

Prior Congressional resolutions and bills, 1 15. PresidentTyler'smessage on subject, I 17. Reasons for linking theannexation of Texas and occupation of Oregon, 1 17.

President Polk's inaugural address, 1 17. Resumptionof negotiations between Great Britain and UnitedStates on subject, 1 17. President Polk’s annual messageof 1 845 , 1 1 8 . Efforts of Fifty-four Forties in Congress,1 1 8. Tone of Democratic press , 120. Chief advocatesin Congress of policy Of the Fifty-four Forties

, 120.

Speech of SenatorWilliamAllen, 12 1 . Speech Of SenatorEdward Hannegan, 123 . Gravity of situation realizedin Great Britain and inUnited States, 124 . Controversypractically narrowed to one over strip between 49

degrees north parallel and 54° 124. Speeches OfSenator Thomas H. Benton and Reverdy Johnson, 125 .

Danger of war between Great Britain and United Statesat that time, 124. Speeches of Crittenden, Berrien,Yancey and others in Opposition to policy of Fifty—four

xii Tab le of ContentsPAGE

Forties, 1 26. Shifting of party lines in Congress duringdiscussions, 130. Position of John Quincy Adams, 13 1 .Speech of Joshua R . Giddings , 13 1 . Senator Hanneganaccuses Southern Democrats of bad faith, 134 . Senatemodifies House resolution and as modi fied it passes bothhouses, 136. Negotiations between Great Britain and

United States over controversy resumed ,137. President

Polk’s change of Oregon policy, 138. Speech of Senator

William Haywood in defense of President Polk, 138.

Reply of Senator Hannegan, 138. Democratic papersoppose backdown," 139 . 49 degrees north parallelagreed on by Great Britain and United States as a compromise, 139. How President Polkwas extrica ted fromhis dilemma, 140 . Treaty approved by Congress, 142 .

Complete failure of Fifty-four Forties, 142 . Status ofslavery in territories left unsettled , 142. 1 1 1—142

CHAPTER VIII

WAR WITH MEXICO ; DIV ID ING THE SPOILS OF VICTORY

Wardeclared in 1846 and peace in 1 848 , 143. Mexico's requestfor provision in treaty prohibiting slavery, rejected , 144 .

The Wilmot proviso, 144. Calhoun’s resolution declaring that Constitution protected slavery in the territories,145. Calhoun’s letter on

“forcing the issues, ” 145.

Advi ses retaliatory legislation by South, 146 . Controversy between Texas and New Mexico, 147. StephenA. Douglas reports various bills for territorial organization of Oregon, 147. Action of House and Senate on

same,147. Efforts to provide territorial organizations

forCalifornia, NewMexico, and Utah, 148. DemocraticNational Convention in 1 848 , 148. Whig NationalConvention in 1848 ; skulks on slavery question and

nominates General Zachary Taylor for President, 148.

Care taken by Whig leaders to avoid any expression byparty or candi dates on the slavery question, 149. Antislavery men organize Free-soil party and nominateMartin Van Buren for President and Charles FrancisAdams for Vice-President, 1 50. Political condi tions inNewYorkin state of chaos, 1 50. General Taylor electedPresident, 15 1 . William H . Seward andAbraham Lincolntake active part in campaign in support of Taylor, 15 1 .

Tab le of Contents xi ii

PAGEHorace Greeley’s lament over the defeat of Henry Clay,152 . Beginning of second session of thirtieth Congress,152. Vast extent of territory still unprovided withstate or territorial government, 153 . Senator Bentonpresents petition of people of NewMexico for territorialgovernment without slavery, 1 54. Opposition Of

Senator Calhoun, 1 54 . House territoria l committeedirected to report bills for organization of New Mexicoand Cal ifornia prohibiting slavery, 154. SenatorWalker's amendment to general appropriation bill,extending constitution to territories, 1 55 . Debates di sclose strong anti-slavery sentiment in the North, 155 .

Secret meetings of Southern members of Congress, 156.

They issue anaddress to their constituents, 156. AbrahamLincoln's Congressional record , 156. Horace Greeley’sCongressional record , 157 143

-158

CHAPTER IX

FORCING THE ISSUES ; THE COMPROMISE MEASURES OF 1 850 l/

President Taylor inaugurated , 1 59. First Session of 3 I st

Congress shows growing Opposition to slavery, 159. The

new President a political enigma, 1 59. President favorsadmission Of California, under a free-state constitution,160. California convention adopts free-state constitu

tion, 160. Growing Southern sentiment in favor of

Calhoun’s idea Of “equality of rights"in the territories,160. Violence of party feeling , 16 1 . Political com

plexion of 3 s t Congress, 16 1 . Political leaders inSenate and House, 164 . The new senators, 164. President Taylor’s message recommending admission Of

California, 167. Senator Foote’s resolution, for territorial governments for California, Deseret, and New

Mexico, 167. Clay’s compromise resolutions, 167.

Bell’s compromise resolutions, 168. Foote’s resolution

for Senate committee of thirteen, 168. Debates on theseresolutions, 168 . Speech of Henry Clay, 168 . Speechof John C. Calhoun, 169 . Speech of Daniel Webster,170. Speech Of William H . Seward , 174 . Speech of

Salmon P . Chase, 175 . Speech of Jeff erson Davi s, 176.

Position of StephenA. Douglas, 176 . Death of Calhounand President Taylor, 1 76. Compromi se measures

xiv Tab le of ContentsPAGE

passed , 176. Features of bill for a territorial government for New Mexico, 177. Compromi se measuresunsatisfactory to North and South, 179. Features ofFugitive Slave Law, 179. What the South gained and

what it lost by the compromisemeasures, 179. TheNashville, Tennessee, Convention in 1850, 1 80. Eflect Of

compromise measures in Mississippi , 18 1 . The Georgiaplatform, 18 1 . The Alabama platform , 182 . The

Southern League, 1 82. Yancey’s letter to Slaughter,183. Little accomplished by compromise measures,183 . 159

—1 83

CHAPTER X

THE ELECTION OF P IERCE ; REPEAL OF THE MISSOURICOMPROMISE

Reaction in North af ter passage of compromise measures,against further slavery agitation, 1 84. Causes for passage of Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, 184 . The underground railroad , 1 84 . Opposition to Fugitive Slave LawOf 1793 , 1 85 . Reasons for temporary acquiescence of

North in Fugitive Slave Law of 1 850, 185. Feeling insouthern parts Of Ohio, Ind iana, and Illinois, 186. Feel

ing inNewEng land , 1 86. Attitude ofNorthern churches,1 87. Influence of Uncle Tom ’

s Cabin, 1 87. Influence OfNew YorkTribune, 1 88. National Democratic Convemtion in 1852 ; its platform , 1 89. Nomina tes FranklinPierce for President, 1 89. Whig National Conventionof 1 852 ; nominates General Winfield Scott, 1 89. The

Whig platform, 190. Scott’s stumping tour, 190.

Pierce elected , 190. Estimate of Pierce, 190. AppointsJeff erson Davis Secretary ofWar, 191 . Pierce’s admiration for Davis, 191 . Pierce’s prophecy Of result in caseOf civil war, 191 . Pierce's inaugural address, 192.

General desire in North for peace, 192. Demands ofSouth for extension of slave territory, 192. Supposedinconsistency between M issouri Compromise and Com

promise Measures oi 1850, 194. Douglas reports billfor organization Of Territory of Nebraska, 195 . D ixon'samendment, 195. Sumner’s proposed amendment

,195.

New bill reported for organization of two territori es,Kansas and Nebraska, 196. The sections repealing the

Tab le of Contents xv

PACEMissouri Compromise, 196 . Origin Of the repealingsections, 198. Address Of the Independent Democrats,198. Attitude of Democrats and Whigs, 199 . Speech ofSalmon P. Chase, Speech Of William H . Seward ,201 . Final vote i n House, 202. Seward 's secondspeech, 202. Speech of William Pitt Fessenden, 203 .

Estimate of Fessenden, 203 . Crowning glory of Fessenden’s political life, 204. Fessenden’s reply to SenatorButler, Of South Carolina, 205. Douglas 's speech, 206 .

Final vote on bill in Senate, 2 12 . Repeal of MissouriCompromise, due chiefly to Douglas, 2 13 . Gonsequences Of the repeal, 2 14. Excitement in North overpassage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill , 2 15 . Feeling inNorth against Douglas, 215 . Political effects of the

repeal, 2 16 184—2 16

CHAPTER XI

NULLIFICATION IN THE NORTH

Continual friction between North and South on account offugitive slaves, 2 17. The original fugitive slave act of

1793 , 2 17. The case of Prigg vs. Pennsylvania, 2 17.

Personal liberty bills Of Northern states, 2 18. Northernopposition to Fugitive Slave Law Of 1 850, 2 18. The“higher-law"doctrine, 2 19. Failure of Fugitive SlaveLaw to meet expectations of South, 220. NorthernOpposition to it, 22 1 . The Shadrach rescue case, 222.

The Jerry rescue case, 222. Northern Opposition not

confined to any party or class, 223 . Democratic and

Whig politicians strive to suppress slavery agitation, 223 .

The anti-agitation compact, 223 . Union-saving meetings, 224. Daniel Webster's speeches, 226. The slavecatchers and kidnappers, 226 . Efiorts of Pierce'sadministration to enforceFugitive Slave Law, 227. Rul

ings of Judge Gri er and Judge Kane, 228. The prosecu

tions for treason against Hanway and Lewis, 228.

Attempts to enforce lawmake it more od ious, 229. The

Glover rescue case, 229. Prosecution of Sherman M .

Booth and litigation growing out of it, 230. UnitedStates Supreme Court reverses judgments of WisconsinSupreme Court in the Booth cases, 233 . Opinion settlesquestion as to supremacy Of Federal over state courts in

XVI Tab le of Contents

construction of Federal statutes, 233 . How Uni tedStates Supreme Court decision was regarded in the

North, 234. Wisconsin state election in 1 858 turns onquestion Of states ’ rights,” 235 . Wisconsin SupremeCourt refuses to Obey mandate Of United States SupremeCourt in the Booth ca ses, 236 . Boothagain arrested andimprisoned on the judgment on the Old indictment, 236.

Excitement in Wisconsin over the Booth cases, 236.

Resolutions of Wisconsin Legislature, affirming the

nullifica tion doctrine of the Virginia and Kentuckyresolutions of 1798 , 236. Booth finally pardoned byPresident Buchanan, 238 . The case of Antony Burns inBoston, 239. Increased activity of anti-slavery societies,239. Addi tional personal liberty laws enacted by

Northern states, 240 . The personal liberty laws of

Massachusetts and Vermont, 240. In Northern Opposition to Fugitive Slave Law, slavery received its firstserious check, 242

CHAPTER XII

POPULAR SOVERE IGNTY IN PRACTICE

Determined eff orts to make Kansas a slave state, 243.

Organization of NewEngland EmigrantAi d Society, 243.

Excitement in Kansas,spreads throughout the nation,

245. Territorial elections, 246. Meeting of territoriallegislatures and laws enacted , 246 . Legislature callsconstitutional convention which adopts LecomptonConstitution, 247. Provides for only limited submissionOf constitution to the people, 247. Free-State men meetat Topeka and adopt Topeka Constitution, 247. President Pierce’s message and proclamation, 248. Appointment of Judge S . D . Lecompte, 249. Persecution Of

free-State men ,249. SackOf Lawrence, 250 . Lawless

condi tion of Territory, 25 1 . John Brown of Ossawa

tomie becomes conspicrious , 252 . The Pottawatomiemassacre, 253. Douglas reports bill for admission of

Kansas, 254 . Douglas 's speech, 254. Seward ’s Speechin reply to Douglas, 256 . Efiorts to get definite interpretation Of

“popular sovereignty,"259. Senator Cass’s

speech, 259. Construction of Kansas-Nebraska act leftin doubt unt il Dred Scott decision, 262 . Comments of

PAGE

217—242

https://www.forgottenbooks.com/join

xvii i Tab le of ContentsPAGE

Greeley and others, 287. Resolutions adopted , 288.

Comments on character Of convention, 288. Call issued,for National Republican Convention to meet at Philadelphia , 289. Names and character Of delegates, 290.

Henry S . Lane chosen president ; his appearance and

Speech, 290. The platform,291 . John C. Fremont

and William L . Dayton nominated for President andVice-President, 292 . Why Seward was not nominated ,292. Frémont

'

s qualifications as a vote-getter, 293.

Democratic National Convention at Cincinnati nominates James Buchanan and John C. Breckinridge forPresident and Vice-President, 293 . Its platform,

293 .

Conflicting views as to meaning Of popular sovereigntyplank, 295 . American or Know-Nothing party splitson slavery question, 295 . Nominates Millard Fillmoreand Andrew J . Donelson for President and Vice-President, 295 . Buchanan’s orthodoxy on slavery questionvouched for by Southern leaders and newspapers, 295.

Affairs inKansas growworse, 296 . Newpolitical leaderscome to the front, 296 . Prominent Republican leaders,297. Campaign songs, 299. Marked differencebetweencampaign of 1 856 and that of 1840 , 301 . Fremont'squalifications

, 301 . Elements of Democratic politicalstrength, 301 . Buchanan elected , 302. Southernthreats of secession during campaign, 302 . Preliminarypreparations for secession, 302 . Frémont

'

s defeat not anational calamity, 303 . Pierce’s last annual message,305. Sherman's reply to it, 308. The last of Pierce,309. Author’s personal recollections of campaign of

1856, 3 10 278-3 13

CHAPTER XV

THE DRED SCOTT CASE

Democratic prospects at inauguration Of James Buchanan,3 14. His z inaugural address, 3 14. Reference in iaaugural to Dred Scott case, 3 1 5 . Statement Of case,3 16. The Judges Of the Supreme Court, 3 16 . The

principal questions involved , 3 17. The first Opini on, 318.

Eff ort Of JusticeWayne to get decision on constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise, 3 19. The secondargument, 320. The judgment Of the Court

, 320.

Table of Contents xix

c x

Diversity of Opinions , 32 1 . Opinion Of Chief JusticeTaney, 321 . Opinion of Justice Curtis, 32 1 . Popularverdict on the decision, 323. Condemnation in NorthOf Taney

’

s opinion, 325. Establishes ultra Calhoundoctrine, 326 . Decision disposes of

“popular sover

eignty,"327. Ominous sentence in opinion of Jus ticeNelson, 328 . Northern fear Of ultimate results of

decision, 328 . Lincoln ’s Opinion of , 329. Northernsuspicion of plot,"implicating Buchanan, 33 1 . Lincoln’s views on subject, 33 1 . Seward ’s charges, 332.

Views of historians on alleged plot, 334. Correspon

dence between Buchanan and Justices Catron and

Grier, 335. Summary of facts proved by this correspondence, 339 . Alteration of Taney

’

s Opinion beforepublication, 343 . Correspondence shows gross breachof executive and judicial propriety, 344 . NO talk inNorth of forcible resistance of decision, 344 . How

Lincoln proposed to overthrow decision, 344. OliverP. Morton's vi ews on subject

, 345 . Importance of

decision, 346. Its political consequences, 346 3 14—347

CHAPTER XVI

CONTINUATION OF THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT IN KANSAS

AND IN CONGRESS

Aflairs in Kansas grow worse, 348. Frequent changes of

governors, 348 . Congressional committee’s report,348 . President over Douglas’s protest sends Specia lmessage recommending admission Of Kansas underLecompton Constitution, 350 . Stormy debates inCongress , 350. Douglas breaks with President, 350.

His great Speech against the bill to admit Kansas underthe Lecompton Constitution, 35 1 . Senator Crittenden’sproposed substitute for pending bill defeated in Senate,352. Bill to admit Kansas under Lecompton Constitution passes Senate , but is defeated in House, 353 . The

English B ill passed , 352. Defeat Of LecomptonConstitutionbill due chiefly to Douglas, 353 . Increases hi s pOpularity in North but makes him ha ted in South, 353.

Abatement of Republican enthusiasm in 1 857, 353 .

Speedy recovery from defeat of 1856 , 354 . Speech of

Senator Hammond of South Carolina in Senate on

xx Tab le of ContentsPAGE

March 6,1858, 354. Speechmakes a great impression on

the North, 360. Seward ’s Rochester, N. Y ., speech on

October 25 , 1858, on the“Irrepressible Conflict, ” 360.

By end of 1858 the Republican party well organized ,enthusiastic, and aggressive, 363 348

—363

CHAPTER XVII

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES

Douglas candidate for reelection for Senate in 1858, 364.

Lincoln unanimous choice of Illinois Republicans toOppose Douglas, 364. Lincoln’s prior political career,364. Douglas’s prior political career, 365 . ManyRepublicans against Opposmg his reelection, 365.

Douglas Opposed by the Buchanan administration, 365.

Also handicapped by hi s doctrine of“popular soyer

eignty,"366 . Lincoln’s fitness ‘as Douglas’s Opponent,366 . Lincoln’s Speech on

“popular sovereignty,"367.

Lincoln’s and Douglas's speeches prior to beginning of

joint debates, 368. Lincoln's challenge accepted byDouglas and seven joint debates arranged for, 369.

Neither Lincoln nor Douglas at first fully meet expectations, 370. Widespread interest in the debates, 370.

Douglas inclined to pettifogging , 370. Lincolnmaster of art of convincing his hearers by quaint illustrations and homely phrases, 371 . Lincoln’s eulogy on

Declaration of Independence, 371 . Answer to Douglas'scharge that negroes had no inalienable rights, 372 .

Answer to Douglas’s charge that Republicans favorednegro equality, 373 . Answer to Douglas's charge thatRepublicans favored rebellious di sobedience to DredScott decision, 373 . Lincoln turns tables on Douglas byreferring to some Illinois hi story, 373 . Answers Douglas’scharge against the Republican party of

“sectionalism,

”

374 . Secret of Lincoln’s power as an orator, 375. E10

quent passages in Lincoln's speeches, 375. Forces

Douglas to avow “unf riendly leg islation"as remedy of

people of territories to keep out slavery, 376. Lincoln’s prophecy that Douglas’s avowal Of thi s doctrinewould defeat him for the presidency, 378. Comparativemerits of Lincoln and Douglas as poli tical debaters, 378.

Lincoln defeated in contest for senatorship , 378. De

bates make Lincoln President and Douglas an exile fromhis party in the South, 378 364

-378

Tab le of Contents xxi

CHAPTER XVIII

PREPARING FOR PRES IDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1860 ; SOURCESOF REPUBLICAN GAINS

PAGEGreat Republican gains in 1858 , 379. Political complexion

of 36th Congress, 379. Helper ’s Impending Cri si s; itspolitica l effects, 380. John Brown ; his Kansas record ,380. Prepares plans for invad ing Virg inia, 380. Raidon Harpers Ferry, 380. Conflicting estimates of Brown,38 1 . His Offenses against the moral law, 382. He and

hi s defenders reject plea of insanity , 383 . Effect of

Brown’s raid in the North, 383 . Its effect in the South ,

384. Brown’s place in history, 384 . Efforts of Democratic leaders to implicate prominent Republicans inBrown's raid , 385. Contest in House over speakership,386. D isgraceful scenes on floor of House, 386. WilliamPennington, of New Jersey, elected speaker, 387. Slaveholding interests vitally interested in ensuing presidential election, 387. Quarrel between Pryor and

Potter, 388. Main efforts Of Southern leaders in Congress nowbent to extermination of Douglas, 389. Jeff erson Davi s's resolutions, 390. Douglas's defiant attitudetowards the pro-slavery leaders, 392 . Speech of WilliamH . Seward , 393 . Lincoln’s COOper Institute Speech, 394.

Sources of Republican gains, 395 . Gains from the

Germans, 396 . Growth of Western vote, 401 . Greatincrease in political power of the free States pri or to1 860, 405. New Western Republican political leaders,405 379

—405

CHAPTER XIX

THE POLITICAL CAMPAIGN OF 1860“

Slavery now the sole political question, 406 . Period of in

tense political excitement, 406 . Causes of irritation inthe North and in the South, 407. Southern feelingtowards people of the North, 407. Democratic NationalConvention at Charleston in 1860, 4 10. Prominentdelegates present, 4 1 1 . Marked opposition of Southern

xxn Tab le of ContentsPAGE

delegates to Douglas, 4 1 2. Benjamin Butler conspicuous, 4 12. Caleb Cushing of Massachusetts elected

president of convention, 4 12 . Resolutions Committeefails to agree and submits majority and minority reports,4 12. Stormy debates on the platform , 4 13 . Yancey’sspeech, 4 15 . GeorgeE . Pugh’s speech, 4 15 . Committeeon Resolutions again report inability to agree, 4 15.

Resolutions of majority and minority, 416 . Resolutions of minority adopted , 4 17. Various Southerndelegates nowwithdraw from convention, 4 17. Speechof D . C. Glenn, 4 1 7. Speech of Gaulden of Georgia onChristiani zing eff ect of Slave trade, 4 18 . Result of

balloting for presidential nomination, 4 19. Conventionad journs to meet in Baltimore, Md . , on June 1 8, 4 19.

Seceding delegates meet and hold convention in Charleston as representatives Of “Constitutional Democracy, ”

4 19. Secession of Southern delegates the forerunner Ofsecession Of the Southern states, 420. Remnants of

Whig and American partiesmeet in Baltimore onMay 9,

1 860 , 42 1 . Prominent delegates present, 42 1 . Adoptbrief and meaningless platform , 422. Nominates JohnBell Of Tennessee and Edward Everett of Massachusettsfor President and Vice-President, 422

CHAPTER XX

POLITICAL CAMPAIGN OF 1860 (Continued)

Republican National Convention asssembles in Chicago, 423.

The candidates for President and their managers, 423 .

The New York delegation, 424 . Politica l curiositiesexhibited , 424. Prominent delegates present, 425.

Horace Greeley of Oregon, 425 . GeorgeAshmun, ofMassachusetts, selected as permanent chairman, 425.

Opposition to seating delegates from Southern statesthat had no constituencies, 426 . Giddings’s unsuccessfuleflort to incorporate in platform clause from Declarationof Independence, 426 . George William Curtis comes toGiddings 's aid and rescues the Declaration

, 426 . The

platform , 427. Indi cations at close of second day pointto nomination of Seward , 428. James G . Blaine's predi ction, 428. Objections to Seward , 429. The balloting ,

Tab le o f Contents

430. Lincoln nominated for President and HannibalHamlin for Vice-President, 43 1 . Regular DemocraticConvention assembles in Baltimore on June 1 8 ; con

test over sea ts, 432. Great bitterness of feeling , 433 .

Committee on credentials submit majority and minority reports, 435. Vote on these reports favorable to

Douglas wing , 435. Various Southern delegates secede,43 5. Caleb Cushing and Benjamin Butler also secede,435. Butler’s spasm of conscience

, 435 . Douglas andFitzgerald nominated , 436. Fitzgerald declines and

Herschel V. Johnston afterwards substituted , 436. The

seceders meet at Baltimore and elect Caleb Cushingpresident, 436 . Adopts Charleston minority platform,

437. Nominates John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky andJoseph Lane of Oregon for President and Vice-President,437. South Carolina not represented in either of theBaltimore conventions, 437. The Richmond , Virginia,Democratic Convention endorses these nominations, 437.

Continued Opposition to Douglas in Congress, 438.

Davis’s resolutions pass in Senate, 438. Defiant attitudeof Douglas, 439. N0 public interest in party platformsoutside slavery question, 440. The American party andi ts candidates, 440. The Liberty party nominatesGerrit Smith for President and Samuel McFarland for

Vice-President, 44 1 . Garrisonian Abolitionists refuse tovote, 44 1 . In the South overwhelming sentiment infavor of Breckinridge, 44 1 . Republicans in North harmonious and enthusiastic

, 44 1 . Republican massesshout Lincoln, but trust to Seward , 44 1 . Abolitionistsdenounce Lincoln, 442 . Seward ’s triumphal Speakingtour, 442 . Carl Schurz in the campaign ; hi s greatinfluence over the German vote, 442 . Influence Of

New YorkTri bune, 443 . B itmr Opposition to Douglas

of Buchanan administration and Of Southern leaders,443 . Douglas still bold and defiant

, 444 . His Speakingtour in the South and his loyalty to the Union, 444 .

October state elections go Republican, 445. Douglascancels Northern speaking engagements and goes Southto try to stay the tide of secession, 446. Lincoln electedby plurality butnotbymajority of votes, 446. Campaigna memorable one, 446. Political transformation of

Douglas, 447. His uncompromising stand for the

Union, 447. Election proves impossibility of lastingcompromise between freedom and Slavery, 447

xxi i i

PAC !

423.-448

Tab le of Contents

CHAPTER XXI

SECESSION IN BLOOM

PAGEThreats Of secession in 1 860, 449. South Carolina takes lead ,

449. Secession contemplated before Lincoln’s election,450. The second session Of 36th Congress, 450. Buchanan consults with Jefferson Davis, concerning annualmessage, 450. Buchanan’s message on question of

secession, 45 1 . Blaine’s description of Buchanan atthis period , 45 1 . President with his message submitsOpinion of Attorney-General Black, 452 . Black’scharacter and political views, 453. Interpretation Of

Black’s Opinion, 454. Anti-secession sentiment in

South, 455. Position of Alexander Stephens, 455.

Feeling in border states, 456. How secession feelingwaspromoted , 456

CHAPTER XXII

PREPARING PEACE PANACEAS

Congress flooded with peace petitions and memorials, 459.

House appoints committee of thirty-three and Senate acommittee of thirteen to consider condition of country,459. Senator Crittenden submits series of compromiseresolutions, 459. Meeting of members of Congress fromthe border states, 459. President Buchanan sends toCongress special message, 460. Virginia proposes apeace conference, 460. Senate committee of thirteen reports inabili ty to agree, 46 1 . House committee of

thirty-three also considers great number of propositions,46 1 . House committee of thirty-three reports seriesof resolutions and nine minority reports, 463 . Resolutions notvoted on until late in session, 463 . TheCritten

den resolutions, 463 . The propositions of representatives of border states, 465. Virginia proposition forpeace convention not enthusiastically received in North,465 . Peace convention delegates meet in Washingtonand organize, 466 . Irreconcilable divergence of viewsof delegates, 467. Convention transmits report to

Congress recommending various amendments to UnitedStates Constitution, 471 . Opposition to report in

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xxv i Table of ContentsPAGE

Members Of his cabinet at time of Lincoln’s election, 5 16.

ResignationsofCobb Cass, and Thompson, 5 16. Treasonable conduct of Floyd in transferring arms from Northernto Southern arsenals, 5 1 8 . His order for transfer fromPittsburg arsenal, 5 1 8 . Secessionists ' opinion of

Toucey, 5 19. Floyd ’s and Trescott’s complicity intransfer of arms to South Carolina, 520 . Eflorts Of

secessionists to get possession of forts in the South, 520 .

Major Anderson assigned to command of forts inCharleston Harbor, 520. His appeal for reinforcements, 520 . Floyd ’s orders and correspondence withMajor Anderson, 52 1 . Floyd indi cted for complicity infrauds in Department of Interior, 525 . The SouthCarolina commissioners arrive in Washington and seekto Open Ofli cial communications, 525 . Interviews andcorrespondence between them and Buchanan, 525.

General Scott protests against conduct of Floyd inignoring him , 527. The al leged

“truce between theAdministration and the South Carolina authorities, 527.

The South Carolina commissioners accuse Buchanan of

bad faith, 528 . A stormy cabinet meeting at whichFloyd urges abandonment of Fort Sumter, 529. Pro

tests Of Black, Stanton, and Holt, 529 . Floyd resigns,530. His subsequent appearance in Confederate army,followed by his disappearance from Confederatehistory,530. Buchanan submits to his cabinet a draft of hisanswer to the South Carolina commissioners, 53 1 .

Black prepares new draft of answer, 532 . Black’sloyalty to the Union, 535 . Further correspondencebetween the South Carolina commissioners and the

President, 535. The President’s version of the al leged

agreement for a truce, ” 536. The version of the

South Carolina representatives, 536. The President’sversion of the secret instructions given by Floyd to

Major Anderson, 537. The South Carolina commissioners’ final letter to the President

, 538. Black’ssubsequent attitude, 539. Holt’s loyalty to the Unioncause, 539. John A. D ix, the new Secretary of the

Treasury, 539. Edwin M . Stanton, the new AttorneyGeneral, 540. Reorganization Of cabinet the turningpoint inBuchanan’s Administration and in Union cause,540. Attempt to reinforceFort Sumter, 540. Buchanan’sSpecial message to Congress, 541 . His subsequentpolicy.54 1 5 15

-555

Table of Contents xxvn

CHAPTER XXV

CLOSING MONTHS OF BUCHANAN ’

S ADMINISTRATION(Continued)

PAGEDefensive measures prompted by Black, Stanton, and Holt,

542 . Miscalculations in original plans of secessionleaders , 542 . Necessity of changing plans, 544 . Re

volutionary Council formed ; its meetings and Operations,544 . Resolutions adopted , 547. Determined thatSouthern representatives Should not all leave Congressat once, 547. Ordinances of secession passed by cottonstates, 548. Meeting of Conf ederate Congress inMontgomery, Alabama, 548 . Organization of Confederate States Of America , 548. Preparations to organizepermanent government and put on war footing , 549.

Close of Buchanan’s Admini stration, 550 . Pollard ’sestimate of Buchanan, 550 . Blaine’s estimate, 55 1 .

General Crawford 's estimate, 552 . Defense of Buchanan’s Administration in its closing months, 552 . Com

parison of close of Buchanan'swithbeginning of Lincoln’sAdministration, 553 . Summary of Buchanan's coursein the closing months of Administration, 554 542

-555

CHAPTER XXVI

DEVELOPMENT OF WAR SPIRIT IN THE NORTH

Threats of secession in campaign of 1 860 , 556. Shockto theNorth by news of secession of South Carolina, 556.

Anxiety Of Republicans to propitiate the South, 556.

Memorial by New York capitalists favoring concessions to the South, 557. Peace sentiment in Philadelphia,557. Mayor and Council of Boston and citizenspetition Congress to adopt the Crittenden compromise,557. Shameful concessions advocated , 558. People of

North divided into four classes, 558. Only a small

number Of Republicans in favor of suppressing seces

sion by arms, 558 . Many Democratic papers Opposed tocoercing the seced ing states back into the Union, 558.

0 0 .

xxvm Tab le of ContentsPAGE

Fernando Wood , the Mayor of New York, suggestssecession of New York City, 559. General sentimentagainst coercion, 560 . Utterances of some of leadingRepublican papers advising letting the seceding states“go in peace, ” 560 . Oliver P . Morton’s speech, 56 1 .

Hostile and defiant attitude of secessionists makes profound impression on North, 562 . Arguments of the

radical Republicans, 562 . People of North graduallyrecover their senses, their self-respect, and their courage,563 . Great diversity of opinion in the North continuesup to Lincoln's inauguration, 563 . Feeling of suspensein the border states, 563 . Allwaiting to see what wouldbe the policy of Lincoln’sAdministration, 564 556

—564

CHAPTER XXVII

THE COMING OF LINCOLN

Lincoln starts from Springfield , to be inaugurated , 565.

His passage through Baltimore, 565 . His inauguration,

565 . Stephen A. D oug las conspicuous at inauguration,565 . Conciliatory tone of the inaugural, 566. Leaves nodoubt as to Lincoln’s intention to preserve the Union,566 . Closes with touching appeal to his “

dissatisfiedcountrymen, 566. How Lincoln was then regarded inthe South, 566. Views of later Southern writers, 567.

Selection of his cabinet, 567. Opposition to Simon

Cameron, 568 . Cabinet not harmonious, 570. The

d ifficulties which conf ronted Lincoln in the beginningof hi s Administration, 570. The rush for office, 572 .

Lincoln not yet ful ly trusted by the people of the North,573 . Stephen A. Douglas one of his trusted advisers,574 . General Beauregard examines and reports to

Confederate government as to condition of Fort Sumter,575. Governor of South Carolina restrained frombeg inning bombardment before Lincoln's inauguration,575 . Preparations for bombardment rapidly pushed ,576 . Confederate government sends commissioners toWashington to negotiate terms of peace, 576. NationalGovernment wholly unprepared forwar, 577. Strengthof National Army and Navy

, 577. Few Northernstates prepared forwar, 577 565

—577

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CHAPTER XXVI II

ADMINISTRATION POLICIESPAGE

Lincoln’s rul ing idea, 578. The complex problems presented , 578. Consequences Of a mistake in choosing apolicy, 58 1 . Importance of considering state of publicsentiment in the States still in the Union, 58 1 . Greaterimportance of considering state of public sentiment inthe North, 58 1 . Who could have done better thanLincoln? 582 . Lincoln’s war policy finally forced uponhim , 582. Composition of the cabinet, 583 . Seward ’sassumption of authority, 583 . Seward ’s peace views,583 . The Confederate commissi oners, 584 . Theirpurpose, 584. Their eff orts to get into official com

munication with the National Government, 585.

Justice Campbell of the United States Supreme Courtacts as a go-between for commi ssioners and Seward ,585 . How p ell and the commissioners deceivedSeward , 586. Military authorities advi se againstattempting relief of Fort Sumter, 587. Majority of

cabinet at first against making attempt, 588. Lincolnsends Hurlbut and Lamon to Charleston and theyreport situation, 589. Lincoln again submits the

question to cabinet whi ch reverses its former decision,590. Lincoln at once orders preparations for expeditions to reinforce both Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens,590. Seward ’s extraordinary “suggestions"to Lincoln,591 . Lincoln’s answer, 593 . Seward ’s embarrassingpositionwith reference to theConfederate commissioners,593 . Further conference between him and Campbell ,593. The commissioners leaveWashington, 594 . Con

troversy as to whether the commissioners were deceivedby Seward , 594. Senator Douglas communicates hisapprehensions to Seward , 595 578

—596

CHAPTER XXIX

THE EFFORTS TO SUCCOR MAJOR ANDERSON

Major Anderson’s loyalty, 597. Anderson’s correspondencewith Beauregard , 598. His correspondence with the

War Department, 599. Expeditions sail for relief of

xxx Tab le of ContentsPAGE

Fort Pickens and Fort Sumter, 600 . Seward ’s bunglinginterference with expeditions for relief of Fort Sumterand Fort Pickens, 600 . Harvey’s di spatch to Confederates , 601 . Explanations and criticisms of Seward 'scourse, 601 . Subsequent movement for hi s removalfrom omce of Secretary Of State, 605 597

—607

CHAPTER XXX

WAITING FOR THE SOUND OF THE CANNON

War spirit now fully aroused in both North and South, 608.

The tension in the South, 608. Notice given by Administration to Governor Pickens, 609. Confederateauthorities order immediate bombardment of FortSumter, 6 10. The bombardment begins, 6 10 . Bom

bardment fires the Northern as well as the Southernhearts, 6 1 1 . Douglas proffers hi s support to Lincoln,6 1 1 . His last public speech, 6 1 1 . Lincoln’s call toarms and the response, 6 12 . The strange paradoxpresented by the Civil War, 612 608-6 12

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2 Politica l H istory of Secess ion

small farmers generally tilled their farms by the labor ofthemselves and their fami lies . Local self-government wasthe cardi nal idea , not only of the town , but of the churchgovernment , and each separate community was a littledemocracy where there were no great di stinctions based on

rank or wealth . Many in the North devoted themselvesto manufacturing and commercial pursuits .In the Southern colonies there were few Puritans . In

and

and

in those sections , notwithstandi ng all that has been saidabout the bigotry of theNewEngland Puritan , the Puritanswere as unwelcome and as unpopular and as rigorouslypersecuted as the beli evers in the Church of England werein Massachusetts . 1Whi le there was not much urban life in the Northern

colonies in early times , there was far less in the South , andthe number of those who devoted themselves to manufac

turing and commercial pursuits was far less in the Souththan in the North . Nothing like the New England townsystem existed in the South . In the South the owners ofthe

—

W iOn'

S'

fie—

Sgn—

bled in their relations to thei rdependents and the smaller landowners the Old Englishbarons . These plantations were at first cultivated by thosecondemned to labor for lim ited periods on account of crime

or debt , but later by slave labor .As Slavery increased , the community of interest that

bound the slaveholders together became much strongerthan any tie bind ing together the people of New England ,

and the result was that there grew up in the Southerncolonies , especially in lVirginia -anQ OutWoligarchy of slaveholders . An impartial h iSif rian ,

’ givesthis

‘

débfiption of Virgini a in colonial timesIt is not too much to say that the whole order of South

Howe, The Puri tan Republic, p . 26 1 .

2 Doyle, The Engli sh Colonies in America : Virginia , Maryland , andthe Carolinas

,

”chap . xiii , p . 39 1 .

Entrance of S lavery into Pol itics 3

cm society , its manner of life and forms of industry , werefashioned by slavery . We have already seen how the earlycond itions of Virginian life tended to throw the land of the

colony into the hand s of a few large proprietors . Thattendency was confirmed and intensified by slavery . For

slave labor can only be employed profitably in large gangs ,and such gangs can only be worked on wide territories andin the hands of great capitalists . In Maryland we hear ofthirteen hundred slaves belonging to a single master .In Virginia nine hundred seems to be the largest numberrecorded . The peculiar industry of Carolina , ricegrowing , adapted itself better to moderate-sized holdi ngs .

Thirty slaves , we are told , was the average staff of aplantation .

In thi s way the possession of slaves di d for the Southerncoloni es what land does for long-settled countries . Whereland is abundant and labor and cattle dear , there is nolikelihood of a landed ari stocracy growing up . NO one

wi ll care to acqu ire land when he can extract no profit fromit. If the titular supremacy over land is valued as amongthe Highlanders of Scotland , it is not for the sake Of the

soil itself , but of certai n ri ghts over the clansmen whi chthat supremacy carries wi th it. Thus in primitive societycattle are themeasure of weal th , and the rich man is not hewho can let land , but he who can supply his inf eriors withlive stock . If the Southern colonies had depended on freelabor a tract of land in Virgini a or Maryland would havebeen a merely nomin

a landed aristocracy ,‘a result whi ch was facilitated by the tastes and tendencieswhich the Southern colonists had carried to their newhomes .But it must be remembered that the Southern planter wasprimari ly a slaveholder and only incidentally a landowner .His estate was merely a needful cond ition for utilizing thecapital which he had invested in human labor .

4 Pol itical H istory Of Secess ion

Thus grew up that strange form of life peculiar to slaveholdi ng states , such as the Southern colonies of Americaand the West Indi an Islands . Each plantation became

a separate community , well-nigh independent and selfsupporting . There were no towns and consequently no

shops . The freeman rebelled agai nst the idea of ecorrung

a laborer , and thus there were no artisans . W e

rough clothin of the slaves , almost every necessary of life

M il-

Cs , shoes , householdfu

'

rnitUTe, crockery , even wooden bowls , were imported .

Such was the lackof mechanical skill that we even hear ofthe timber for a house being sent in the rough to Englandand returned fashioned and ready to be put together.Fifty years later Jeff erson wrote,

‘While we have land tolabor let us never wi sh to see our citizens occupied at awork-bench or twirling a distaff .

Of South Carolina Doyle says : In South Carolina country life played a less important part . But then lig g gll igal

spirit , if weaker in that respect , was fortified by otherinfluences . The city life of Charleston developed anamount of mental cul ture which was deni ed to the Virg inianplanter . In South Carolina , as in the communities of theancient world , a system of agriculture founded on Slavelabor was the cond ition under whi ch a city population led alife of cultivated leisure. This and the vast d imensionswhich slavery soon reached intensified the feeling whichbound together the oligarchy of slaveholders .“Thus the prejudi ces of race, strengthened by the con

sciousness of higher intelligence and culture,acquired an

intensity unknown elsewhere, and South Carolina became

the very type of a slavehold ing aristocracy . If slavery hadbeen confined to Virg inia and Maryland , it might have d iedout in the eighteenth century , crushed beneath the weightOf its moral and economi cal shortcomings . In Carolina itbecame a com er-stone of a political system , a motive powerin the world ’

s hi story .

A Southern hi storian , a Virginian , eminent as an educa

Entrance of S lavery into Pol itics 5

tor and member of Congress , and certainly not prejudicedagainst the South or against slavery , expresses the following conclusions as to the eff ect of slavery upon the sociallife and charactenof the people of the Southern slaveholdi ngcommunities :In those colonies in which the slaves were most numer

ous , the inhabitants , having more leisure, were more givento social pleasures and amusements— to the sports of theturf , the cockpit , the chase , and the gaming table. Theyhad a more delicate and sensitive self-respect , whi ch some

times degenerated into haughtiness and sometimes produced that union of courtesy , frankness , and ease that israrely seen in Europe except in the higher ranks of life.

The social habits of the Southern planter Often made himprofuse, and plunged him in debt to the English and Scotchmerchant who sold his exported products and furnished himwi th his foreign supplies . He was often improvident andsometimes not punctual in hi s pecuniary engagements .With these moral defects , incident to his cond ition as aslaveholder , he derived some vi rtues from the same source.

Besides his agreeable, companionable qualities , he oftenacquired habits of forbearance and self-restraint , whi ch are

essential to the formation of virtuous character . The evileffect of slavery on the temper and d isposition of themasterhas been exhibited in glowing colors by Mr . Jefferson , buthi s vi ew Of it , however plausible, seems to be contrad ictedboth by philosophy and experience.

”

Without attempting to contrast the characteristics of theslavehold ing communities of the South wi th those of the

early Puritan settlements of New England ,it is suffi cient

to say here that the di fferences were very marked .

2

A striking illustration of the character of the slaveholdi ng oligarchy in South Carolina is seen in the first of

Tucker, Hi story of the Uni ted States , vol. i . , p . 97.

In another volume— The P uri tan Republic— the author Of the present workha s attempted to portray the leading characteristics of the

New England Puritans.

6 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

its extant Slave codes , the first enacted in America and the

most atrocious .Under Governor Oglethorpe

’s administration of the

colony of Georgia slavery was prohibited , but among theplanters about Savannah there was an early and insistentdemand for its introduction , as the

“one thing needful ”

for the development of the country . Hearing of the movement of the Savannah planters , some of the settlers at NewInvem ess in 1739 petitioned Governor Oglethorpe, protesting against it

,assigning in their petition , among other

reasons , that : It is shocking to human nature that anyrace of mankind and their posterity shoul d be sentenced toperpetual Slavery , nor injustice can we think otherwi se Of itthan that they are thrown amongst us , to be our scourge oned ay or other for our sins ; and , as freedom to them must beas dear as to us , what a scene of horror must it bring about !And the longer it is unexecuted the blood y scene must begreater . ” 2 How much more earnest the Invem ess petitioners would have been if they could have foreseen that ,in add ition to the d ire consequences pred icted by them ,

slavery would , within the next century , be the chief causeof one of the most sanguinary civil wars in history , thatsome of the bloodiest battles of that war would be fought onGeorgi a soil, and that a great Northern army would sweepthrough the State from one end to the other , carrying in itswake wide-Spread ru in and desolation !After Oglethorpe

’s removal from Georgi a renewed pressure was brought to bear on the colony trustees to permitthe introduction of slaves . To quiet the religious scruplesof those Opposed to it , it was urged that many of the slaves“had already been made freemen of the heavenly Jerusalem . George

_

Whi tefield, the noted Methodist revivalist ,

had gone to Georg ia to help spread the gospel and even

A pretty full abstract of it is given by Hildreth, Hi story of theUni ted States, vol. ii . , pp . ,

271—275. See also Olmsted, A Journey

in the Seaboard S lave States, vol. ii . , pp. 13 1— 135.

Wylly, Colony of Georgia , p . 29.

Entrance of S lavery into Politics 7

he pleaded wi th the trustees to permi t the introduction of

slaves as an effective means of propagating the Christianreligion .

‘ Finally the tru stees yi elded and revoked the

prohibition against slavery , and long before the War of theRevolution slavery had become as firmly established inGeorgi a as it was in South Carolina .

As the country grew , the d iff erences between the Northern and the Southern colonies became more and moreapparent .“ That slavery , in the interval between colonialtimes and the beginning of the Civi l War , had not improvedthe moral , social , industrial , and political cond itions in theSouthern States , as for example, in South Carolina , is shownin the narrative Of Mr . Frederick Law Olmsted , a clearheaded careful Observer and a jud icious writer , who, as

correspondent of the New YorkTi mes , made two extensivetours through the Southern seaboard States in 1 853 and

The later effects of slavery were also mani fest in Georgia ,the Empire State

”Of the South , although not so marked

as they were in South Carolina . For this we have thetestimony of a recent writer who was born and reared inGeorgi a and who served in a Georgi a regiment in the CivilWar . 4 The evi l eff ects of slavery were not seen in the home

life Of the owners of large p lantations . That li fe wasdelightful, marked by courtly demeanor , courtesy Of speech ,refinement of manners , and above all by a charminghospitality , the best Characteri stics of ancient Chi valry

See Hildreth, Hi story of the Uni ted States , I st series, vol. p . 4 17.

See Doyle, Engli sh Colonies in Ameri ca: The Colonies under theHouse Of Hanover," chapter i . : Eugene Lawrence on Colonial P ro

gress : Fi rst Century of the Republic, p . 1 7.

3 His letters were published in 1 856 in bookform ,under the title of ,

A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States. Arevised editionwas publishedIn I 0

4

(

Chiarles Spalding Wylly, The Colony of Georgi a. The full title Of

this highly interesting little volume is The Seed that was Sown in the

Colony of Georgia . It is entirely devoid Of anything like bombast orrancor and bears all the evidences Of having been written in a fair andconscientious spirit.

8 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

transplanted in America . But the influence of slavery inretard ing the development of the State was clearly marked .

Wylly says that :“In compari son with the western , eastern ,

and northern States , Gu

eg gi a had made slow progress inthe march to wealth and population . In the one hundredand twent -eight_ years that hadelapsed between 1732 and

1 86 1 , er lar est cit had only attained ,toa p opulatron of

capacity , or ore furnace testified to the richness of the

mineral belt . No coal mines had been opened in hermountain region . A few small cotton factories , with perhaps alittle more than one thousand miles of railway , alone borewitness to a growing spirit of enterprise and of expansioninto internal improvements .Not the least interesting part of Mr . Wylly

’

s volume is

that in whi ch he speaks Of the“poor whi tes ,

” an “over

whelming plurality of ignorant and poverty-strickenwhites , dwelling in the backwoods and d iffering only intheir degrees of utter shiftlessness ,

”and tells how it was

that the slavehold ing minority compelled their politicalallegiance.

“In a society so formed , and mingled in suchproportions , it was inevitable that thi s poorest , but in ademocratic state, through its numbers , most powerful Class ,should sink into a state Of dependence upon those who ,

possessing the richer lands and greatest wealth , were ablein time of need to Off er the most eff ectual aid and help .

There was little solicitation- by an almost taci t agreementthe rOle of patron was assumed by one

, and that of clientadopted by the other . Equally unspoken was the promi seOf political support . That went without saying , and , withthat , there followed a rule of theminority , a minority whi chwas represented entirely by the wealthy families of the

d istrict and which was immensely the superior in intelligence, education , and foresight . In South Carolina thisresult was attained by virtue of the State’s constitution , afreehold of $ 1500 being there a requisite for eligibility to a.

Wylly, The Colony of Georgi a , p . 54.

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1 0 Politica l H istory of Secession

trade until the expiration of that period . Moreover afterthe ratification of the Federal Constitution , when Virginiaceded to the general government the territory now included

in Kentucky , when North Carolina ceded what is now the

State of Tennessee, and when Georgi a ceded what is nowincluded in the States of Alabama and Mississippi , in eachinstance the cess ion was made upon the express conditionthat Congress should pass no law prohibiting slavery inthe ceded territory .

Great changes had taken place in the period interveningbetween the adoption of the Federal Constitution and the

election of Monroe in 1 8 16 in reference to the slaveryquestion , but more in the South than in the North . Therehad been a few anti-slavery societies in the South , whi chadvocated emancipation , but emancipation made littleheadway , and in Virginia all such efforts to inducethe Legislature to take steps for that purpose had beenabandoned .

The Colonization Society was also established , the

purpose of which was to transport the free negroes to Liberia , and to thi s scheme many emi nent Southern statesmen lent their support . It soon became manifest , however ,that the main purpose of the movement was not to free thenegroes in the South , but to get those who were alreadyfree out of the country where they were not wanted .

The increasing activity of the anti-slavery societies inthe North also began to have a manifestly irritating effecton the South . Even a man who acknowledges himself tobe a sinner becomes restive under the preacher who preachesall the time at him , and whi le one man cannot in moral s beallowed to set off his neighbor ’s sin against hi s own , he isvery apt to suggest to hi s neighbor that passage of Scripture about first casting the beam out of your own eye

before trying to pull out the mote in your brother’s eyeThere were some beams in the eyes of the people of New

England , and to their accusations against the slaveholdersof the South , based on the atrocities of the African slave

Entrance of S lavery into'

Pol iti 1 1

trade, the latter retorted that , while Northern men wereso ready to denounce the sin, they had been quite readyto furnish the ships and share the profits , and in thi s therewas much truth .

There were, however , now many in the South who di dnot concede slavery to be wrong . On the contrary , theymaintained that it was right , and adduced plenty of Scripture-to prove it . Olmsted found that belief in the divinesanction of slavery was especially manifest in South Carolina where “the ruling intellect of the State has nowas it ori gi nally had , more than that of any other Americancommunity

,a profound conviction that God created men

to li ve in d istinct classes or castes , one beneath another, onesubject to another . t

The causes that , more than all others , tended to popularize and perpetuate slavery in the South were the improvements , especi ally the cotton-gi n ,

in the production of cotton .

In an incred ibly short time these had revolutioni zed thatindustry in the South and had opened a source of wealthhi therto undreamed of . In 1791 two years before the invention ofWhi tney ’s cotton-gin , pound s of cotton ,most

ly raised in the South , were exported from theUni ted States ;ZZin 1800 , pounds , valued at in 1820, x

pound s , valued at This made/6cotton raising the most profitable industry in the country ) “

and gave rise to a largely increased demand for slave labor ,made slave breed ing profitable in Virginia and Maryland ,

imparted a new impetus to the African slave trade, and putan end to all hope of a voluntary extinction of slavery in theSouth . As might be supposed , the similarity of condi tionsof one kind tended to produce a uni ty of political sentimentin the South , while sim ilarity of conditions of anotherkind tended to produce a uni ty of political sentiment in theNorth , with a natural antagonism between the politicalsentiment of one section and that of the other . This

A Journey i n the Seaboard Slave States, rev . ed .,vol. i i . , p. 136.

3 DeBow, I ndustri al Resources , S tati stics, etc. , vol. i. , p . 122.

12 Po litica l H istory of Secess ion

antagonism becamemore and moremarked with the increaseof slavery .

Some Southern writers advocate the theory that slaverywould have yielded to the softening influence of Christianityand woul d have di sappeared , even in the Slave States , i f theSouthern people had been let alone by Garrison and hi s

followers , and that the formation of the Abolition societiesfounded by them was “the initial cause of all our troubles .It is precisely at this point that the d ivergence between theviews of Northern and Southern writers becomes clearlymarked , the di ff erences being as yet irreconcilable by anyprocess of reasoning , certainly not by continued criminationand recrimination .

There had been many things to d istract publi c attentionfrom slavery between the time of the first election of

Washington and the election of Monroe ; a war wi th GreatB ritain had intervened ; there had been fierce contestsbetween the Federalists and the Republicans ; the wholecountry had been wrought up over the Alien and Sed itionlaws ; Pres idents Washi ngton , Adams , Jeff erson , Mad isonhad come and gone ; and yet slavery had not become ad isturbing political factor .A vast area of land had been added to the public domain

in the acquisition of Louisiana Territory . Its acquisitionwas the chief glory of Jeff erson ’s administration and the

opposition to it was the crowni ng folly of the Federalists ,who ,

reversing themaxim that “the King can do no wrong ,

”

insisted that “Jeff erson could do nothing right . The

opposition of the Federalists , especially those of New England , was not based on Opposition to the possible extensionof slavery . It was nominally based on doubts both of the

constitutionality and the advisability of add ing to the

original domain so large a territory peopled wi th a non

descript popul ation of French , Spani ards , and Creoles , andultimately filling Congress with

“the wi ld men of Missouri ,

”

and thus overthrowing the whole of the political systemHerbert, The Aboli tion Crusade, pp . 48, 205.

Entrance of S lavery into Po l itics

established by the Fathers of the Republic . There wasdoubtless also a fear on the part of the politicians of NewEngland that in this way the New England States might beshorn of the political power hitherto exercised by them .

Substantially the same objections were made to the ad

mission of the State of Louisiana in 18 12 , and it was in thecourse of the debate on this question that Josiah Quincy , ofMassachusetts , made a violent speech declaring that i fLouisiana were admitted “

the bonds of thi s Union are

virtually d issolved ; that the States which compose it arefree from their moral obligation ; and that , as it will be theright of all, so it will be the duty of some, to prepare definitely for a separation , amicably i f they can , violently ifthey must .During all this time the advocates of slavery never lost

sight of its interests . There was now in the South no

thought of its abolition , near or remote. There was nothought of restricting its territory ; on the contrary ,there was a constant eff ort to expand it . Whatever thepeople of the North may have been thinking about ,whatever political questions may have been agitated ,

the advocates of slavery never for a moment lost sightof it , and all other questions were considered and weighedwith reference to their bearing upon the interests of the

slaveholders .Hitherto the admission of slave States into the Uni on had

kept pace with the admission of free States . Determi nedand persistent , but unsuccessful, eff orts had been made toget a foothold for slavery in the Northwest Territory , notwithstand ing the prohibition of the Ord inance of 1787,

and but for that prohibition it is not improbable thatboth Indiana and Illinois

,which were largely peopled by

settlers from Kentucky , Tennessee, Virg inia , and NorthCarolina , would have established slavery . There was nowno outlet for the extension of slavery except in the vastterritory west of the Mississippi River .President Monroe was elected in 18 16 . All the old

14 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

political parties had gone to pieces and nothing betokenedany political excitement of any kind , when , without anypremonition of its coming

,a political storm of great fury

suddenly broke forth and revealed the danger to the Unionthat lurked in the slavery question.

CHAPTER II

THE BEGINNINGS OF SECESSION

LTHOUGH slavery was the chief , it was not the only ,factor in causing the secession of the Southern States .

From the formation of the government , the North hadcontinually gained while the South had lost in commercial

prosperity . The foreign imports that in colonial timeswent largely to Charleston began going to New York and

other Northern cities . The North was increasing far morerapidly than the South in manufactures and in wealth .

t

It was claim_

ed_

by the Southern political leaders that thi sgain had been brought about largely by unequal legi slation

,

tari ff and other laws which , itwas asserted , in their practicaloperationsworked cluefiy_ f§r_ the benefit of the North and

to the detriment of the South , arid—

a

n

s

"

early as 1798 therewas talk of Virginia and North Carolina organi zing asepia

-

fateConfederacy i n order to cut loose from the allegeddomination of Massachusetts and the other New EnglandStates , a project which was d iscouraged by Jeff erson , noton any constitutional grounds , but chi efly because he d idnot then deem it necessary to resort to secession .

2 Benton ,after giving the figures showing the great increase of com

merce in the North and a correspond ing decrea se in the

South , thus dispassionately and graphi cally portrays thestate of feeling thereby developed in the Southern States“Thi s is what the dry and naked figures show. To the

See Von Holst, Const. and P ol. Hi st. of the Uni ted States, chap. xvii ,

vol. iii ., p . 563 , comparing the progress of the North with that of the

South ; Pollard , Lost Cause, chap . iii., p . 54 .

See hi s letter of June 1 , 1798 , to John Taylor of Virginia, J efi’

erson'

s

Works, vol. iv. , pp . 245—248.

1 6 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

memory and imag ination it is worse ; for it is a trad ition of

the coloni es that the South had been the seat of wealth andhappiness , of power and Opulence ; that a rich popul ationcovered the land , d ispensing a baronial hospitality , and

d iffusing the felicity which themselves enjoyed ; that all waslife, andjoy, and affluence then . And this trad ition wasnot without similitude to the reality , as thi s wri ter can

testify ; for he was old enough to have seen (after the Revolution) the still surviving state of the Southern colonialmanners , when no traveler was allowed to go to a tavernbut was handed over from family to family through entireStates ; when holidays were days of festivi ty and expectation ,long prepared for, and celebrated by master and slave wi thmusic and feasting , and g reat concourse of friends and

relatives ; when gold was kept in desks or chests (after thedownfall of continental paper) and weighed in scales , andlent to neighbors for short terms without note, interest ,witness , or security ; and on bond and land security for longyears and lawful usance ; and when petty litigation was at solow an ebb that it requ ired a fine of forty pound s of tobaccoto make a man serve as constable .

“The reverse of all this was now seen and felt— not to

the whole extent which fancy or policy painted — but toextent enough to constitute a reverse, and to make a con

trast, and to excite the regrets which the memory of past

joys never fails to awaken . A real changa b ad coma a nd

this change , theeffect of many causes , was wholly attributed toone—

“

the unequal working of the Federal government— which gave all the benefits of the Union to theNorth ,and all its burdens totheSouth . And that was the pointon which Southern

“

d iscontent broke out— on whi ch ita u

no

openly rested unt11'

1 835 , when it was shifted to the dangerM 0Q-M fl ‘ n un-m

of slave“ pr

operty;M ~5 0 ~

It was in view of these cond itions that Mad ison made thisforecastm a letter to Edward Coles written August29 , 1 834 2 '

Benton, Thirty Years , vol. p . 133 .

Madison's Wri tings, vol. iv .

, p . 357.

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18 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

England duri ng theWar of 1 8 12 , when its shi ps were rottingin the harbors , its commerce ruined , and its manufacturesprostrated by the embargo acts and other war measures ofthe War of 18 12 . M as during thi s war that the cele

w “ n , ~m r M ’ -qm

brated Hartford Convention met at Hartford ,Connecticut ,

M ‘ s-A 1 0» in N

on_

“

December 1 5 , 1 8 14 . Its sessions were held behindclosEd

u

doors and the utmost secrecy was enjoined upon itsmembers ; but there 1s no doubt that one of the objects of it ,though not Openly avowed in the journal of its proceed ingsand in the report which it put forth , was a d issolution of theUnion and the formation of a New England confederacy ,in the event that no relief could otherwi se be obtai ned fromthe grievances complained of .

The story of the Opposition of the New England Federalists to the Loui siana Purchase and to the obnoxious government measures of the War of 1 8 12 has been fully told byeminent hi storians . x When we read the vigorous denunciation of the Hartford Convention by John Quincy Adamsand the equally vigorous defense by Henry Cabot Lodgewe feel assured that nothing has been left unsaid that couldexplain the motives and the purposes of the men who

participated in or approved the objects of the HartfordConvention .

All thi s throws li ttle, i f any , light upon the originand development of the doctrine of secession as understood and advocated in the South . It is important , however , to contrast the manner in which the promulgationof the doctrine of secession was received in the North ,wi th the manner in which it was received in the South .

The Federal party , as a party , had no part in the HartfordConvention . Only three States— Massachusetts (whichthen included what is now the State of Maine) , Connecticut ,and Rhode Island— sent delegates , twelve from Massachusetts , seven from Connecticut , and four from Rhode

Hildreth, Hi story of the Uni ted States, vol. p . 494 ; vol. iii . , p . 533

et seq., 2d series ; Von Holst, Const. and P ol. Hi st. , vol. i . , p . 193 et seq. ;

Lodge, Lifeand Letters of George Cabot; Adams, NewEngland Federali sm.

The Beginnings of Secess ion 19

Island . Two more from two counties in New Hampshi reand one from a county in Vermont , not sent by those States ,also attended the convention , maki ng twenty-six membersin all . The convention , however , left such a taint of

treason upon the Federal party as to render it odious evenin New England . Nearly all the delegates to the conven

tion became, in consequence, political outcasts and the

convention was one of the chief causes of the speedy downfall of the Federal party , whi ch never after recovered itsstandi ng as a poli tical party . Since the Hartford Convemtion no considerable party in New England or elsewherein the North has ever advocated the right of a State tosecede from the Union . Not even the Abolitionists , atleast not the majority of them ,

advocated such doctrine.

It was advocated only by Garrison and hi s handful of

followers , upon ground s and arguments whi ch , it is needlessto add , were not relied upon by Southern leaders as justifying the secession of the South .

On the other hand , the right of secession was advocatedin the South from an early date. Not only was there avery general belief in the South in tlfi

‘

s

fi -

fight , but the belief— M M n i t .“

became part of the political creed of all parties . Althoughnot i tten

‘

i'

fip‘

fi t’

é‘

t‘

fdi of themas the unwri tten law of England is part of its jurisprudence.

There were three political doctrines that were peculiarto the South , and that explain the political course of the

Southern States prior to the beginning of the CivilWar.

One was the doctrine of the right of secession .

Another was the preservation of the so-called equilib

rium” between the slaveholding and the non-slaveholding

States .Another was the doctrine that the Consti tution of the

United States protected the slaveholder in his right to takehis slaves into the new Territories and to keep them theresélcggas such Territories remained in a territori al condi tion ,and that neither Cong ress nor the territorial legi slatureshad any power to prohibit him from so

’

doing .

0 Politica l H istory of Secess ion

The first of these doctrines was enunciated at an earlyperiod in the history of the nation and those who advocatedit claimed that it was recogni zed in the Declaration of

Independence, in which it was asserted that among theinalienable rights were the rights of life, liberty , and the

pursui t of happiness and that“to secure these rights govern

ments are instituted among men ,deriving their just powers

from the consent of the governed ; that whenever any formof government becomes destructive of these ends , it is theright of the people to alter or to abolish it , and to institutenew government , laying its foundation on such principles ,and organi zing its powers in such form , as to them shallseem most likely to effect their safety and happiness .

”

Probably this idea was largely based upon the social contract theory of Rousseau , Locke, and others that all governments are nothing more than social compacts with impliedlim itations . But the Southern statesmen di d not base thei rright of secession solely upon any impli ed contract .

fi

’

l‘

hg yconstrued the Constitution of the United States as an .

express contract between the States and claimed that eachState

"

had“

a right, equal to that of any other or of allth'

e

“

other‘

States , to d etermine for itself whether the contract”

had“

been broken so as to justify an abandonment of it bythe State aggrieved by the alleged infractions of the con

tract . This theory was embod ied in the Virg inia and

Kentucky Resolutions of 1798-9 , which grew out of the

passage of the Alien and Sed ition laws .During the admi nistration of President John Adams , and

while the Federalists were in political control of the government , several emi ssaries of the French Directory madethem selves obnoxious ; by their vi rulent attacks throughpamphlets and newspapers upon the policy of the adminis

tration. This led to the passage of two acts , since generallyknown as the “Alien and Sed ition Acts ,

"whi ch were amongthe chi ef causes of the final overthrow of the Federal party .

Among other provisions of the Alien Act was one whichauthorized the President , whenever he deemed it necessary

The Beginnings o f Secess ion 2 1

for the public safety , to remove out of the country all

persons in prison in pursuance of the act , and all who had

been ordered to depart , but who had remained withou tlicense , and that on their return they might be imprisonedso long as , in the opinion of the President , the public safetymight require it .

Themost objectionable provision in the Sed ition Act wasone which provi ded that any person who should write,print , utter , or publi sh , or aid in writing , printing , uttering ,or publishing any false, scandalous , or malicious wri tingagainst the government , Congress , or the President of theUnited States , wi th intent to defame them

,or to bring

them into d isrepute, or to stir up sed ition within the UnitedStates , or to excite any unlawful combinations for opposingor resisting any law of the United States , or any act of thePresident done in pursuance of any such law, or to resist ordefeat any such law, or to aid or abet any hostile design or

designs of any foreign nation against the United States ,their people or government , should be liable to be fined not

exceedi ng $2000 and impri soned not exceed ing two years .

These laws , so inconsistent with American ideas of personal liberty and freedom of speech and of the press , naturally excited the most bitter and determined opposition , notonly among the Republicans , as the party of Jeff erson wasthen called , but among large numbers of the Federalists .It was urged against both these laws that they vested arbitrary and despotic power in the hands of the President , andthat both laws were unconstitutional , the first as deprivingthe accused of the right of trial by jury , and the second as anunwarranted infringement of the constitutional rights of

freedom of speech and of the press .

Jefferson , who professed belief that the Federalists wereaimi ng to establish a monarchy , imagined that he could see

in the Alien and Sedition Acts the initial steps of a deeplaid conspiracy to subjugate the people and destroy theirliberties . In order to get the matter before the publicthrough the various State legi slatures , he prepared a draf t

Politica l H istory of Secess ion

of a seri es of resolutions to be introduced by some of hi s

political friends in the Kentucky Legislature. His agencyin the matter was at the time kept a profound secret , butthe d iscovery among his papers after his death of a copy ofthe original d raft of the Kentucky Resolutions , in hi s own

handwriting ,leaves no doubt of his authorship .

Jeff erson ’ s orig inal draft contai ns this signi ficant sentenceWhere powers are assumed [by the Federal government ]which have not been delegated ,

a nullification of the act isthe rightful remedy ; but every State has a natural right incases not within the contract (casus non feederi s) to nullifyof their own authority all assumptions of power by otherswi thi n their limi ts .The resolutions were introduced in the Kentucky Legis

lature and were passed by that body on November 14 , 1 798 .

They were passed substantially as drafted by Jeff erson ,except that Jefferson

’s nullification clause was considerablytoned down , probably because of reluctance of theKentuckylegislators to make public avowal of so rad ical an utterance.

The pith of the Kentucky resolutions of that year wascontained in the first , in these words

“Resolved , that the

several States composing the United States of America arenot united on the principle of unlim ited submission to theirgeneral government ; but that by compact under the styleand title of a Constitution for the United States , and of

amendments thereto , they constituted a general governmentfor special purposes , delegated to that government defini tepowers , reserving each State to itself , the residuary mass ofri ght to their own self-governm ent ; and that whensoeverthe general government assumes undelegated powers , itsacts are unauthoritativei, void , and of no force ; that to thiscompact each State acceded as a State,

and is an integralparty ; that thi s governm ent , created by this compact , wasnot made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of thepowers delegated to itself ; since that would have made itsd iscretion , and not the Constitution , the measure of its

‘See J efi’

erson’s Works, vol. iv .

, p . 258 ; vol. vi r. , p . 229 ; vol. ix., p . 464.

The Beginnings of Secess ion 23

powers ; but that , as in al l other cases of compact among

parties havi ng no common judge, each party has an equalri ght to judge for itself , as well of inf ractions as of themodeand measure of redress .

"

Jefferson sent a copy of hi s draf t of the Kentucky Resolutions to James Mad ison , with a request that he lay themor resolutions of a similar character before the VirginiaLegislature.

’ Mad ison accord ingly drew up a series of

resolutions of his own , considerably briefer and in moreguarded language than those of Jeff erson , in which , thoughaffi rming the “

compact” theory , the remedy accorded an

aggrieved State for unconstitutional Federal legislationwas the right to “interpose

” instead of the right to“nulli fy . This idea was expressed in the Virgini a Resolutions in the following language :“That thi s Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily

declare, that it views the powers of the Federal government ,as resulting from the compact to which the States are parties ,as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrumentconsti tuting that compact , as no farther valid than theyare authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact ; and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and

d angerous exerci se of other powers , not granted by saidcompact , the States , who are parties thereto , have theright , and are in duty bound , to interpose for arrestingthe progress of the evil , and for maintaini ng withi n theirrespective limits the authorities , rights , and liberties ap

pertaining to them .

” 2

These were passed and are known as the Virginia Resolutions of 1798 . Copies of thesewere sent to the governorsof the other States , to be communicated to the State legislatures . N0 responses were received approving the resolutions , but all concurred in asserting that the power todetermi ne whether a law of the United States was constitutional or not was a jud icial question to be determined

J efi’

erson’

s Works , vol. iv. , p . 255.

Cooper, American P olitics, book p . 3 .

24 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

ultimately by the Supreme Court of the Uni ted States .The New YorkLeg islature in its answer d isapproved thedoctrine of the Virgi nia Resolutions as

“inflammatory and

pernicious”and

“no less repugnant to the Constitution of

the United States and the principles of their union thandestructive of the Federal government .

The Connecticut Assembly answered that it “vi ewed

with regret and explicitly d isavowed the principles con

tained in the aforesaid resolutions .

The Vermont Leg islature also highly d isapproved of

the resolutions of the General Assembly of the State of

Virginia as being unconstitutional in their nature and

dangerous in their tendency .

”

The Delaware Legislature answered that they considerthe resolutions from the State of Virginia as a very unjustifiable interference wi th the general government and con

stituted authorities of the United States and of a dangeroustendency and therefore not fit subject for the further consideration of the General Assembly .

The responses of the several States to the Kentucky andVirginia Resolutions were unsatisfactory to the framers ofthem , particularly so to Jeff erson whose views were morerad ical than those of Mad ison . In order to counteract theeff ect on public sentiment , which it was anticipated mightbe produced by the responses of the other States , it wasdeemed exped ient that some sort of a reply should be

promulgated , and for this purpose resort was again hadto the Kentucky and Virgini a legislatures . Accordi ngly ,doubtless through Jefferson

’s influence, another set of resolutions was passed in 1799 by the Kentucky Leg islature, reaff i rming , but in more emphatic language, the resolutions of1 798 , and expressly approving Jefferson

’s doctrine of nullification in the following language : That the seyeral Stateswho formed that instrument [the Constitution of the

United States] being sovereign and independent , have theunquestionable right to judge of the infraction ; and that anullification by those sovereignties of all unauthori zed acts

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26 Political H istory of Secess ion

authority , in d iscussing the Kentucky and Virgini a Resolutions and Jeff erson ’s attitude on nullification , expresses thisview , which is more favorable to Jefferson than that of thehi storians above quoted : “Before considering the questionwhether the term ‘

nullification , as used by Jeff erson in theKentucky Resolutions of 1799, was identical with the same

word as used by Calhoun , it is well to notice how carefullythe Virg ini a Resolutions avoid any suggestion of action bya single State. They certainly maintain the doctri ne that

Weach State acceded to theUni on as a State and 1s an i nteg ral— c -.g n a g—m 4& an. “ A —D—0

party’

_

to the comp actunder the s tyle and ti tle _0f _a .Con sti

tution of the United States ’ ; and from thi sw doctrinew thefi t t O Q -I H

Calhb un but in.. the app lic a w . . —v

cationof Madi son , it is always‘the sovereignties ’ which are to

,undo unconstitutional

l aws the Statgslhot-‘a , 8 tatef -and practically-theJeff er

W”

.

soman doctrme seem s.

to have been that there were but .two—“ b ‘

parti es-Lhtbl hel pflompact,’

the States of the one pa rt and theFederal goy ernmento f the other

hand that the former in

national convention were to be frequently assembled to

decide on the constitutionality of the latter ’s acts .Webster , long afterwards , rid iculed unsparingly the idea

that the States could form a compact wi th another partywhich was only created by the compact and non-existentbefore it ; and Calhoun

’s theory that the ‘compact

’ wasbetween the States themselves , and that theFederal government was the result of it and not a party to it , seems morelogical than Jeff erson

’s . Logical or illogical , however ,Jefferson ’s theory was infinitely less destructive thanCalhoun ’s , was strictly in line of constitutional practice, andi s perfectly in accord wi th the Constitution

’s provisions forits own amendment .“The State sovereignty preamble in the first Kentucky

resolution and third Virginia resolution is not essential andis , in fact , only a hindrance to the spirit of the resolutions ,which is simply that desire for a national convention of theStates which has since been the first thought of al l Jeff erson

’

s

The Beginnings of Secess ion

d isciples in times of di ffi culty or danger . Thi s Jeff ersonianidea of the ultimate interpreter of doubtful constitutionalquestions cannot be more strongly put than in Jeff erson

’sown word s in his letter of June 1 2 , 1 823 , to Justice Johnson :‘the ultimate arbiter is the people of the Union , assembledby their deputies in convention at the call of Congress , or oftwo thirds of the States , to let them decide to which theymean to give an authority claimed by two of their organs . ’

“Though State sovereignty was by no means essential asa basis for the resolutions it was the shortest and easiestway to justify them . It is , therefore, important to noticethat in the hand s of Jeff erson and Madison State sover

eignty,separate or collective, was to be a shield for the pro

tection of the indi vidual ; in the hands of Calhoun it waso h mP a l

to be a shield for a section and for slavery. The d istincti onis not trivial , it is vi tal , as can beseen most easily from itsnecessary resul ts . ”

It is certain that at a later date, when the nation wasthrown into a turmoil by the South Carolina nullificationord inance of 1 832 , Mad ison himseHdenied that the Virgi niaResolutions were intended to sanction the idea that any singleState had a constitutional right to nullify a law of the Uni tedStates , and it is claimed that Jeff erson coincided wi th Mad ison ’s views . 2

Whatever may be the proper construction of the Virginiaand Kentucky Resolutions , the South Carolina political

“ m u n

leaders based upon them their-

l arm , notonly to the nright ofnullific

-ation ,putgalso to the right of secession, Moreover ,they afterward s became part of the Democratic party creed .

In 1852 the Democratic National Convention expresslyresolved That the Democratic party will faithfully abideby and uphold the principles laid down in the Kentucky andVirginia Resolutions of 1798 , and in the report of Mr . Madison to the Virginia Legislature in 1799 ; that it adopts those

Johnston, American Political Hi story, Woodburn’s edition, vol. i . ,

PP3 Benton, Thirty Years, vol. i . , pp. 347

—60.

28 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

principles as constituting one of the main foundations of itspolitical creed and is resolved to carry them out in theirobvious meaning and import . This resolution was re

afl‘irmed in theplatform adopted by theDemocraticNationalConvention in 1856 .

It

The right of nullification came up in a debate in theUnited States Senate, in 1830, on the resolution of SenatorFoot of Connecticut in relation to the publi c lands , a debatewhich has ever since been called “

the great debate.

” Ittook a wide range, includ ing many subjects , embracingStates ’ rights

, nullification ,federalism , and other subjects

that , i f not irrelevant to the resolution , were but remotelyconnected with it . In this debof

_ _South C arp lina g brought

of Statemullification and secession , expressly basing it uponthe doctn gg ot he .

V rrgrnra and Kentucky Resolutions of1798 . Webster ’s “Reply to Hayne ” is known to everyschoolboy .

The right of State nullification and secession again cameprominently before the nation in 1 832 when South Carolina ,claim ing that the tariff act of 1828 was an unwarrantedd iscrimination against the people of the State, passed thecelebrated nullification ord inance and tookactive steps toraise a military force with a view to armed resistance to theenf orcement of the act . At this timeAndrew Jackson , thenPresident of the Uni ted States , issued his proclamationdenouncing the action of the South Carolina authorities astreason and threatened to raise a m ilitary force to enforceby arms , i f necessary , obed ience by the citizens of SouthCarolina to the laws of the United States .Calhoun , who was Vice-President during the debate on

the Foot resolution , had broken with Jackson , had resignedthe office of Vice-President , and had been elected to the

United States Senate. He appeared in the Senate while theexcitement over the nullification ord inance was at its height .President Jackson had issued his proclamation on December

Cooper, American P oli tics, book pp. 32 , 38.

The Beginnings of Secess ion 29

10 , 1832 , and on January 2 1 1 833 , the famous Force billwasintroduced in the Senate. On the same day, Calhounintroduced a series of resolutions , the second of which , re

affi rming the doctrine and using almos t the exact languageof the firs t of the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 , was asfollows“Resolved , That the people of the several States thus

uni ted by the constitu tional compact in forming th'

at'

instrum

’

eant , and in creating a general government to carryinto eff ect the objects for whi ch it was formed , delegated tot hat goyernment, for that purpose, certain definite powers ,r tow

beu

exerci sedjointly, reserving , at the same time, eachState to itself , the residuary mass of powers , to be exercisedby

'

its own separate government ; and that , whenever thegeneral government assumes the exercise of powers notdelegated by the compact , its acts are unauthorized ,

void ,

and of no eff ecta nd that the said government is not madethe final judgeof

“

the powers delegated to i t , since thatwould make its d iscretion , and not the Constitution

, the

measure of its powers ; but that , as in all other cases ofcompact among sovereign parties , without any commonjudge, each has an equal right to judge for itself , as well ofthe infraction , as of the mode and measure of redress . 1

Calhoun attacked the Force bill in an elaborate speechon February 1 5 and 16 , in the course of which he said :“It is next objected , that the enforcing acts have legis

lated the United States out of South Carolina . I havealready replied to this objection on another occasion , andwi ll now but repeat what I then said : that they have beenlegislated out only to the extent that they had no right toenter . The Constitution has admitted the jurisdi ction of

theUnited States within the limits of the several States onlyso far as the delegated powers authorize ; beyond that theyare intruders , and may rightfully be expelled ; and that theyhave been efficiently expelled by the legislation of the Statethrough her civil process , as has been acknowledged on all

Calhoun’

s Works , vol. p . 262.

30 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

sides in the debate, is only a confirmation of the truth of

the doctrine for whi ch the majority in Carolina have con

tended .

“The very point at issue between the two parties there

is , whether nullification is a peaceable and an eff i cientremedy against an unconstitutional act of the generalgovernment , and may be asserted , as such , through theState tribunals . Both parties agree that the acts agai nstwhich it is d irected are unconstitutional and oppressive.

The controversy is only as to the means by which our

citizens may be protected against the acknowledged en

croachments on their rights . This being the point at issuebetween the parties , and the very object of the majoritybeing an efli cient protection of the ci tizens through the

State tribunals , the measures adopted to enforce the ord inance of course received the most decisive character . We

were not children , to act by halves . Yet for acting thuseff iciently the State is denounced , and this bill reported tooverrule by military force the civil tribunals and civilprocess of the State ! Sir , I consider this bill , and the arguments which have been urged on this floor in its support ,as the most triumphant acknowledgment that nullificationi s peaceful and effi cient , and so deeply intrenched in theprinciples of our system , that it cannot be assailed but byprostrating theConstitution , and substituting the supremacyof m ilitary force in lieu of the supremacy of the laws . I

By common consent all looked to Webster to answer thespeech of Calhoun . In the course of his speech Webstersai d“The first resolution declares that the people of the sev

eral States ‘acceded

’

to the Constitution , or to the con

stitutional compact , as it is called . This word accede ,

’

not

found either in the Constitution itself , or in the ratifica

tion of it by any one of the States , has been cho sen for usehere, doubtless , not wi thout a well-considered purpose . The

natural converse of accessi on is secession; and , therefore,Calhoun

’s Works , vol. ii . , pp . 225 , 226.

The Beginnings o f Secess ion 3 1

when it is stated that the people of the States acceded to theUnion , i t may be more plausibly argued that they may

secede from i t . If , in adopting the Constitution , nothingwas done but acced ing to a compact , nothing would seemnecessary , in order to break it up , but to secede from the

same compact . But the term is wholly out of place.

Accession , as a word applied to political associations , impliescoming into a league, treaty , or confederacy , by one bi therto a stranger to it ; and secession implies departing fromsuch league or confederacy . The people of the UnitedStates have used no such form of expression in establishingthe present government . They do not say that they accedeto a league, but they declare that they orda in and esta blish

a Constitution .

Again“I admi t , of course, that the people may, i f they choose,

overthrow the government . But , then , that is revolution .

The doctrine now contended for is , that , by nullification or

secession , the obligations and authority of the governmentmay be set aside or rejected , without revolution . But thati s what I deny ; and what I say is , that no man can state thecasewith historical accuracy , and in constitutional language,without showi ng that the honorable gentleman

’s right,as

asserted in his conclusion , is a revolutionary right merely ;that it does not and cannot exist under the Constitu tion , oragreeably to the Constitution , but can come into exi stenceonly when the Constitution is overthrown .

” 2

Again :“The Constitution does not provi de for events which

must be preceded by its own destruction . Secessi on ,

therefore, since it must bring these consequences with it , isrevolutionary, and nullification is equally revolutionary.

What is revolution ? Why , Sir , that is revolution whi choverturns or controls , or successfully resists , the existingpublic authority ; that which arrests the exercise of the

Webster’s Works , vol . iii . , pp. 453—55.

Id . , vol. iii . , p . 456 .

32 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

supreme power ; that which introduces a new paramountauthority into the rule of the state . Now,

Sir,this is the

precise object of nul lification . It attempts to supersedethe supreme legi slative authority . It arrests the arm of

the executive magistrate. It interrupts the exerci se of the

accustomed jud icial power . Under the name of an ord inance, it declares null and void , within the State, all therevenue laws of the Uni ted States . Is not thi s revolu

tionary? Sir , so soon as this ord inance shall be carried intoeff ect , a revolution wi ll have commenced in South Caroli na .

”1

AgainNul lification , i f successful , arrests the power of the law,

absolves citizens from their duty , subverts the foundationboth of protection and obed ience , d ispenses with oaths andobligations of allegiance, and elevates another authority to supreme command . Is not this revolution ? And

it raises to supreme command four-and-twenty d istinctpowers , each professing to be under a general government ,and yet each setting its laws at defiance at pleasure. Is notthi s anarchy , as well as revolution ? Sir , the Constitutionof the United States was received as a whole, and for the

whole country . If it cannot stand altogether , it cannotstand in parts ; and i f the laws cannot be executed everywhere, they cannot long be executed anywhere.

” 2

Summing up in a nutshell his answers to Calhoun’s

arguments , and the principles included in hi s resolution ,Webster said :“Mr . President , if we are to receive the Constitution as

the text , and then to lay down in its margin the contrad ictory commentaries whi ch have been , and which may be,

made by d iff erent States , the whole page would be a polyglotindeed . It would speakwith as many tongues as the bu ilders of Babel , and in d ialects as much conf used , and mutuallyas uni ntelligible. The very instance now before us presentsa practical illustration . The law of the last session isdeclared unconstitutional in South Carolina , and obed ienceWebster

’s Works , vol. iii. , pp. 459

—60.3 Id. , p. 461 .

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Po litica l H istory of Secess ion

26 , in whi ch he reiterated his doctrine of nullification and

secession , quoting in support of his argument the Virgini aResolutions of 1 798 .

I It is impossible in a brief outline topresent fully Calhoun

’s theory that the Constitution ismerely a compact between the States ,which any one of them ,

upon causes deemed sufficient by it , has a right to break.

This theory is elaborated in hi s speeches and in the firstvolume of his Works

,whi ch includes hi s D i squi si tion on

Government and also A D i scourse on the Consti tution and

Government of the Uni ted S tates . It is needless to say thathis arguments in support of it are presented wi th greatforce and ski ll . They have not lost their importance byreason of the Civil War . By that war it was determinedthat the reserved rights of the States did not include theri ght of secession , but it left the States supremewi thi n theproper limi ts of State sovereignty , as it left the nationalgovernment supremewi thin the proper limits defined by theConstitution . The framers of the Constitution intendedto define by carefully expressed limitations the boundariesof national as well as those of State sovereignty and thepowers , rights , and responsibilities belonging to each , regarding a violation of these limitations by the nationalgovernment and a vi olation of them by the States as equallydangerous to the general welfare. In the study of theselimitations , powers , rights , and responsibilities the studentshould carefully read the writings of both Calhoun and

Webster .In studying the question of States ’ rights the student may

al so profitably consult the workof Alexander H . Stephenson The Wa rB etween the S tates . It is written , in imitationof the examples of Plato and Cicero ,

in the form of a colloquy between the author and certai n fictitious characters ,Judge Bynum of Massachusetts ” representing the radi calRepublicans ,

“Professor Norton of Connecticut”repre

senting the conservatives , and“Major Heister of Pennsyl

vania ” representing the War Democrats . Stephens so

See Calhoun’s Works, vol. p. 262.

The Beginnings of Secess ion 35

manages the colloquy that the other parties to it are invariably forced to admit that in any opinions they may havebefore entertained in conflict with those of Stephens , theywere al together wrong and that Stephens is altogether right .By this ingeni ous process Stephens proves , at least to hisown satisfaction , divers conclusions , some of which mostNorthern readers wi ll be apt to believe to be equallyas imagi nary as are the characters who take part in the

colloquy . Nevertheless , Stephens’

s views are clearlyexpressed and ably argued . He follows substantiallyCalhoun ’s compact theory . He al so maintains that thecompact was first broken by the aggression of the NorthernStates , particularly by the passing of personal liberty bills ,layi ng stress especially on those of Vermont and Massachusetts , apparently overlooki ng the inconsistency of at

tempting to hold al l the Northern States responsible for thelaws of a few of them on the compact theory or on any othertheory of the Constitution , and forgetting that it would beas unreasonable to hold the other Northern States respons ible for the laws of Vermont and Massachusetts as it woul dbe to hold all the Southern States responsible for the nul

lification laws of South Carolina in 1 832 . Stephens alsomaintains that in the Civi l War the North was the firstaggressor , and that , al though South Carolina fired the firstgun , the North committed the first act of war . The argument in support of this contention is that when SouthCarolina seceded , she resumed her sovereignty over all theforts in Charleston harbor and that the preparation of the

national government to reinforce and hold them was anact of war . It will be seen in a subsequent chapter thatthe South Carolina Commissioners went further thanStephens , claiming that when Major Anderson abandonedFort Moultrie he “waged war ,

”commi tting “

a hostileact in the highest sense.

Calhoun ’s doctrine of nullification and secession , at thetime when he made the speech above quoted ,

received butlittle encouragement from any other Senators of either the

36 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

North or the South . Benton denounced the doctrine in anelaborate speech . Finally , the South Carolina matter wassmoothed over by a new compromi se tariff bill , introducedby Henry Clay and known as the tariff bill of 1 833 .

1

Up tot his time the doctrine of the right of secession was‘m

not an outgrt of the slavery question , and had no con‘ N fl ex-v

“ y o u r! ”

nnection with it , but Calhoun

’s arguments , whatever their“we M ower -1 0 m ,

effeqt“ elsewhere made a deep impressi on on the m ind s ofthe Southern people , and the doctrine advocated by

.

him ,

though never adopted ln any national political platform,

was never lost sig ht of by them . It was afterwards adoptedand app lied by Calhoun and by Jefferson Davis and otherSouthern leaders in advocating the extension of slavery ,

and continued to be asserted by them . It was finallysettled ,

not by arguments , but by the Civil War . That itwas a doctrine generally believed by a large portion of the

people of the South is a fact that should be understood inexplanation of the subsequent conduct of the SouthernStates in secedi ng from the Uni on . The people of thatsection d id not consider secession as rebellion but as anexercise of a right recognized by the Constitution itself .

1 Benton, Thi rty Years, vol. i . , pp . 342—47.

CHAPTER III

SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES

EFORE the beginning of the American Civi l War theconfl ict between freedom and slavery was manifestedi- O— V o-O

infi

d iverse ways— in disputes over fugitive slaves , in them . fi-n

ra M u n

uantagonisms developed by theoperation of the7 n erground

u “ ‘b”5 .

n d "c c

'" W ' s-lu m —arailway ,

”endlbmlls eirculatron of Abohtron literature, and

Prior to had

caugep ficomplamtt i mme any i of r lhese,sgurcesk ei ther in them um “

North or in the South . The phase of the slavery questiona n.m a m a ' s-urn ! “W m

thatm

first became, and that ever af terward continued to be,more promi nent than any other , was that relati ng M llfi.

status of slaver in the Territori es . There had not been anyseri ous controversy over thi s question prior to the time

when Missouri applied for admission into the Union . Frombeen a strong sentiment in the

ibition of slavery in“

the“

Tu

efiitbfi

ries:and

‘

thef e"was suffi cientof this sentiment inthe

’

Sbi ithf aswell as in the North , to secure the:prohibitionof slav

b '

eryi ’

iri

the Northwest Territory in the Ordi nance of 1787;“

But“ nu

what little there‘

was “

of‘ such feeling in the South speed ily

d isappeared . As stated in the precedi ng chapter , in theno!

cession by Virgi ni a 0 Eg generaf government ci l ié’

f ernmu m -u“ “ m u-Ju l “g , “

tory now included in Kentucky“

; it was expressly providedthat Congress should pass no law 155631the and

’

Similarprovi sos in thecession by North ‘

Carolina of the Tennessee “

territory andin

'

t l'

iat by"Georgia of the Alabamaand '

M issi ssippi territories . After the Louisiana Purchase , and especially af ter

37

38 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

the acquisition of the territory acquired from Mexico , the

constant effort of the slavehold ing interests of the Southwas not to restrict but to enlarge the boundaries of slavery,

not to prohibit it in the Territories , but to introduce it .From the beginning of the national government there had

been a demand in the South for the preservation of the

equ ilibrium ,

” by which it was designed to keep the slaveand the free states equal in numbers , and it had been theolic

u

pe South , i n the admission of new States, to see

that no moref ree States than slave States were admitted .

In the beginni ng the extension of slavery does not seem to

have been the controlli ng consideration in the pursu it ofthis policy . The New England States had been closelyallied long prior to the Revolution . There were, as hasbeen already pointed out, marked di fferences in the char}acteri stics of the population of the seven ori ginal free Statesand the six ori gi nal slave States . So that , wholly independbutof the question of slavery , the people of the slave Stateswere desirous of preserving , as far as practicable, such anequilibrium as would enable them to protect their own

interests against any combination in the making of lawsand in the admini stration of the government that mi ght bemade by the origi nal free States and new States peopled bythem or their descendants , who would naturally be insympathy with them , and that mi ght lead to encroachmentsupon the rights of the ci tizens of the slave States .As slavery became more and more important , as a poli ti

cal question , the solicitude of the South for the preservationof the equilibrium became more and more marked . It wasnot expected , especially in vi ew of the more rapid growth inpopulation of the free States , to secure equali ty in the Electoral College, or in the House of Representatives , but it washoped to preserve the equi librium in the Senate , so long asthere were no more free States than there were slave States .For this reason the admission of new States had been soskillfully managed ,

that for a long time the new free and thenew slave States were practically admi tted in pairs . Thus

S lavery in the Territories (39

there were admi tted , not at preci sely the same time, butat only short interims between , Kentucky and Vermont

,

Tennessee and Ohi o , Mississippi and Indi ana , Alabama andIlli nois , Missouri and Maine, Arkansas and Michigan ,Florida and Iowa ; so that at the beginning of PresidentPolk’s admini stration in 1 845 there were fourteen free and

fourteen slave States .This policy had been pursued so long that it was plausibly

argued by the members of Congress from the slave Statesthat it had become a settled governmental policy . Hencewe find the Southern States persistently opposing the ad

mi ssion of a free State unless coupled with the admission ofa slave State or at least with some kind of assurance thatthe admi ssion of a free State should be compensated by thefuture admi ssion of a slave State, or the setting apart ofsome portion of the new Terri tories in which slavery shouldnot be prohibited by Congress , leaving it open to slaveholders until the formation of a State government . The

question of slavery in the Territories became still moreimportant after the acquisition of the territory securedfrom Mexico. Webster sai d in 1 850 :

“Nobody can lookover the face of thi s country at the present moment , nobodycan see where its population is themost dense and growing ,without being ready to admit , and compelled to admit ,that erelong the strength of America will be in the valleyof the Mississippi . 1 There is no doubt that Webster sawthis long before he made the pred iction quoted , nor is thereany doubt that Calhoun also saw it .It was foreseen that the new Territories would be rapidly

filled , and that it would be necessary to create new States .It was also foreseen that the flowing tide of immigration tothe new Territories from the free States would , in all probability

, largely exceed that from the slave States . If all ,

or the greater part , of the area included in the Loui sianaPurchase, together with that acqui red from Mexico , shouldbe converted into free States , what would become of the

Webster’

s Works, vol. v ., p. 362.

Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

equi librium ? And what would be the ultimate eff ect onslavery in the slave States i f they should become hemmed

in on every side by free States peopled by those hostileto slavery ?Out Of these considerations grew another peculi arlySouthern political doctrine, that of

“e uality of ri ghts ” in

the Territories . There was plausibilm m f the

South to equal rights with the North in the Territories .Southern men had helped fight for them and had helpedpay for them . The Southern

fl

slaveholder desired , equallywith the Northernm ambo where he could find cheaperand better lands for himself and his child ren , and honestlybelieved that he had as much right to take his slaves withhim as the Northern farmer had to take with him his cattle.

Above all other considerations was the menace to slaveryin the slave States that lurked in the probable destruction Ofthe poli tical equilibrium in the event that thenewTerritoriesshould ultimately be converted into free States . Thisdemand of equality of rights in the Territories was voicedbyQalhgun inhis speeeh on the Oregon bill, rn which he said :“Now I put the questib

h

ri'

sblemnly to the Senators fromthe North : Can you rightly and justly exclude the Southfrom Territories of the United States , and monopolize themfor yourselves , even i f , in your Opinion , you should have thepower ? It is this question I wish to press on your attentionwith all due solemnity and decorum . The North and the

South stand in the relation of partners in a common Union ,with equal d ignity and equal rights . We of the South havecontributed our full share of funds , and shed our full share ofblood for the acqu isition of our Territories . Can you , then ,on any principle of equity and justice, deprive us of our fullshare in their benefit and advantage? Are you ready toaff irm that a majority of the partners in a joint concern havethe right to monopolize its benefits to the exclusion Of the

minority , even in cases where they have contributed theirfull share to the concern ? But , to present the case morestrongly and vividly , I shall descend from generals to par

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42 Po litica l H istory of Secess ion

is , i f possible, more marked . The events connected wi ththe acquisition aretoowellknown to require a long narrative.

It was won by arms , and a great sacrifice of men and money .

The South , in the contest , performed her full share of military duty , and earned a full share of military honor ; haspoured out her full share of blood freely , and has and wi llbear a full share of the expense ; has evinced a full share of

skill and bravery , and if I were to say even more than herfull share of both , I would not go beyond the truth ; to beattributed , however , to no superiority in either respect , butto acci dental circumstances , which gave both its offi cersand sold iers more favorable opportuni ties for their d isplay .

All have done their duty nobly , and high courage and

gallantry are but common attributes Of our people. Would

it be right and just to close a territory thu s won against theSouth , and leave it Open exclusively to the North ? Would

it deserve the name of free soil, if one half of the Uni onshould be excluded and the other hal f should monopolizeit , when it was won by the joint expense and joint effortsof all ? Is the great law to be reversed— that which is wonby all should be equally enjoyed by all? These are questions which address themselves more to the heart than thehead . Feeblemust be the intellect which does not see whatis right and just , and bad must be the heart , unless unconsciously under the control of deep and abid ing prejud ice,whi ch hesitates in pronouncing on which side they are to

be found . Now, I put the question to the Senators from the

North : What are you prepared to do? Are you prepared toprostrate the barriers of the Constitution , and in open defiance of the d ictates of equity and justice, to excludethe South from the Territories and monopolize them for theNorth ? If so, vote against the amendment offered by theSenator from Mississippi [Mr. Davis] , and i f that should failvote against striking out the 12th section . We shall thenknow what to expect . If not , place us on some groundwhere we can stand as equals in rights and d ignity , and

wherewe shall not be excluded from what has been acquired

S lavery in the Territories 43

at the common expense, and won by common ski ll and

gallantry . All we demand is to stand on the same levelwith yourselves , and to participate equally in what belongsto all. Les s we cannot take.

The d ifficulties i n the way “of settling the question of the

status of slavery i n the Terri tories were obvious . Slavery-a

cau“

riO—

t°

_re—

xrst;_ anywhere without some law to uphold it , some

atitliOii tyto protect the slave-owner’

3 right of p roperty inhis slaves and to punish the violation of it , a necessi tywhichgives ri seto very stringent legislation in countri es whereslavery i s recognized by law. Without some such authority for the protection of his right of property in hi s slavesthe slave-owner would naturally be reluctant to carrythem wi th him into a Territory where such right wasnot protected . On the other hand i f slavery should beestablished by law i n a i f

by such-

legislation as existed i n most of the slave States , theniapi fest tendency of such legi slationwould be to di scouragefree-State immigrants frem settling i n such Territory,because

the poorwhite man would be unwilli ng to settle where hewould be obliged to compete with the labor of the slave andwould be despised by the master , even the man able to buya quarter section of land would be reluctant to have for hisneighbor a slaveholder owning a plantation of a thousandacres and a hundred ormore slaves .Indeed the question of slavery in the Territories , from an

early period , became themost perplexing of all the questionsinvolved in the irrepressible conflict . For forty years

W poli« M

ticians tried to devi se somepolicy by which slavery and

q u i z-1 m m ‘M m m

I. . a n “

freedomcould dw'

ell togetheri n the Territories , but this wasimpossible and so the irrepressible confli ct continued to thebegi nning of the Civi l War .Looking at the question from the slaveholder ’8 point ofview it was all-important , i f slavery were to be gi ven a

foothold 1n the new States , that it should be lantedm

thereg .. n“ mm

‘m w “W ”n o: \~M m ~ “A l l , ”

whi le they wereyet in a territorial condition , for, if excludedMm“ , q . “ n u n d wa O d p y fl “ h o 1“ “ N 4 “ .

Calhoun’

s Works, vol. iv. pp. 501—503.

44 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

from the Territgrywuh ti l they were; filled Wi ll“ a free-State

population , therewould be littlew

hope of inducing the peopleto establish slavery in the constitution which they mightadopt preparatory to admission as a State. Various policieswere from time to time proposed for settling the status of

slavery in the Terri tories .One policy— a makeshift policy— proposed for the settle

ment of the question of slavery in the Territories was that of“popular soyereignty,

” as advocated at various p er-iodw byK n , -m . 0 rm

Di ckmsgmfi assn a nd s Douglas . It was not intended bythem , as sometimes assumed by those, like Calhoun , whoopposed what they contemptuou sly termed f

‘squatter

sovereignty ," that the first dozen or more settler

eterrrTine the question . Douglas 's contention was that theinhabitants should be permitted to determine the questionby appropriate laws after the formationof a territorial1§8i§13 tl31f9 This doctrine was Opposed alike by the radi calpro

-slavery advocates of the South and by the rad ical antislavery advocates of the North . The rad icals of the South ,following the lead of Calhoun , contended that the people of

a Territory had no right to exclude slavery from such Territory at any time prior to the period when , pursuant to anenabling act of Congress , they might meet to form a con

stitution preparatory to admi ssion as a State. Calhoungaveno countenancewhatever to the squatter sovereigntydoctrine, as advocated by either Cass or Douglas declaringthat this “of all the positions ever taken

”was the most

absurd . Benton characterized it as “claptrap blamey .

”

Under thi s theory the final determi nation of the questionmight have been postponed indefinitely , for it was whollyd iscretionary with Congress when it should pass such anenabling act . Michigan Territory was organized in 1 805 ,

but the State of Michi gan was not admitted into the Unionuntil 1 835 . On the other hand , the rad ical anti-slaveryadvocates of the North maintained that the people of the

Territory had no right at any time— at least so long as theSpeech on the Oregon bill. Calhoun

's Works , vol. iv. , p . 498.

S lavery in the Territories 45

Territory remai ned in a territorial condi tion— to admi tslavery .

Even Douglas_s interpretation of the doctrine of popular

soverei gnty would not have enabled the opponents“

of

slavery to exclude that institution until af ter the organization of a

'

territorial government . Thetime when Congressshould pass an act for the organization of a territorial government , and the body m which the legislative power should bevested , and the time when the people should be permi ttedto have a di rect voice in the government , were all matterswholly d iscretionary wi th Congress , as seen in the variousterritorial acts enacted by it . In the interim between thesettlement of the Territory and the time when the peoplemight be permitted to exerci se the right of popular soveteignty, there was no authority , i n the absence of an act of

Q fififie'

ss'“

to such effect , to prohi bit slaveholders fromsettling 1n theTerritories wi th their slaves 1n such numbersas might 1nsure the permanenc

in the Territory of Missouri , and as would probably havebeen the case in the Ind iana Terri tory and in the IllinoisTerritory but for the prohibition in the Ordinance of 1787.

The doctrine of popular sovereignty was never incorporated in any congressional act until the passage of the

Kansas-Nebraska act in 1854. It was short-lived , lastingonly a few years , when the Supreme Court of the UnitedStates put an end to it by its decision in the Dred Scott case,affirming Calhoun ’s construction of the Constitution on thequestion of the status of slavery in the Territories .

Another makeshift policy was that of“non-interference

or non-action .

” During Calhoun ’s lifetime the Southernleaders realized that it would be vain to expect that Congress would by any legi slation expressly establish slavery inany Territory where it di d not already exist . They alsoknew that , even if slaveholders should be permi tted to taketheir slaveswith them into the new Territories , it was probable

“

that Northern immigrants wouli largely outfnirhbér

them and would vote, as soon as given an opportuni ty to do

46 Pol itical H istory of Secession

slavery , as they did , not only in Oregon , butalso in California and in Newl Mexico . Therefore, in order” M W

to prevent hostile leg islation , either congressional or territorial , it was insisted that neither should interfere, leavingthe Terri tories “

free and open to immigration by all the

world so long as they continue so , and when they become

States to adopt whatever constitution they please, with thesimple restriction to be republican in order to their admissioninto the Union .

At the Democratic National Convention held in Baltimorein May , 1 848 , William L . Ya

_n_eey, of Alabama , offered thefollowing resoluW Resolved ,m fi he doctrine of non

interference with the rights of property of any portion of

the people of the confederacy , be it in the States or Territories thereof , by any other than the parties interested inthem , is the true republican doctrine recogni zed by thi sbody .

" It is evident ,” says Mr . Foote,

ll“that it was

intended by thi s ad roit movement to get the whole Demo

cratic party commi tted against any legislation in the Territories either on the part of Congress or the local leg islatures ,and to prevent even any action by conventions called for thepurpose of formi ng State constitutions with a view to ad

mission into the Federal Union in any of said Territories ,which should be of a nature to aff ect the rights of propertyin slaves , unless with the consent of the ind ivi dual owners .A proposition so absurd and dangerous could receive butfew votes in a convention constituted of such intelligent andpatriotic men as were then assembled in Baltimore, and

accordingly out of 252 votes only 36 persons were foundradical enough to follow Mr. Yancey ’s lead .

”

Henry S . Foote, Warof the Rebellion, p. 82. Foote was one of the

Senators of Mississippi and was a colleague of Jeff erson Davis. Afterthe organization of the Southern Confederacy he fell outwith Davi s andleft the country. In his book

,the preface of which is dated December,

1 865 , Foote makes a good many statements such as we would hardlyexpect from one who had been so prominently identified as was hewiththe Southern leaders beforeand during the CivilWar.

S lavery in the Territories 47

A plank fay‘og‘

ng non-interference, but not going so far

as t e one proposed by Yancey i n the Baltimore convemtion , was incorporated i n the Democratic national platformof i856 Itwas as deceptive as the plank 1n the same platM posed to favor popular sovereignty . As generallyunderstood in the North , at least by those favoring thedoctrine of popular sovereignty , it meant non~interferenceby Congress , leavi ng the question to be determined bythe people of the Territory . In the South it was understood in a variety of ways . The ultra slavery advocates ,starting with the assumption that the Constitution recognized slave property in the Territories , the same as any otherspecies of property , claimed that neither Congress nor theterritorial legislatures had any authority to impair suchright of property , and that the slaveholders had a right totake their slaves wi th them to the Territories just as theNorthern farmers had a right to go there and takewith themtheir cattle, and that after the slaveholders had settled in aTerritory with their slaves , it was the duty of Congress notto interfere wi th them or their slave property , but to letthem a lone. Thi s was virtually adm itted by Foote and

other Southern leaders . It may be observed in thi s connection that this was precisely the doctrine afterwards contended for by the secessionists , who claimed that under theConstitution they had a right to secede from the Union ,take and hold all the government forts and arsenals in theseced ing territory

, and set up a government of their own ,

and that , after they had done all this , all they desired wasto be let alone.

The Southern doctrine of non-interference would havebeen almost as eff ectual in establishing slavery in a Territory as woul d have been legislation expressly authorizingm o s~-_

1 m

it , forwhat 15 not forbidden by law 13 as lawful as thatwhich“ h m "

Both the doctrines of popular sovereignty and non-interference, as understood in the South ,

weremerely preliminarysteps to the establishment of the doctrine advocated by

48 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

Calhoun, that theConsti tution itself protected slavery i n theTerritories from “any, interference by either congressional orterritorial legislation . This was . .what . Benton styled 1 the

Calhoun ’s theory of the constitutional guarantee of the

right of the slaveholder to hold his slaves as property inthe Territories was enunciated in a series of resolutionspresented by him in the United States Senate on February51 9 ,

1847.i It was urged by him again in a speech on the bill

trovi ding for the organi zation of Oregon Territory , in whiche reiterated the doctrine that the Constitution protected

slavery in the Territories : that Congress has no powerwhatever to prevent the citizens of the Southern States fromemigrating with their property into the Territories of theUni ted States or to give an exclusive monopoly of them to

the North .

”

Some of the Southern leaders , for a time, seem to havethought it to be necessary that there should be some sortof congressional legi slation to transport the Constitutioninto the Territories , and a provision of that kind was incorporated in the act for the organization of the Territory of

NewMexi co . This idea may have been suggested in orderto meet Webster 's argument that the Constitution cannotexecute itself but must be supplemented by legislation .

But in the debates on the Oregon bill, Calhoun maintained that the Constitution extended itself into the Territories . “

The simple question , he said ,

“is : Does theConstitution extend to the Territories or does it not extendto them ? Why , the Constitution interprets itself . Itpronounces itself the law of the land ” ; to which Websterreplied as follows

“The Constitution of the Uni ted States

extend ing over the Territories , and no other law exi stingthere ! Why , I beg to know how any government coul dproceed Wi thout any other authority existing there thansuch as is created by the Constitution of the United States ?Does the Constitution of the United States settle titles to

Calhoun's Works, vol. iv.

, p . 348.

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so Pol itica l H istory of Secession

Calhoun was also right in his contention that the Constitution recognized the right to hold slaves as property ; butthis was true only to a limited extent . The Constitutionundoubtedly recogni zed the right of a slave-owner in a slaveState, as , for example, in South Carolina , to hold slaves asproperty there, and to reclaim them i f they should escapeinto a free State. But did the Const1tu

‘g9n_ guarantee to

the South Carolina'

sfave owner the"

right to take hi s slavesto aLTerritory and hold them as slaves there? Calhounmaintained the affirmative of this question and made it themajor premise of all his arguments . Webster and othersdeni ed it . The argumentsused by Calhounwere able and

plausible. They may be found 1n his speeches and writingsbut they cannot be condensed into a short statement . Thosewho opposed them argued in substance as follows . Theymaintained that the fallacy of Calhoun ’ s proposition was inassuming that the Constitutionmade no d istinction betweenthe right of property in a slave and the right of property in

But there was a vast di fference. The right ofproperty in a horse is founded upon natural right , a rightrecognized by the common law. When the owner of a

horse emi grates from Massachusetts and takes his horsewi th him anywhere, to a State, a Territory , or to England ,

he

holds his property , not by virtue of the laws of Massachusetts , but by virtue of the laws of the place to whi ch hehas emi grated , or i f to a Territory where there are no speciallaws recognizing the right ,

of property in a horse, then byvirtue of the common law or by virtue

'

of natural law. But,the right of one man to hold another in slavery is not anatural right ; it is not a common law right ; as tersely statedbyjohn A . Dix,

I “it is the law of man , doing violence to all

the d ictates of nature, that makes a country slavehold ing,either by its own voluntary act, or by the act of othersforcing slavery upon it .Hence it has always and everywhere been conceded that

Speech inSenate on July 26, 1 848 , on the bills for organization of theterritories acquired from Mexico : D ix’s Speeches, vol. i . , p. 375.

S lavery in the Territories 5 1

the right of property in a slave can exist only in the placewhere he is held and there only when the laws of thatplace sanction it . The Constitution of the United Statesnowhere recognizes , as a natural or common law right , the

un

right of oneman to hold another as a slave. The Constitu

tionw

g d Fé'

Eéigfii ze as a fact that the laws of South Carolinaauthorized oneman to hold another as a slavem that State.

But it nowhere recognized the right of the owner of theslave to take him to Massachusetts or to a free Territoryand hold him as a slave there, for that would be to recogni zetheright of the slave-owner to take wi th him in his

migrations not only his slave but al so the slave laws of

South Carolina .

‘byfi

Benton and by many otherwas clearly shown by Webster in

8,on the bill to organi ze then .

1 “It will not be con

tended , he said , that thi s sort of personal slavery existsby general law. It exists only by local law. I do not meanto deny the valid ity of that local lawwhere it is established ;but I say it is , after all , local law. It is nothing more, andwherever that local law does not extend , property in personsdoes not exist . Well , sir , what is now the demand on the

part of our Southern friends ? They say , we will carry ourlocal laws wi th us wherever we go . We insist that Congressdoes us injustice unless it establishes in the Territory inwhich we wish to go our own local laws . ’ If anyquestion arose as to the status of an ind ivi dual in Rome he

was presumed to be free until he was proved to be a slave,because slavery is an exception to the general rule. Such ,I suppose, is the general law of mankind .

Henry Clay was equally_

explicit. In the debates on thecomprorm se measures he said : “There are gentlemen whomaintain that , by vi rtue of the Consti tution , the right tocarry slaves south of that line (36

° already exists . If

I had not heard that opinion avowed I should have regardedWebster

’

s Works, vol. v ., p . 308 .

52 Pol itical H istory of Secess ion

it one of the most extraord inary assumptions , and the mostindefensible position that was ever taken by man. The

Constitution neither created , nor does it continue,slavery .

Slavery existed independent of the Constitution and antecedent to the Constitution ; and it was dependent in theStates , not upon the will of Congress , but upon the laws ofthe respective States . The Constitution is silent and passive upon the subject of the institution of slavery ; or,rather , it deals with the fact as it exists in theState, withouthaving created it or continued it or being responsible for itin the slightest degree. If slaves are voluntarily carriedinto such a jurisd iction [where slay ery '

dq es not“

exist] their-u.~Q “ “W id e-v

chai nsjnstantly drop 9§ ,1

andithey become free, emaneiN ,

gal/ ted d ib ed 15255 their bondage. IfThe Constitution possesses the paramount authority attributed to it[that is to protect slavery in the Territories] the laws evenof the free States of theUnion would yield to that paramountauthority . You cannot put your finger on the part ofthe Constitution which conveys the right or the power tocarry slaves from one of the States of the Union to anyTerritory of the United States .

” I

Calhoun maintained his contention as long as he livedand in his very last speech— it may be called his dyingspeech— in the Senate. What would have been the ultimate development of his doctrine as to the constitutionalright to hold slave property in the Terri tories i f it had notbeen cut short by the Civil War , is now a matter of speenlation . He himself was apparently doubtful whether theadoption of this doctrine would , of itself , be sufficient topreserve the

“equality of rights"and the

“equilibrium"

so essential , in his view , to the preservation of slavery andthe perpetui ty of the lUnion . In his last speech he intimated that , in order to secure these results , further amendments to the Constitution might be necessary. Whatamendments he had in view he di d not then define. Pre

sumably they were those more fully developed in hisColton, Last Years of Henry Clay, p . 175 .

S lavery in the Territories 53

D i squi sition on Government,‘in which he advocated amend

ments that , if adopted , would have materially curtailedthe powers of both the executive and judicial departments ofthe government , and would have substituted a complicatedscheme of government involving two or more Presidents ,each with a negative or veto power over the action of theothers , a scheme which would have requi red the totalabandonment of our present system— all this in order to

preserve and maintain the slaveholdi ng interests of the

South .

Some of the political doctrines advocated by Calhounh as ; “ Op

wem d when Missouri applied for admi ssioninto thethe first time the free and the slave States

were araayed against each other on the question of slavery .

Calhoun who put the demand s of the Southernslavehold ing interests in plausible shape and who was theirchi ef advocate as long as he lived . Born in 1782 , Calhounhad entered political life at an early age. From 18 1 1 , whenhe entered Congress as a member of the House,

he wasalmost continuously in public life, serving as a member ofboth the Hou se and the Senate, as Secretary of State, and

as Vice-President . He was master of the art of logic and

ranks with the foremost of America ’s reasoners , the peer ofJonathan Edwards and Daniel Webster . Calhoun scornedthe tricks and subterfuges of political trimmers and therewas never any doubt as to where he stood on any politicalquestion . His great political Opponent , Webster , was accused of casting aside his political convi ctions of a lifetime in order to gain the Presidency . N0 such chargewasever made against Calhoun . Indeed , throughout his wholecareer not a particle of evidence can be found sufficient tojustify even a suspicion that he was ever influenced byambition or by any thought of personal aggrand izement .Throughout hi s life he was a steadfast defender of slavery ,but it was because he sincerely believed slavery to

_

be rightand that the welfare of the South depended upon mai n

Calhoun’

s Works, Cralle

’s ed vol. i.

54 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

taining it . Although he advocated what were then re

garded as ultra Southern vi ews , no one ever suspected hissincerity— much less that his utterances were intendedmerely to fire the Southern heart ." During his life heurged them with unremitting zeal and with an eye singleto the interests of the slavehold ing States , but during hislife the times were not ripe for their adoption , either byCongress or by the Democratic party in the North . No

Congress , no national convention , no court ever venturedto sanction them . After his death they were reiterated andpressed with increasing vehemence by Jeff erson Davi s ,Toombs , Yancey , and others of the Calhoun school . Itremained for Chief Justice Taney and hi s associates , following closely in Calhoun ’s steps and using his arg uments , togive to hi s contention that the Constitution itself protectedslavery in the Territories the sanction of the highest jud icialtribunal in the land .

In subsequent chapters it will be more fully shown howCalhoun ’s doctrines were developed and mod ified . He d iedbattling and hOping to the last for the success of the causeto which he had devoted hi s life, but Davis lived to see itforever lost . He lived long enough , however , to see slaveryrap idly nearing the domain of freedom . So near did it getthat Chief Justice Taney had pointed out the promi sedland , and it seemed that nothing could stay its furtherprogress until the storm came that swept slavery fromthe land ; not slavery only but all the bulwarks , all thelaws , al l the arguments , that had been constructed withsuch infinite labor and care for its protection .

We lookwonderingly at all the vast piles of volumes , oftreatises , of speeches , of Calhoun and his d isciples . Thesefossils , relics of the Lost Cause, have lost the life, the powerto convince, which they once had . They and all that theystood for are dead , dead past resurrection .

CHAPTER IV

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE ; BEGINNING A NEW POLITICALERA

N March 26 , 1 804 , the newly acquired territory of

parts . All south of

thirty-three degrees north.

latitudewas called the Territoryof Orleans and

‘

was'

afterwards admi tted into the Umon as

a State under the name of Louisiana . Subsequently all ofthe original Louisiana territory north of thirty-three degreesnorth latitude, includ ing what is now embraced in the Stateof Arkansas , was organized into a Territory called the Territory of Missouri . Large numbers of slaveholders hadmoved into it from Virginia , North Carolina, and otherSouthern States , and petitions of the inhabitants for ad

mission into the Union as a Statewere presented to Congressin 1 8 17. At the second session of the Fifteenth Congress ,whi ch convened on November 16 , 1 8 1 8 , a petition was againpresented , together with another from the inhabitants ofthe south part of the Territory asking the admi ssion of theState under the name of Arkansas . The congressionalcommittee to which the matter was referred reported a billon February 1 3 , 1 81 9 , to enable the inhabitants to form aState constitution preparatory to admission as a State.

At this point James Tallmadge, Jr. , of New York, proposedan ameninto the Territory and another provid ing that all childrenbornafter the State

"

should be free af terarriving at the age of twenty-five years .As when some ravenous beast of prey , rudely d isturbed

55

56 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

in its lair , leaps forth roaring with rage, so slavery now

bounded into the field fierce and defiant . For nearly twoyears the subject was d iscussed in and out of Congress .Henry Clay angrily and vehemently opposed the proposedamendment ; so di d William Pinkney , of Maryland , thenstand ing at the head of Ameri can orators , who drew greatthrongs whenever he spoke on any theme. In support ofthe amendment the strongest Speech made was the one

made by Rufus King , of New York .

Such a restriction , said those who opposed it , is nu

constitutional , unwise, and not possible to carry out . Itis unconstitutional because Congress has no power to layany restriction on any State as a condi tion of its admissioninto the Union ; because, by the treaty of purchase, Congress is pledged to form Lou isiana into States and admitthem into the Union on the same footing with the orig inalStates ; because Missouri will not be on an equal footingwith the original States if forced to abolish slavery beforecoming into the Union ; and because the citizens of eachState are entitled to all the rights , privileges , and im

munities of the citizens of the several States . One of

these rights is that of going wherever a man listeth withhis property— a right which will be most seriously impairedi f the citizens of the slave States are forbidden to settlein Missouri with that kind of property which consists of

slaves . Such a restriction would be unwise, because itwould shut out the Southern emigrant from Missouriand open that splendi d region to free-State men alone ;because such a diminution of emigrants would lessen thenumber of purchasers of land ; because a decrease in the

number of purchasers would be followed by a fall inthe price of public land , and this , in turn , by a seriouslessening of the public revenue. Such a restriction could

never be carried out , for, though the people of Missourishould accept the condi tion and should come into the Unionas a free State they could , whenever they pleased , amendtheir constitut1on and reestabli sh slavery— an act no one

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58 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

refused to vote for the admission of Maine unless Missouri1should also be admitted without restriction as to slavery .

The votes takenduring “the

_ pendency of all thesemeasures“ M n ‘

showed for the first time in the history of_

the country a

divisionon geographi cal and not on party lines. For the

first time the di vi sion was practically between the freeStates and the slave States . So intense was the feelingthat at one time John Randolph proposed to HenryClaythat all the Southern members of the House wi thdraw in a

body .

The excitement in Congress spread throughout thenation .

Meetings were held and State legi slatures passed resolutions ,those of the North opposing , and those of the South favoringthe admission of Missouri without any restriction of slavery .

Jefferson was filled wi th gloomy forebod ing s . To WilliamShort he wrote on April 13 , 1820 :

“The Missouri question

aroused and filled me with alarm . The old schism of

Federal and Republican threatened nothi ng , because itexisted in every State and united them together by thefraternalism of party . But the coincidence of a markedprinciple, moral and political , with a geographical line, onceconceived , I feared would never more be obliterated fromthe mind ; that it would be recurring on every occasion andrenewing irritations until it would kindle such mutual andmortal hatred as to render separation preferable to eternald iscord . I have been among themost sanguine in believingthat our Uni on would be of long duration . I now doubtit very much and see the event at no great d istance, andthe d irect consequence of thi s question .

" Again on April22 , 1 820 , he wrote wi th prophetic vision to John Holmes :“But this momentous question , like a fire-bell in the night ,awakened and filled me wi th terror . I considered it atonce as theknell of the Union . It is hushed indeed for themoment . But this is a reprieve only , not a final sentence.

A geographical line, coincidi ng with a marked principle,moral and political , once conceived and held up to the

Colton, Life of HenryClay, vol. p . 263.

The M issouri Compromis 59

angry passions of men , will never be obliterated , and everynew irri tation wi ll markit deeper and deeper . 1

In the early stages of the controversy the Opponents ofslavery extension were in the majority but before it wasended there appeared in Congress many new members , sothat in the end the result was that Arkansas was admittedas a slave State and Maine as a free State, and a bill waspassed allowing Missouri to form a State constitution preparatory to admission without restriction as to slavery ,but coupled wi th a provi sion forever prohibiting slaverynorth of 36

°

30' north latitude, a line which nearly evenly

di vided the north from the south half of the originalLoui si ana territory .

A significant incident occurred before the final approvalofw i ll

“

: Missouri bill . President Monroe summoned hisCabinet and submitted to the members two questions , first ,whether Congress had a constitutional right to prohibitslavery in a Territory , and second , whether such prohibitionwould be Operative after the formation of the Terri tory intoa State, To the first question all the members includ ingJohnQuincy Adams , John C . Calhoun

,William H . Craw

ford , and WilliamWirt answered in the affirmative. To the

second question Calhoun , Crawford , and Wirt' thought thatthe prohibition continued only while the Territory remainedsuch , while Adams thought that it continued af ter theformation of the State. At Calhoun ’s suggestion the secondquestion was changed to this form :

“Is the eighth sectionOf the Missouri bill consistent with the Constitution ?"

Both questions were answered in writing in the affirmativeand the President signed the bill. 2

The Missouri bill was approved on March 2 , 1820 , and

the Maine bill on March 3 . Thi s,however , was not the

end of the controversy , for when the people of Missouri ,pursuant to the enabling act, reported their constitution

J efi'

erson’

s Works , vol. vi i . , pp . 158 , 159.

See speech of John A. Dix in United States Senate, June 26, 1 848,

Dix's Speeches, vol. i . , pp. 354

—36 1 .

60 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

it was found that it contained a provi sion forbidding theLegislature from ever passing a law emancipating slaveswithout the consent of theirmasters , and another forbidd ingfree negroes or mulattoes from entering the State on any

pretext whatever . Thi s again reopened the controversyand the debate upon it was of themost acrimoni ous character. Henry Clay was Speaker and exerted all hi s power tosecure the admission of Missouri under the constitutionadopted . Randolph had moved for a reconsideration of

one of the votes taken , but Clay ruled that he was out of

order and refused to recognize him until hi s name should bereached in the regular order , but before that time arrivedClay had hurriedly signed the bill and sent it to the Senateand when Randolph

’s name was called Clay reported thatthe bill was then beyond the control Of the House. For

this,whi ch Randolph denounced as a shabby parliamentary

trick , he never forgave Clay .

It was during the debate on the Missouri bill thatRandolph dubbed the Northern members who had votedagainst the restriction of slavery as “doughfaces ,

” a termever afterward s used to characterize the Northern politicians who betrayed the interests of the North in order tocu rry favor in the South .

In after years it was claimed that the South was opposedto the concessions made by the representatives of thatsection in the Missouri bill. Whatever may have beentheir attitude in the beginning of the controversy there canbe no doubt as to their attitude at a later period . It was , asstated by Benton‘: “The workof the South sustained bythe united voice of Mr .

‘Monroe’

s Cabinet , the united voicesof the Southern Senators , and a majority of the Southernrepresentatives .During the excitement attending the controversy overMissouri a fewNorthernmembers were burned in effigy andmost of those who had voted for the admi ssion of Missouriwere defeated for reelection , but after the admission of the

Thi rty Years, etc. ,vol. i . , p. 8 .

The M issouri Compromise 6 1

State the political tumult subsided almost as suddenly as ithad arisen , and what has been known as an

“era of good

feeling"continued during the remainder of the adminis

tration of President Monroe. The nation seemed to restunder the delusion that the slavery ques tion had beenfinally settled . But morals cannot be surveyed like land .

Slavery could nof'

bewrong north of 36°

30’and ri ght

.

sou thOW The compromi se had passed the House of Representatives by a narrowmajority . It was not satisfactory eithertotheNorth or to the South .

rNevertheless for more thanthirty years the people,

at least those of the North , thoughtthat the Missouri Compromise had forever barred the

extension of slavery north of the line fixedgjStephen A .

Douglas said of i t : It is canonized in the hearts of theAmerican people and no ruthless hand will ever dare tod isturb it , — and yet his , more than any other hand , wasthe hand that afterward s helped to tear it up by the rootsand cast it at the feet of the slave power to be trampledand utterly destroyed .

From this period American politics takes a distinct departure and slavery becomes an important and finally a

controlling political factor . It was the strong thread woveninto the warp and woof of American politics by those of theSouth who never relaxed their work,

never , for onemoment ,lost sight of their thread . The end finally crowned theirwork , but the end was not that for which they had so longlabored and hoped .

CHAPTER V

FROM 1 820 TO 1840 ; GROWTH OF ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTIN THE NORTH

AMES MONROE was reelected President in l 1820 ,

practically without Opposition , the only President soelected since George Washington . Out of 232 electoralvotes he received all but one and that was cast by JohnTyler of Virginia . Monroe’s second term embraced whathas been called “the era of good feeling .

”The countrywas

prosperous ; many from the East and from the South werefind ing homes in the fertile regions of the West . Therewere no wars nor rumors of wars , and the people were not

g iving themselves much concern about politics . From the

beginning of the government in 1 789 to the end of Monroe’

s

second term in 1 825 all the Presidents had been chosen fromVirginia and Massachusetts , four from Virginia and two

from Massachusetts , including the sixth , John Qui ncyAdams , who was elected in 1 824 . Adams was succeededby General Andrew Jackson , the hero of the battle of NewOrleans , a man totally unlike any of his predecessors , wi thglaring faults combined with sterling vi rtues , the idol of thecommon people, especially those of the West and South ,and to this day looked upon as one of the patron saints ofthe Democratic party . Jackson was again elected in 1 832

and hi s administration from the begi nning of his first to theend of hi s second term was as stormy as Monroe’s had beenpeaceful. Mention has already been made Of South Carolina ’s attempted nullification of the tariff laws in 1 832 and

62

Growth of Anti-S lavery Sentiment 63

how it was promptly nipped in the bud by Jackson . Manyother exciting political questions engaged the attention Of

the people, but those which were chiefly d iscussed relatedto the United States bank , internal improvements , the tariff ,and removal from office. Possibly more attention wouldhave been given to the slavery question i f Jackson had not

kept the nation in a continual ferment about somethi ng else ;but he was too intent on annihilating the United Statesbank and on exterm inating Federal Ofii ceholders to givemuch attention to slavery and the Aboli tionists . Jacksonwas succeeded in 1837 by Martin Van Buren , who servedfour years .From the beginni ng of the government there had been

more or less Opposition to the extension of slavery, but the

w w fi fi—*W

pol1tical factor prior to1 830 About that time anti slavery

soci eti es began to be organized i n the North , whi ch led totm tion Of the NewEngland Anti Slavery Society in

1 832 , of the New Yorksociety in October , 1833, _

and of the

national organi zation called the American Anti SlayerySociety i n December , 1 833 . In its declaration of principlesadopted by thenational society in Philadelphia on December 4 , it condemned slavery in strong terms and

asserted “that the slaves ought instantly to be set free and

brought under the protection of the law. It expresslydeclared that “we fully and unanimously recogmzfi he

“ a . “n un-ulm n ln N wu 0 "

sovereignty or eaEh State to legi slate exclusively on the

we'

concede that Congress unde'

i‘thepresent na tional com

pact l i as no right to interfere with any of theslave Statesin relation to this momentous subject ” ;2 but itmaintainedthat Congress should abolish slavery in the District of

Columbia and in the Territories and shoul d prohibit thedomestic slave trade between the several States .

”

To

accompli sh”these ends the means tobe employed were

stated to be as followsJohnson, Garri son, p . 473. Ibid . , p. 477.

64 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

We shall organize anti-slavery societies i f possible inevery city , town , and village in our land .

“We shall send forth agents to lift up the voice of remonstrance, of warning , of entreaty , and rebuke.

“We shall circul ate unspar ingly and extensively antislavery tracts and period icals .

‘We shall enl ist the pulpit and the press in the cause Of thesuffering and the dumb .

We shall aim at a purification of the churches from all

participation in the guilt of slavery .

We shall encourage the labor of free men rather thanthat Of slaves by giving a preference to their productions .We shall spare no exertions normeans to bring thewhole

nation to a speedy repentance.

Simultaneously or nearly so with the organi zation Of theseanti-slavery societies , affiliated local societies were formed

in many localities in the North , and it has been stated thatwithin nine years after the organization of the nationalsociety there were in the Uni ted States over two hund redsocieties with a membership of two hundred thousand .

Abolition newspapers were started in d iff erent parts of theUnited States , one by William Lloyd Garrison , entitledThe Li berator, at Boston in the year 1 83 1 ; another calledThe Emancipator, at NewYorkCity in 1 833 ; another , ThePhi lanthropi st, at Cincinnati in 1 836 ; another , The AltonObserver, at Alton , Illinois , and others at various other

Of all these newspapers , the onemost influential in creating sentiment and most od ious to the slave interests wasTheLi berator. Garrison was one of the foremost of the antislavery p ioneers . Born in Newburyport, Massachusetts , in1804 , he became a printer at an early age and later was i

sconnected wi th various newspapers . In 1 829 he became associ ated with Benjamin Lundy in the publication at Baltimore, Maryland ,

Of the Genius of Universa l Emancipation ,

but his vigorous attacks on slavery stirred up a furious

Johnson, Garri son, p . 478.

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66 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

Not only woul d Garrison make no concession to slaveryhe would make no concessions even to win the alliance of

those Opposed to i t i f such concession would involve theslightest deviation from the line Of attack which he ad

vocated . Like Grant in later years , he proposed to fightit out on this line and on no other .The Liberator was not less offensive to the slaveholders

by reason of the character of its attacks than it was byits frontispiece, which was a pictorial representation of anauction of

“slaves , horses , and other cattle,

” with a slavetied to a whipping-post and being whi pped by an overseer ,and a picture of the capitol of Virginia with a flag on whichwas delineated Liberty floating over the dome.

In the summer of 1 83 1 , a few months after the establishment of The Li berator, there occurred in Virginia an insurrection of slaves , led by Nat Turner , a negro , i n whichsixty-onewhite people, includingmen

,women , and chi ldren ,

were ruthlessly slaughtered . It was never shown , and

probably was not true, that Turner or his associateshad ever read or heard of any Abolition papers or tracts ,but it was believed in the South that Turner had been insome way inspired by them in starting the insurrection .

All these things , as might well be supposed , createdthroughout the South a very intense and bitter feelingagainst all Abolitionists everywhere. More stringent slavelegislation was enacted throughout the South and severelaws were passed making it a crime to circulate Abolitionpapers or documents . No known Abolitionist ’s life wassafe in that region . Rewards were offered by Southerncommittees , and some by State legislatures , for the captureOf leading Northern Abolitionists , the prices Offered varyingaccordi ng to the prominence Of the Abolitionist . A vigi

lance committee in Louisiana advertised in a New Orleanspaper a reward of for the capture and delivery Of

Arthur Tappan , the president of the American Anti-SlaveryA reduced facsimile of this frontispiece is shown in Garri son and his

Times, p. 393 .

Growth of Anti-S lavery Sentiment 67

Society . The Georgia Legislature offered a reward of

$5000 for the arrest and convi ction of Garrison . The

South Carolina Legi slature passed a resolution requestingthe governors of the non-slaveholdi ng States to ‘‘

promptlyand effectively suppress all those associations withi n theirrespective limi ts purporting to be Abolition societies .Other Southern Legislatures adopted similar resolutionswhich were transmitted to the governors of the non-slavehold ing States and by them to the Legislatures of their respective States . NO Northern Legislature acceded to theserequests . One Northern Governor , Edward Everett , thenGovernor of Massachusetts , recommended the passage Of

such legi slation , but the Massachusetts Legislature refusedto follow his recommendation .

In his annual message of December 7, 1835 , PresidentJackson invi ted speci al attention to the painful excitement

produced in the South by attempts to circulate through themails inflammatory appeals addressed to the passions of theslaves in prints and in various sorts of publications , calculated to stimulate them to insurrection and to produce allthe horrors of a servile war , and recommend ing the passing Of such a law as would prohibit under severe penaltiesthe ci rculation in the Southern States , through themail , ofincend iary publications intended to instigate the slaves toinsurrection .

” 2 In the Senate the matter was referred to aselect committee of which John C . Calhoun was chairmanand the committee reported a bill making it a penal Off ensefor any postmaster to knowingly receive and put into themail any publication or picture touching the subject Of

slavery to go into any State orTerritory in which the circulation of such publication or picture should be forbidden bythe State law. Thi s wasfi so palpable fl

an inf ringement On thefreedom of the press that Clay , Crittenden, B enton. and

it)“

our other Southern Senators voted agains t it and the bi llwasrejected by a vote of twenty fi- ve to nineteen. Only three

Garri son and hi s Times , p . 2 14.

Presid ents ' Messages, vol. iii. , pp . 175 , 176 .

68 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

Senators of the Northern States voted in favor Of it : JohnRobinson , of Illinois , Silas Wright , of NewYork, and James

Buchanan , of Pennsylvani a .

ll

During Van Buren ’s admini stration the constitutionalri ght of petition was severely tested . This right was sohighly regarded by our English ancestors that it was ex

pressly provided in the Bill of Rights“that it is the right Of

the subject to petition the king and all commitments andprosecutions for said petitioning are illegal .A striking Object-lesson of the value of the right of peti

tion had been given in the early coloni al history Of Massachusetts , when Samuel Maverick and others presented tothe General Court a petition setting forth , among othergri evances , that the fundamental laws of England were notowned by the colony , and that the petitioners had beenexcluded from the civil and religious rights and privilegesto which they were entitled solely for the reason that theywere members of the Church of England ,

“though otherwisesober , righteous , and godly ,

"and praying that if their civil

and reli gious liberties were denied them they m ight befreed from the heavy taxes and other burdens imposedupon them . They were brought before the General Court ,where they pleaded their right of petition , but their pleawas d isregarded and they were heavi ly fined .

2

In view of its importance the right of petition was carefully guarded in the Constitution of the United States and

'

in the first section of the bill Of rights it is expressly providedthat Congress shall make no law abridging the right of

the people“to petition the government for a redress Of

grievances .This much has been said about the right Of petition in

order to show that it was regarded both by our Englishand our American ancestors as a constitutional right of theutmost importance. Its value was soon put to the test by

Benton, Thi rty Years, etc. , vol. i . , pp. 580—88 ; Curtis, Buchanan,

vol. i . , p . 357.

3 Hutchinson, Hi story of Massachusetts , vol. i . , p . 137.

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70 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

rules of the House respecting such petitions . Some of the

Southern members immed iately flew into a great rage and

sought to have Ad ams brought to the bar of the House andcensured . One member thought that the petition ought tobe taken and burned ; another , Waddy Thompson of SouthCarolina

,said that Adams ’s conduct was a proper subject

of inqu iry by the grand jury of the District of Columbia , asit would be under the law in South Carolina .

To all this Adams made a d ignified but spirited defense.

To the objections urged that the signers of the petition werefree negroes and persons Of immoral character he answered :Where is your lawwhi ch says that the mean , the low,

and

the degraded shall be deprived Of the right of petition , i ftheir moral character is not good ? Where, in the land Of

freemen , was the right Of petition ever placed on the exclusive basis Of morality and virtue? Petition is supplicationit is entreaty — it is prayer ! And where is the degree of viceor immorality which shall deprive the citizen of the right tosupplicate for a boon , or to pray for mercy ? Where issuch a law to be found ? It does not belong to the mostabject despotism . There is no absolute monarch on earthwho is not compelled ,

by the constitution of his country , toreceive the petitions of his people, whosoever they may be.

The Sultan of Constantinople cannot walkthe streets andrefuse to receive petitions from themeanest and '

vilest in theland . This is the law even of despotism ; and What doesyour law say ? Does it say that , before presenting a petition , you shall look into it , and see whether it comes fromthe virtuous , and the great , and themighty ? NO sir ; it saysno such thing . The right of petition belongs to al l ; and so

far from refusing to present a petition because it mightcome from those low in the estimation of the world , itwould be an add itional incentive, if such an incentive werewanting .

”

To Thompson’s suggestion that thematter shoul d be laid

before the grand jury Of the District of Columbia , he said :If this is true— if a member is there made amenable to

Growth o f Anti-S lavery Sentiment 7 1

the grand jury for words spoken in debate — I thank GodI am not a citizen of South Carolina ! Such a threat , whenbrought before the world ,

would excite nothing but con

tempt and amazement . What ! are we from the NorthernStates to be ind icted as felons and incend iaries for presentingpetitions not exactly agreeable to some members from the

South , by a jury of twelve men ,appointed by a marshal,

his office at the pleasure of the President ! If the gentlemanfrom South Carolina , by bringing forward this resolution ofcensure, thinks to fri ghten me from my purpose, he hasmistaken his man . I am not to be intimidated by him , nor

by all the grand juri es of the universeThe debate lasted four days . In the meantime the fact ,

overlooked by Adams ’s enemies in their rage and eagerness tohave him censured , at last dawned upon them , that he hadneither presented nor Off ered to present the petiti on , buthad merely asked the Opinion of the Speaker of the Housewhether it came Withi n the rules or not, and that the mostthat they had accomplished was to catch a tartar .It also came out that the petition was a forgery,

a contemptible hoax , which the perpetrators of it had succeededin palming off upon the House and upon Adams himself ; sothat by thi s time Adams ’s foes as well as his friends werethoroughly d isgusted with the whole matter and the at

tempt to censure resulted in flat failure. Thus Adamsescaped censure and came out victorious in hi s fight for theright of petition .

1

The Southern members Of Congress became wrought upto the highest p itch of exasperation when in 1838 WilliamSlade of Vermont presented a set of resolutions of the

Vermont Legislature accompanied with various memorialsin favor of suppressing slavery and the slave trade in theDistrict of Columbia , and moved their reference to a selectcomm itteewith instructions to report a bill for that purpose.

This at once precipitated what Benton characterized as“the most angry and portentous debate whi ch had yet

Quincy, Life of John QuincyAdams , pp . 25 1-57.

72 Political H istory of Secess ion

taken place in Congress . Wilson agrees with Benton asto the exciting character Of the debate, but, of course,

takesan entirely d iff erent view of the question from that takenby Benton .

2 The Southern members after adjournmentheld a caucus in which some were in favor of taking immedi ate steps for a d issolution of the Union , but thenext day,

in order to head off Abolition memorials and

petitions to Congress without interfering with the con

stitutional right of petition , an ingenious device was re

sorted to by the adoption of Rule 2 1 of the House,afterwards known as the “Atherton gag ,

” by which itwas provided that

“every petition , memorial , resolution ,

proposition , or paper , touching or relating in any way , orto any extent whatever , to slavery or the abolition thereofshall , on presentation , without any further action thereon ,be laid upon the table without being debated , printed ,or referred .

” 3 A similar rule was adopted in the Senateand the House and Senate rules remained in force until1 845 .

Adams persisted in his advocacy of the right of petitionand in 1 842 presented a petition from d ivers ci tizens OfHaverhill , Massachusetts , praying for a d issolution of the

Union . For this he was bitterly assailed in Congress andout of it , and again an attempt was made to have him cen

sured by the House, but again he stood hi s ground , defyinghis enemies and promising to show in his defense that

“aportion Of the country from which his assailants came wasendeavori ng to destroy the right of habeas corpus and of

trial by jury and all the rights in whi ch the liberties of thecountry consisted ,

”and that there was in that portion Of

the country “a systematic attempt even to carry it to thedi ssolution of the Uni on , with a continual system and pur

pose to destroy all the principles of civil liberty among the

Thi rty Years , vol. p . 150.

Ri se and Fall, vol. i . , pp . 350—53 .

3 Itwas suspected at the time that John C. Calhoun was the rea lauthor of this rule.

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74 Po litica l H istory of Secess ion

the legislative bodyto whi ch the petition was addressed ,which might refer it to a committee, lay it on the table, or

reject it . In the next place they claimed ,and this was true,

that most of the petitions were presented without any

expectation whatever of favorable action upon them .

Indeed , John Quincy Adams almost always prefaced hisremarks in presenting the petitions introduced by him withthe statement that he d id not concur in the views of thepetitioners and that he should vote against them . Thi sbeing so , they claimed that no useful purpose would besubserved by daily d iscussions of such petitions , but on thecontrary such d iscussions , characterized , as they alwayswere , with denunciations of the sin of slavery , could haveno other result than to arouse the angry passions of themembers , many of whom were slaveholders themselves ,to increase the growing feeling of bitterness between theNorth and the South , and to endanger the stability Of the

Union . Therefore they claimed that the best course on

such petitions was summarily to reject them .

There was much truth in what was said by the Southernpeople about the petitions that prayed for the abolition of

slavery in the States where it was conceded to be protectedby the Constitution of the United States and over whi chCongress had no jurisd iction whatever . Possibly no greatObjection would have been raised to the rejection of petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia ,for slavery existed there when it was ceded by Marylandand Virginia to the Federal government . But the petitionsfor the abolition of the slaveg age in the District of Columbia stood upon a d ifferent ground . The advocates of

slavery mi ght have expected that there would be continuedand emphatic protests against the location in the Districtof Columbia of slave pens and auction blocks where men ,

women , and children were herded and sold like cattle, al lthis in full view of the halls Of Congress and in sight ofall the ambassadors and other representatives of civilizednations , nearly every one of which had abolished slavery

Growth of Anti-S lavery Sentiment 75

and had d eclared the carrying of slaves on the high seas tobe piracy . Nobody denied that Congress had the powerto aboli sh the slave trade in the District , and it is probablethat there were many among the slaveholders themselveswho were not unwilling that it should be abolished there.

The question of the right of petition was sharply presentedin a petition presented on January 1 1 , 1 836 , by JamesBuchanan ,

then a Senator of Pennsylvania , signed by themembers of a Pennsylvania Quaker society and prayingfor the abolition Of slavery in the District of Columbia .

Buchanan had made the usual prefatory speech disclaimingany sympathy with the petitioners , denouncing the Abolitionists , and recommend ing that the petition be immed iatelyrejected .

x This called forth a speech from Calhoun 2 inwhich he very clearly and forcibly defined his views on thelimits of the constitu tional right of petition , citing numerousEnglish precedents to prove that the absolute right of

petition extended no further than the right to present it .Deprive deliberative bod ies of the essential and primaryright to determine at their pleasure what to receive and

what to reject “and they would ,he argued ,

“become the

passive receptacle, indi ff erently , of all that is frivolous ,absurd ,

unconstitutional, immoral , and impious , as well aswhat may properly demand their deliberation and action .

Establish this monstrous , this impious principle, as itwould prove to be in practice, and what must be the con

sequence? To what would we commit ourselves ? If apetition shoul d be presented praying the abolition of the

Constitution (whi ch we are all bound by our oaths toprotect) , accordi ng to this abominable doctrine it must bereceived . So , if it prayed the abolition of the Decalogue orof the Bible itself . I go further : i f the Abolition societiesshoul d be converted into a body of Atheists , and shouldask the passage of a law denying the existence of the

Almighty Being above us , the Creator Of all, according to

Curtis, Life of Buchanan,vol. i . , p . 3 19.

3 March 9, 1836. Calhoun'

s Works, vol. ii. , p . 48 1 .

76 Po l itical H istory of Secess ion

this blasphemous doctrine we would be bound to receivethe petition , to take jurisd iction of it .Disclaiming any di srespect

”to Buchanan , whose i n

tention Calhoun believed to be good and whose “feelingswere with the South , Calhoun nevertheless denouncedBuchanan ’ s proposed method of d isposing of such petitionin severe terms . “

The Senator from Pennsylvania hasfallen on a device to receive this petition and immedi atelyreject it without consideration or reflection . To my mindthe movement looks like a trick— a mere piece of artificeto juggle and deceive.

" It must be admitted that Calhoun

’

s plan of d isposing of the Abolition petitions was muchmore honest and straightforward than that of Buchanan .

I Notwi thstanding the resolute stand of the little band in

1Congress that stood opposed to the further extension of

slavery , and the eff orts of the anti-slavery societies in thei North , opposition to the Aboli tionists seemed for a time to

be growing in the North , until in many places it seemed tobe scarcely less intense than it was in the South .

There was in the North a strong love of the Union and a

desire to avoid stirring up a feeling in the South that mightlead to its d issolution . The excitement growing out Of thepassing Of the Missouri Compromise soon di ed out and

there was a strong aversion to renewing it . A profitabletrade had g rown up between the commercial and manufacturing sections of the North and the Southern States .In New England there had been a great increase in thenumber Of cotton mills , in whi ch a large amount of capitalhad been invested and whi ch employed many operatives .Everywhere in the North the commerci al interests werehostile to the Abolitioni sts . Few in the North had seenthe worst features of slavery , the flogg ings of slaves , theauction block, where men and women were sold like cattle,the tearing asunder Of parents and their children . Whatthey had seen in social intercourse was chiefly the courtlymanners and the charming hospitality Of Southern society .

At this day it is di ffi cult to understand the attitude of

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78 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

So long as the Union was maintained and was governedby theConstitution , and the slave States would not, of theirown accord , abolish slavery , Garrison saw no way to di ssolve what he deemed to be an unholy alli ance, but for thefree States themselves to withdraw from the Uni on , and so

he advocated ,

“NO Union wi th slaveholders and the dis

ution Of the Union .

Deeming it wrong to take part in helping to carry on agovernment which recognized and protected slavery , heand his followers finally resolved to abstain from votingand continued in this resolution until after the beginning ofthe Civil War .Failing to enlist the clergy, Garrison became more and

imore bitter in his denunciation of the Church— _ not of the

Christian relig ion itself , but of the clergy who refused toespouse the Abolition cause. The Abolitionists were inflamed all the more by the excuses given by the clergy .

The excuse usually given by the clergy was , as theAbolitionhistorians give it , 1 that they were just as much opposed toslavery as the Aboli tionists , but —and then followed a longstring of excuses about the danger of immedi ate emancipation ; that the slaves themselves were not prepared for it ;that the colonization scheme was much preferable ; that thed iscussion of the subject tended to produce riot and a dissolution of the Uni on ; together with plentiful quotationsfrom the Scriptures such as those used by the slaveholdersin the South .

Nevertheless the clergy remained Obdurate to the appealsof the Abolitionists and went on compounding for the sinstheir congregations

were inclined toBy damning those they had no mind to,

preaching about the sins of men who had been dead fortwo thousand years or more, but carefully avoid ing anyallusion to the sin of hold ing men and women in bondage in

Garri son and hi s Times, p . 159.

Growth of Anti-S lavery Sentiment 79

America in the nineteenth century . But there never wasa time when there were not great preachers , like Charmingand Parker and Henry Ward Beecher, who denouncedslavery and who would not be silenced .

What added to the odi um in which Abolitionists wereheld

h

at'

thi s'

period was the fact that many of those whoespoused

”

andi

advocated the cause of Abolition also advo

Oat'

e'

d i nany'

other newfangled “isms,

” wild and visionarynOtions of state and church policy , that were exceedi nglyObnoxious to the people generally , until in the popular mindth

u

e

fi h

te'

fin Abolitionist came to represent almost everything that was od ious . Accord ing to Andrew D . Whitex“therefollowed in the train of the nobler thinkers and ora

tors the ‘FOO1 Reformers '— sundry long-haired men and

short-haired women , who thought it their duty to stir goodChristian people with blasphemy , to deluge the founders ofthe Republic wi th blackguard ism , and to invent ever moreand more ingeni ous ways for driving every sober-mindedman and woman out of the anti-slavery fold . More thanonce in those days I hung my head in d isgust as I listenedto these people and wondered for the moment whether,af ter all, even the supremacy of slaveholders might not bemore tolerable than the new heavens and the new earth inwhich should dwell such bedraggled , screaming , denunciatory creatures .The result was thatfi

Abolitionfi

i smy

finallym eameteg be w

ge

gardET as"

fiOt'

TBcst table 5551”

theAbolitionists were wellnigh ir

'

i"

churches , colleges , and‘

in”

business”

and

all this led to“alarm ing riots.

Abolition'

newspaper Offices all over the North were raidedM 9 “ .

and destroyed , and wereinsiilté d

"

and"mobbed year

referr'

ed lte'

fas: the mob year , though _ there'

werenm

iOl

bs‘

b'

é fore and after that time. Two of thesejn particul'

aTrmarked theheights of popular frenzy againstjhe Abolitioni sts .

Autobi ography, vol. i . , pp . 64, 65 .

80 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

In 1 835 , Garrison himself was mobbed ,a rope was tied

around his body by which he was dragged through thestreets Of Boston , and he was finally placed in jail , on thewalls of which he traced these memorable word s : “WilliamLloyd Garri son was put into this cell on Wednesday afternoon , October 2 1 , 1835 , to save him from the violence of a‘respectable

’

and influential mob who sought to destroyhim for preachi ng the abominable and dangerous doctrinethat ‘all men are created equal ’ and that all Oppression isod ious in the sight of God .

In 1 837 the Rev . Elijah Lovejoy was murdered by a mob

in Alton , Illinois , for persisting in the publication of an

Abolition paper . The shock was felt with even greaterforce on the shores of Massachusetts Bay than it was on thebanks of the Mississippi . A meeting was held in FaneuilHall to express d isapproval of the murder Of Lovejoy and

the suppression of freedom of speech and of the press ; butat that period an Abolitionist was almost as od ious in Bostonas he would have been in South Carolina . A large numberof those who Opposed the object of the meeting attended ,

undoubtedly for the purpose Of breaking up themeeting , orat least intimidating those who were in sympathy with theObject of it . a .mesT _ _

Austin , then Attegieylg m

eneral of the

State, was present, and rising from hi s seat inmade an off ensive speech , comparing those who would freethe slaves to men who would let loose a menagerie of lions ,tigers , hyenas , and other wild beasts . He bitterly denouncedLovejoy and said that “he d ied as the fool di eth . Wen

dell Phillips was present . He was not one Of the invi tedSpeakers and he had gone to the meeting wi thout anyintention Of taking an active part in it . He was a youngman

,only twenty-four years old , of ancient and honorable

lineage, a descendant of one Of the Oldest and most highlyhonored families Of Massachusetts , rich , highly educated ,eloquent . To be one Of the first fami lies counts for as muchin Massachusetts as it does in Virg ini a and Wendell Philli pswas one Of the first . Through his veins coursed the bluest

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82 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

After Garrison separated from the main body of the Abolitionists he still maintained hi s fight against slavery , andcontinued the publication of The Li berator until the end of

the year 1 865 . He set in type with his own hands andpublished in the next to the last number of hi s paper theThirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the UnitedStates . With the publication of the next number thepublication ceased . He had the good fortune that falls tothe lot of few reformers to see accomplished before hisdeath the reform to which he had devoted his life work .

It is d ifficult even yet tomeasure the meed of praise or

censure of this remarkable man . Of the purity of his

private life, his courage, hi s unselfish devotion to the causewhich he espoused as his life work, there can be no doubt .When he began his labors the North was fast settling into~

stupor of indi ff erence to slavery . Garrison gaveit a rude awakeni ng , but it roused the North from its

lethargy . He was a born fighter . He had all the qualifica

tions needed for a soldi er on the firing line, but he lacked theessential qualifica tions Of a commander . His temperamentwas such that he could fight hi s foes better than he couldwork in harmony wi th those whom he should havemade hi sallies . He would make no concession to either friends or

foes . He would batter down any obstacle that stood in hisway wi thout deviating a hair

’s breadth in order to go aroundit

, even in cases wheremost men would not have consideredit as involving any sacrifice Of principle to go around .

The chi ef defect i n,

Garrison’s plans of opposing slavery

was in his persistent refusal to favor any organi zed politicalaction , the very thing the Abolitionists most needed— in

fact‘

nbsolutely ind ispensable to any successfnl oppos itipnto the encroachments of the slave power . If making facesat Southern slaveholders and firing paper wads at them hadbeenkept up until doomsday not a single slaveholder wouldhave been converted . Indeed the “irrepressible conflictwoul d probably have ended in the country becoming all

slave instead of all free, unless , indeed , which is the more

Growth of Anti-S lavery Sentiment 83

probable, there had been a secession of part of the NorthernStates , in which case secession would probably have begunwith that of the New England States instead of the cottonStates . Nevertheless Garrison made a begi nning , and attimes when the anti—slavery sentiment in the North seemed

to be burning low,showing scarcely a Sign of a living spark ,

he and his co-workers fanned into life the smoldering em

bers and kept them alive.

Probably too much credi t has been given Garri son and

the Abolitionists by Northern writers , and too much blame

by those of the South . Reference has been made in aformer chapter‘to the theory of Mr . Herbert that the formation of the Abolition societies in the North was “theinitial cause of all our troubles .

”All arguments on this

subject , however , are finally reduced to one, involving a

single question : whether slavery was right or wrong .,Jf

it was an evil , the logical conclusion must be that it nevera." m agn um -m m

a ._n un An n !

”

have been extinguished s1mply1

by fitting it alone.

w fi fi G

So long as any great political or social evi_ l exi sts , thereqwillfi n al nu

be, and must be, agitation in order to erad icate or restrain it .

end_

may_be— often they are -erroneous , but it would bei l ls -JD M N “m u

’w -"u ,

illogical for this reason alone to them with cu lpability for the continuance of the evil itself . I

to chargeGarrison and the Abolitioni sts with responsibilityfor the continuance of slavery and the Civi l War that resulted from the attempts to perpetuate it , as it would be tocharge the continuance of intemperance and its attendantevi l consequences to the efforts , however ill-advised , of

those who seekto prohi bit or to check it.

Historica l facts seem , at least to those who believe thatAmerican slavery was an evil, to justify the conclusion thatthe initial cause of the Civil War was slavery itself and theefforts to perpetuate and extend it , and that it was slavery

' sinsatiate greed formore territory and its increasing demand sfor further concessions , growing more and more exacting

Chapter I ., p .

84 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

and exasperating to the people of the North , that at lastkindled the flames of the Civil War . Northern peoplegenerally believe that it was slavery itself that , in itsmadness , supplied the fuel for thefire in whi ch it was utterlyconsumed , root and branch .

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86 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

complication of di seases , butwas certainly dead beyond anyhope of resurrection . Its opponent , thefi ep ubhg wm fl y,“ m m a“broke into fragments known for a time as National Republican and Democratic Republican . Out of the ruins of allthe old parties there sprang up inT§§2 the DemocratIC

-A Am I ”~d“O ' M -m m «It A l‘ u

a .“

party , which absorbed most of‘

th'

én

Di

emocratic orjefierson_ _ a u c -n 'fi

and in 1 834 the Whigm party, which'

tbokover mo

q

sti

bf the old Federalists anu

d'

Natiofi lNone o f the political parties up to this time had

‘

taken adecided stand on the slavery question .

B efore the close of Van Buren ’s term the political partiesbegan to make preparations for the election of hi s successor .The old caucus system of nominating cand idates for President and Vice-President had been abandoned and thereafter nominations weremade by national conventions . VanBuren was a cand idate for a second term and had no con

siderable opposition in the Democratic party ; but therewere several aspirants for the nomination in the Whigparty , includ ing General William Henry Harrison , HenryClay , and Daniel Webster.TheWhig National Convention met in Harrisburg , Penn

sylvania , on December 4 , 1 839 . Whi le nominally a Whigconvention it was aimed by its managers to unite all the

elements of opposition to Van Buren . An artfully devi sedscheme was contrived by which to enable a few to controlthe nominations . Henry Clay and his friends had confi

dently counted upon his being made the presidential candi date, but he was sacrificed for a cand idate thought to bemore available. The anti-Masons were charged with beinglargely instrumental in bringing about the resul t . JohnQuincy Adam s wrote . in his di ary : “He [Gales] told me

that the nomination bf Harrison at Harrisburg was thetriumph of anti-Masonry and was entirely the work of W .

H.Seward , the present Governor of New York . At any

rate the convention nomi nated William Henry Harri son of

1 Memoi rs of John Quincy Adams, vol. x., p. 152 . See Von Holst,

Const. and P ol. Hi st. , vol. ii . , pp . 366 et seq.

The Pol itica l Campa ign of 1840 87

Ohio for President and John Tyler of Virg inia for VicePresi dent , but di d not adopt a platform . So careful was

commi tting the. party to any de

ip‘

les‘of any

,kind . on,

or anything else, that it refused evento issue an address or any declaration of principles whatever,after a speech made by Mr . Burnell of Massachusetts whodeclared : “There was no need of an address . If the voiceof theWest , rolling down from themountains and along thevalleys of the Atlantic , be not better than all the addressesthat were ever issued , then indeed a miracle had beenwrought . ” And so the Whig party , afraid to adopt anydeclaration of principles , sku lked behind the reputation ofits cand idate, relying for success mainly upon the voice of

the West “rolling down from the mountains ”— the whoopsand hurrahs for Tippecanoe and Tyler too .

In their eagerness to find a vote-getter for President them “

Whigs made the mIStake that has more than"once beenof not sufficiently scrutinizing

’

thi

e qualificationsof the candi date for Vice President Tyler was not theturncoat and traitor to his party that we might suppose

charges made by the Whigs after thedeath of Harrison . It Is true that he had little 1n commonwith theWhigs , but this they might have known i f they hadtaken any pains to examine his prior record , whighfl shpwedhim_ _ to be opposed tot he 11941292.”grates Bank and to the

Whig ideas of a protective tariff and internal improvements .Upon the question of slavery he was at one with John C .

State and In advocating the dop trrne of the constitutionalright of Southern slaveholders to take their slaves into~anyof the Territories . In the final vote in the Senate on theForce bill, which was intended to vest in President Jacksonsufficient military force to suppress nullification in SouthCarolina , Tyler cast the only vote gi ven against it in theSenate ; but as it was

“anything to beat Van Buren , and

it was supposed that Tyler would add some strength to the

88 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

ticket , he was chosen unanimously as candi date for VicePresident .‘

The convention was not mistaken in its estimate of

Harrison 's popularity . He was by birth a Virginian of

the first families . ” His father , Benjam in Harrison , wasone of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and

had been Governor of Virg inia and Speaker of the Continental Congress . General Harrison himself at the age of

nineteen had entered the military service of the UnitedStates . He had served wi th d istinction as an aide of General Wayne, “Mad Anthony ,

” in the Ind ian wars in the

Northwest and had been complimented for his gallantryby Wayne in his official reports . He had achieved nationalrenown for his victory in 1 8 1 1 at the battle of Tippecanoeand afterwards had served with di stinction in the War of1 8 1 2 as commander of the army of the Northwest , achievingadditional renown for his victory over the allied forces of theBritish and the Ind ians under Tecumseh at the battle of

the Thames in 1 8 1 3 . For these reasons he had become the

idol of all the soldiers who had served with him , those of

Virginia and Pennsylvania and especially those of Kentucky ,Ohio , Ind iana , and Illinois . Harrison had also served withcred it in Congress as delegate from theNorthwest Terri tory,as Governor of Ind iana Territory, and as a member of boththeHouse and the Senate from Ohio. His last public servi ceprior to his election to the Presidency was that of Ministerto Colombia , to which post he had been appointed in 1 828

by President John Quincy Adams and from which he wasremoved by General Jackson during his wholesale removalof Federal officeholders . After retiring from public life hehad settled on a farm inear North Bend in Ohi o, where hehad dwelt in a log cabin , living the simple life of a plainfarmer , sharing with his neighbors in the hardships of

Western pioneer life. He had been nomi nated by theLegislatures of several States for President in 1 836 and , out of a

See Fiske's Essay on Harrison, Tyler, and the Whig Campaign,Essays, vol. i . , p . 3 15 .

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90 Po l itica l H istory of S ecessmn

object of whi ch was to ameliorate the cond ition of slavesand procure their freedom by every legal means . ” But

at the time when Harrison joined the Abolition society of

Richmond , Washington , Jefferson , and many other slaveholders of Virgi nia were in favor of the abolition of slavery .

This at most , therefore, was only one of the ind iscretions ofyouth . In the campaign of 1 840 , however , in a speech atColumbus , Ohio ,

he felt called upon to refute as a baseslander a campaign story whi ch represented him

“as confessing to a young man on a steamboat that he was anAbolitionist . ” 2 Harrison ’s record on the slavery questionleft no doubt as to where he stood in 1840. As Governor ofIndi ana Territory he had aided the Virginia party thereWhich sought to suspend , at least temporarily , the operationof the provision of theOrd inance of 1787 prohibiting slaveryin the Northwest Territory .

3 As a member of Congressfrom Ohio he had voted for the admission of Missouriwithout any restriction as to slavery . In the Fourth of

July speech in Hamilton County , Ohio , already mentioned ,

he had justified his vote in Congress on the admission of

Missouri , claim ing that it was not just to Virgi nia , which hadceded so large a territory as that of theNorthwest Territory,consenting that slavery should be forever excluded therefrom ,

“to exclude her citizens from every part of the terri

tory purchased out of the common fund ,” thus using one

of the very arguments used by Cal houn . In a speech atVincennes , Indi ana , in May , 1 835 , he strongly denouncedthe Abolitionists and the presumption of an unfiedged

youth who“at themoment of his leaving— indeed in many

instances before he has left it— his theological seminary

Niles, Tippecanoe Text-Book, p . 69.

2 Norton, The Tippecanoe Campai gn, p . 175.

3 HomerWebster, paper on “William Henry Harrison’s Administration of Indiana Territory,” Indi ana Hi stori cal Soci ety Publicati ons , vol.iv.

, p . 195 ; Jacob Piatt Dunn, Hi story of Indiana , 2d ed . , pp . 355 et seq. ;

paper by same author on “Slavery Petitions and Papers in Ind iana

Hi storical SocietyP ublications, vol. ii . , p . 443 .

The Pol itica l Campa ign of 1840 9 1

undertakes to give lectures upon morals to the countrymenof Wythe, Tucker , Pendleton , and Lowndes , and lessons ofpolitical wi sdom to States whose aff airs have so recentlybeen d irected by Jeff erson and Madi son , Macon and Crawford . While adm itting the constitutional provisions forthe protection of freedom of speech and of the press , heasserted that it could never have been expected that it[the constitutional provision] would be used by the citizensof one portion of the State for the purpose of deprivingthose of another portion of the right which they had re

served at the adoption of the Constitution , and in the

exercise of which none but themselves had any concern or

interest . If slavery is an evil it is with them .

”The opera

tions of the Abolition societies , he claimed ,

“should be

stopped immed iately . This can only be done by the forceof public opinion , and that cannot too soon be brought intooperation . Every movement which is made by the Abolitioni sts in the non-slavehold ing States is viewed by our

Southern brethren as an attack upon their ri ghts , and which ,i f persisted in , must in the end erad icate those feelings of attachment and affection between the citizens of all the Stateswhich was [were] produced by the community of interestsand dangers in the war of the Revolution , which was thefoundation of our happy Union and by a continuance of

which it can alone be preserved . I entreat you then tofrown upon the measures which are to produce the resultsso much to be deprecated . Surely no d isciple of Calhouncould have g iven more convincing proof of his loyalty to theslavehold ing cause.

The slavery question was the vital one in the South , andinW the

‘

boii‘

ntry more i nter€§F€d i ii

“

kiiSWing how Harrison stood upon that questionthawin knowing how he stood uponth

'

e'

tari ffhbanks , sub

other question . His Vincennes speech ,however,and published letters of the same tenor were con

sidered as entirely satisfactory . The Charleston (5 . C.)Niles, Tippecanoe Text-Book, pp . 71 , 72 .

92 Politica l H istory of Secess ion

Courier said : We gi ve below further evidence of GeneralHarrison ’s soundness on the subject ofAbolition . No furtherconfirmation is needed by us , since our knowledge of hisVincennes speech and his recent renewed avowal of it in anextract of a letter from him published in our paper . The

New Orleans Bee in speaking of Harrison ’s opinions on the“rights of the South ” and of his entire soundness uponthat absorbing topic,

”declared : The evidences heretofore

laid before the public were su fficient to convince any oneopen to human testimony that the slave States had not afaster friend than William Henry Harrison

,or one who .

would more rigi dly guard the rights secured to us by our

sacred Constitution .

In themay however , the question of slavery had verylittie

n

eg

fiect on the election follofviw

rigfi

.

‘

fi é

'

ré”

were otherfactors that gave theWhi gs the advantage in the start .The

‘

countf‘

y

'

h ad'

not yet recovered from the di sastrousfinanCial pani c of 1 837 and many people were povertystricken . At such times the party in power is usually at adi sadvantage and the voters are apt to be actuated not so

much by abstract questions as they are by a desire to

punish the party supposed to be responsible for their mi sfortunes or to aid the party that promises them the bestassurance of relief from their burdens .Moreover , Harrison had the advantage of Van Buren in

some of the characteristics that in such times naturallyaff ect the popularity of a cand idate. Harrison was thehero of the battle of Tippecanoe. He had campaignedwith the old sold iers in the War of 1 8 12 : he had been acomrade of the Western backwoodsmen in their battlesWith the Ind ians . He had been a fellow-pioneer with theWestern frontiersmen , living their simple life and shari ngwi th them their hardships and privations . On the otherhand ,

it was charged that Van Buren was a shrewd New

Yorkpolitician ; that he had held office for thirty years ; hewas reputed to be rich . Such being the conditions theNiles, Tippecanoe Text-Book, p . 73 .

L

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94 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

vituperation . To the Whig abuse of Van Buren the

Democrats retorted by calli ng Harrison “a coward ,

” “agranny ,

” “a petticoat hero ,

” “a black cockade Federalist. It was even said that theWhig s were so fearful thatif Harri son were allowed to be at large he might commi tsome ind iscretion , that he was kept in a cage and under thewatch of a committee appointed to guard him . But suchcharges were plainly so far from the truth that they onlyincreased the zeal of Harrison ’s supporters .Of course in such a campaign it was very dangerous for

any man to be suspected of being an “aristocrat . ” EvenWebster felt cal led upon to clear himself from Democraticslanders , charging him wi th being one, which he vehementlydenied in a speech in New Yorkin whi ch he said , Theman

who says I am an aristocrat is a liar , which utterance weare told caused “tremendous cheering .

”

Monster Whig meetings were held , characterized bygreat processions and all the peculiar features of this mostpeculiar campaign . One was held at Utica , New York, on

August 1 2, 1840 , at which there was a procession said to

have been nine miles long . In the procession was a car

d rawn by six horses carrying a boy seated upon a thronerepresenting Van Buren

“d ressed like King George in

purple, velvet , and fine linen ; by his side he had a splend idsword , the same as worn by one of the knights of old ,

and

around his necka di amond chain, to which was connected

a large gold key ; one hand strongly grasping and holdi ng akey of the treasury

, the other the sword ; immed iatelybehind the throne came the contrast— there sat old ‘

Tip’

by the side of his log cabin with flail in hand , the veryp icture of comfort and kindness , his right hand extended tosome worn-out sold iers . ” 1

It was in the West , however , that the greatest meetingswere held and Where there was the grea test enthusiasm .

Here, among the old sold iers with whom he had campaignedunder General Wayne and in the War of 18 12 , the veterans

1 Norton, The Tippecanoe Campaign, p . 26 1 .

The Pol itica l Campa ign of 1840 95

of the battle of Tippecanoe, and the farmers , Harrison wasanother McGregor on his native heath .

The campaign opened in Ohio on February 22 , 1 840, wi tha monster meeting at Columbus to which men came throughthe mud in wagons and on horseback , some from a d istanceof one hundred and fifty mi les . But this meeting wasecl ipsed by a still greater meeting at Dayton , Ohio, on

September 10 , 1 840 ,which is said to have covered ten acres

of ground and the crowd was estimated all the way fromsixty thousand to one hundred thousand . Another greatmeeting , long celebrated in Ind iana and in the Northwest ,was one held at the Tippecanoe battleground . The crowdwas estimated at over twenty thousand , an enormou sattendance considering that there were then no railroads inthat part of the State. People came from all the ad joiningStates and from others even more remote. George W .

Julian rode on horsebackover one hundred and fif ty mi lesthrough swamps and thickets to attend it . People came

on foot , on horseback, in wagons , in log cabins and canoesmoun ted on wheels , bringing their tents and provi sions .The meeting lasted for three days . Many of the veteranswho had fought in the battle were also in attendance and

many noted Speakers were there, and there was a grea tabundance of hard cider , which was di spensed in the old

primitive style in gourd s .Another singular feature of the campaign was a g rea t

paper ball , ten or twelve feet in d iameter , that was rolledfrom State to State. On it were inscribed some campaignverses telling how

With heart and soulThis ball to roll,May times improveAs on we move.

Farewell dear Van,You are not our man ;To guide the shipWe

’

ll try old Tip.

96 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

In such a campaign we shoul d not expect to see classicmodels of oratory . A speech that was probably very ef

fective was that of Charles Ogle, a Whig orator , deliveredin the House of Representatives on April 16 , 1 840 ,

in whichhe said : “

Yes , sir , Martin Van Buren has spent more thanseventy dollars for each and every minute since he wassworn into the presidential office. How often has the clockticked since that fatal hour ? During the four months oflast year that he passed on his electioneering tour in theState of New York,

how many times d id the clock tickthen ? The people

’s hard dollars were going at the rate of

$70 a minute, while he was dancing wi th the Countess ofWestmoreland at Saratoga . That was dancing to a prettydear tune, but the people paid the p iper .

” 1

We must lookto the speeches of Henry Clay and Dani elWebster and a few others to find anything like a sane di scussion of political questions— to find indeed any trace of avital political question of any kind . Ordi narily old political speeches are apt to lose the flavor they had when delivered , but Clay

’s are interesting even at this date.

2 Webstermade two notable speeches , one at Saratoga , New York , onAugust 19 , 1 840 , another at Richmond , Virginia, on October5 , In his speech at Richmond , after stating thatthere is one perpetual outcry in all the adm inistration

papers from Baltimore south , adm onishing the people of theSouth that their own State governments and the propertythey hold under them arenot secure i f they adm it a Northernman to any considerable share in the adm inistration of thegovernment ,

”he continued as follows : ‘Well,

’

exclaimed

Mr . Webster , in trumpet notes that seemed to be echoed

Norton, The TippecanoéCampaign, p . 71 .

2 As specimens of Clay ’s campaign speeches see hi s speech at Taylorsvi lle

,Virginia, on June 27, 1 840, and his speech at Nashville, Tennessee,

on August 17, 1840. Mallory,Lif e and Speeches of Henry Clay, vol. ii . ,

pp 408. 427.

3 Webster’s Works, vol. pp . 5 , 83 . The quotation from his Ri chmond speech is taken from the report as given by Norton in The Tippecanoe Campaign, pp . 333 , 334 .

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98 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

the exercise of executive power , but his speeches weremainly in answer to Democratic campaign charges , and inappeals to the old sold iers and farmers which were farmoreeff ective than those of either Clay or Webster in gettingvotes . For example, in his speech at Dayton , Ohio , on

September 10 ,1840 , Harrison said : “I am not a professional

Speaker , nor a studi ed orator , but I am an old sold ier and afarmer , and as my object is to speakwhat I thi nk, you willexcuse me i f I do it in my own way , whereat we are toldthat there were “shouts of applause and cries of ‘the old

sold ier and farmer for us .

The campaign was preeminently a singing campaign .

A writer describing the Whig meeting at Columbus saysthat there was no organization and no speaking to amountto anything , the whole day being taken up in marching ,hurrahing ,

and singing . It was the singing that d id the

work. Some of the songs I shall never forget . They ranginmyears wherever I went ,morning , noon , and night , duringthe whole of that campaign . Men , women , and childrend id nothing but sing . It worried , annoyed ,

dumbfounded ,crushed the Democrats , but there was no use trying toescape. It was a ceaseless torrent of music , still beginni ng ,never end ing . If a Democrat tried to speak, argue, or

answer anything that was said or done, he was only salutedwith a fresh deluge of music . If a Democrat would saythat John Tyler was no Whig , the Whi gs would join in a

derisive laugh and a song wh ich ended wi th the chorus

And we’ll vote for Tyler, therefore,Without a why orwherefore.

When compelled to listen to such arguments many of the

old hardshell Democrats would become angry ; but thisonly pleased the Whigs , and they ‘rubbed it in ’

the

harder .” x

The following was one of the popular campaign songs

Norton, The Tippecanoe Campaign, p . 374.

The Pol itical Campa ign of 1840 99

In a cabin made of logs,By the Riverside,

There the Honest Farmer livesFree from sloth and pride.

To the gorgeous palace turnAnd his rival seeIn his robes of regal state,Tinselled finery.

See the farmer to hi s mealJoyfully repair,

Crackers, cheese, and cider too,A hard but homely fare.

Martin to his breakfast comesAt the hour of noon,

Sipping from a china cupWith a golden spoon.

Martin s steeds impatient waitAt the palace door,

Outriders behind the coachAnd lackeys on before.

One of themost popular songs ran in thi s way

What has caused the great commotion, motion, motion,0

Our country through?It is the ball a-rolling on

,on

,

For Tippecanoe and Tyler too— Tippecanoe and Tyler too,And with them we’

ll beat little Van,Van, Van ;

Van is a used up man ;

And with them we'll beat little Van.

Another song depicted the expected arrival of FarmerHarrison ” at the White House and there find ing Prince”

John Van Buren and hi s aristocratic friends making merryover their champagne.

They were all very merry and drinking champagne,When Farmer impatient knocked louder again,Oh, Oh , said Prince John I very much fearWe must qui t thi s place in the very next year.

100 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

Colonel Richard M . Johnson , the Democratic candi datefor Vice-President , had fought wi th great cred it , as well ashad Harrison, at the battle of Tippecanoe, but he was sungout of the campaign in a song , one couplet of which was asfollows :

They shout and sing , Oh, humpsey dumpsey,Colonel Johnson killed Tecumseh.

After theMaine election theWhigs added another song totheir repertoire :

And have you heard the news from MaineAnd what old Maine can do ;She went hell bentFor Governor KentAnd Tippecanoe and Tyler too,And Tippecanoe and Tyler too.

All the hi storians who write from personal recollection ofthis campaign unite in describing it a s partaking more of

the character of a carnival of hilarity than of one in whi chthere was anything like a sober discussion of importantpolitical questions . Benton says of it :

“The class of induce

ments addressed to the passions and imaginations of thepeople were such as history blushes to record . Log cabins ,coonskins , and hard cider were taken as symbols of the

party , and to show its identification with the poorest andhumblest of the people ; and these cabins were actuallyraised in the most public parts of the richest cities , ornamented with coonskins after the fashion of frontierhuts

,and cider drankin them out of gourds in the public

meetings which gathered about them ; and the virtues ofthese cabins , these skins , and this cider were celebrated bytraveling and stationary orators . The whole country wasput into commotion by traveling parties and public gatherings . Steamboats and all public conveyances were crowdedwith parties sing ing doggerel ballad s mad e for the occasionaccompanied with the music of drums , fifes, and fidd les ,

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102 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

Democrats , for they were wont to refer to the Whig s as‘coons ’ and to their log cabins as ‘

coon-pens .’

Among the features of that period which excited my imagination were the enormous mass meetings

,with processions ,

com ing in from all points of the compass , m iles in length ,and bearing every patriotic device and political emblem .

Here the Whig s had infinitely the advantage. Theircampaign was positive and aggressive ; on platform wagonswere men working at every trade which expected to be

benefited by Whig success ; log cabins of all sorts and sizes ,hard cider barrels , coon-pens , g reat canvas balls , which werekept

‘a—rolling on ,

’

canoes such as General Harrison hadused in crossing Western rivers , eagles that screamed indefiance, and cocks that crowed for victory . Againstall this the Democrats , with their negative and defensiveplatform ,

found themselves more and more at a di sadvantage ; they fought with desperation , but in vain .

” 1

It will be noted that throughout the campaign there waslittle d iscussion of the slavery question . The South feltassured that the interests of slavery would be protected in

See also Jul ian, Poli tical Recollecti ons, p . 1 1 ; E . D . Mansfield , PersonalMemoi rs , p . 3 1 1 . One of the strangest episodes inAmerican politica l history, that suggests something like political retribution, is showni h the gubernatorial campai gn in Indiana in 1876 . In that year, thefinancial conditions following the panic of 1873 were much like thosewhich in 1 840 followed the panic of 1 837. Many persons had lost alltheir property ; factories were closed ; building operations of all kindsWere almost suspended and the period was one of general d istress. The

Republicans had nominated as their candidate for governor, BenjaminHarri son, a grandson of William Henry Harrison, and the Democratshad nominated James Williams, an honest man of irreproachableprivate character, but far inferior intellectual ly to Harrison. He had

been a farmer and throughout the campai gn wore a suit of blue jeans.The Republicans, who should have remembered the campaign of 1840,

committed the grievous mistake of ridiculing him by nicknaming him“Blue Jeans.” The Democrats at once tookup the nickname and the

people voted for him as the exponent of retrenchment and economy inpublic affairs and the representative of the poor against the rich, andhe was elected by a large ma jority.

The Po l itica l Campaign of 1840 103

the event of the election of either of the presidential cand idates . In the North the Whigs were too busy in makinglog cabins and canoes and in shouting and singing for“Tippecanoe and Tyler too ”

to thinkmuch of anythingelse, and the voices of the Democrats were drowned in thegeneral d in . It is manifest that the politicians , bothDemocratic and Whig , at least those of the North , wereanxious to smother the further agitation of the slaveryquestion . But the Garrisonians were still fulminatingagainst slavery and the B irney Abolitionists were makinga bold though hopeless fight for their cand idate. It waslargely because of their combined eff orts that the antislavery fires in the North were kept from going out entirely .

Looking back over the threescore and ten years that have

passed since the campaign of 1840 we may laugh at itstomfoolery , but we must admit that it was less harmfulthan the wholesale corruption that has marked some of the

campaigns since the close of the Civil War .The Democrats stood their ground , but their attempts tobeat back the overwhelm ing Harrison tide were as futileas were those of Mother Partington , when she sought tomop back the Atlantic . Harrison was elected by a largemajority , carrying all the twenty-six States in the Unionexcept seven and receiving 234 of the 294 electoral votes.Birney di d not get any electoral votes and received only7059 of the popular vote.

Harrison di ed on Apri l 4 , 184 1 , within“a month after his‘J ’ A 'W

inauguration . Had he lived his administration m ighthavebeen as great a d isappointment to the anti slavery Whigs aswas his death . He li ved long enough however , to rebukein his inaugural message the anti-slavery agitators of theN

w

rth.

“Experience,”he said ,

“has abundantly taughtusfhat the agitation bycitizens in one part of the Unionoh subject not confided to the General Government , butexclusively under the guardi anship of the local authorities , isproductive of no other consequences than bitterness , alienation discord , and i njury to the very causewhich i s intended

104 Pol itica l H istory of S ecessmn

to be advanced . Another part of his inaugural was construed as d iscoun tenancing any legi slation for the abolition of either slavery or the slave trade in the District ofColumbia .

With the death of Harri son the troubles of the Whigsbegan . Tyler had little or nothing in common With theWhig party . He began at once to antagonize its leadersand their favorite policies . Among his first off icial actswere his vetoes of the bills favored by the

M

Whig‘

léEders in

Congress for _the establi shment of anational bank. He had

invited all the members of Harrison ’s Cabinet to remain ,but all resigned except Webster , Secretary of State, wholingered until May , 1843 , when he too resigned . The

Whigs had now lost “Tippecanoe and Tyler too , the

one by death , the other bymdesertion . Tyler ’s plight was

peculiar , if not p itiable. He was repud iated ~_

bymthe

Whigs who had elected him and by whom he was nowspoken of as an apostate a

w

nd renegade. The Democraticparty refused to own him and

_

he was utterly to

muster“ a respectable following . Iii deed,friendship for

Tyler seemed to.

leave a taint upon the political characterof every man who ventured to espouse his cause, so much

so that it was d iffi cult for Tyler to fill any offices the ap

pointment to which required confirmation by the Senate.

The number of his nominations rejected by the Senateprobably exceeded those of all his predecessors combined .

Early i n his administration schemes for the annexationof Texas

-Favored byTyler himself , were set on foot . To

these Webster was opposed and i n May , 1843 , he resigned .

Hewas succeeded by Hugh S . Legaré of South Carolina , andthen by Abel P . Upshur of Virg inia , and finally on March 6 ,1 844 ,

by John C . Calhoun . Calhoun had before exerciseda powerful influence over Tyler , but from the time of his

appointment as Secretary of State his influence in the

Cabinet was well-nigh supreme. All the energies of thesecure the annexation of

Senate

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106 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

(fundamental , and would be an attempt to eternize an inlstitution and a power of a nature so unjust in themselves , soinjurious to the interests and abhorrent to the feeling of thepeople of the free States , as , in our Opini on , not only inevitably to result in a dissolution of the Union , but fully tojustify it ; and we not only assert that the people of the freeStates ought not to submit to it , butwe say with confidencethey would not submi t to it . In 1 844 , the MassachusettsLegi slature resolved that

“the project of the annexation of

Texas , unless arrested on the threshold , may tend to d rivethese States into a d issolution of theUni on .

”

There were cogent reasons for annexation , wholly di scon

/nected with slavery , that made it popular in other por‘tions of the North , particularly in the Middle and WesternStates . Undoubtedly there was in the North considerableof that desire for expansion of territory that holds out al

luring prospects to those seeking to better their cond itionby emigrating to new field s . There were also evi dent advantages to the nation in securing control of the territoryon the Gulf of Mexico ad jacent to themouth of theMississippi ; advantages that were made more prominent by ru

mors that England andZFrance were endeavoring to gain afoothold there. A published letter of ex-President ‘

An

drew Jackson favoring annexation also had great influencein rendering it popular.

I

At its National Convention at Baltimore in 1844 , the

Democratic party nominated James K . Polk for Presidentand George M . Dallas for Vice-President and“pronouncedno

'tworrly r

in favor of the annexation of Texas , but also infm g fm the occupation of Oregon . Both projects werelinked together in a resolution in Which it was resolved :That our title to the whole of the territory of Oregon is

clear and unquestionable, and that no portion of the same

ought to be ceded to England or any other power , and thatthe re-occupation of Oregon and the re-annexation of Texas

1 See letter of Jackson to A. B . Brown, Young , American Statesman,pp . 822

, 823 .

The Pol itica l Campa ign of 1 840 107

at the earliest practicable period are grea t Americanmeasures which this convention recommend s to the co rd ialsupport of the Democracy of the Union .

”

The slavery question had now become an important andW

controlling factor in politics and the Southern Democratsinsi stéd upon a presidential cand idate commi tted to the

m ation of Texas . Van Buren had declared himselfopposhd

‘

to annexation so long as Mexico refused to ao

knowledge the independence of Texas . At the DemocraticNational Convention in 1 844 Calhoun would not allow hisname to go before the convention as a cand idate for thepresidential nomination and Tyler was not to be thoughtof . Van Buren received a majority of the votes , butOpposition of the Southern Democrats was such asto prevent him from getting the two thi rd s requi red to

nominate, and so the nomi nation went to James K . Polk,

of Tennessee, who was known to be in favor of annexation . The Whigs nomi nated Henry Clay for Presidentupon a platform noncommittal on either annexation(Sf

-“

slavery . Clay had ori gi nally been opposed to an

nexation , but later in the campaign , in order to pacifySouthern Whi gs , who Were in favor of annexation, hewrote a'

letter i n which he stated that personally he hadno objecti ons to annexation . This got him into hot waterwi th the NorthernWhigs , who were as much opposed toannexation

'

a'

s theSouthern Whigs were in favor of it . He

continued to write letters , but the more he wrote the morehe seemed to flounder , and his letters proved to be hisundoing .

The Liberty party nominated James G . Birney forV“ l

President .‘

The result was thatmanyNorthern Whigs whowould have otherwi se voted for Clay voted for B irney .

_ np fi-l h .w

NewYorkwas a piv0tal Stateand Birney drewenough votesfrom Clay to give the electoral vote of the State to Polk ,

d -A

and secured hi s election . In this campaign the Nativen

Americanparty , founded chiefly on opposition to foreigners, q n . I la n

and the Catholic Church , acqui red considerable impor

108 Po l itica l H istory of Secession

tance as a political factor , but took no stand on the slaveryquestion 1

During the campaign William H . Seward made an activecanvass in behalf of Clay , in which he added a national tohis established State reputation . He had been elected bytheWhigs as Governor of NewYork in 1838 and had servedfor two years . His eff orts now earned for him the leadershi p that he held from that time forward in NewYorkand

afterwards in the North of the opponents of the furtherextension of slavery . He fills a large place in the historyof the nation but neither his contemporaries nor historicalwriters since his death agree in their estimates of his character . One of his marked characteristics was his excessiveoptimism . At an early period he began to cherish an ambition to be President of the Uni ted States . Hewas notwhollyfree from vanity . John Quincy Adams and Thurlow Weed ,

two men of d iametrically di ff erent d ispositions , were instrumental in forming his political character , and Mr .Frederick Bancroft , one of his latest biographers , thoughnot an overzealous eulogist , has advanced the theory thatin Seward ’s public utterances we sometimes hear the voiceof John Qu incy Adams Seward and at other times we hearthe voice of Thurlow Weed Seward .

2

It was this seemi ngly dual character that has given riseto doubts as to Seward ’s sincerity at d ifferent periods of hislife. Whatever impression his admiration of John Qui ncyAdams may have left upon his political character , it iscertain that through life it showed the marks of ThurlowWeed

’s political tutoring . It is diffi cult to make a satisfactory compound of politician and patriot , and for this andthe other reasons mentioned ,

it is di fficul t to assign Seward’s

proper rank as a statesman , or to reconcile some of the

apparent inconsistencies and contradi ctions in his character .We cannot upon any theory account for some of Seward ’

s

conduct and utterances , such as hi s letter to Lincoln shortly

McMaster, Hi story of the Uni ted States, vol. vii . , p . 369 et seq.

“Life of Seward , vol. i . , p . 200 ; vol. ii . , p. 86.

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1 10 Politica l H istory of Secess ion

same ground I now occupy , always demand ing the abolitionof slavery in America by political argument and suffrage,and by the constitutional action of all public authorities .I trust in the instincts of theWhig party , that it will provefaithful to that cause, and when it shall prove false in anyhour of trial i t will be time enough to look elsewhere formore eff ective agency .

1

After the election of Polk , but before his inauguration , 2

the joint resolution for the annexation of Texas which Polkwas known to favor passed both houses of Congress . Itexpressly reaffirmed the Missouri Compromise and in aspeech favoring it James Buchanan , then Senator fromPennsylvania , expressed himself as pleased with it becausethese resolutions went to reestablish the Missouri Compromise by fixing a line wi thin which slavery was to be infuture confined . Was it desirable again to have theMissouri question brought home to the people to goad themto fury ? That question between the two great interests inour country had been well di scussed and well decided ; andfrom that moment he had set down his feet on the solidground then established and there he would let the questionstand forever . Who could complain of the terms of thatcompromi se? 3

1 Seward ’s Works, vol. iii. , p . 274. March 1 , 1845.

3 Benton, Thirty Years, vol. ii . , pp . 633 , 634.

CHAPTER VII

THE OREGON BOUNDARY QUESTION : POLK '

S BACKDOWN

NE starting into the study of the controversy betweenGreat Britain and the United States over the boun

dary line between the two nations in the part of NorthAmerica formerly known as the Oregon country

,would

W “

scarcely expect to find that the slavery question was animportant factor i n the determination of it ; yet such i s thefact .The 49th parallel of north latitude was agreed uponas the boundary line between Great Britain and the Uni tedStates from the Lake of the Woods to the summi t of themain ridge of the Rocky Mountains , but for half a cen

tury there was a d ispute as to the boundary line west ofthe Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean . The territoryin di sputewas thenknown as the Oregon country , embraci ngthe lands now i ncluded in the States of Oregon ,Washington ,and Idaho , and parts of Montana and Wyoming . Byt

f

réaties between Russia and Great Britain, and between

Russia and the United“

States , the southern boundary of

Russia 's possessions in North America had been fixed at54

°

but no agreement was reached between Great Bri tain and the United States as to the boundary linewhichShould d ivide the Oregon country .

The rule in“ actions'

at lawbetween individuals for thepossession of land is that the plaintiff must recover , if atall

, upon the strength of his own title, and not upon theweakness of hi s adversary ’s , and that the law will not ousta defendant in possession under a claim of right until some

1 1 1

1 1 2 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

one proves a better title. The same rule applies in con

troversies between nations over d isputed territory . The

chi ef di fficulty encountered in establishing the claim of the

Uni ted States to the whole of Oregon was not so much

in proving flaws in Great Britain ’s title as it was in proving that the United States had a better one. Neitherparty to the controversy asserted any title based on anygrant from the native occupants , but their claims werebased largely on al leged d iscoveries and settlements , theboundaries of which were i ll-defined , di sputed , and conflict

ing . Great Britain al so asserted claims based on treatieswith Spain , and subsequently wi th Russia also , and the

United States asserted claims based on treaties with Franceand Spain ; but the titles of France, Spain , and Russia ,based , as they were, on alleged d iscoveries and settlements ,were very flimsy , and added little, if any , strength to thetitles claimed by Great Britain and the United States basedon their own di scoveries and settlements . Moreover , GreatBritain had been for years in actual possession , exercisingthe rights of sovereignty , of considerable portions of thed isputed territory , which constituted the only outlet for herother North American possessions to the Pacific Ocean ,and it was idle to expect that She would voluntarily surrender all of it to the Uni ted States .The Monroe doctrine was not hatched until the contro

versy over Oregon had been pend ing for many years , and ,of course, it had no influence with Great Britain in bringingthe controversy to a conclusion . In consequence of theirinability to agree upon a boundary line west of the RockyMountains , a treaty was concluded between the two countries , at London on October 20 ,

1 8 18 , and ratified on January 19 , 1 8 19 , by which provision was made for the jointoccupation of the territory

“that may be claimed by eitherparty in the northwest coast of America west of the Stony[Rocky] Mountains ” for a term of ten years . Before theexpiration of the ten years , further attempts to agree havingproved to be frui tless , another treaty was concluded on

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1 14 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

conventions were held in the United States , at whichresolutions were adopted favoring prompt action by thenational government in reference to Oregon . At all, or

nearly all , these meetings inflammatory resolutions wereadopted , assuming the title of the United States to the

whole of Oregon up to the line of 54°

40’to be unquestion

able, denouncing the arrogance and insolence of GreatBritain

,and recommend ing the immed iate occupation of

the whole of the territory by the United States , the build ingof forts and stockades , and the maintenance of a fleet on thePacific coast .

I

In April , 1 843 , a call was issued for a convention of the

Southernand Western States to be held at Cincinnati , Ohio ,

in July following , the purpose of Which was to inducegovernment action in relation to Oregon . The conventionwas held on July 3 , 4 , and 5 . Colonel Richard M .

Johnson of Kentucky , ex-Vice-President , presided . Therewere present some ninety or more delegates from six di ff erent states , in the Mississippi Valley . Among other resolutions adopted were the following“Resolved : That the right of the United States to the

Oregon terri tory from 42°to 54

°

40’ north latitude is un

questionable, and that it is the imperative duty of the

general government forthwith to extend the laws of the

United States over said territory .

Resolved , further , That to encourage m igration to and

the permanent and secure settlement of said territory , theCongress of the United States ought to establish a line of

forts from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean , and

provide also an effi cient naval force for the protection of theterritory and its citizens .The convention also put forth A Declaration of Citizens

of the Mississipp im lfalley, in which it was stated ,

“that ,however ind ignant at the avarice, pride, and ambition of

Great Britain , so frequently , lawlessly , and so lately evinced ,we yet believe that it is for the benefit of all civ ilized nations

1 McMaster, Hi story of the U. S . , vol. vn. , p . 295.

The Oregon Boundary Question 1 15

that we should fulfill a legi timate destiny ; but that she

should be checked in her career of aggression wi th impuni tyand dominion wi thout right. That , so far as regard sour rights to the territory in question , we are assured of

their perfect integrity , based , as they are, on the di scoveryand exploration by our own citizens and government and onpurchase and cession from those powers having the pretenseof the reality of any right to the same. That beyond theserights , so perfectly established , we would feel compelled toretain the whole territory in accordance with Mr . Monroe’ suniversally approved declaration of 1823 that the Americancontinents were not thenceforth to be considered subjectsfor future colonization by any foreign power .

”The de

claration wound up by remonstrating “against the possession of any part of the northwest coast of the PacificOcean by the power of Great Britain . Copies of the resolutions and declaration were sent to the President , thegovernors of the several States , and to each member of

Congress .‘ It is obvious that this jumble of unquestionable title,

“manifest destiny , Monroe doctrine, and

denunciation of the Blarsted Britishers , was intended forpolitical eff ect . It was well calculated to appeal to all who

sought to better their cond ition by securing cheap homes ,and especial ly to the bold and adventurous frontiersmen of

the West , who were always pushing beyond the outposts ofcivilization .

The possibility of war wi th Great Britain was not entirelyoverlooked , but thi s rather increased than dimini shed theardor of those in whose breasts there still rankled the

feeling s of resentment against England that had come downfrom generation to generation since the days of the War ofthe Revolution and theWar of 1 8 12 .

Various resolutions and bills looking to the extension bythe United States of government control over the Oregon

See an account of the meeting in Ni les ’s Regi ster of July 22,1843 ,

vol. xiv. , p. 327. See also McMaster, Hi story of the U. S .,vol. vii .

, p .

295.

1 16 Politica l H istory of Secess ion

country had , from time to time, been introduced in Congressprior to the beg inning of Polk’ s administration .

John Floyd , a member of the House from Virg inia , had ascheme to effect a settlement on the Pacific coast at themouth of the Columbia River , and in 182 1 he introduced abill for that purpose. He urged , in support of his bill, theprofits that would accrue from the whale-fishery, and alsofrom the trade with China and Indi a , which he pred icted“would one day take that di rection . The objections thenurged to Floyd

's scheme now make curious read ing .

“To

most of the House these views appeared to be altogethervi sionary . Supposing the coasts of the Pacific to be muchnearer to China than those of the Atlantic , yet it wasthought that the transportation overland of from two to

three thousand miles would more than counterbalance thesaving in the sea voyage, and though that werenot the case,it was said that when countries were so d istant as the

Atlantic States from the regions of the Pacific , and wereseparated by such a barrier as the Rocky Mountains , it wasnot probable they would continue long united . Having aseparate set of local interests , and a separate commerce andforeign connections , a political union would be to both asource of more inconvenience than of benefit . With such aprobable result , why , it was asked , should we be wastingthe resources of the country to hasten the period of separation and expend money which must eventually be lost tous ? These views seemed satisfactory to a large majorityof the House, and on themere question of calling up the billwhi ch General Floyd had introduced for the occupation of

the Columbia River , the vote against the consideration wasone hundred to sixty-one.

In 1 828 , Polk , then a member of the House from Tennessee,argued against the proposition to establi sh a territorial

government for Oregon , on the ground that to erect aterritorial government , enf orce revenue laws , and grant landto settlers was a violation of the treaty with Great Britain

I Tucker, Hi story of the Uni ted States, vol. iii. , pp. 355-6 .

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1 1 8 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

tions were resumed and the Uni ted States again proposed acompromise on the line of the 49th parallel , but wi thout conced ing to Great Britain the free navigation of

the Columbia River . Thi s proposition having been rejected ,the proposition made before by the Uni ted States was , byPolk’s d irection , withdrawn , and title was asserted to thewhole of the Oregon territory .

The President devoted a considerable portion of his annualmessage of December 2 ,

1845 , to the Oregon question , reviewi ng the actions of his own and of the preced ing administrations upon the subject . In his message he referred to“the extraord inary and wholly inadmissible demands of theBritish government ,

”and expressed the opinion that

“no

compromi se which the Uni ted States ought to accept canbeeff ected ,

”and that the title of the United States to the

whole of Oregon territory could be“maintained by irrefra

gable facts and arguments , and he advised that Congressconsider “what measures it may be proper to adopt for thesecurity and protection of our citizens , now inhabiting , orwhomay hereafter inhabit , Oregon , and for themaintenanceof our just title to that territory .

”For this purpose he

recommended that “the protection of our laws and our

jurisd iction , civil and criminal, ought to be immediatelyextended over our citizens in Oregon . He also recom

mended the establishment of stockades and forts and anadequate force of mounted riflemen for the protection of

immigrants while on their way to the territory . Continuing , he said that ,

“At the end of the year ’s notice, shouldCongress think it proper to make provision for giving thatnotice, we shall have reached a period when the nationalrights in Oregon must either be abandoned or firmly maintained . That they cannot be abandoned without a sacrificeof both national honor and interest , is too clear to admit ofdoubt . ”

Spurred by such a message, the Fifty-Four Forties , asBenton called them ,

were not slow to act, and the Oregonquestion was promptly taken up in both houses of Congress .

The Oregon Boundary Question 1 19

In the House on December 19 , 1 845 , Stephen A . Douglas ofIllinois , then chairman of the Committee on Territories ,moved the adoption of the following resolutions

1 . Resolved : that the title to any part of the Oregonterritory south of the 54

°

40'of north latitude is not open to

compromise so as to surrender any part of said territory .

“2 . Resolved : that the question of title to that territory

should not be left to arbitration .

On January 5 , 1 846 , C . J . Ingersoll, chairman of the HouseCommittee on Foreign Relations , reported a joint resolution ,provi di ng ,

“That the President of the Uni ted States forthwith cause notice to be given to the government of GreatBritai n that the convention between the United States andGreat Britain concerni ng the territory of Oregon of the sixthof August , 1 827, signed at London , shall be annulled and

abrogated twelve months after the expiration of the saidterm of notice conformably to the second article of the saidconvention of the sixth of August , Ingersoll ’s resolution was somewhat toned down by an amendment add ingthe words “that nothing herein contained is intended tointerfere with the right and di scretion of the proper au

thorities of the two contracting parties to renew or pursuenegotiations for an amicable settlement of the controversyrespecting the Oregon territory , and in thi s form the re

solution passed the House ou February 9 , 1 846 , by a voteof 163 to

In the Senate on December 27, 1845 , Senator Hanneganof Ind iana , one of themost ul tra of all theFifty-Four Forties ,introduced the following resolutions“Resolved : that the country included within the parallels

of 42 and 54 degrees and 40 minutes north latitude, and

extending from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean ,known as '

the terri tory of Oregon , is the property , and

part and parcel , of the United States .“Resolved : that there exists no power in thi s government

to transfer its soil and the allegiance of its citizens to theCong. Globe, 29th Cong . , 1st sess. , p. 86. Ibid ., p . 349.

Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

dominion , authority , control, and subjection of any foreignprince, state, or sovereignty .

“Resolved : that the abandonment or surrender of any

portion of the territory of Oregon would be an abandonmentof the honor , the character , and the best interests of theAmerican people.

I

Prolonged and exciting debates on the Oregon questionfollowed in both houses of Congress which di sclosed a verybelligerent spirit against Great Bn tain , especially in the

West and Northwest . The general tone of the Democraticpress throughout the country was equally belligerent . Inthe Senate the chief advocates of the Administration ’sOregon policy were Senator William Allen of Ohio , chairmanof the Senate Commi ttee on Foreign Relations , SenatorLewis Cass of Michigan , Senator Edward A . Hannegan of

Ind iana , and Senator David Atchison of Missouri . Con

spicuous among the supporters of this policy in the Housewas Stephen A . Douglas . The most eloquent and at thesame time the most bitter of all the Fifty-Four Forties wasSenator Hannegan . Although born in Ohio , he was of

Irish descent and was animated by a hatred of Great Britainwhich he made no attempt to conceal. While the excitement in Congress over the Oregon question was at itsheight , in response to an invitation to attend a meeting ofthe friends of Vice-President Dallas in Philadelphia , on

January 8 , 1 846 , Hannegan sent a letter in which he proposed as a toast , Oregon— every foot or not an inch ; fiftyfour degrees and forty mi nutes , or delenda est Bri tannia ,

to which the comm ittee replied :“The honorable Edward

A . Hannegan , the true-hearted American statesman , whotruly represents the people on the Oregon question— the

whole of it or none, Oregon or War .It was not so d ifficult to meet the arguments of the Fifty

Four Forties , which were of a very flim sy character , as itwas to counteract their inflamm atory appeals ; appeals by

I Cong . Globe, 29th Cong . , I st sess. , p . 101 .

Woollen, B iographical Sketches of Early Indiana , p . 2 12.

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Po l itical H istory of Secess ion

it from its moorings— to murder a part of its crew— to leaveothers for the murder of the flames— to put the torch to theboat , and then to send her , freighted wi th the dead bodiesof our countrymen , headlong over the cataract of Niagara .

Of these things I speak not. No , I shall beg in with thetreaty signed at Ghent on the 24th of December , 1 8 14 .

Expatiating on the internal weakness of the British Empire, which he asserted portended its speedy d issolution ,and upon the g reat advantages the United States wouldhave in case of war between the two nations , he assertedthat England will not , because she dare not , all otherstate reasons aside, make war , single-handed ,

against theUni ted States for the Oregon territory .

”He wound up

wi th this extraord inary peroration :“In these thing s , sir , it

is that the strength of our, and the weakness of the Britishgovernment , consists . Ours , resting upon the heartshers , upon the backs of the people. What , then , have weto do , to secure Oregon ? Extend over it our laws . Whatelse have we to do for its defense? Tell the people thetruth . Tell them it is their soil. Tell them thi s , prove itto them— as we have before told them , and before proven it .Tell them that arrogant England— their hereditary enemy ,the enemy of all free governments— is seeking to snatch itfrom them , to fence us out from the Pacific Ocean , to beltus about yet more closely with her kingly despotism . Tellthem these thing s , and then ask them i f they will surrenderthis large part of their country— surrender it to thatgovernment which , in two wars , employed savages to hackto pieces , in cold blood , the women and children of Americasurrender it to that government which hates ours , because

it is free— whi ch envie's our people for their happiness inproportion to the m isery of its own . Tell them thesethings

, and ask if they are ready thus to surrender this vastterritory from the mere dread of invasion by a rabble of

armed paupers , threatened to be sent by a bankrupt government , whose whole power of the sword and dungeon isrequired to stifle the cries of fami ne at home, or to protect

The Oregon Boundary Question 1 23

its own life against the uplifted hand s of starving millions .

Tell them these things , a skthem i f they are ready to makethis surrender . Ask the American people this and theywill gi ve you an answer which shall make the British Empiretremble throughout its whole frame and foundation .

Senator Hannegan of Ind iana and Senator Cass of Michigan spoke in much the same strain . Hannegan

’

s speechI

was a model of its kind , commonly designated as “spreadeagle ” eloquence.

“Where is your warrant ,”he asked ,

“for ced ing away five deg rees and a half of Oregon ? Whereis your warrant for withdrawing the aegis of your Constitution and laws from any , even the meanest of your citizenswho may have fixed his habitation on the most remoteand sterile point in all your dom inions ? Is the Senatorfrom South Carolina prepared and willing to transfer any ,even though it be the poor p ioneer , whose sinewy form firstparts the tangled forests to let in upon the eternal solitudesthe light of day ; from whose rude but the first smoke of the

paleface curls in the wilderness ? Shall freedom ’s Sabbathbe no more for him ? Far , far away and lonely as he is , hehas his domestic altar , and before it God and freedom are

worshiped together . He has his household gods — the

names his mother taught him , perhaps in South Carolina ,perhaps in Massachusetts , when he, a fair-haired boy,

played by her side. He has taught in turn , and he hearsthem daily from lisping childhood , and first of these isWashington . Where is the steel-clad hand , where the ironheart , that would break down this altar , desecrate thisworship , and change upon his children

’s lips the name of

Washington for England ’s Queen ? Rather , were that hutmine, should its fire go out forever ; rather , far rather , shouldthe serpent wind its devious way among the lifeless bod iesof the best loved of my heart , to coil and hi ss unharmed

upon the hearthstone. But it is not the Westalone that forbids it . History ,

speaking from the sepulcherof the sainted dead ,

forbids it . The shades of Washington ,January 24 , 1846, Cong . Globe, 29th Cong .

,rst sess. , App .

, p . 3 12 .

1 24 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

of Adams , of Henry , of the whole host of revolutionary sires ,forbid it . A still small voice from Lexington and Concordforbids it . The holy blood which ran in torrents on the

parched fields of Monmouth and Brandywine and Camdenforbids it . All the past— the specter form of the past wi thmournful looks— forbids it . The present forbids it . Seventenths of the American people forbid it . The future withone long-continued , stern , unbroken front forbids it . By allthe past glory of our country , and in the name of posterity ,of the unborn mi llions , whose fortune it shall be to directfree and proud America on her high destiny , I protestagainst the d ismemberment of her territory , the abandonment of her interests , and the sacrifice of her honor , beforeany and every altar of earth , but especially and above all

others , before the altar of English ambition .

not been unmindful of what was goingon in the United States in reference to Oregon and was nowin fighting mood . A British warship was ordered to the

Oregon coast and arrangements were made for a mi litaryreconnaissance of the territory in order to be better preparedforwar , if war should ensue.

The gravity of the situation was now apparent to the

thinking people of both Great Britain and theUnited States .Sober—minded persons in this country now realized that thecontroversy over Oregon had passed beyond the domain ofparty politics , and that it must be settled by other arguments than those that had been heard in stump speechesin the presidential campaign . It was also realized that ahalt must be called in the headlong policy of theAdmi nistration , and a curbing of the impetuosity of the Fifty-FourForties , or that the inevitable result would be war wi thGreat Britain , and that at no di stant day.

Practically , as already stated , the controversy had beennarrowed down to a di spute over the strip lying between the49th parallel and the line of 54

°

40’

No question of

principle or national honor was involved . Would it bewi se, it was asked , to precipitate war wi th Great Bri tain

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Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

was the probability of an alliance between Great Britainand Mexico in the event of war with the latter , then imminent , unheeded .

Considering the whole matter carefully , sober-mindedstatesmen foresaw the probability that in case of war

,

thi s country , instead of gaini ng all of Oregon , ” wouldlose it al l, and that an alliance between Great Britainand Mexico would bring war to the very threshold of the

South ; and ,i f so , that there would be more danger of

losing Texas than there would be probability of acquiringadd itional territory from Mexico .

For months the whole country was in a state of feverishsuspense and anxiety . There were other considerationsthat , although not openly expressed , undoubtedly had greatinfluence wi th the Southern leaders . An unsuccessful warwith Great Britain would not only be d isastrous to the

country, but d isastrous to all who had advocated it , and

might possibly be extremely so to the South . On the

other hand , suppose that , in the event of war , the Uni tedStates should succeed in acquiring all of Oregon territory :its soil and climate were not adapted to slave labor ; itsinhabitants were opposed to slavery ; and the result wouldbe more free States and more senators and representativesin Congress hostile to slavery .

Such harangues as those of Allen and Hannegan , howevereffective they may have been at the hustings , had littleweight wi th the Senate and called forth several causticresponses . The most signi ficant came from the Southernmembers of Congress . Senator Crittenden of Kentuckymade an admirable speech 1 in whi ch he said : No hastyconclusions between indi vidual negotiators ; no little poutingand fretting or strutting upon the stage can be any justification to the American people, or before the world at large,that out of these cabinet squabbles or di plomatic quarrelstwo nations and the world shall be set to war and to cut

each other ’s throats . No , sir , the people of the Uni tedFebruary 26, 1846, Cong. Globe, 29th Cong .

,rst sess. , p. 431 .

The Oregon Boundary Question 127

States wi ll regard it in a d iff erent light . We have no ne

cessi ty to go to war to make a character . None. We have acharacter , sir. We are notobliged to set up id le pretensionslast the world doubt or mistrust us .

” In a later speech xhe said : “The matter in d ispute involves no question of

national honor . It is simply a question of boundary ; andin such a case an honest statesman , before proceed ing tothe extremity of war , would stop a little to compare thevalue and importance of the territory in di spute with thecost and consequences of that war . ‘Greatly to find aquarrel in a straw ’

is a sort of ambition to whi ch the worldno longer gives countenance. All such heroics have passedaway and have given place to the juster sentiment whichrequires of the statesman and ruler , intrusted with the interest and happiness of his country , to save and protect itfrom the calam ity of unnecessarywar .Senator Berrien of Georgia , made a strong speech , 2 in

which he said : On such a subject all mere declamation isobviously out of place. Excited appeals to our sense of

national honor and to our patriotism ; exaggerated descriptions of the arrogance and impotence of Great Britain , andglowing representations of our own prowess , seem to me

alike inappropriate to the place and to the occasion . The

attempt is merely vain , to influence the conduct of any man

who has mind enough to form hi s own judgment , and‘nerve ’

enough to do its bidd ing , by appeals of thi s description . Why , sir , who is insensible to the calls of nationalhonor ? Who does not know and regret , that it may some

times be necessary to vind icate the honor of the nation on

the battlefield ? Who does not know and rejoice that abloody hand is not the only symbol of a nation ’s honor ?And patriotism— truly sir , patriotism is a virtue which itbehooves freemen especially to cherish . But what American Senator , what American citizen , requires to be remindedof this duty ? The arrogance of Great Britain ! For aught

April 16 , 1 846, Cong . Globe, Id . , App ., p . 842 .

March 17, 1 846, Id . ,App .

, p . 505 .

1 28 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

I know , sir, arrogance may be characteristic of the AngloSaxon . I quarrel with no man who asserts that it is so , and

yet, speaking for myself , I would be ashamed to say that Ihad found any exhi bition of this feeling in the recent correspondence of the British plenipotentiary . The futureimpotence of the British Government is a subject for thespeculations of the poli tical philosophers , who see, or thinkthey see, sown broadcast in her extended empire and separated dependencies , the seed s of her di ssolution . But how

do these speculations , whether they be founded on reason orare merely visionary , affect the question before us ? We

know , unless we close our eyes to facts whi ch are obvious toall the world beside, that Great Bri tain is at this moment inthe fullness of her strength , and prepared to inflict a blowwhi ch it will requ ire all our energy to repel . With a vi ew toour decision of this question , that is all whi ch it concerns usto know . And our own prowess ! We, it is said ,

need notfear the conflict . We are prepared , or can be so on the

instant , to win the triumphs whi ch await us . God forbidthat I should depreciate the valor of my countrymen ; buti f we are to enter into this conflict , i f Great Britain is oncemore to become our adversary on the battlefield , I trust weshall not rely upon her impotence, but prepare to meet‘a strong man armed .

’

And , lest we should prove ourselvescapable rather to endure blows than to inflict them , I hopewe shall not calculate too largely on our own undevelopedenergies— ou our capacity to

‘extract sunbeams from

cucumbers ,’

of which the process is d ifficult , or what isequivalent , to make men-of-war out of packet-ships .Another significant speech was that of William L .

Yancey , a member of the House from Alabama , afterwardscharacterized as the Prince of Fire Eaters . ” 1 After referring to the territory that the United States had acquiredby peaceful means , “moremagni ficent in domain , and morepregnant with national grandeur , than any that the bloodd ripping eag les of imperial Rome ever flew over in their

1 January 7, 1 846, Cong . Globe, Id . , App . , p. 85.

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1 30 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

requi res moderation— calculation as well as firmness .Haste and impetuous valor _

may lose us all or give us but apart .Calhoun ’s position was well understood . He had said in

hi s d iscussion of the Oregon question in 1842 that ,“time

is acting for us , and i f we shall have the wisdom to tru stits operation it will assert and maintain our right wi thresistless force, without costing a cent of money or a dropof blood . There is often in the aff airs of government moreefficiency and wisdom in non action , than in action . All

we want to our object this“ case is‘a wise and

masterly inactivity .

’ Our population i s rolling toward theshores

-fl

ofn

t'

hefi

Pacific with an impetus greater than we,

can

realize. It will soon , far sooner than anticipated ,reach the Rocky Mountains , and be ready to pour intoOregon territory , when it will come into our possessionwithout resistance or struggle, or, i f there would be resis

tance or struggle, it would be ineff ectual . We should t henbe as much stronger there comparatively than Great Britain

,as she is now stronger than we are, and it would then

be as idle in her to attempt to assume and maintain herexclusive claim to the territory against us , as it would nowbe in us to attempt it against her.

” 1

He made a speech in opposition to Hannegan’

s resolutions , 2 in which he advocated a pacific course for the ad

justment of the d isputed boundary , saying that ,“if war

should come it will be no common war , and that ,“while

he would g ive every support to his country , he woul d holdthose responsible by whose rashness it had been provoked ,

and that he believed “that precipitancy will lose you

Oregon forever , no ,not forever , but it wi ll lose you Oregon

in the first struggle and then it will require another strugglehereafter , when we become stronger , to regain it .

”

In the progress of the d iscussions in Congress , there wasa singular shi fting of party lines . Polk might naturally

Cong . Globe, 27th Cong ., 3d sess. , App .

, p . 139.

2 Dec . 30, 1 845 , Cong . Globe, 29th Cong .

,I st sess. , pp . 1091 , 10.

The Oregon Boundary Question

have expected , and probably di d expect , the support of hisown party , and especially the support of the DemocraticSouthern leaders . But most of the Southern Democrats

,

following the lead of_

Ca-lhoun and Benton , opposed the

A'

dinimsm 5 Oregonpolicy . On the other hand generalsurpri se was created by the course of the venerable ex

President , John Quincy Adams , who made an elaboratespeech in support of the claim of all of Oregon up to the

line of 54°

He said that “there would be nowar in hi sopinion , eveni f we persevered in these measures , and thatwhat he most feared was that our rights woul d be sacrificedby the backing out of the Administration and its sup

porters .

” I

Stranger still was the position of Joshua R . Gidd ings , thewell-known

”

Abolition member of the House from Ohio .

Giddi ngs made a remarkable speech .

2 Referring to the

ze'

aliand the warlike spirit with which the Southern leadershad advocated the annexation of Texas , and contrastingthiswith the mild and conciliatory tone in whi ch they d iscussed theOregon question , and their apparent reluctanceto adopt

"any policy that mi ght lead to war with Great

Britain ,he taunted them by insinuating that they had acted—1

in bad faith towards their Northern allies , th at having sel b fi-v 0m “an . “

cured the annexationof Texas, they were now ready to dea fi tOm “

sert them and let them fight'

the battle f0r Oregon_ _a‘lone

“

Hesa i dM ‘

Last’ “year o‘ur Southern friends expressed great

anxiety for ‘Texas and the whole of Oregon .

’ Havingobtained Texas , and with it the balance of political power ,they“ now demand an abandonment of their policy , and thatthe government of the nation be . left in their . hand s , andOregon remain as it is . They now see d ifficul ties beforethem ; dangersb th

u

e'

irm

plan of terri torial aggrand izement . . . .The

suddenly called to mind the declaration of British statesmen , that ‘a war wi th the United States wi ll be a war of

Cong. Globe, Id . , p . 324 .

January 5. 1846. Id App p . 73 .

132 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

emancipation.

’

flfhey see in prospect the black regiments

to the enemy ’s standard . Serviletheir imaginations ; rap ine, blood , and

dance before their aff righted visions . They are nowevery part of the hall, calling on Whig s and Demo

crats to save them from the dreadful consequences of theirown policy . Well, sir , I reply to them , This is your policy ,not ours ; you have forced us into it against our will and ourutmost opposition ; you have prepared the poisoned chalice,and we will press it to your lips until you swallow the verydregs . ” Gidd ings , like Adams , did not believe that therewould be any war with England , and gave his reasons inthese sarcastic but prophetic words

“But , Mr . Speaker ,

I am unwilling to resumemy seat until I express my perfectconviction that this policy cannot be carried out by theparty in power . The Northern Democrats will soon bedeserted by their Southern slaveholding allies . They have

Bfi figfiavepeter r exam amrtm” w ”

-m v“

the“

Southern Wi ng of the Democratic party will now desert

“ M "8 1 .-em u “

are like the militia captain who , whenw

gding into battle,informed his men that ‘as he was lame, he would cormnencehis retreat then ; but his soldiers , being qu ick upon thefoot , he thought they could overtake him i f they waiteduntil after the battle.

’

If this resolution should be adopted ,

the Execu tive would find means to escape from the d ilemmainto which this Southern policy has precipitated him . It ismost obvious to my judgment that he cannot be driven intoa war wi th England . ,

As I have already stated , a war withthat nation must prove the total overthrow of slavery .

Every reflecting statesman must see this as clearly as anyevent can be foretold by human perception . I do not thinkthe slavehold ing portion D emocratic —party

~were ~

aware that the carrying out of their Baltimore resolutionswoul d sac

—

rifice' i

that institution : T ThfffY,

rather_believed that?

c a l n 4a

“ ( m a y ” at m o-V O Qm -n

4 -J h c . . ” u s . w—fl

by“ '

0b ta1n1ng“

Texas , the flesh woul d beow

Q Q I O‘ -‘W '

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134 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

that these consequences will be retarded by a continuanceof the policy , rather than by leavi ng the government subject to the slave power , as it now is . By carrying out thepolicy , it will place the Northern and Southern portions ofthe Union upon terms approximating to equality . And

when,from its broad extent , thi s Republic , like the Roman

Empire, shall fall asunder of its own weight , the free Stateswill redeem and purif y themselves from the foul d isgraceof supporting an institution hated of men and cursed of

God .

He was against the policy of extendi ng our territory , but ,inasmuch as Texas had been annexed ,

he wantedu

all of

Oregon terr itory wi th which to offset new free Statesagainst the slave states which would be, or might be,imadeout of Texas and the territory expected to be acquired from5Mexico . If war with England should result , he admittedthat it would be attended with great destruction to the

commerce and wealth of the North . But the greatestdi fficulty of the North would be, he said , not in defend ingourselves or in taking Canada , but that our principalburden wi ll be the protection of the South , the weak, helpless , dependent , slavehold ing South .

” In case of war, hepredicted that

“all the slave States collectively would

sbe unable to do more than protect themselves against theirinternal foes .It is probable that both Adams and Giddings were looked

upon by the Southern leaders in the light of g ift-bearingGreeks . Gidd ing s

’s speech in particular, though pro

fessedly in support of the President ’s policy , did far

more to condemn it in the eyes of the Sou thern leadersthan any speech he could have made in di rect oppositionto it .

Senator Hannegan,speaking from an entirely d ifferent

standpoint from that of Gidd ings , dwelt upon the fact thatin the speeches of the Southern members upon the Oregonquestion , therewas an entire absence of the belligerent tonethat characterized their speeches in favor of the annexation

The Oregon Boundary Question 135

of Texas , and charged them with Punimg fai th in having ,h

deserted and betrayed their al lies 1n theWest and Northwest“ 0

who had aided them 1n securing the annexation of Texas .“7

11

111 55 1155 151353”he said f

“a

‘

s1ngularc ourse pursued on

this Oregon question , and with reference to whi ch he mustdetai n the Senate a moment . It contrasted so strangely , sowonderfully , with a precisely similar question— the annexation of Texas . Texas and Oregon were born the same

instant , nursed and cradled in the same cradle— the Bal timore convention— and they were at the same instantm p .

adopted by the Democracy throughout theiahu"

ThereH— h ~

was_

not a moment ’3 hesitation , until Texas was admi tted ,

but the moment she was admi tted the peculiar“ friends ofTexas turned , and were doing all they cpp ld fi

tp,

Qrgggn ! But the country was not blind or deaf . The

people see, they comprehend , and he trusted they woul dspeak. It was a most singular state of things . We weretold that we must be careful not to involve ourselves in awar with England on a question of di sputed boundary .

There was a question of d isputed boundary between us andMexico ; but d id we hear from the same quarter any warnings against a collision with Mexico , when we were about toconsummate the annexation of Texas ? We were told bythose who knew something of those matters , that theNueces was the proper boundary of Texas ! And how di dthey find the friend s of Texas moving on that occasion ?Did we , for a single instant , hal t on the banks of the Nueces ?N0 ; at a single bound we crossed the Nueces , and the blastsof our trumpets and the prancing of our war horses wereheard on the banks

'

of the Rio del Norte, one hundred milesbeyond . Nearly one hundred mi les of d isputed territorygives no cause for a moment ’s hesitation ! There was no

” M b

negotiation then , so far as Mexi co_was concerned ; we took

called on,

_

as an _ _

act proper and right, to give away a whole—q’—v

empire on_

the Pacific if England desire i t. He never wouldconsent to a surrender of any portion of the country

1 36 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

north of nor one foot , by treaty or otherwi se, under54

°

40

Replying to Senator Calhoun , he said : A single word asto the precip itancy of which the di stinguished Senator hadspoken . Perhaps it would not be out of place to say thatthe precipitancy of the honorable Senator

’s course in relationto the annexation of Texas presented a remarkable contrastto hi s

‘wi se and masterly inactivity ’ wi th reference to

Oregon . He di d not intend to charge any impropermotivesin the di stinguished Senator ; but it appeared strange to

him that , when a question of territdrial-

acqui s—

if ion arises inthe Northwest , there should be found such a backwardnessonthe part of Southern gentlemen to

~

give tfiheir aid . Pre

cipitancy in relation to Texas was wise, in the V iew of the

Senator from South Carolina , but it would not be wi se inthe case of Oregon . In the first instance, the ‘

goldenopportun ity

’ was to be seized . Now, Heaven knows , time

enough has been given to maturing plans ; it is now time to

act . The two countries are arrayed front to front , and mylife on it , i f it were a question between the United Statesand Mexico, on the possession of Cuba or California , or ifit were for the acquisition of some territory farther still(for he had heard a whisper of Panama) , this would be thegolden moment .

But the tide had already begun to set strongly againstthe policy of the Fifty-Four Forties . The Senate refusedto adopt the joint resolution for notice to Great Britainpassed by the House, and it was modified so as to relievei t of its abruptness by inserting a preamble reciting

“thatit has now become desirable, that the respective claims ofthe Uni ted States and ‘Great Britain should be defini telysettled and that said territory may no longer than needbe remain subject to the evil consequences of the d ividedalleg iance of its American and British population , and of theconfusion and conflict of national jurisdiction , dangerous tothe cherished peace and good understanding of the two

l Cong . Globe, 29th Cong . l st sess. , p . 1 10.

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138 Politica l H istory of Secess ion

Polk himself , if not converted to the wisdom ,yielded to the

necessity , of abandoning his former Oregon policy .

The next thing to do was to breakthe news of the President ’s change of policy to the Senate and to the country ,but to do this in such a way as to let the President down as

easily as possible. For this purpose Senator Haywood , of

North Carolina , a personal and political friend of the President , was enlisted in his behalf . It was the mission of

Haywood not only to announce the President ’ s change of

policy but to show that he was not gu ilty of any inconsisteney . This , of course, was a di fficult , if not an impossibleundertaking , but Haywood performed it as well as any onecould have done in a speech in the Senate on March 4 , 1 846 .

I

Haywood ’s speech excited the ire of Hannegan and Allen ,who at once demanded to know whether Haywood spokeby the authori ty of the President or not, but Haywoodavoided g iving a di rect answer , although we have Benton

’

s

word for it that he was so authorized .

2 Then Hannegan ,pretend ing to believe that Haywood had spoken withoutauthority of the President , proceeded to show , and to showvery clearly , by extracts from the President ’s messages ,that his present policy , if it was that attributed to him byHaywood , was altogether inconsistent with that formerlyadvocated by him . Going still further , he proceeded to

exhaust his stock of invectives in berating the President overHaywood ’s shoulders for an abandonment of his politicalprinciples and for treason to his party .

In plain words , he said ,

“he [Haywood ] represents the

President as parenthetically sticking in a few hollow and

falsewords to cajole the ‘ultraism s of the country .

’ What isthis , need I ask, but Charg ing upon the President conductthemost vile and infamous? If this allegation be true, theseintentions of the President must sooner or later come to

light and ,when brought to light , what must follow but

irretrievable di sgrace? So long as one human eye remains

Cong. Globe, I d . , App . , p . 369 .

Thirty Years, vol. ii. , pp . 662—663 .

The Oregon Boundary Question 139

to linger on the page of history the story of his abasementwill be read , sending him and his name together to an infamy so profound , a damnation so deep , that the hand of

resurrection wi ll never be able to drag him forth . He who

is a traitor to his country can never have forgiveness of God ,

and cannot ask mercy of man .

” Continuing , he sai d :“I

have only to add that , so far as the whole tone , spirit , andmeaning of the remarks of the Senator from North Carolinaare concerned , i f they speak the language of James K . Polk,James K . Polk has spoken word s of falsehood , and wi th thetongue of a serpent .The Democratic papers throughout the country followed

the lead of Hannegan in denouncing the proposed backdown , but all this , accord ing to Benton , was mere stagethunder , the fact being that the leaders of the Democraticparty , includ ing Polkhimself , were eager to find some plausible pretext for washing their hands of the Oregon question .

Hannegan and hi s little squad of Western fire eaters con

tinued to roar , but the Admi nistration was now bent on

retreat .Buchanan continued to negotiate with Pakenham , the

British representative, and the negotiations resulted inPakenham making an ofier to Buchanan on June 6 , 1 846 ,to compromise on the 49th parallel as the boundaryline, together wi th the free navigation of the ColumbiaRiver . The next step , accordi ng to long-es tablished practice in such cases , would have been for the President tod irect a treaty to be drawn , embodying the terms agreedon

, and then to submit it to the Senate for ratification .

But this would havethrown upon the President the re

sponsibility and odi um for the backdown . Moreover , thePresident was uncertain as to what would be the attitudeof the Whigs . The Whi g Senators from the first had beenopposed to the policy of the Fifty-Four Forties ; but wouldthey now support the President in his new backdown policy ,orwould they veer round and oppose it in order to embarrass

Cong . Globe, 29th Cong . , I st sess. , p. 460.

140 Po l itica l H istory of S ecess io

the Administration,accordi ng to the vernacular of politi

cians ,“to put it in a hole

”? How the President was ex

tricated from the embarrassing d ilemma in whi ch he now

found himself , is thus naively told by Benton t :

“Mr . Pakenham made his offer ; it was not a case for

delay ; and acceptance or rejection became inevi table. Itwas accepted , and nothing remained but to put the treatyinto form . A device was necessary , and it was found in theearly practice of the government— that of the Presidentasking the advi ce of the Senate upon the articles of a treatybefore the negotiation . Mr . Benton proposed this courseto Mr . Polk. He was pleased wi th it , but feared its feasib ility. The advice of the Senate woul d be his suff icientshield ; but could it be obtained ? The chances seemed to

be against i t. It was an uphill business , requiring a vote oftwo thirds ; it was a novelty , not practiced since the time

of Washi ngton ; it was a submission to theWhigs , wi th therisk of defeat , for unless they stood by the President againstthe dominant d ivision of his own friends , the advice desiredwould not be given and the embarrassment of theAdmini stration would be greater than ever . In this uneasy and

uncertain state of mind , the President had many conf erences with Mr . Benton , the point of which was to know ,

beyond the chance of mistake, how far he could rely upontheWhi g Senators . Mr . Benton talked With them al l , withWebster , Archer , Berrien , John M . Clayton , Crittenden ,Corwin , Davis of Massachusetts , Dayton , Greene of RhodeIsland , Huntington of Connecticut , Reverdy Johnson ,Henry Johnson of Louisiana , Miller of New Jersey , Phelps ,Simmons , Upham , Woodbridge, and saw fully that theyintended to act for their country and not for their party ,and reported to the President that he would be safe intrusting to them— that their united voice would be in favorof the advice, whi ch , added to the mi nority of the Democ

racy , would make the two thirds which were requisite.

The most auspicious mode of applying for thi s advi ce wasThi rty Years, vol. pp . 674

—675.

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42 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

After the opponents of the treaty in the Senate had ex

hausted all the known parliamentary tactics in eff orts topostpone and to amend , the question came to a vote on

January 10 , 1 846 , and on January 15 , 1846 , the treaty itselfwas ratified by the Senate by a. vote of thirty-eight totwelve.

I Of the twelve who voted against ratifying thetreaty , only two , Atchison of Missouri and Westcott ofFlorida , were from the slave States .So ended the long controversy over the Oregon boundary

question . As Gidd ings had pred icted , there had been acomplete backdown by the Administration from its orig inalOregon policy . The Fifty-Four Forties d id not get

“all of

Oregon . They did not get a“fight .

” They got only so

much of Oregon as Great Britain was willing to concedeand no more, but their Southern allies had gained the

annexation of Texas , all that they ca red for, all that theyhad fought for in the preced ing presidential campaign .

Another g reat area was now added to the vast territorialdomain of the United States in which the status of slaverywas yet to be settled .

“

Cong . Globe, 29th Cong . , Ist sess. , p . 1224.

3 In order to soothe Hannegan’s lacerated feelings hewas appointed

by PolkMinister to Prussia and his appointment was confirmed duringthe closing days of the Thirtieth Congress. He was, however, recalledby the succeeding Administration. After that he returned to Indiana,where he remained a fewyears, and then removed to St. Louis, Missouri,where he died on January 25 , 1859 . SenatorAllen at a much later date,in 1 873 , during one of those occasional political upheavals that some

times happen in this country, whenmen of his type arepopular, came to

the surface again andwas elected Governor of Ohio. He died in 1879.

'

CHAPTER VIII

WAR wrra MEXICO : D IVIDING THE SPOILS or VICTORY

S had been predicted , the annexation of Texas wasspeed ily followed by war with Mexico , which was

declared on May 13 , 1 846 . It lasted over two years .Although there had been much opposition to it in the freeStates before it began , the North was not backward in

money for its prosecution . The

war again the valor of American soldiers ofboth North and South . General Winfield Scott and General Zachary Taylor achieved lasting renown in the war , andTaylor ’s military record gained for him the Presidency .

Peace was declared on February 2 , 1848 , was ratified on

May 30 , 1848 , and proclamation was made on July 4 , 1848 .

By the term s of the treaty of peace a vast area was ceded byMexico , includi ng a large tract to which Texas laid claimthat was di sputed by Mexico and that most hi storiansassert had no substantial basis .The peace was especially fortunate for Polk

’s Administration . After two years of war it was found that it wascosting the United States in men and in money far morethan had been anticipated and the people had begun to

grumble against it . Moreover , there was danger that thewar , if much longer protracted , would degenerate into aguerrilla warfare of indefinite duration , thereby creatingnew and d iffi cult problems . To anything like a war forthe conquest of the Whole of Mexico , the North , and probablymany in the South , would have been infiexibly opposed .

During the preliminary negotiations for peace a significant143

incident occurred which clearly demonstrated the attitudeand expectations of the Admin istration and the slaveholdersof the South in reference to the status of slavery in theterritory expected to be acquired from Mexico . Mexicowished to incorporate in the p roposed peace treaty a prom-m uu u u u “ m m

vision securing_

the ceded territory against ”

the“ introductionof slavery and the Mexican comrhissioners

‘

suggested thisto Nicholas P . Trist , AssrstantuSfigretary of State, Who hadbeen sent to receive any peace prepositions that Mexico

might offer . To this suggestion Trist reported that heanswered “that the bare mention of the subject in anytreaty to which the United States were a party was anabsolute impossibility ; that no President of the UnitedStates would dare to present any such treaty to the Senate ;and that if it were in their power to off er me the wholeterritory described in our project , increa sed tenfold invalue, and , in add ition to that , covered a foot thick all overwith pure gold upon the single condi tion that slavery shouldbe excluded therefrom , I could not entertain the offer fora moment , nor think of communicating it to Washington .

The matter ended in their being fully satisfied that thistopic was not one to be touched . Both Buchanan and

Polk seem to have been fully satisfied wi th Tri st’s conductin the matter , and his statement to the Mexican comm issioners undoubtedly voiced the sentiment of the pro-slaverymen of the South .

I

In 1 846 , after the beginning of the war but In anticipation“ PM ” M u n

of its te{min_atio_

n and”the acquisition by the United States

of add itional territory , David Wilmot , a Democratic mem

ber of the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania ,introduced his famous proviso , afterward s known as the“Wilmot Proviso ,

”declari ng it to be

“an express and

fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territoryin Mexico ,

that neither slavery nor involuntary servitudeshall ever exist therein . The resolution passed the Housebut was defeated in the Senate. The debate upon it was

1 SeeVon Holst, Const. and P ol. Hi st. , vol. iii. , p. 334.

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146 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

force the issue on the North . Something of the kind wasindispensable to rouse and uni te the South . On the con

trary, if we should not meet it as we ought , I fear , greatlyfear , our doom will be fixed . It would prove that we eitherhave not the sense or spirit to defend ourselves and our

institution .

He then alludes to the acts of the legislatures of Pennsylvania and other States designed to embarrass the executionof the existing Federal fugitive slave law and said : “I gofarther , and hold that if we have a right to hold our slaveswe have a right to hold them in peace and quiet and that thetoleration in the non-slaveholding States of the establishment of societies and presses , and the delivery of lectures ,wi th the express intention of calling in question our rightto our slaves , and of seducing and abducting them from the

service of their masters and finally overthrowing the institution itself , as not only a vi olation of international laws ,but also of the Federal contract . I hold also that we cannotacquiesce in such wrongs Without the certain destruction ofthe relation of master and slave and without the ruin of

the South .

” Continui ng he said : “With this impression Iwould regard any compromise or adjustment of the provisoor even its defeat , Without meeting the danger in its wholelength and breadth , as very unf ortunate for us . It wouldlull us to sleep again , Wi thou t removing the danmaterially dimini shing it .Coming then to the question how the danger to the So

could be met“without resorting to the d issolution of

Union ,” an “

extreme remedy ” not to be resorted to “uall others have failed and then only in defenand safety ,

”he said '

: There is and can be but one

short of d isuni on , and that is to retaliate on our

refusing to fulfill the stipulations in their favor , orwemay select as themost effi cient . Among these tof their shi ps and commerce to enter and depart

ports is the most effectual , and can be enforced .

refusal on their part would justify us to refuse to

War with Mexico : D ivid ing the Spoi ls 147

our part those in their favor is too clear to admi t of argu~ment . That it would be eff ectual in compelling them to

fulfill those in our favor can hard ly be doubted when theimmense profit they make by trade and navigation out of

us is regarded ; and also the advantages we would derivefrom the d irect trade it would establish between the restof the world and our ports .

” ThisM

doctrine was the SouthCarolina nullification doctrine vampEd over, and certain , ifput into practice, to lead tosecessi on and civi l war . 1S c

'

arcely had the ink dried on the treaty of peace wi thMexico until di stressing controversies arose over the division of the spoils of victory . There was a controversybetween Texas and the people of NeW1183580

_

a'

s"to

i

15513113

ary’

lmés , and Texas wanted compensation from the UnitedStates for relinquishi ng her claims . Above all other questidfi

'

slvvas 1113t slavery 1n the Territories , not only 1n the

territory recently acqui red from Mexico , but in the re“ Ch a fi ng « 1 M fi ‘w

mainder of Lou isiana territory notyet orgamzed into States ,” p um a q

and i n the Oregon territory , whose boundari es had beenfixed and Whose inhabitants were now anxious for a terri

the first session of the Twentyninth Congress , Stephen A . Douglas , chairman of the HouseCommittee on Territories , reported a bill for the territorialorganization of Oregon the bill being silent on the slaveryquestion . It was amended in the House by inserting aprovision prohibiting slavery , but it

"

was so near the closeofa s fi v‘hw ‘r ‘fi " o “f a n

the session that no acti on upon it was"

taken by the Senate.

At the next Douglas again reported a bill for theterritorial organization of Oregon , which passed the Houseby a large majority , but when it reached the Senate it waslaid on the table, and no further action was had during thatsession , which ended on March 3 , 1 847. At the first sessionof the Thirtieth Congress , which began on December 6 ,

1847, and ended on August 14 , 1 848 , the House againpassed the Oregon bill with a provision prohi biting slavery .

Benton, Thi rty Years, vol. ii. , p . 698.

148 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

When it got to the Senate, Douglas , now in the Senate andChairman of the Committee on Territories , on August 5 ,1 848 , reported the House bill with an amendment extend ingthe 1111538115 Compromise to the“Pacific Ocean . The billas amended was passed by the Senate by a vote of 33 to

22, but the House rejected the amendment b

y”

the decisive$ 0vote of 12 1 to 82,an

'

d_

oniAi‘1i gnust 14 , 1848 , the last day of

the session , the Senatereceded from its amendment and thebill was passed as it came from the House. The b11l_ h as“passed was vigorously opposed by Calhoun , Davis , “

and

other Southern Senators , not because they expected thatthe inhabitants of Oregon would ever favor the establishment of slavery there, but i n vindi cationof the principlefog l vhich Calhoun had all along contended that Congresshad Eq fight slavery i n arfy

”

T’

érritory. Prob”

ably it Was"

. also expected by some of theSouthern mem

bers of Congress that by opposition to the prohihitionof slavery in Oregon , some concessions might be gainedfavorableto the establi shment of slavery m the territoryacqu1red from Mexico.

88011“

'

after"

the close of the war with Mexico in 1 848 ,

during the'

first session’

of the Thirtieth Congress , bills wereintroduced providi ng for territorial organization for California , New Mexico ,

and Utah , but no substantial progressas made in the passage of any of these bills dur ing theThirtieth Congress .The Democratic party at its National Convention inBaltimore in 1 848 named as its candi dates for President andVice-President General Lewis Cass of Michigan and William0 . Butler of Kentucky on a platform deprecating the furtheragitation of the slaveryquestion .

The Whi g National Convention met at Philadelphia inJune, 1848 , and again skulked on the question of slavery inthe Territories . Not a word was said in the platform uponthat or upon any other phase of the slavery question , and allmotions introduced to elicit from either the convention or itscandi dates any declaration on the subject were promptly

”0M

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Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

I declare to this convention that the Whig party is hereand this day di ssolved .

” Another delegate, Henry Wilson ,afterwards Senator from Massachusetts , Spoke still moreplainly .

“I came to the convention , he said ,“a Whig ,

committed unreservedly to the principles of theWhig partyand to its organization . I askof this convention the nomination of a Whig who is unreservedly committed to the principles of liberty . We have nomi nated a cand idate who hassaid to the nation that hewill not be bound by the principlesof any party . Sir , I wi ll go home and , so help me God , Iwill do all I can to defeat the election of that candi date.

The anti slavery.

men of the North had now no abid ing“ r .A n t-u “ 4 : “a ".

“

p lace in either the Democratlc or Whig parti es , an inAugust

“

1848 a convention was held i n Buffalo, NewYork,i des1gned to fusealf

n

t'

héw

opponents of slavery extens1or'

1"into

9 9 333311157 , under name of the Free-soi l party.

convention nom inated Martinvan Buren forPresident andCharles Franci s Adams for Vice-President , upon a platformdeclaring for Free Soil , Free Speech , Free Labor , and FreeMen . The Northern Whig s of anti-slavery conviction wereIplaced m an embarrassing position . It was hard for them

1tobreakaway from old party ties and affiliations . Many

” o f them could not reconcile themselves to voting for theirold antagonist , Van Buren . They d istrusted him on the

slavery question and he was not in accord wi th them on anyof the cardinal principles of the old Whig party . Moreoverthere was still a faint hope, encouraged by Seward and

other Whig leaders , that theWhig party of the North mightyet be converted into an anti-slavery party . So the greatbody of the Whig s in the North supported their partycand idate. Nevertheless , Taylor would probably havebeen defeated but for the political condi tions existing inNew York, which was a pivotal State. By this time the

Democratic party in that State had been split into two

factions on the question of extending the Wilmot Provisoto the newly acqu ired Territories . One faction favored it ,and was likened by its opponents to the old Dutchman who

War with Mexico : D ivid ing the Spoi ls 15 1

burned his barn to get ri d of the rats and therefore nicknamed Barnburners ” ; those of the other faction whichopposed theWilmot Provi so were styled by their opponentsHunkers , a name conveying verymuch the samemeaningthat the term “Standpatters has come to signify in morerecent years .John A . D ix, a Barnbumer Democrat , had been nomi

nated by the NewYork Free-soilers for governor . Politicalconditions there were in a state of chaos . It is d iff icultfor any one living outside of New York ever to get a clearunderstanding of the politics of that State. It seems ,however , that occasionally there is set aside there a yearfor settling old political scores . The year 1 848 happened tobe such a year . Van Buren ’s friends attributed his defeatfor the presidential nomi nation in 1844 largely to the

influence of General Cass . The presidential aspirations ofanother prom inent New York Democrat , Silas Wright , hadbeen nipped in the bud by Polk

’s Adm inistration , and thefriends of both Van Buren and Wright availed themselvesof the opportuni ty now offered of getting even . The re

sult was that Van Buren received in New York State one

hundred and twenty thousand votes , drawing enough fromCass to give the electoral vote of the State to Taylor andthereby securing for him a majori ty of votes in the electoralcollege.

In thi s campaign , Seward took an active part , speakingin support of Taylor . Abraham Lincoln , then a memberof Congress from Illinoi s , also took an active part in behalfof Taylor . He spoke in several places in New England ,

speaking together with Seward in Boston , where, accord ingto the local papers of the time

,he was received “with great

applause”and making a “powerful and convincing speech

whi ch was cheered to the echo . In his speech at Worcester ,Mass , he made one of hi s characteristic droll comparisons ,comparing the Free-soil platform to a pair of trousers whicha Yankee peddler recommended as “large enough for anyman and small enough for any boy.

1 52 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

Deep down in the hearts of many Northern Whi gs therewas no doubt a feeling over the election of Taylor in accordwith that which found expression in Horace Greeley ’

s reportof Taylor ’s inaugu ration ball , in which is this patheticlament for the defeat of Henry Clay : “Let those who willflatter the chief di spenser of executive patronage, d iscovering in every act and feature some resemblance to Washi ngton ; I am content to wait , and watch , and hope. I burnno incense on his altar , attach no flattering epithets to hisname. I turn from this imposing pageant , so rich in glitter ,so poor in feeling , to thinkof him who should have been thecentral figure of thi s grand panorama— the d istant , thepowerless , the unforgotten behind the mountains , butnot setting -the eloquent champion of Liberty in bothhemispheres— whose voice thrilled the hearts of the up

rising , the long-trampled sons of Leonidas and Xenophonwhose appeals for South American independence were readto the hastily mustered squadrons of Bolivar , and nervedthem to sweep from this fair continent the myrm idons ofSpanish oppression . My heart is with him in his farsouthern abid ing-place— wi th him , the early advocate of

African emancipation ; the life-long champion of a di versified Home Industry ; of Internal Improvement ; and not

less glorious in his later years as the stern reprover of thefatal spirit of conquest and aggression . Let the exul tingthousands quafi their red wines at the revel to the vi ctorof Monterey and Buena Vista , while wi t points the sentiment with an epigram , and beauty crowns it with her smilesmore grateful to me the stillness of my lonely chamber , thiscup of crystal water in which I honor the cheri shed memorywith the old , fami liar asp iration

‘Here’s to you , Harry Clay ! t

The second session of the Thirtieth Congress began on

December 4 , 1 848 , and continued until March 3 , 1849. AS

Patton, Life of Horace Greeley, p . 3 17.

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Po l itica l H istory of Secession

opponents of slavery. Senator John M . Clayton of Delaware, chairman of the special committee of eight that hadbeen appointed to consider the portion of the President ’ smessage relating to the subject , submitted a report on

July 19 , 1 848 , admi tting the inability of the members ofthe comm ittee to agree to any recommendation except thatCongress take no action whatever , but should leave thematter to be determi ned by the territorial courts with aright of appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States .This method of perm itting Congress to shirkresponsibility ,by shifting it upon unknown territorial judges who m ightbe appointed by the President , found little favor in anyquarter .On December 13 , 1848 , Senator Benton presented a

petition from the people of New Mexico “for the speedy

organization , by law, of a tm g g vernment for us ,

in which they said : “We respectfully but firmly protestJ W ' W M

against the di smemberment of our territory in“

favor of

Texas or for any other cause. We do not desi re tohavedomestic slavery wi thin our borders , and until the timshall arrive for ouradmi ssioninto the Union as a Statewedesi re“ to b e protected byCongress against its introductionamong us . Calhounat once arose and said : “I rise toexpress my opinion that the people of this territory , underall the circum stances of the case

,have not made a respect

ful petition to this Senate, but on the contrary , that theyhave made a most insolent one . Continuing he said : Ilook upon the rights of the Southern States proposed to beexcluded from this territory as a high constitutional principle. Our right to go there with our property is unquestionable and guaranteed and supported by the Constitution .

The territory belongs to us— to the United States . It

belong s to the States of Carolina and Virg inia as much as itdoes to New Yorkand Massachusetts .On the same day that Benton introduced his New Mexico

petition in the Senate, the House Committee on Terri tories ,1 Cong . Globe, 3oth Cong .

, 2d sess. , p . 33 .

War with Mexico : D ivid ing the Spo ils 155

on motion of Root of Ohio , was d irected by a vote of 106 to80 to report a bill or bills for the territorial organization of

New Mexico and Cal ifornia , with a provision prohibitingslavery therein .

On motion of Daniel Gott of New York , the Committeeon the District of Columbia was instructed by a vote of

98 to 88 to report a bill for the abolition of slavery in theDistrict of Columbia , but the vote was afterward s re

considered and no further action was taken upon themotion .

On February 19, 1 849, Senator Walker of Wisconsinsucceeded in getting an amendment tacked to the generalappropriation bill while it was in the Senate, extend ing theConstitution to all the newly acquired territory and givingthe President authority “

to prescribe and establish all

proper and u seful regulations in conformity with the Constitution of the United States .

” I The debate upon thismotion at once d isclosed the purpose of the amendment ,which was to get the Constitution extended to the Territories with Calhoun ’s construction of it , namely , that it protected slavery therein so long as the Territories remained in aterritorial condition . This gave rise to a protracted debate,Calhoun again advocating his theory of the constitutionalguarantee of slavery , which was vigorously combated byWebster . There was imm inent danger that the sessionwould end without the passage of the appropri ation bill,but on the last night of the session the Walker amendmentwas defeated .

During the session several bills had been introducedprovid ing territorial governments for California and New

Mexico , but as soon as introduced amendments would beproposed for tacking to them theWilmot Proviso , until theintroduction of any bill became the signal for an acrimoniousdebate on the question of slavery, and the session ad journedwithout any definite action having been taken on any of thebills . Although nothing had been accompli shed in the

Benton claims that the amendment was prompted by Sena torCalhoun. Examination of the Dred Scott case, p . 133 .

156 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

way of legi slation aff ecting slavery in the Territories or elsewhere, enough had been done to d isclose a strong antislavery sentiment in the North and thoroughly to alarm the

slavehold ing interests in the South .

Benton asserts that during the last days of Polk ’s Administration there were nightly secret meetings of largenumbers of members of Congress from the slaveholdi ngStates , to devise means for the defense and protection of

the South , and that Calhounwas at the bottom of themovement . These meetings were conducted he says “wi thextraord inary precautions to avoid publicity ; none butslave State members were admitted ; no reporters werepermitted to be present ; nor any spectators or aud itors .

”

A commi ttee of which Calhoun was the chairman wasappointed to d raft an address . The address , entitled ,

“Anaddress of the Southern delegates in Congress to theirconstituents , and modeled after the Declaration of Independence, recited a long list of grievances charged againstthe North and was soon followed by a call from the legislatures of South Carolina and Mississippi for the assembling of a ‘Southern Congress

’

to put the machinery of theUni ted States South ’ into operation .

I Mention is madein the next chapter of the results of this address .

In thi s Congress we find the name of Abraham Lincoln ,a member of the House from Illinois . The congressionalreports show that he proposed some resolutions

,submitted

some reports , and made a few speeches . His most elaboratespeeches were one on internal improvements and two

criticizing President Polk’s message on the Mexican War .

One of these, a speech delivered on July 27, probablyamused the Hou se, for

‘in it Lincoln related a number of

anecdotes , all of a humorous character and pat in point .It closed wi th an anecdote, referring to the d issensionsamong the New York Democrats , one that can be fully

Benton, Thi rty Years, vol. pp . 733—736 . See also Von Holst,

Const. and P ol. Hi story, vol. iii. , pp . 4 13—423 .

3 Cong . Globe, soth Cong . ,1 st sess. , App . , 1041 .

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1 58 Politica l H istory of Secess ion

forts to bring about a reformation of the mi leage abuses ,and thereby drew upon himself a torrent of denunciationfrom all sides . When accused of having drawn a dollar ortwo too much , he vind icated hi mself by showing that hehad di scovered the excess and had pai d it back into the

Treasury . The committee to whi ch thematter was referredrefused to make any recommendation on the subject ; themembers continued to cling to their perquisites and to

d raw mileage as usual and the whole matter ended inwhat Greeley characterized as a “dry haul.At the end of hi s three months ’ service, Greeley wrote a

farewell letter to his constituents , in whi ch he apologizedfor hi s own shortcomings but consoled himself with thereflection , in whi ch he was undoubtedly correct ,

“that i fyou had sent to Washington (as you doubtless might havedone) a more sternly honest and fearless representative ,

he would have made hi mself more unpopular with a largeportion of the House than I di d He never afterwardsappeared as a candidate for a public office until the year1 872 , when the strangest anomaly ever exhi bited in American politics was presented by his appearance as a candi datefor President of the p arty that he had spent almost hi sentire life in opposing and denouncing .

Parton, Life of Greeley, p . 3 18.

CHAPTER IX

FORCING THE ISSUE : THE COMPROMISE MEASURES or 1850

HE new President was inaugurated on March 5 , 1849 .

The first session of the Thirty-first Congress began onDecember 3 , 1849 , and continued until September 30 , 1850 .

At the opening of the session the political parties were in noamiable mood . The

“opposition of the North to the recap

ture of fugitive Slaves continued ; theAbolition societies andthe un derground railroad were in full blast ; the free-soilelement in the Democratic, partywas ; growing ; there wasa persistent

_ _

and increasing demand of the anti-Slaveryelement in

'

the'

North for the prohibition of slavery _

in the

Territories , and petitions continued to pour into Congressnot only for the abolition of the slave trade 1n the Districtof Columbia , but also for the abolition of slavery itself 111the District and for the prohibition of the inter-State Slavetrade.

The new President was yet a political enigma . Althougha Southern man , it was evident that he was of a typeentirely d iff erent from that of Tyler , and that he would notbe domi nated by any party or politicians . In a letter ofHenry Clay to his friend James Harlan , written on March16 , 1850 ,

I he said : “My relations to the Executive are civilbut cold . We have very li ttle intercourse of any kind .

Instead of any d isposition to obligeme I feel that a contraryd isposition has been sometimes manifested . I havenever before Seen such an adm inistration . There is verylittle cooperation or concord between the two ends of the

Colton, Private Correspondence of Henry Clay, p. 603.

IS9

160 Pol itica l H istory oi Secess ion

avenue. There is not, I believe, a prominent Whi g ineither House that has any confidential intercourse wi th theExecutive. Mr . Seward , it is said ,

had ; but his late Abolition Speech has , I presume, cut him off from any such intercourse as it has erad icated the respect of almost all men for

Moreover , it was understood that the Presideptjavoredu x. h og-m l 0 "

It” was this unexpected turn of aff airs that added to thew it-nanger of theSouth?

“m'

At theconclusion of the_ warmwithN O N I !

Mexico"

it was confidently expected 111 the South thatmgal ifom er at eaS€3 531

-1 of it ,would come into the Union as

a slave State. But the discovery of the gold fields of

California was followed by political consequences that no

gone had anticipated . An unprecedented tide of immi gra

Jtion set in which brought with it a large lawless element , sothat it speed ily became necessary to set up some kind of

civil government . Congress having failed to pass any billestabli shing either a territorial or a State government , aconvention of the people of the Territory was called byGeneral Riley , the provisional Governor , acting underinstructions from the President . The convention met atMonterey on September I , 1 849 , continuing its session toOctober 13 , 1 849 , and adopted a constitution which wassubm itted to the people and ratified by them on November1 3 , 1 849, by a vote of to 8 1 1 . AS soon as adoptedthe constitution was transmi tted to Washington . In theconstitution it was provided that :

“Neither Slavery nor

involuntary serv itude, except for the punishment of crime,

shall ever be tolerated in this State.

If California should now come in as a free State the equilibrium would be broken , and therewas no Territory then 111Sight out ofwhich to make another Slave State so that theequilibrium might be restored .

Itwas now evident thata large number of Southernmem

bers of Congress , Democrats and Whigs alike, had become

converts to Calhoun ’ s ideas on the Slavery question , espe

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162 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

Free States Free-soil Total

Massachusetts

New JerseyNew YorkPennsylvaniaRhode IslandVermont .

Slave States Democratic Whig Free-soil Total

Delaware

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

North CarolinaSouth Carolina

SUMMARY

Free-soil Total

Free States

The Compromise Measures of 1850 163

In the House the States were represented by 230 membersand the Territori es by two, politically classified as follows :

Free States Democratic

vacancy)

NewJerseyNewYorkPennsylvaniaRhode Island

Slave States Democratic Whig Free-soil

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

KentuckyLouisianaMarylandM ississipp1Missouri .

North Carolina .

South

164 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

SUMMARY

Democratic

Free StatesSlave States

In addi tion to the above the two Territories , Oregonand Minnesota , were each represented by one delegate ,

both delegates being Democrats .The great leaders , Calhoun , Clay , and Webster , were

still in the Senate. Next to these were others afterwardsmore wi dely known , includi ng among the Democrats suchmen as Jefferson Davis and Stephen A . Douglas ; amongthe Whigs , William H . Seward ; among the Free-soilersand Liberty party , John P . Hale of New Hampshireand Salmon P . Chase of Ohio . Hale and Douglas enteredthe Senate in 1 847 ; Chase and Seward in 1 849 . Hale wasconspicuous among the opponents of slavery in the Senate.

Born in Rochester , New Hampshire, in 1 806 , he became

active at an early date in State politics and was appointedUnited States District Attorney for New Hampshire byPresident Van Buren in 1 834 . In 1 843 he was electedmember of Congress . Although elected as a Democrat , heopposed the suppression of the right of petition and alsoopposed the annexation of Texas . For thi s he incurred thehostility of Franklin Pierce and other leadi ng Democrats ofNewHampshire and , although he had been renominated byhis constituents for reelection to Congress , hi s name wastaken off the ticket and that of another candidate wassubstituted . Nothing daunted ,

Hale continued his opposition ; his constituents stood by him and in 1 846 he was

elected to the State Legislature, by whi ch he was electedSpeaker , and in 1847 he was elected to the Uni ted StatesSenate and was reelected in 1853 . From the date of hi s

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166 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

in 1840 elected Secretary of State, and the following year asone of the judges of the Illinois Supreme Court . In 18 43 ,h e was elected Representative to Congress and held thatoffice for four years , during which time he served as Chairman of the House Committee on Territories . In 1847 he

was elected to the United States Senate for the term end ingin 1853 , and in 1 850 was servi ng as Chairman of the SenateCommittee on Territories . He was an untiring worker ,exceedi ngly well-versed in the political history of the UnitedStates , bold even to the point of audacity . AS a readypolitical debater he has had few equal s , and no superior inthe United States Senate. In the short time that he hadserved in the United States Senate he was ready at all times

to measure lances with such old and experienced leaders asCalhoun and Webster , and such was the ability wi th whi chhe always maintained himself that he had already acquireda national reputation .

Another of the new men in the Senate was William H .

Seward of New York . He was elected Uni ted StatesSenator in 1849 , and took his seat in 1850 .

Another new Senator was Salmon P . Chase of Ohio. He

was a man of command ing presence and an untiri ng worker .He had early taken a pronounced stand against the extensionof Slavery and had acquired d istinction by the abili ty withwhich he conducted the defense of various persons proseouted for violations of the Fugi tive Slave Law , especiallyin the Van Zandt case, in which he was associated withWilliam H . Seward . He had been influential in organizingthe Liberty party in Ohio , and was the author of an addressissued bya great convention ,

“The Southern and Western

Liberty Convention , in Cincinnati in June, 1 845 , anaddress of whi ch more than one hundred thousand copieswere circulated , producing a widespread eff ect in the North .

He was a member of the Free-soil convention at Buffalo in1 848 , and in 1 849 was elected as an anti-slavery Democratto the United States Senate, taking his seat in that body forthe first time in 1850.

The Compromise Measures of 1850 167

As before statedk bi llsp rqyidipg territorial governments“m m “

for aliformruia , Utah , and New Mexico had been introducedm the

'

Second Sess ion of the Thirtieth Congress that hadevoked considerable discu ssion , but no defini te resul ts hadbeen reached . The whole question was now opened up

afresh by the messfl

age of President Taylor , recommendingthe adm ission of Californi a under its free State constitutionarid

S’

t/

he admi Ssion of New Mexi co as soon as ready foradmi ssion . The introduction of any bill having the

SSiflbtest bearing on the question of Slaverym theTerritoriesat once di sclosed the same irreconcilable conflict of opinionand aroused the same antagonisms that had characterizedthe debates of the preceding session of Congress . “I donot believe,

” said Douglas , that the Senate can agree uponany principle by which a bill can pass giving governmentsto the Terri tories in which the word slavery is mentioned .

If you prohibit , if you establi sh , i f you recognize, if youcontrol, i f you touch the question of Slavery , your bill cannot ,in my opinion , pass thi s body.

” I On December 27, 1 849 ,Senator Foote introduced a resolution providing for territorial governments for California , Deseret , and NewMexico.

Amendments were immedi ately offered for the exclusion of

slavery from these Territories . Later, bills were introducedfor the passage of a fugitive slave law and bills for establi shing the boundaries of Texas . On January 29 SenatorHenry Clay of Kentucky off ered a SW H

"W ise

resolut1ons , proposing to admi t Cali forniawvitlfo”

ut referenceo slavery, toestablish territorial governments in theremainmg Territories , without anyreStriStion as to Slavery ; also fixing the boundaries of Texas and provid ing forthe payment

Mexico ; declaring it inexpedient tothe District of Columbia , but prohibiting‘w

the Slave traffic 1n the District ;also provisions strengtheni ngfl fl -fl i

the fugi tive slave laws , and declaring that Congress had no“ y w

Cong. Globe, 3rst Cong . ,rst sess., p. 1 1 16.

168 Po litica l H istory of Secess ion

power to prohibit the domestic Slave trade between theStates .Later , on February 28 , Senator John Bell of Tennessee

also offered a series of compromi se resolutions . SenatorFoote at once moved to refer the resolutions to a commi tteeof thirteen wi th authority to report a compromise for thead justment of all pendi ng di fferences between the Northand South g rowing out of the institution of Slavery . FinallyFoote’ s resolution for the appointment of a commi ttee of

thirteen was passed , but was amended so as also to subm itto the committee the resolutions of Senators Clay and

Bell , and a comm ittee was appointed , consisting of threeDemocrats and three Whigs for the free States , and threeDemocrats and three Whigs for the Slave States , with theaddi tion of Clay who was made Chairman . On May 8 ,1 850 , Clay

’

S committee reported a bill i n thi rteenSgggiifi sii“

The debate on these various resolutions , bills , and amendments was long and acrimonious . They were opposed

the extreme anti-slavery men of the North . The extreme

Southern views as tothequestionof Slavery 1n theTerritorieswere substantially those already mentioned that had beenbefore advocated by Calhoun , Davis , and other Southernleaders . The claim s of the Southern leaders were vigorouslydenied by the anti-Slavery Democrats and Whig s and by theFree-soilers . Prominent among those favoring the com

sures in theS enatS wwere enr

fl

t ZlaM

Ci a zm Qr,an r “ M m "!

A . Douglas . The speeches which commandedW

attention were thoseof and

Clay , whohad voluntarily retired from politicsafter a long and honorable career , had been unanimouslyelected by the Kentucky Legislature to serve his State and

country again in theUnited States Senate, in the expectationthat hi s past experience as a legi slator and the unboundedconfidence of the nation in hi s wisdom and patriotismwould enable him to be of great help in quieting the angry

political passions that had again assumed so threatening an

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170 Pol itica l H istory of S ecessmn

he said : But can this be done? Yes , easily ; not by theweaker party , for it can of itself do nothing— not evenprotect itself , but by the stronger . The North has only

W 'J ‘UM "W W W “

to will it to accomplish it— to do i nstiee by conceding LQ i heSouth

h aw

n equalrightin the acquired territory , andj,od he;

(f t? by causi ng the Stipulations relative toto be faithfully fulfilled— to cease the agi tation of the Slavequestion , and to provide for the insertion of a provision inthe Constitution , by an amendment , which will restore

”to

the South , in substance, the power She posseSsed of.

protecting herself , before the equi librium between the sectionSwasdestroyed by the action of this government . There wi ll beno d ifficulty in devising such a provisioh— o ne that will

h , and which , at the same time , wi ll improvethe government , instead of impairing and

weakeni ng it . 1

Another Speech that was awaited wi th breathless interestwas that of Daniel Webster , the great expounder of theConstitution , the orator whose eloquent sentences had so

often thrilled the nation , whose reply to Hayne will everrank with the classic efforts of the most famous orators ofancient or modern times . He was the idol of the Whigs ,and especially of the Whi gs of Massachusetts , and it washoped that when he Spoke he would speak in behalf of

freedom . ButWebster had yielded to the political siren thatsang the deceitful song which has lured so many aspirantsto the presidential office to their destruction , and yieldi ngto the temptation he sacrificed all that had endeared himto the North in order to make fri ends with the South .

Webster Spoke on March 7 . In hi s speech he skillfullyO m m w o u v

array ed all the arguments in favorw

of Slavery , not overlookd atu m -

u".

mg the historical and Scripturalauthorities relied on by "the

advoeates of Slavery . He d i d not expressly approve of thesearguments , neither di d he express d issent from them . Inthi s respect hi s line of argument was much like that followed

Calhoun’

s Works , vol . iv. , p . 572.

Webster’s Works , vol. v . , p . 325 .

The Compromise Measures of 1850 171

later by Chief Justice Taney in his opinion in the Dred Scottcase. He di d go so far, however , as to say :

“At the introduction of Christianity the Roman world was full of Slaves ,and I suppose there is to be found no injunction against thisrelation between man and man in the teachi ngs of the

Gospel of Jesus Christ or any of his apostles . Continuinghe said : “There are thousand s of religious men , with con

sciences as tender as any of their brethren in the North ,who do not see the unlawfulness of slavery ,

”and that can

dor obliges me to say that I believe they are just as conscientious , many of them , and religious people all of them ,

as they are at the North , who hold d ifferent opinions .”

He opposed tacki ng theWilmot Proviso to‘

the bill provid inn A v a” Iv-l l i n.“ "fl u-i ! " m ' fl " “w” w

a tern ton al government"for

'

New Mexico .

”

The reason hegav

'

é‘

fo’

r thi SwaS‘

that the soilu

and climate of the Territorythat

’

Slavé'

rybo'

uld'

fiotJ

exiStYhere : that there wasr “Ir-um

n’

oh

thi n'

g

'

there that'

could by any possib ility 1nduce anybu

o‘l

dytherewith

S

Slaves that prohibiting Slavery th’

erem

w’

hsas useless as a prohibit1on against Slavery in Canada , asuseless as it would be “to reaffirm an ord inance of nature”

or to“reenact the will of God ” ; that such a prohibition

would be regarded by the South as a taunt or a reproach”

and that he was unwilling thus to wound the pride of the

ci tizens of the Sou thern States . As Showing that Webster ’sjudgment , i f not his conscience, was at fault, it may be

noted that?fiinfi gfijgthefi tflefitofialwlegi Slature of NewMexico

adopted a Slave code containing all thm gu mdaraproi ieiohof

v

Si'

ich'

coq

désji '

wi th"’man

“forbidding

emaneipation .

1

“Concerni ng the proposed Fugi tive-”Slave Lawhesaid that

the South had just cause of

lators"

to perform fully their constitutional . .duties w in

regard to'

th'

e'

return of persons bound to servicemwho had .

escaped into the free States . ” Continuing he said that

Greeley, American Conflict, vol. i . , pp. 302—3 ; Wilson, Rise and Fall,

vol. ii . , p . 634.

Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

no man fulfills his duty in any legi slaturewho sets himselfto find excuses , evasions , escapes from thi s constitutionalobligation ,

”and therefore he proposed to support the

pend ing bill with all its provisions to the fullest extent .Nobody could successfully di spute, and nobody except the

radi cal Abolitionists d id d ispute, the existence and bind ingobligation of the constitutional prqwsion providi ng for thema y .“

return of fugitive Slaves, and few would have objacted i fWebster had voted for a reasonable bill , that , while protecting the constitutional rights of them aster , also protectedthe rights of the alleged fugitive,who , upon a fair trial ,mightbe able to prove that he was not a Slave ; but Webster ’ s argument wholly failed to convince the anti-Slavery people of

the North , and particularly those of Massachusetts , that hewas justified in voting for a bill containing so many ob

noxious , and , as many thought , unconstitutional, provisions ,as the one that passed and to which Webster gave his unqualified assent .Concerning theAbolition societies in theNorth he said , I

do not thinkthem useful ; I thinkthat theirOperations for thelast twenty years have produced nothing good or valuable.

Later in the session , on July 1 5 , he said , Speaking of theWilmot Proviso : Now, Sir, allowme to say that theWilmotProviso is no matter of principle. It is a means to an endand it cannot be raised to the d ignity of a principle.

What is it , then , that is yielded by the North but a mereabstraction , a naked possibility upon whi ch no man wouldact? Why Should we proceed upon the ground of

adhering to the Wilmot Proviso as an abstract notion ?And I must be perm itted to say , that , as applied to thiscase, it is all an abstraction . I do notmean to say that theinjunction against Slavery in the Ord inance of 1787 was amere abstraction ; on the contrary , it had its uses ; but I saythe application of that rule to this case is a mere abstractionand nothing else. Speaking of the Fug itive Slave Law ,

he said that theprejudice against it in Massachusetts wasWebster

’s Works, vol. v .

, p . 42 1 . Id ., vol. v . , pp . 422—23 .

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174 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

All else is gone! from those great eyesThe soul has fled ,When faith is lost, when honor dies,The man is dead !

Othernotable speeches weremade in the Senate. Sewardspoke on March I I and it was in thi s speech that he

”)

announced what was afterwards known as the higherflagw;doctrine. He that The Constitution regulatesour Steward ship ; the Constitution devotes the domain tounion , to justice, to defense, to welfare, and to l1berty. But

there is a higher law than the Constitution , which regulatesour authority over the domain and devotes it to the same

9 ?noble purposes .

1 Similar language had been heard beforefrom Abolitionists of the most ultra type. 1MGidd ings had before sai d of the Fugitive Slave Law : “Yetwe are told we must obey this law and perpetrate thesecrimes , until a Slave-ridden Congress Shall see fit to reclaimus from such Sin against God by repealing the law. Whetherit be right to obey God rather than man

, judge ye.

The authors of thi s law may take from me my substance,may imprison me

,or take my life but they have not the

power to degrade me by compelli ng me to commit suchtranscendent crimes against my fellow-man and againstGod ’s law.

" In fact thi s was out-and-out Abolition doctrine , for in the platform of the Liberty party adopted atBuff alo in August , 1 843 , one of the planks expresslyaffirmed that “it is a principle of universal morality thatthe moral laws of the Creator are paramount to all humanlaws ; or in the language of an apostle that

‘we ought to

obey God rather than man,

’

and upon these premises proceeded to base a further resolution affirmi ng that “whereasthe third clause of the second section of the fourth articleof the Constitution of the United States , when construedas providi ng for the surrender of the fugitive Slave does restupon such a basis in that it is a contract to rob a man of a

Seward’

s Works , vol. i . , p . 74.

The Compromise Measures of 1850 1 75

natural right —name1y his natural ri ght to his own libertyand is thereforeabsolutelyvoid .

Lord Brougham , in his speech on negro Slavery in theHouse of Commons , July 13 , 1830 , in advocating the abolition of the Slave trade in the West Indi es , had announcedthe higher-law doctri ne before either Gidd ings or Seward .

Tellme not of rights , he said ,

“talk not of the property ofthe planter in his Slaves . I deny the right— I acknowledgenot the property . The principles , the feeli ngs of our

common nature rise in rebellion against it . Be the appealmade to the understand ing or to the heart , the sentence isthe Same that rejects it . In vain you tell me of the lawsthat sanction such a claim ! There is a law above all the

enactments of human codes— the same throughout theworld , the same in all times— such as it was before the daringgenius of Columbus pierced the night of ages , and Opened toone world the sources of power , wealth , and knowledge ; toanother , all unutterable woes . Such it is at this day. It isthe law written on the heart of man by the finger of God ;and by that law, unchangeable and eternal , while men

despise fraud , and loathe rapine, and abhor blood ,they will

reject with ind ignation the wild and gu ilty phantasy thatman can hold property in man .

But such a doctrine coming from a Senator and formerGovernor of the State of NewYorkcreated a great ferment ,and it was denounced in unmeasured terms by lead ing Whigand Democratic journals and speakers in the North as wellas in the South .

Seward ’s higher-law doctrine was hailed wi th enthusiasmby the Abolitioni sts and the more rad ical anti-slaveryadvocates in the North , but itproval of the conservative elem

one of the causes , and probably the chief causeof Seward as a presidential cand idate in the

National Convention at Chicago in 1860 .

Chase’s speech , though not characterized by polishedsentences like thoseof Seward ,

was clear and di rect . Shall

176 Po litica l H istory of Secession

we yield , he said , to thi s outcry [for the extension of

slavery] ? For one, I say , Never ! In my judgment , it istime to pause. We have yielded point after point ; we havecrowded concession on concession , until duty , . honor,patriotism , Shame, demand that we should stop .

Let us understand each other . Let us cease from endeavoring to agree in the support of the same candi date uponOpposite ground s . Least of all does the stale cry of

d isuni on alarm me. It may be, however , that youwill succeed here in sacrificing the claims of freedom by some

settlement carried through the forms of legislation . But the

people will unsettle your settlement . It may be that youwill determine that the Territories Shall not be secured bylaw against the ingress of Slavery . The people will reverseyour determination . It may be that you will succeed inburying the Ordi nance of Freedom . But the people willwrite upon its tomb , Resurgam,

‘and the same hi story which

record s its resurrection may also inform posterity that theywho fancied that they had killed the provi so only commi ttedpolitical suicide.

1

Jeff erson Davis said : I here assert that I never willtake less than the Missouri Compromise line extended tothe ocean , wi th the specific recognition of the right to holdslaves below that line ; and that before such Territories areadmi tted as States , slaves may be taken there from any ofthe United States , at the option of their owners .

”

Douglas favored the compromise measures , di sagreeingwith both Calhoun and Davis .Calhoun di ed on March 3 1 , 1 850 , and President Taylor

on July 9 , when Vice-President Millard Fillmore assumed

duties of Chief Executive. The omnibus bill as reportedby Clay was defeated , but before the close of the sessionseparate bills were passed embodying substantially all the

leadi ng provisions of the bills reported by Clay . The bill

for the admission of California passed on September9 ,Bancroft, Life of Seward , vol. i . , p . 266.

39 U. S . Stat , p . 452 .

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178 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

that all territorial laws shoul d be submitted to Congress forits approval . This left the ultimate power of determiningwhether slavery should be protected or prohi bited in theTerritories still vested in Congress , where, as acknowled gedby a long course of prior congressional legislation , it wasgeneral ly conceded to be vested before Calhoun set up the

doctrine advocated by him . Indeed , until the Dred Scottdecision , it continued to be the general understandi ng , evenafter the passage of the compromise measures , that theultimate power to determ ine whether slavery should beprotected or prohibited in the Territory remained vested inCongress .A few years later the claim was made,

based on reasoningthen and still unintelligible to the ord inary mind

, even tothe ord inary legal mind ,

that the Missouri Compromisewas “inconsistent with the principle of non-interventionby Congress with slavery in the State and Terri tory , as

recogni zed by the legi slation of 1 850 , commonly called thecompromise measures , and it was for this reason declaredto be

“inoperative and void .

Thi s was not a full recognition of the doctrine of Calhounthat the Constitution of the Uni ted States , of itself , without either congressional or territorial leg islation , protectedslavery in the Territories and forbade the prohibition of itthere by either Congress or the territorial legislatures .Indeed thi s doctrine was not fully developed until it wasdeclared in the Dred Scott decision . It had never beenapproved by Congress or by any national political convention . It was afterward s asserted by Abraham Lincoln andother opponents of slavery extension that the way for thisdecision had been prepared beforehand , beginning as farback as the passage of the compromise measures , or at leastas far back as the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act .

Had it been generally understood at the time when thecompromise measures were pend ing that the effect of themwould be, as was afterwards claimed ,

to repeal the MissouriCompromise, it is certain that they Would not have te

The Compromise Measures of 1850 179

ceived the assent of the North and could not have been

passed . Even as they were understood at the time of their

passage, they were not satisfactory to either the North orthe South .

The bill most strenuously Opposed by the pro-slavery

members of Congress was the bill for the admission Of

California ; and the bill most strenuously Opposed by theanti-slavery members was the Fugi tive Slave Law . Of all

the compromise measures , this was the most obnoxious inmany sections of the North . Its provisions were far moredrastic than those of any prior Federal act. Under it , on anaffidavit filed before some Federal commissioner , a wri t forthe arrest Of the alleged fugi tive was issued and the officerwhose duty it was to serve it m ight , i f he chose to do so ,

summon to his aid all the citizens of the county . Uponarrest the alleged fugitive, although in fact he may neverhave been a slave, could be manacled and taken to the

commissioner , before whom a summary hearing was had .

At this hearing the supposed slave was denied a wri t ofhabeas corpus , denied the right of trial by jury , and deniedthe right to testify in his own behalf . Moreover , thecommissioner was g iven a fee of $ 10 i f he decided againstthe fugitive but was given a fee of only $5 if the decisionwas in his favor . Every person obstructing arrest of thefugitive, rescu ing , aidi ng him to escape, or harboring or

concealing him , was liable to a fine of $ 1000 and sixmonths’

imprisonment , and was also liable to a civi l action for

damages to the amount ofThe South was probably more d issatisfied than the Northwith the compromise measures . It had gained a new Fugi tive Slave Law and , although it had lost the right to carryon the slave trade in the District of Columbia , the lossprobably did not greatly grieve the slaveholders , for it hadpossibly occurred to them that it might be better policy tocease exposing the ugliest and most revolting features ofslavery to the gaze of the world in themost public places in

9 U. S . Stat. , p . 462.

Politica l H istory of Secess ion

the capital Of the nation . Moreover , the right to holdslaves in the District for all purposes except to barter andsell them was left unmolested . But the South had lostCalifornia

, and what was probably a still greater d isappointment to the advocates of slavery , they had utterly failed toget any recogn ition of the Calhoun doctrine of the equalityof rights

”of the North and the South in the Territories .

In the preced ing chapter mention was made of the

address ” issued by Calhoun and his colleagues . SouthCarolina and Mississipp i responded to the address withalacrity and led off in resolutions of their State legislaturespursuant to which a Southern convention was assembledat Nashville, Tennessee, in June, 1 850 . The conventionadopted thirteen resolutions in which were enumerated theg rievances of the South at the hands of the North , butresolved that inasmuch as Congress was then in session“it does not feel at liberty to di scuss the methods suitablefor a resistance to measures not yet adopted , which mightinvolve a d ishonor to the Southern States . ” 1

The convention reassembled at Nashville on Novemberi14 , 1 850 , and adopted another set of resolutions . In one theright of secession was expressly affirmed ; in another thecompromise measures were denounced ; in another it wasrecommended that another convention should be held “

to

deliberate and act with the vi ew and intention of arrestingfurther aggression , and , i f possible, of restoring the con

stitutional rights of the South , and , if not, to provide fortheir future safety and independence.

” 3 Most of the slavehold ing States held aloof from the convention altogetherand a majority of the delegates who attended opposed thesecession schemes of South Carolina and Mississippi . Thegovernor of Georgia , pursuant to the recommendation Of

the Nashville convention , called a State convention , butwhen the delegates got together they voted by a largemajori ty to abide by the compromise measures as a

xThe resolutions are given in full in Cluskey’

s Poli tical Text-Book,pp 532

—33

’ Id . .pp-533—35.

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1 82 Po l itical H istory of Secess ion

United States for the erection of forts , magazines , arsenals ,dockyards , navy-yards , and other like purposes ;

‘

or anyact suppressing the slave trade between slaveholding States ;or any refusal to admit as a State anyTerritory hereafterapplying, because of the existenceiof slavery therein ; or

any act prohibiting the introduction of slaves into the

Territories of Utah and New Mexi co ; or any act repealingor material ly mod ifying the laws now in force for the re

covery of fug itive slaves .“Fif thly. That it is the deliberate Opinion of -this con

vention that upon the faithful execution of the FugitiveSlave Bill by the proper authorities depends the preservation Of our much loved Union .

” 1

Alabama had preceded Georgia and the other cottonStates in the adoption of a State platform on the slaveryquestion . At the Alabama Democratic State Conventionin 1848 a platform was

‘adopted , afterwards known as theAlabama platform , containi ng a series of resolutions,saidto have been prepared by William L . Yancey . These’ werethe basis of the slavery non-interference resolution ‘

prop'

osed

by him , but defeated , in the Democratic National Convention in 1 848 . Nevertheless , the Democratic party inAlabama continued to assert the doctrines of the plat rm

Of 1 848 from that time until 1 860 , and Yancey , the amosteloquent of all the Southern leaders , continued tou rge thepeople of the South , without regard to their d ifferences2onother political questions , to stand together on the questionOf slavery .

As a result of the efforts of Yancey and other Southernleaders , the seeds of secession sentiment were spread far andwide in the South . In a Southern League was formed

in Nashvi lle, Tennessee, not significant for the numberbelonging to that particular organization , but significant as

'

expressing the sentiments of a large class in the South ,particularly in the cotton States . The first article Of the

League was as followsCluskey, P olitical Text-Book, p . 537.

The Compromise Measures of 1850 1 83

Fi rst. The members of thi s organization shall beknown as ‘The League of the South

’

and ourmotto shall be‘A Southern Republic is our only safety .

’

A letter of Yancy , to James S . Slaughter , written June 151858 , and afterwardsmade publi c , left no doubt as to the purposes of theLeague. In thi s letter Yancey advi sed the formation in all the cotton States of committees of safety , through iwhich , he said , we shall fire the Southern heart , instruct lthe Southern mind , give courage to each other , and , at the

proper moment, by one organized , concerted action , we can

precipitate the cotton States into a revolution .

"The

resolutions of the Nashville convention and those Of the

Georgia and Alabama platforms all embod ied , in one formor another , the doctrines of John C . Calhoun on the questionof slavery , now fully accepted by the ultra pro-slaverypoliticians , Democratic and Whi g al ike, Of the South .

It was generally thought at the time of the passage of thecompromise measures that they had gone far to establishan enduring peace between the North and the SouthOn theslavery question . In fact , they had accomplished verylittle, i f anything . They Operated as a temporary plasterthat for a time covered but did not heal the sore, whichcontinued t o fester . In both North and South efforts wereat once begun to undo the work of the compromisers ; in theNorth by thepassage Of personal liberty bills and otherwiseto thwart the enforcement of the Fugi tive Slave Law, and inthe South by renewed efforts to extend slavery : into theTerritories . Therewas for a time, however , a lull , orwhatseemed to be a lull , in the storm , which i n less than fouryears broke forth with greater fury than ever before, beginni ng with the repeal Of the Missouri Compromi se;

CHAPTER X

THE ELECTION OF PIERCE ; REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE

HE excitement caused by the debates on the com

promise measures of 1 850 was soon succeeded by

what seemed to be a reaction in the North , not in favor ofslavery , but against further d iscussion of it , a longing forpeace, mingled with a strong love of the Union and a desireto make some concessions for the preservation of i t.Northern Opposition to the compromise measures of

1850was d irected chiefly agamst the Fugitive Slave Law of

that year . There were two principal causes that hadbrought about the passage of thelaw. One was the con

tinuous and 1ncreasing activity of the emissaries of the

various Abolition societies in aid ing and encouragingthe escape of the fugitive slaves . These emi ssaries , inthe guise of peddlers , book agents ,and in all sorts of d isguises , penetrated the slave States ,especially the border States , and whenever a suitable and

safe opportunity Off ered , induced all the slaves whom theycould persuade to make the attempt to leave their mastersand seek their freedom in the Northern States or in Canada .

What was called in those days the“underground railroad ”

was established , consisting of well-known routes by whichfugitives traveled , wi th stations

“scattered along wherefriends awaited to help forward those on their journey tothe next station .

”x

Another reason for the passageof the FugitivewS‘lave Law1 See Levi Coffin, Remini scences ; Wilson, Ri se and Fall, vol. pp.

6 1-86 ; Cockrum, P ioneerHistory of Ind iana , p . 598.

1 84

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1 86 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

of acquiescence was manifest in those parts of the West,

as in southern Illinois and Indi ana , which had been peopledM an-nu n M a gg y "m0, fl ‘“ W a nin g-fl M ." m "

largely by settlers from Kentucky , Tennessee, Virg1n1a., andLt ' t v m W two t u

North Carolina and where, even inmte

'

rritorial _times , therewas a strong pro-slavery sentiment . It was also mani festin portiOns of Ohio , particularly

”

1n Cincinnati which carriedon a large Southern trade. Opposition to further slaveryagi tation was also found in all the large commercial andmanufacturing centers of the North which carried on a

.M

further ag flatiOn of the slavery questionmay easily befound in the United States Census of 1 850 . Cotton wasking 1n the South . It hadmany allies 1n the North 111thecommercial and manufacturing centers , especially in thoseOf New England . Accord ing to the Census of 1 850 therewere in the United States in that year 1094 cotton manufacturing establishments , with a capital of

using annually bales of cotton . Of these establi shments there were in the New England States 564 (overhalf) with a capitalof $5 1 (over half ) , using annually

bales (over two-thirds) , Massachusetts alone having of these establishments 2 13 , with a capitalofand using annually bales of cotton .

Besides the products of the cotton manufacturers , the

products of many other kinds of Northern manufacturewent to the South in exchange for its cotton . Cotton couldnot , as it was then supposed , be profitably raised in the

South except by slave labor , and so when was

touched the tough,wasjelt _ln the

South , but more in Northernpockets than it was in Northd a d

ern'"

consciences .“

Wherever"

the ramifications of Southerntrade extended

”slavery seemed to

awayNorthernOpposition . It was felt in the great Northern colleges like Yale, which wereyoung men from the South .

1

SeeAndrewWhi te, Autobiography, vol. i ., p. 67.

The E lection of Pierce 1 87

Again the spell of slavery seemed to have fallen upon theNorthern churches . It is not d i fficu lt to ~understand howth is came about . In considering the propelling forces ofthe Church the contribution-box must not be overlooked .

There must be something more than the widow ’s mite tofill it ; there must be big contributions with which to buildbig churches and to pay big salaries to the preachers . But

the men who furnished the big contributions in the com

merci al and manufacturing centers of the North were”Q “n “

Opposed to the agitation Of the slavery”q sg pn . It

threatened to cut down the per cent . Of their profits . Why ,therefore, keep hammering away in the pulpit on the sin of

slavery , at the risk of stopping such contributions , whenthere was a plenty of other sins to preach about ? It isadmitted that this argument was faulty ; nevertheless , itwas very eff ective. Many aspiring preachers in the North ,misled by it, groping to find the path of duty , mi ssed it , or,find ing it , di d not have the courage to follow it . But the

voice of the Church was stifled only for a season ; its con

science, though stilled for a time, was not dead .

There was , however , no diminution but rather an incrsaseof sentiment in the North against further

_

extension of

slavery . There were several influences besides the Fugitive

ment . A“creatggr n

a,

pression throughout the North . It was not distingu ishedfor literary merit and many of its pictures of slavery wereoverdrawn , but it had a great sale and was widely read and

it setmany persons to thinking about slaverywho had neverbefore given it serious consideration . Rufus Choate predicted that the book would make two million Abolitionists .By this time Choate himself seems to have felt the force of

the“agitation that he had so recently deprecated in his

Faneuil Hall speech . It was first published in the NationalEra in numbers between the 5th of June, 1 85 1 , and April 1 ,1852 , and published in book form in 1 852 .

“In eight weekscopies were sold ; in a year , In 1 856 ,

1 88 Po litica l H istory of Secess ion

3 13 ,000 had been ci rculated . Ip i fiLendon W hy.£ditmmwg epublished in six months . In the British Museumthere forty-three d iff erent ed itions 1n English . In 1852 ,

000 copies had been sold ln England . All over Europethe bookhad a like rapid and large success . Translationswere made into French , German , Dutch , Italian , Prussian,Magyar , Wallachian , Welsh , Danish , Swedi sh , Portuguese,Spani sh , Polish , Armeni an , Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese.

There are more than fifty—five di ff erent translations of thi sbooknow [ 1 884] in the British Museum .

In considering the potent influences in developing theanti-slavery sentiment of the North , theNewYorkTribune

then a pale-faced printer boy of twenty , carrying all,his

possess1ons i n a small bundle, arrived in New YorkCityseeking employment . His home was in Westhaven , Vermont , but he was born in NewHampshire, and hi s ancestorswere of old Puritan and Scotch-Irish stock. After severalfailures he secured a foothold . In 1840 , he became widelyknown as the ed itor of the Log Cabin , a Whi g campaignpaper that attained an enormous circulation in that year .The next year he established the Tri bune and at a still laterdate Charles A . Dana , Richard S . Hild reth , and other wellknown writers becamehi s associates on the edi torial staff ofthat paper . In the course of its career , the Tri bune ad

vocated Fourieri sm and various other “isms ” not popul arwith the great mass of the people of the Uni ted States ,wbutin its fearless , steadfast , and persistent oppositionto Slavery ,espemally af ter of the Kansas-Nebraska act, ittoucheda

'

pf

d'

pf i larchord whOsevibrations were felt 1n every“ N I 'M

nook“and

”

coriiér Of the North . The Tribune soon became

the leader Of that portion Of the press that Opposed theextension of slavery, and its powerful edi torials probably

u‘~“ a“ it

“

di d more_

t4

hafi

ri; any other single agency to rouse publicsentiment and crystal lize hostili ty to slavery into activeand aggressive poli tical opposition. In the

.

early days”

of

1 Clarke, Anti SlaveryDays P I47

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Politica l H istory of Secess ion

over the Southern Whi gs , but the platform was a triumphof the Southern over the Northern Whigs , for in the plat

adopted it was resolved that the compromise measures

principle and in substance of the dangerousand exciting questions whi ch they embrace.

”To these

resolutions , however , there was strong opposition of a largepart of the Northern Whig s .TheWhigs were as unfortunate in their cand idate as they

were in their platform . They had twice succeeded witha military hero as their cand idate, but, though neitherHarrison nor Taylor could be called an astute politician ,they were far better politicians than Scott . Scott

’

s abilitiesas a general were uni versally conceded , but as a politicianhe was an utter failure. He went on an extensive stumpingtour , ostensibly wi th a view to locate a site for a nationalasylum for di sabled sold iers , and made a lot of com

monplace speeches , all filled wi th fulsome adulation of hi s

audiences , some of them quite ridi culous , as the one inwhich he told how charm ing to his ear were the “rich Irishbrogue and the sweet German accent . ” The electionfollowing resulted in an overwhelming Democratic vi ctory .

Pierce carried all the States but four . Large numbers Ofthe Whigs abandoned their own party and voted for JohnP . Hale and George W . Julian , the Free-soil candi dates forPresident and Vice-President .Sometimes Providence, in ordering the aff airs of the

universe, puts a very smallman in a very great place, wherehe is suddenl y confronted wi th grea t opportunities , greatresponsibili ties , and “great events , events whi ch he has

neither the capacity to understand nor the ability to

grapple wi th , and which by their very bigness make hisown littleness the more conspicuous . Such a man was

Franklin Pierce.

1 He was accidentally , as it seemed to

A literary friend , after reading the foregoing passage, suggested amore classical illustration, applying to Pierce Alice Meynell

's definition

The E lection of Pierce

mankind , placed in the presidential chair . One of his

ical acts was to invite into his Cabinet as

doubtedly exercised,

a controlling_

influenceover ‘himduringthe

"

whole of,

his admi nistration in ,shaping“ his political

policy so as to carry out, as far as possible, the plans of theslavehold ing interests of the South . When , during theCivil War , the Union sold iers captured the home of Jeff er

son Davis , they found among the choice treasures there, aletter written on January 6 , 1860

,by Pierce to Davis , in

which the former mentioned “a pleasant interview” that

he had just had wi th a Mr . Shepley , who said that“he .

would rather fight the battle with you as the standardbearer in 1 860 than under the auspices of any other leader ,add ing that the feeling and judgment of Mr . S . in thisrelation is , I am confident , rapidly gaining ground in NewEngland .

” In this letter Pierce also assures Davis thathe had never believed that actual d i sruption of the Unioncould occur wi thout blood ,

”but that “i f , through the mad

ness of Northern Abolitioni sm , that d ire calamity mustcome, the fighting will not be along Mason and Dixon ’

s

line merely . It wi ll be wi thi n our own borders , in our ownstreets Those who defy the law and scout constitutional Obligations wi ll , if we ever reach the arbitrament ofarms , find occupation enough at home.

” 1 There is no

evidence that Pierce’ s good opinion of Davis or his friendship for the South ever underwent any change.

2

Of domus angusta : The narrow house is a small human nature, compelled to a large human destiny, chargedwith a fate too great, a historytoo various for its slight capacity.

McPherson, Hi story of theRebellion, p . 391 .

1 In this letter Pierce spoke for himself , but not for the State of New

Hampshire, conspicuous for loyalty to the Uni on cause. No soldiersin the Civil War made a better record than those of New Hampshire.

This is the splendid record Of the Fi fth New Hampshire Volunteers“The one regiment in all the Union armies which sustained the grea testloss in battle during the American CivilWarwas the Fifth New Hampshire Infantry. It lost 295 men, killed or mortally wounded in action

192 Politica l H istory of Secession

In hi s inaugural address , the President assured the

country that the public repose on the slavery question“should suffer no shock during his administration . Therewas now apparently not a cloud in the political ski es .Here and there, it is true, there was an occasional outbreakin some parts of the North , showing that there still existeda strong , but apparently latent , anti-slavery sentiment ,roused only by some particularly harsh and brutal instanceof the enforcement of the Fug itive Slave Law . But boththe great political parties had approved the law and the

great body of the North had apparently acquiesced in it .The whole country pined for peace, and there was in everysection , North and South , a strong love of the Union .

So matters dri fted along until the year 1 854 when anotherexplosion occurred , as unexpected by the politicians as itwas by the people, that threw the whole country into aworse turmoil than ever before. The slaveholders were notcontent with non-interference Wi th slavery in theWhere it then existed . Itmust expand its territory or die.

It woul d be fatal to it to become hemmed in byfree Statesinto Which its slaves Would be continually escaping , and itmust preserve the so-called equi librium of political powerby the admission of more slave States to furnish senatorsand representatives in Congress . Prior to the admission ofCalifornia in 1 850 there were fourteen free an

-

dy

fouf tef

ef

n

was already m danger ahdit was necessary to restore it .Whatever may have been 111 the minds of the poli ticians

and people of the North , it is certain that the politicalleaders of the South had never lost sight of _

the doctrinescontended for by John C . Calhoun . They had been kept

during its four years Of service from 1 861 to 1 865 . The losses ofthe Fifth New Hampshire occurred entirely in aggressive, hard , stand~up fighting ; none of it happened in routs or through blunders. In onebattle, that Of Fredericksburg , of the total number engaged it lost inkilled and wounded over sixty-three per cent — Fox, Regimental Losses,pp . 2 , 36.

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194 Po litica l H istory of Secess ion

Moreover up to thi s time nobody in the North , and probably but few in the South , seemed to have thought of anout-and-out repeal of the Missouri Compromi se, which , itwas supposed , would be certain to arouse intense antago

ni sm in the North , and would probably defeat any territorial bill in whi ch it might be incorporated . Nor does

it seem to have occurred to any one prior to the introduction of the Kansas-Nebraska bill that there was anyinconsistency between the Missouri Compromi se and the

compromise measures of 1 850 . No such inconsistency isapparent to the ord inary mind . We have Democraticauthority , no less than that of James Buchanan , that

“itis impossible to conceive how 1m m that thecompromise of 1 850 , on the question of slavery in the

Territories , would be inconsistent with the long previousMissouri Compromise of 1820 ; because each applied“ tod istinct and separate portions of our temm T

W

ain .

tory”

acquired fromFranceunder the Louisiana Purchase,that of 1 850 provided only for the new terri tory long afterwards acquired from Mexi co under the treaty of GuadalupeHidalgo . The

hcomprormse measures

1 0 "da m“ ” W h y ‘m u w ,

Words to repeal or invalidate the Missouri Comp romise.«no“flow“ "to “ -w aw .n W

Qn the contrary , they expressly recogmze_

it , as we have“ Op-to

H m nu afl u-N“

already seen , in theact provid ing for the cession of a por

“22l Texas toNew

In 1139: Sénaté d'

ebates Senator Chase deni ed that anysuch supposed inconsistency had ever been hinted at before.

But, by assum ing to be true that there was such inconsisteney , it was hoped to shi ft responsibility for the repeal ofthe Missouri Compromise upon the Congress which passedthe compromise measures , and thus avoid , or at leastdimi ni sh , the anticipated ind ignation in the North . Therefore this assumption of inconsistency was made the comerstone of the subsequent legislation .

1 Buchanan'

s Admini strati on, p . 27. See also Benton, Examinationof the Dred Scott Case, p . 165 .

Repea l of the M issouri Compromise 195

On January 4 , Senator Stephen Ar Douglas p then chairman of the

'

Senate Committee on Terri tori es , reported abill for a territorial government under the name of Ne

braska without any provision prohibiting slavery , the ao

companying report stating that it was“a d isputed point

whether slavery is prohibited in the Nebraska country byvalid enactment ,

”and that in the opinion of those emi

nent statesmen who hold that Congress is invested withno rightful authority to legislate upon the subject of slaveryin the Territories , the eighth section of the act preparatoryto the adm ission of Missouri is null and void ,

”and that

“the prevailing sentiment in large portions of the Unionsustains the doctrine that the Constitution of the UnitedStates secures to every citizen an inalienable right to moveinto any of the Territories with his property , of whateverkind and description , and to hold and enjoy the same underthe sanction of law,

and that the compromise measuresM M M N. “

The report then states these propositions , the first of which“MA

was that all questi ons pertaining to slavery i n the Terri111 the new;States to be formed therefrom:Zi

'

iié tobe left

“

tothedecision of the people resid ing therein , by theirappropriate representatives to be chosen bythemfor thatpurpose.

The cue thus given was at once taken up by the advocatesof slavery , and Dixon , a Whig Senator from Kentucky ,introduced an amendment to the bill whi ch declared that“the citizens of the several States or Territories shall be atli berty to take and hold their slaves within any of the Territories of the United States or of the States to be formed

therefrom , thus virtually repealing the Missouri Compromise. Senator Sumner oi Massachusetts at once gavenotice of his intention to introduce an amendment provid ingthat nothing in the bill should be considered as abrogatingor in any way contravening the Missouri Compromise.

After considerable d iscussion Douglas , on January 23 , asSenate Reports , 33d Cong . , I st sess. , No. 15 .

196 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

chairman of the Senate Terri torial Committee, reported a

new bill, as a substitute for the one reported on January4 , provi d ing for the organization of two Territories , thesouthern portion to be called Kansas , the northern portionto be called Nebraska . The fourteenth and the thi rtysecond sections of the bill , as reported , the one applicable toNebraska , the other to Kansas , each provided that :

“The

Constitution and laws of the United States which are not

locally inapplicable, shall have the same force and eff ectwithin the said Territory as elsewhere in the United States ,except the eighth section of the act preparatory to the ad

mission of Missouri into theUnion , approved March 6 , 1 820 ,

which was superseded by the principles of the legislation of

1 850 , commonly called the compromi se measures , and isdeclared inoperative.

By this report the framers of the bill sought to make thecountry believe that they“ .had not killed the MissouriCompromise, but that they had fognd it dead and surmisedthat it had been killed by the compromise measures of

1 850 . As Benton puts i t‘:“And

"thus, three years after

the event , and by a sort of political coroner’s inquest , the

Missouri Compromise Act was found to be dead , and killedby those who , in much part , composed the jury, and who

for a long time had remained ignorant of What they haddone. The di scovery that the Missouri Compromi se wasdead , and had been since 1 850 without anybody havingbefore suspected its death , was indeed a startling surpriseto the country . The pretense that it had been virtuallyrepealed by the compromi se measures of 1850 finds littlesupport . Indeed the opinion of at least one political writerof acknowledged authority is that “the Kansas-Nebraskabill was really as much a repeal of the compromise of 1850,as of the compromise of 1820 .

” 3

The Senate and House committees having the b ill incharge made some changes in the phraseology but later

1 Examinati on of theDred ScottCase, p . 165.

3 Johnston, American P oli tical Hi story,Woodburn’s ed .

,vol. p . 125.

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198 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

been infringed by the compromise of 1820, and the restora

tion of which had been foreshadowed by the legi slation of

There is some conflict of evidence as to who actuallywrote the “inconsistent ” clause in the twenty-first sectionof the bill. Some accounts state that Pierce himself wroteit .‘ Davis , however , expressly states that

“this bill wasnot , therefore, as has been improperly asserted , a mea sureinsp ired by Mr . Pierce or any of his Cabinet . ” 2 Howeverthis may be, the clause repealing theMissouri Compromise,as incorporated in the final draft of the bill, was approvedby both Pierce and Douglas . On the following day Douglas reported the bill substantially as it was when finallypassed . Senators Chase .and , SunmerN andM Bep resen~tative

Giddi ngs and others at once issued an address entitled ,“N Wn un!“

The Appeal of the Independent Demog ‘aat‘s“in Congrmefesw to “ ; a cat a-q m nN W 1 t un e d nm‘

People of the~United States . ” The address was a

to the repeal of theMisisouri Compromise and commanded widespread attention .

It denounced in clear and vigorous language the proposedrepeal of the Missouri Compromise and called the attentionof the country to the threatened danger and to the necessityof prompt and vigorous opposition by all who were opposedto the further extension of slavery . The address had not

been issued on Sunday , although by some mistake of the

lwriter or printer it bore the date of January 22 , which wasSunday . Douglas took occasion at the first opportuni ty todenounce the address because it purported to have beenissued on Sunday .

“Thus it appears , he said in a speechfor the bill in the Senate,

“that on the holy Sabbath, whi le

Wilson, Ri se and Fall, vol. ii . , pp . 382 , 383 ; Ray, Repeal of the

Mi ssouri Compromi se, pp . 2 14—2 15

2 Davi s, Ri se and Fall, vol. i . , p . 28 . See also on this subject, Nicolayand Hay, Lincoln, vol . i . , pp . 337

—35 1 ; Bancroft, Life of Seward, vol.

i . , chap . xvi ii . , p . 333 .

3 The address was prepared chiefly by Chase and Giddings. See

Schucker's Life of Chase, p. 140 ; Rhodes, Hi story of United States, vol.

i . , pp 44 1-443

Repea l of the M issouri Compromise 199

other Senators were engaged in attend ing d ivine worship ,

these Abolition confederates were assembled in secretconclave, plotting by what means they should deceive the

people of the United States in the name of our holyreligion . Remembering that the Sunday on which Douglas mi stakenly supposed the address to have been issuedwas the very Sunday on which he and President Pierce,Jeff erson Davis , and others were hold ing their secret caucusover the Kansas-Nebraska bill and concocting the phraseology of the clause for the repeal of theMissouri Compromi se, this sudden outburst of professed piety on the part ofDouglas , smacks strongly of hypocrisy and demagogyso strongly in fact that the impression created by it forms

a very unpleasant contrast to that created by Douglas ’smany admi rable qualities and his subsequent patriotic services to his country .

The debates that followed opened,“up ag ain the wholeN u "r uns-m un ; inn-«W ln-nuu' “ m m,” w a n“.

subject of slavery; and rekindled all the slumbering emberst .“M J “ fl an .m nw a n m m v (“i f ‘i '

of sectional contreyer’syem u

On the fine; passage of thepillewry SouthernDemocratic Senator and ehéfc i mthernWh ig Senator , except Bell of Tennessee and Clay ton of

Delaware, voted for it . Every Northern DemocraticSenator also voted for it , except Allan and James of RhodeIsland and Walker of Wisconsin . The only opposition toit came from the Whig Senators of the North , and partienlarly those whose sympathies were wi th the Free-soilparty . Chase spoke on February 3 .

“Who , he asked ,“is responsible for this renewal of

strife and controversy ? Notwe, forwe have introduced noquestion of territorial slavery into Congress— not we who

are denounced as agitators and factioni sts . No , sir ; the

quietists and the finalists have become agi tators ; they whotold us that all agitation was quieted , and that the resolutions of the political conventions put a final period to thed iscussion of slavery . This will not escape the observationof the country . It is Slavery that renews the strife. It isSlavery that again wants room . It is Slavery , with its

200 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

insatiate demands for more slave territory and more slaveStates . And what does Slavery ask for now? Why , sir ,it demands that a time-honored and sacred compact shallbe rescinded— a compact whi ch has endured through awhole generation— a compact which has been universallyregarded as inviolable, North and South— a compact theconstitutionality of whi ch few have doubted , and by whichall have consented to abide.

As to the alleged inconsistency betweenm mM ‘ s“

Compromise and the comprom ise measures of“1 850 , Chasemaf

'

tai ned‘that the asé

‘

dfifi fbfi'

that there was any suchinconsistency

‘‘was untrue in“fact andwithout foundation

in history,”and asserted that “

no 31519 .

North or Soiithduring the whole of the d iscussion of those acts [the com

promi se acts] here or in that other d iscussion whi ch followedtheir enactment throughout the country ever intimated anysuch opini on ,

”and that nosuch supposed inconsi stency

was thought of m the early stages of the Kansas Nebraskabill . 2

Forecasting the di re consequences of the passage of the

bill, he said :“I believe that we are upon the verge of another era .

That era wi ll be the era of reaction . The introduction of

this question here, and its d iscussion , wi ll greatly hasten itsadvent . We, who insist upon the denationalization of

slavery , and upon the absolute d ivorce of the generalgovernment from all connection wi th it , will stand wi th themen who favored the compromise acts , and who yet wi shto adhere to them , in their letter and in their spirit , againstthe repeal of the Missouri prohi bition . But you may passit here. You may sef id it to the other House. It may

become law. But its eff ect will be to satisfy all thi nkingmen that no compromises with slavery wi ll endure, except solong as they serve the interests of slavery ; and that there isno safe and honorable ground for non-slaveholders to stand

Cong . Globe, 33d Cong . ,I st sess. , App.

, p . 134.

Id . , p . 134 .

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202 Po litica l H istory of Secess ion

vigorating light . You , too , suppose that you are securing peace as well as victory in this transaction . I tell younow, as I told you in 1 850 , that it is an error , an unnecessaryerror

, to suppose, that , because you exclude slavery fromthese halls to-day, it will not revisit them to-morrow . You

buried the Wilmot Provi so here then, and celebrated its

obsequ ies with pomp and revelry ; and here it is again today, stalking through these halls , clad in complete steel asbefore. Even i f those whom you denounce as factionists inthe North would let it rest , you yourselves must evoke i tfrom its grave. You wi ll not cease to cherish slavery.

Do you see any signs that we are becoming ind iff erent tofreedom ? On the contrary , that old , trad itional, hered itary sentiment of the North is more profound and moreuniversal now than it ever was before. The slavery ag itation you deprecate so much is an eternal struggle betweenconservatism and progress , between truth and error , between right and wrong . Youmay sooner , by actof Congress ,compel the sea to suppress its upheav ings , and the roundearth to extingu ish its internal fires , than oblige the humanmind to cease its inquirings , and the human heart to desistfrom its throbbing s .Richardson ’s House bill, which was simi lar to that of the

Senate, had a stormy passage through the House but wasfinally

"carried by a vote of I 13 yeas to 100 nays . The yeas

included forty-four Northern and fifty-seven SouthernDemocrats and twelve Southern Whigs . The nays included forty-five Whigs , includ ing seven from the South ,and forty-two Democrats , includ ing two from the South .

The House bill after its passage in the House reached theSenate on May 25 , 1854 , where it was vigorously opposedby the few anti-slavery members of that body . Sewardagain spoke against it .Seward ’s Optimism was one of hi s characteri stics . It

sometimes led him to make predi ctions that were not

fulfilled ; but in his speech in opposition to the KansasSeward

'

s Works, vol. iv. , pp . 461 , 462.

Repeal of the M issouri Compromise 203

Nebraska bill he accurately foreca st the doom of the

Democratic party . I see, he said ,

“onemore sign of hope ;

the great support of slavery in the South has been its alliance with the Democratic party of theNorth . By means ofthat alliance it obtained paramount influencewith this government about the year 1800 ,

which from that time to thi s ,with but few and slight interruptions , it has maintained .

While Democracy in the North has thus been supportingslavery in the South , the people of the North have beenlearni ng more profoundly the principles of republicanismand of free government . It is an extraord inary circumstance that at this moment when there seems to bea more complete d ivergence of the Federal government infavor of slavery than ever before, the sentiment of universalli berty is stronger in all the free States than it ever wasbefore. With that principle the present Democraticparty must now come into a closer contest . Their prestigeof democracy is fast waning by reason of the hard servicewhich their alliance with their slavehold ing brethren hasimposed upon them . That party perseveres , as indeed itmust , by reason of its very constitution , in that service,and thus comes into closer conflict with the element of

true democracy , and for that reason is destined to lose,and is fast losing , the power which it has held so firmly andso long . That power wi ll not be restored until the principle established here now shall be reversed , and a con

stitution shall be given , not only to Kansas and Nebraska ,but to every other national Terri tory , which wi ll be not atabula mm but a constitution , securing equal , universal,and perpetual freedom .

The last speech against it in the Senate was made byWilliam Pitt Fessenden of Maine. He had been elected tothe House at thirty-four years of age, and had now justentered the Sena te at the age of forty-seven , having beenelected by a combination of the Whig and anti-slaveryDemocrats of the Maine Legi slature. Blaine pays to him

Seward’

s Works, vol. iv. , p . 479.

204 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

a high but deserved compliment“ He never enjoyedpopularity in the sense in which that word is ordi nari lyused , but he had the absolute confidence and admi ration ofhis constituents . He possessed that peculiar strength withthe people

b the most valuable and most enduring that apublic man can have— which comes from a sense of pride inthe ability and character of the representative. As adebater Mr . Fessenden was exceptionally able. He spokewi thout apparent eff ort , in a qui et , impressivemanner witha complete mastery of pure Engli sh . He preserved the

lucidus ordo in his argument,was never confused , never

hurried , never involved in style. In his later yearshis speeches may be taken as models for clearness of statement , accuracy of reasoning , felicity of expression , moderation of tone. There have been members of the Senate whoachi eved greater di stinction than Mr . Fessenden , but itmay well be doubted whether in the qualities named he everhad a superior in that body. Sumner said of him

“thathis arrival was like a reinforcement on a field of battle.

Not a Senator loving freedom who did not feel on that daythat a champion had come.

” 2

1 Twenty Years, vol. i . , p . 3 16.

The crowning glory of Fessenden’s political life was hi s firm and

patriotic course in the proceed ings for the impeachment of PresidentAndrew Johnson. Johnson had traits of character thatwere despicable ;his conduct in the presidential office was disgraceful ; but the nationwas better able to endure the d isgrace of Johnson than its own hadJohnson been convicted . Indeed hi s conviction would have beentaken as a precedent for impeachment of Presidents for political reasons,a precedent that, if followed , would have been certain to lead to the

destruction of the Republic.

Fessenden had not only the foresight to foresee this, but he had alsothe moral courage to oppose it. The moral courage required was ofthe highest quality. The radical Republican leaders, backed by alarge element in the party, were fierce in their demands for conviction.

Each of the seven recalcitrant Republican Senators who stood out

against the conviction doubtless felt as di d Senator Grimes of Iowa,who said that in voting “not guilty"he felt that “he was with hisown hands d igging his political grave.

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206 Po litica l H istory of Secess ion

words of defiance by men of the North had not often beenheard in the Senate of the United States and gave greatsatisfaction to the Opponents of slavery .

Douglas closed the debate on March 3 , 1854 .

1 He beganspeaking near midnight and spoke until daybreak. The

galleries were crowded ; all listened With bated breath .

The opposition he had encountered in Congress , the opprobrium heaped on him in the North seemed only to inspirehim with fresh courage. He appeared to leap into the

d ebate as a trained glad iator bound s into the arena , conscious of his strength , confident of victory , and eager forthe contest . His boldness in attacking his opponents , theskill with which he parried their blows , the plausibility of

hi s argument , his eloquent periods , all combined to extortthe admiration of even his political opponents .No satisfactory abridgment of his speech can be made.

Some idea of its character may be obtained in the followingextracts , which , so far as they go , give Douglas

’s exactwords . He referred particularly to the speeches of Chaseand Sumner in connection with the “Appeal of the Independent Democrats ,

”and to the fact that he had been

burned in efii gy in Ohio and in Massachusetts . Of Chase’ sspeech he said“The Senator says , also , that he never intended to do me

injustice and he is sorry that the people of his State haveacted in the manner to which I have referred . Sir , did henot say , in the same document to which I have alreadyalluded ,

that I was engaged , with others , in‘a criminal

betrayal of precious rights ,’ in an atrocious plot

’

? D id he

not say that I and others were guilty of‘med itated bad

faith ’ ? Are not these his exact word s ? D id he not saythat ‘servile demagogues ’ might make the people believecertain things , or attempt to do so ? Did he not say everything calcu lated to produce and bring upon my head all the

insults to whi ch I have been subjected , publicly and pri

va tely— not even excepting the insulting letters whi ch I

Cong . Globe, 33d Cong . , App . , p . 325.

Repeal of the M issouri Compromise 207

have received from his constituents , rejoicing at my domestic bereavements , and praying that other and similar calamities may befall me ? All these have resulted from thataddress . I expected such consequences when I first saw it .In it he called upon the preachers of the Gospel to prostitutethe sacred desk in stimulating excesses ; and then , for fearthat the people would not know who it was that was to beinsulted and calumniated , he told them in a postscript , thatMr . Douglas was the author of al l this iniquity , and thatthey ought not to allow their rights to be made the hazardof a presidential game ! After havi ng used such language,he says he meant no d isrespect— he meant nothi ng unkind !He was amazed that I said in my openi ng speech that therewas anything ofiensive in this address ; and he could not

suff er himself to use harsh epi thets , or to impugn a gentleman ’ s motives ! No ,

not be ! After having deliberatelywritten all these insults , impugni ng motive and characterand calling upon our holy religion to sanctify the calumny ,he could not think of losing his di gnity by bandying epi

thets or using harsh and d isrespectful term s !”

Referring to Sumner 's speech he said : Sir, even inBoston I have been hung in effigy . I may say that Iexpected it to occur even there, for the Senator from Massachusetts lives there. He signed his name to that address ;and for fear the Boston Abolitionists would not know thatit was he, he signed it

‘Charles Sumner , Senator fromMassachusetts . ’ The first outrage was in Ohio ,

where theaddress was circulated under the signature of

‘Salmon P .

Chase, Senator from Ohio .

’

The next came from Bostonthe same Boston , sir , which under the di rection of the same

leaders , closed Faneuil Hall to the immortal Webster in1850 , because of his support of the compromise measuresof that year , which all now conf ess have restored peace andharmony to a d istracted country . Yes , sir, even Boston , soglorious in her early history , -Boston , around whose name so

many historical associations cling , to gratify the heart andexalt the pride of every American ,— could be led astray by

Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

Abolition misrepresentations so far as to deny a hearing toher own great man , who had shed so much g lory uponMassachusetts and her metropolis ! I know that Bostonnow feels hum iliated and degraded by the act . And ,

sir[addressing himself to Mr . Sumner] , you will remember thatwhen you came into the Senate, and sought an opportunityto put forth your Abolition incend iarism , you appealed toour sense of justice by the sentiment ,

‘Strike, but hear me

first . But when Mr . Webster went backin 1850 to speakto his constituents in his own self-defense, to tell the tru th ,and to expose his slanderers , you would not hear him , but

you struck first ! ” Then referring to the fact that bothChase and Sumner had been elected by coalition of bothDemocratic and Whig opponents of slavery he said : “Imust be permi tted to tell the Senator from Ohio that I di dnot obtain my seat in this body either by a corrupt bargainor a d ishonorable coalition ! I must be permitted to rem indthe Senator from Massachusetts that I d id not enter intoany combinations or arrangements by which my character ,my principles , and my honor were set up at public auction orprivate sale, in order to procure a seat in the Senate of the

United States ! I di d not come into the Senate by any suchmeans .This roused both Chase and Sumner , and Chase angrily

exclaimed ,

“Whoever says that I came here by a corruptbargain states what is false Afterward s Chase made an

unsatisfactory explanation of that part of his address whichDouglas construed as charging him with introducing the

Kansas-Nebraska bill as a “presidential bid ,

” whereuponDouglas returned to his attackon the authors of the addressas follows : I wi sh toexamine the explanation of the Senator from Ohio , and see whether I ought to accept it as

satisfactory . He has quoted the language of the address .It is undeniable that that language clearly imputed to me

the design of bring ing forward this bill with a view of secur

ing my own election to the presidency . Then , by way of

excu sing himself for imputing to me such a purpose, the

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2 10 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

slavery ag itation he said : The opponents of the bill tell usthat agitation is no part of their policy , that their

"

greatdesire is peace and harmony ; and they complain bitterlythat I shoul d have d isturbed the repose of the country bythe introduction of this measure. Let me ask these professed friends of peace and avowed enem ies of ag itationhow the issue could have been avoided ? They tell me thatI should have let the question alone — that is

,that I should

have left Nebraska unorganized , the people unprotected ,

and the Indi an barrier in existence, until the swelling tideof emigration should burst through and accomplish byviolence what it is the part of wi sdom and statesmanshipto di rect and regulate by law. How long could you havepostponed action wi th safety ? How long could you maintain that Ind ian barrier and restrain the onward march of

civilization , Christianity , and free government by a barbari an wall ? Do you suppose that you could keep that vastcountry a howling wi lderness in all time to come, roamed

over by hostile savages , cutting off all safe communi cationbetween our Atlantic and Pacific possessions ? I tell youthat the time for action has come, and cannot be postponed .

It is a case in whi ch the ‘let-alone ’

policy would precipitatea crisis which must inevitably result in violence, anarchy ,and strif e. You cannot fix bounds to the onward march ofthis great and growing country . You cannot fetter thelimbs of the young gi ant . He will burst all your chains .He will expand , and grow , and increase, and extend civilization , Christiani ty , and liberal principles . Then , sir , if youcannot check the growth of the country in that d irectionis it not the part of wisdom to lookthe danger in the face,and provide for an event which you cannot avoid ? I tell

you , sir , you must provide for continuous lines of settlementfrom the Mississipp i Valley to the Pacific Ocean . And inmaking thi s provision you must decide upon what principlesthe Territories shall be organized ; in other words , whetherthe people shall be al lowed to regulate their domesticinstitutions in their own way , accord ing to the provi sions

Repeal of the M issouri Compromise 2 1 1

of this bill, orwhether the opposite doctrine of congressionalinterference is to prevail. Postpone it , i f you will ; butwhenever you do act , this questionmust bemet and decided .

The Missouri Compromi se was interference ; the com

promise of 1 850 was non-interference, leaving the peopleto exercise their rights under the Constitution . The

Comm ittee on Territories were compelled to act on thissubject . I , as their chairman , was bound to meet thequestion . I chose to take the responsibility , regardless ofconsequences personal to myself .

”

The main purpose of the bill, he said , was to give to thepeople of the Territori es the right of self-government .“The principle which we propose to carry into eff ect bythe bill is thi s : that Congress shall neither legislate slaveryinto any Territory or State, nor out of the same ; but the

people shall be left free to regulate their domestic concernsin their own way , subject only to the Constitution of the

United States . In order to carry this principle into practical operation , it becomes necessary to remove whateverlegal obstacles might be found in the way of its free exercise.

It is only for the purpose of carrying out thi s great fundamental principle of self-government that the bill renders theeighth section of the Missouri act inoperative and void .

The eighth section of the Missouri act standing inthe way of this great principlemust be rendered inoperativeand void , whether expressly repealed or not , in order togive the people the power of regulating their own domesticinstitutions in their own way

,subject only to the Constitu

tion . Therefore, the doctrine of the Abolitioni ststhe doctrine of the opponents of the Nebraska and Kansasbill, and of the advocates of the Missouri restrictiondemand s congressional interference wi th slavery , not onlyin the Territories , but in all the new States to be formed

therefrom . It is the same doctrine,when applied to the

Territories and new States of this Union , which the Bri tishGovernment a ttempted to enforce by the sword upon theAmerican colonies . It is ; this fundamental principle of

2 12 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

self-government whi ch constitutes the di stinguishing feature of the Nebraska bill . Withdraw the slaveryquestion from the political arena , and remove it to the

States and Territories , each to decide for itself , such a catastrophe can never happen .

In closing he said : I have nothing to say about Northernrights or Southern rights . I know of no such di visions ord istinctions under the Constitution . The bill does equaland exact justice to the whole Union , and every part of it ;it violates the rights of no State or Terri tory , but places eachon a perfect equality , and leaves the people thereof to thefree enjoyment of all their rights under the Constitution .

I say, frankly , that , in my opinion , this measurewill be as popular at the North as at the South , when itsprovisions and principles shall have been fully developedand become well understood . The people of the Northare attached to the principles of self-government ; and youcannot convince them that that is self -government whichdeprives a people of the right of legislating for themselves ,and compels them to receive laws which are forced uponthem by a legislature in which they are not represented .

We are wi lli ng to stand upon this great principle of selfgovernment everywhere ; and it is to us a proud reflectionthat

,in this whole di scussion , no friend of the bill has urged

an argument in its favor which could not be used wi th thesame propriety in a free State as in a slave State, and

vi ce versa . No'

enemy of the bill has used an argumentwhi ch would bear repetition one mile across Mason and

Dixon ’s line. Our Opponents have dealt entirely in sec

tional appeals . The friend s of the bill have di scu ssed agreat principle of universa l application , which can be sus

tained by the same reasons and the same arguments , inevery time and in every corner of the Union .

All Opposition to the bill was in vain and it passed theSenate b 1 J ve to thi rteen , an, _ amrdlf

’

he

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2 14 Politica l H istory of Secession

to the Constitution of the United States . Benton characterized this part of the bill as

“a little stump speech which isstuck into its belly .

The clause,“subject only to the Constitution of the

Uni ted States, waswhat in modern political parlancewouldbe called the “little joker . Most persons probably interpreted it as simply a reaffi rmation of simi lar clauses informer enabling acts to the effect that the laws and regulations adopted by the people of the Territories should con

form to the Constitution of the United States , a meaningthat the courts would have implied even if it had not

been expressed .

As Douglas then interpreted the Kansas-Nebraska act ,

it established in theTerritories what he designated popularsovereignty , but which was generally known as

“squattersoverei gnty ’

, the theory of it being that Congress shouldhave no power either to establish or to prohibit slavery inthe Territories , but that the people resid ing there shoul dhave the power to determ ine for themselves whether slaveryshould be legalized or not. But when was this power to beexercised ? Douglas held out the idea to the people of the

North that the_ yoters of the Territory had a right to exegeise

this power as soon as a territorial government should beformed , so as to keep slavery out of the Territory . The

Southern slaveholders maintained that neither Congressnor the people could keep slavery out of aTerri tory so lOngas it remained a Territory , but could Onlyexercise thepowerto exclude it when they should come to the adoption

'

of a

constitiition'

preparatory to admission as a State.

By this act the barri er was broken down which , since thenact

ugriéfiroz i132; Missouri Compromise, had"

bfo'

iééi’

éciagainst the encroachment of slavery the vast tract lyingnorth of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes , containing overfourhundrg dwtrhonsand square than the areaof the thi rteen original States . e introductionand passage of the Kansas Nebraska bill was like droppinga. lighted match into a powder magazine would feebly

Repea l of the M issouri Compromise 2 15

describe its eff The force of the explosion would bebetter describe comparing it to that of those cataclysms that rend continents . It sent to the four wi nd s thescattered f

‘rhawgments‘ofthem olfid Whig party , split the Demo

nh o/M fi . " t

cratic party in the North into two hostile and warring fac“N

tions,and

i

obliteratedmaelLBQlitiQal , i ssuesfl except the one ofM o 1 ¢ ¢

u ‘m m n nm

slaveryextension or restriction}m ’m ‘h fl

While the bill was bei‘ng g dgbated Congress public1 “u‘ “M ” 4 “ b u t“!

meetings denouncing it were held all over the Norgid fi pfl

arM IC. ” m afi a-m-f"

Petitmsfi nd memorialssignedb ym m esting

_

against its passage-_pflougerdAt

h

last the churches ‘were

i

aroused ,

ahd‘

thousand s"of ele‘

rgyihéfi'

siéh é’

a remonstrances . One

such remonstrance by‘

th'

e clergymen of New England hadover three thousand signatures . TheNorth was now unitedas it never had been before agai nst the further extension ofslavery .

Douglas for a time was the most unpopular man in theNorth . It is said that “

he could ride from Boston to

Chicago by the light of his blazing effigy in the night and

in sight of his hanging effi gy by day. When after theadjournment of Congress he returned to Illinois and at

tempted to speak in Chicago , flags were hung at half-mast ,bells were tolled , and at one of his meetings the hooting ,jeering crowd refused to hear him and after vainly attempting for several hours to make himself heard , he was compelled to retire.

x Pollard gives this graphic and amusingaccount of the meeting : It was a remarkable struggle of

the persistence of a single,brave, and clear-toned speaker ,

with the clamor of a hoarse and brutal mob . For four longhours , from eight o

’

clock in the evening , Mr . Douglasstruggled for a hearing , edging in a word wherever he coul d ,

expostulating , defying , shaming , entreating , as the mood sof the mob appeared to vary . Finally

,when the hour of

midnight was struck, he took out his watch , looked at it

Life of J efierson Davi s, p . 38.

fl

2 16 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

very tely , and sai d :‘It is Sunday morning ; I have

to go to and you may go to h—l !

’

Rhodes'

s statement of the political eff ect of the passageof the Kansas Nebraska act is not overdrawn . It is

“safeto say that, in the scope and consequences of the KansasNebraska act, it was the most momentous measure thatpassed Congress from the day that the senators and repre

sentatives first met to the outbreakof the Civi l War. Itsealed the doom of theWhig party ; it caused the formationof the Republi can party on the principle of no extension ofslavery ; it roused Lincoln and gave a bent to hi s greatpolitical ambition . It made the Fugitive Slave Law a deadletter at the North , it caused the Germans to becomeRepublicans ; it lost the Democrats their hold on New England ; it made the Northwest Rep

ublican ; it led to thedownfall of the Democratic party .

”

Rhodes, Historyof the United States, vol. i ., p . 490.

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2 18 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

and Justice Daniel d issented from so much of the opini on asdeni ed the obligation of the State authorities to perform the

duties imposed on them by the act . The cue given in theopinion of Justice Story was promptly taken up by Vermontand Massachusetts , whi ch passed statutes , known as

personal liberty bills , forbidd ing the State off icers, under

severe penalties , to assist in the capture of fugitive slaves ,and prohi biting the use of the State jails for their detention .

These acts were followed later by similar acts in Pennsylvania and other Northern States . Story ’s decision , as hehimself pred icted , virtually sapped the life out of the Fug itive Slave Law of 1793 , and in States like Massachusetts ,where a strong anti-slavery sentiment prevailed , the law

practically became a dead letter . 2 It was because of con

tinned and vehement complaints by the Southern slaveholdi ng States of the insufficiency of the old Fug itive SlaveLaw of 1793 that the Fug itive Slave Law of 1 850 waspassed as one of the comprom ise measures of that year .Mention has already been made of the harsh character of

its provisions , which rendered it so od iou s in the North .

The most obnoxious features of the law were not fully seenand appreciated in the North until attempts were made toenforce it . Of these the one which aroused the bitterest{antagoni sm was that which imposed upon the people of the

community where the fugi tive might be found the duty of

assisting the slave-catcher to capture him and return himto his master . A few in the North , but very few, volun

tari ly obeyed this provision . Therewas almost a universalfeeling of sympathy with the fugitive, such as most men

instinctively feel even for a panting hare when hotly pursued by the hounds . Opposition to the law was expressedin various ways and degrees of intensity . Some were foropenly defying the law and were ready to use force, i fnecessary , in rescuing the fug itive from his captors , but the

Mass . Session Laws, 1843 , p . 69 ; Vermont Session Laws , 1843 , p . I I .Wilson, Ri se and Fall, vol. i . , pp . 471

—

473 ; Buchanan’

s Adm., pp.

16-18.

H igher Law in the North 2 19

great majority were unwilling to go to such an extreme.

Whi lethey would not forcibly rob the slave-catcher of hisprey if he could succeed in capturi ng the fugitive, they wouldnot voluntarily assist in hi s capture. If commanded by a iUnited States marshal or hi s deputies to join a posse they ,

might Obey , but reluctantly and only in order to escape thepenalties of the law for refusing . Many would not do

even this much , preferring to run the risk of such penalties . l

There were many , generally a majority , in nearly everyNorthern community who would not deny the fugi tiveshelter from the storm s or a crust to relieve the pangs ofhunger , and who rejoiced when he succeeded in making goodhis escape. Many felt as did Theodore Parker when hesaid : “There is a law of God , written on the heart , thatcannot be altered or revoked— that we should do untoanother as we would that others should do unto us . Whenthe laws of Massachusetts or the laws of the Union confl ictwith the laws of God ,

I woul d keep God’s law in preference,

though the heavens should fall. We have officers who tellus that they are sworn to keep the laws of the State and of

the United States and we are born citizens , born to obeythe laws ; but every bone of my body and every drop of

blood in my system swears to me that I am amenable to ,

and must obey , the laws of God . Many in the North ,although they d i d not publicly express their belief , believedas Parker believed .

Thi s , it is true, was the higher law doctrine, pure andsimple, applied to the Fugitive Slave Law . With men who

believed as Parker believed all arguments based on abstracttheories of government and the necessity of obedience tothe Fugitive Slave Law ,

as well as all other laws , were asso much chaff . Indeed the convictions of conscience are

seldom influenced by mere arguments . They are the

conclusions drawn from innate conceptions of truths , or

supposed truths ,which are accepted as axiomatic and therefore incapable of being either proved or d isproved by argument . Nor do such convictions yield to threa ts of penalties

220 Po l itical H istory of Secess ion

or punishments for violation of human laws , as is proved bythe deaths of countless martyrs whose consciences remainedunconquered although their bodi es were burned at the stake.

It may be conceded that the “higher law”doctrine, i f

generally applied , would be incompatible with any practicaltheory of human government , nevertheless , when the su

lpreme law comes into conflict wi th the supreme moralelement of a community , the question for the indi vi dualcitizen to decide is as puzzling as the ancient problem whichsupposes an irresistible force to come into contact with animmovable body . At any rate, recognizing actual conditions and notmere theories , it has been found in the practicaloperation of government to be a fact— Often a very stubborn and troublesome fact— that although a law may

have the seal of the lawmakers and may be backed byall the power of government , it never can be successfullyenforced in any community where it is condemned asvicious in principle by the united moral sentiment of thepeople. Men may not rise in open rebellion against it , but,rather than obey it , they will suffer the penalties for di sobeyi ng it . As already stated , the moral sentiment inmanycommunities in the North condemned the Fugitive SlaveLaw as not only unconstitutional but as wicked in principle,and no arguments , not even the arguments of so grea t areasoner and expounder of the Constitution as Webster ,could convince them that it was their duty to help the slavecatcher catch and manacle the fugi tive and drag him backinto bondage.

Never did any lawenacted by Congress more completelyits purpose than di d the Fugitive Slave 850 .

Instead of bringing about more amicable relations betweenthe North and the South and smoothing over the longstand ing d isputes about the return of fug itive slaves , it

to inflame still further

_‘South was di sappointedincreasing opposi tion o f.

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222 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

borne down . And yet , the President assumes to lecturemebecause I choose to obey God rather than him . Why

, srr,

gentlemen may listen while I tell them that I have seenatonetime ni ne fugitives d ining i nmyhouse— fathers

,mothers ,husbands , wives , and children , fleeing for their liberty , andin Spite of the President ’s censure I obeyed the Divinecommand to feed the hungry and clothe the naked . I fedthem . I clothed them . I gave them money for theirjourney and sent them on their way . Was that treason ?If so , make the most of it .Opposition to the law becamemore and more pronounced

with every attempt to enforce it . This opposition at firstfound expression in forcible rescues or attempted rescues .Thew ShadraCh case in Boston, Massachusetts , in February ,1 85 1 , was one of the first and most notable. Shadrach wasarrested and held i n custody as an alleged fugitive slave.

Whi le i n custody of the deputy United States marshal, amob of negroes forced open the doors and carried Shadrachaway . Aided doubtless by white sympathizers , Shadrachwas at once sent to Canada . The aff air raised a greatcommotion . The President of the United States issued aspecial proclamation command ing all Federal officers , civiland m ilitary , to aid in the arrest of the rescuers ; the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy issued orders tolike effect ; and the matter gave rise to a protracted and

angry d iscussion in the United States Senate. Ind ictmentswere found against several prominent citizens of Bostonbut upon the first trial the jurors refused to convict and

so the prosecutions came to naught .Another notable case, known as the Jerry RescueCase,

occurred i n Syracuse, New York, afterwards characterizedby Webster as “that laboratory of abolitionism , libel, andtreason ,

” where a negro named Jerry was arrested as afugitive slave on October I , 1 85 1 , and was taken before aUni ted States commi ssioner . As soon as the arrest became

publicly known , an Abolition convention then in sessionin the city adjourned , the fire bells were rung , and a crowd

H igher Law in the North 223

rushed to the commissioner ’s offi ce and tookJerry from the

offi cers . The officers rallied a posse and recaptured himand confined him in jai l, but during the night amob stormed

the jail and spirited Jerry off to Canada .

‘

Opposition to the enforcement of the Fugi tive Slave Lawwas

'

fi'

Ot confinedg

to any one‘

class or party . Andrew D .

Whiteu

felates that in the Jerry rescue “one of the most

determined leaders was a rough , burly butcher of Syracusewho had been all of his li fe one of the loudest pro-slaveryDemocrats and who , until he saw Jerry dragged in manacles thfo

i

u

'

ghI

the streets , had been most violent in supportof the Fugitive Slave Law .

” 2

James Freeman Clarke says 3 that one Barnes , formerlyUnited States marshal in Boston under a Democraticadministration , once told him :

“When I was a marshaland they tried to make me find their slaves , I would say ,I don ' t know where your ni ggers are, but I wi ll see i f I canfind out

’

; so I always went to Garrison’s offi ce [William

Lloyd Garrison , publisher of theLi berator] and said , I wantyou to find such and such a negro ; tell me where he is . ’

The next thing I knew the fellow would be in Canada .

But it must be admitted that there were few United Statesmarshals like Barnes .

The lead ing Democratic and Whig politicians exertedthemselves to the utmost to suppress further agitation of

the slavery question . Wilson states 4 that before the closeof theThi rty-first Congress

“a compact was entered into bysome of the lead ing members of both parties declari ng theirpurpose to make the compromi se measures a final settlement of the slavery question and pledging themselves notto

‘support for President or Vice-President of the UnitedStates , for senator or representative for Congress , or for

An interesting account of this rescue is given in AndrewD .White'sAutobi ography, vol. i . , pp . 6 1—6 3 .

Autobi ography, vol. i . , p . 64s

3 Anti-S lavery Days, p . 87.

4 Ri se and Fall,vol. ii . , pp . 360, 361 .

224 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

member of a State legi slature, any man of whatever partywho is not known to be opposed to the d isturbance of the

settlement aforesaid and to the renewal in any form of

agitation upon the subject of slavery,

’

and that this compact received thirty-three signatures from the slavehold ingand ten from the free States .In pursuance of the object of suppressing further agita

tion of the slavery question , so-called Union meetings wereheld throughout the North , particularly in the large ci tiesand commercial centers , addressed by lead ing Democratic'and Whig speakers . The object of these meetings was tocreate a sentiment in the North favoring acquiescence inthe compromise measures of 1850 , and especially to al layNorthern opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law , and to

unite men of al l parties and classes , manufacturing and

eommercial interests , churches and colleges— in fact , all

the potent and controlling influences of society— againsturther agitation of the slavery question .

At a_ great Uni on-savi ng meeting in Castle Gardenh in

Newfl

YorkCity , on October 30 ,1 850 , presided over by the

Mayor and addressed by prominent Democratic and Whigspeakers , the compromise measures were approved ; aUnion-saving Committee of one hundred was appointed anda large amount of money was contributed wi th which toemploy eminent men to aid in the enf orcement of the

Fugitive Slave Law .

I A similar meeting was held in FaneuilHall

,Boston , on November 26 , 1850 , which is a fair example

of suchmeetings . “The citizens of Boston and its vicinity ,

”

so the call read , who revere the Constitution of the Uni tedStates ; who wi sh to d iscountenance a spirit of di sobedi enceto the laws of the land and refer all questions arising underthese laws to the proper tribunal ; who would regard withd isfavor all further popular agitation of subjects which en

danger the peace and harmony of the Uni on, and who deemthe preservation of the Union the paramount duty of everyci tizen , are requested to meet and express their sentimentsWilson, Rise and Fall, vol. u . , p . 3 16.

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226 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

which i t had been consigned , showed signs of marvelousvitality , and persisted in stalking about the earth and vexingthe souls of the living . Then renewed efforts were made tostay its progress and speakers were sent over the land -to

denounce the wicked Abolitioni sts for the crime of the

resurrection . Foremost of these was Daniel Webster . He

made a speech im hany, NewYork, on May 28 , 185 1 , in

which heargued not only that the Fugitive Slave Law wasconstitiitional , but that its passage was a necessary aridjajust concessmn to the South , and that it would be neitherwi se nor prudent to repeal it . He denounced the “

hi gherlaw”

doctrine and stigmatized the resolutions of variousanti-slavery conventions in New York, Massachusetts ,Ohio , and elsewhere, against theenforcement of theFug itiveSlave Law , as

“d istinctly treasonable.

”The rescue of

Shadrach , he said , was“clear treason .

I Only a fewmonthsbefore the Jerry rescue he made a speech in Syracuse, NewYork , in which he asserted in substance that the FugitiveSlave Law would be and should be enforced . In a speechin June, 1 85 1 at Capon Springs , Virginia , he bitterly denounced the Abolitionists and the “

higher law, saying :“When nothing else will answer they invoke religion and

speakof a ‘higher law.

’ Gentlemen , this North Mountainis high , the B lue Ridge is higher still , the Alleghany hi gherthan either ; and yet this higher law ranges farther thanan eagle’s flight above the highest peaks of the Alleghany .

No common vi sion can d iscern it , no conscience, not transcendental and ecstatic can feel it ; the hearing of commonman never listens to its high behests and therefore one

should thinkit is not a safe law to be acted on in matters ofthe highest practical moment . It is the code, however , ofthe fanatical and factious Abolitionists of the North .

“

ButOpposition to the law continued and it was intensifiedby every effort to enf orce it . The law soon developed a

class of men who made slave-catching a lucrative business~

1 Webster’s Works, vol. p . 577.

Wilson, Ri se and Fall, vol. ii . , 36 1 .

H igher Law in the North 227

the professional slave catchers , detested in the North and

despised by all respectable people i n the South . Wheneverone of thesemen appeared i n a Northern communi ty hewaslooked upon as a hostile invader and hi s appearance was

W m “ J u nta- i

the'

s1gnal for anangry uprising of the people. He seemedto be the personification of slavery itself and the people

fancied that they could see him cracking his lash over themand could hear the clanking of chains . The fancy ap

proached reality when a United States marshal wi th hisposse appeared command ing them to assist in riveting realchains upon the fugitive under threats of prosecution inFederal courts where many of the Federal judges seemed to

vi e wi th the marshals in their eff orts to compel the people

of the North to do the bidd ing of the slave catchers .

L more dreadedm thanw the professi onal slave catcherswere the kidnappers From them no negro , slave or free,was safe. He was liable to be dragged from his bed in

_

the

dead Of night , manacled and,hurried off to some-Federa1

,

commi ssioner for a hea ring that was often little more thana farce, a hearing at whi ch he was

'

not allowed to testify inhis own behalf , a hearing not inf requently had on perjuredtestimony trumped up by his captors . Indeed , most of theUnited States commissioners ’ courts were little more thanway-stations on the road back from the North to slavery .

But it soon became.

apparent to the opponents .of slaverythat it was

i '

pr‘

eferable to keep the fugitive slaves from get

ting into the clutches of the Federal officers rather than ito

try to get them’

out after they were once in , and that morewould probably be lost than gained by attempting forciblerescues like those of Shadrach and Jerry . Indeed it became

evident early in the administration of President /Pierce thatM ’

the whole power of the government , legi slative, executive,and judici al, backed if necessary by. the entire army and

navy,would be used to force submission _

to the Fugi tiveSlave~ ;Law Many of the United States marshals and com

mi ssi oners seemed eager to d isplay thei r z eal i n ai ding . the

slave-owners The alleged fugitive could get_

no ai d from

228 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

the State‘courts . In some of the Federal courtsthe fugi tive

and his friends fared no better than they d id before theFederal commissioners . Everywhere, it seemed that thelaw had closed the door of hope agai nst the black man .

A case involving the rights of a person arrested by aUnited States marshal under the provisions of the FugitiveSlave Law having come before Judge Grier of the Supreme

Court of the United States , then hold ing court in Pennsylvania , that eminent jurist delivered an Opinion in which heused this language : If habeas corpuses are to be taken outafter this manner , I will have an ind ictment sent to theUni ted States Grand Jury against the person who appliesfor the writ or assists in getting it , the lawyer who defend sit , and the sheriff who serves the writ , to see whether theUnited States offi cers are to be arrested and harassed whenever they serve a process of the United States .

”Com

menting on this language, the New York Evening P ostsaid : “Judge Grier bears so strong a likeness to Jeff reysin his behavior on the bench whenever a matter touchingthe Fugitive Slave Act comes before him that , in read ing areport of the proceed ings , one might imagine himself reading an account of what happened under the later Stuarts .The conduct of Judge Kane, a Federal Judge in Pennsylvania

,in the noted case of Passmore Williamson was even

more severely criticized than that of Judge Grier .I Those who attempted to Oppose the enf orcement of the[lawwere liable to even more serious legal consequences thanind ictments for its violation and civil suits for damages .hey were liable to be ind icted for treason . In September ,

1 85 1 , a Maryland slave owner wi th a Federal deputy marshaland his posse attempted to arrest YVilliam fl

Par‘ker on the

claim that Parker was hi s escaped slave. The party wentto Parker ’s house in Lancaster County , Pennsylvania , andattempted hi s capture. An alarm was given and the neighborhood was aroused . Two Quakers , Castner Hanway andElij ah Lewi s , tried to preserve peace and advi sed the slaveWilson, Ri se and Fall, vol. ii. , pp . 448

-5 1 .

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230 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

from his injuries , and only partially dressed ,although

the night was very cold , was placed in a wagon and

driven twenty-five miles across the country to M ilwaukee, where the party arrived on the next morning . Gloverwas confined in jail for safe keeping until the papers could

be made out for his return to Missouri . News of his capture speed ily reached Racine, causing intense excitement .A public meeting was called at which inflammatory speecheswere made and denunciatory resolutions were adopted .

The meeting also appointed a large committee to go to

Milwaukee and see that Glover was gi ven a fair trial .

Meantime, news of Glover ’s capture had also reachedMilwaukee, creating as much ormore excitement there thanat Racine, and soon came to the knowledge of Sherman M .

Booth . Booth was a graduate of Yale, had taken an activepart in the anti-slavery movement in Connecticut , and hadafterward s settled in Milwaukee, where at this time he was

publishing an Abolition paper —the Free Democrat. Boothat once mounted a horse and rode through the streets ,shouting as he went : “Freemen to the rescue ; slavecatchers are in our midst ; be at the Court House at twoo

’

clock . A great crowd ,estimated at five thousand in

number , responded to the call and before the close of the

meeting they were joined by the delegation from Racine.

Meantime, an unsuccessful effort had been made to secureGlover ’s release on a writ of habeas corpus issued by thecounty judge, but the United States marshal refused to

obey the writ , and i t became known that on the followingMonday Glover would be carri ed off to Missouri . Fieryspeeches were made and a frenzied crowd rushed to the jail ,battered down the doors, and liberated Glover , who was atonce taken in charge by an underground-rai lroad agencyand spirited away to Canada . As he went through the

streets he aroused the enthusiasm of the crowd s to a stillhigher pitch by hold ing up hismanacled hand s and shouting ,Glory , Hallelu jah ! ”

Withi n a few days afterward Booth was arrested on a

H igher Law in the North 23 1

warrant, i ssued by a Federal commiss ioner , charged with

having violated the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Lawby aid ing and abetting the escape of Glover and was recognized to appear before the Uni ted States District Court ofWisconsin , then presided over by Judge A . V. Miller .Booth at first gave bond for his appearance but it wasdetermined to apply again for a writ of habea s corpus and

so he was surrendered by hi s bond smen and confined injail, and then he at once made application for a writ ofhabeas corpus to Judge Aaron D . Smith , one of the judges ofthe Wisconsin Supreme Court . The writ was granted and

after a hearing Judge Smith ordered Booth ' s di schargeupon the ground , stated in an elaborate opini on , that theFugitive Slave Law was unconstitutional for several reasons ,the chief of which was that it denied the fugitive the rightof trial by jury . Afterward s the case was heard before thefull bench of theWisconsin Supreme Court , whi ch affi rmed

the ruling of Judge Smith . The majority opinion wasdelivered by Chi ef Justice Edward V .Whiton ,who closed hisOpinion with this vigorous language :

“But they [the free

States] will never consent that the slave-owner , his agent , oran officer of the United States , armed with power to arresta fugi tive from service, is clothed wi th entire immuni tyfrom State authority to comm it whatever crime or out

rage against the laws of the State ; that their own highprerogative writ of habeas corpus shall be annulled , theirauthority defied , their offi cers resisted , the process of theircourts contemned , their terri tory invaded by Federal force,the houses of their ci tizens searched , the sanctuary of theirhomes invaded ,

their streets and public places made thescene of tumultuous and armed violence, and State sover

eignty succumb , paralyzed and aghast , before the process ofan officer unknown to the Constitution , and irresponsibleto its sanctions . At least such shall not become the degradation of Wisconsin wi thout meeting as stern remonstranceand resistance as I may be able to interpose, so long as herpeople impose upon me the duty of guardi ng their rights

Po litica l H istory of Secess ion

and liberties , and of maintaining the di gni ty and soyer

eignty of thei r State.

Chief JusticeWhiton ’

s opinion was eloquently expressed ,but the United States Supreme Court afterwards said thatit was not good law.

Not long afterwards Booth was indicted by the FederalGrand Jury , on the same charge for whi ch he had been firstarrested , and he was again arrested and a day was set for

his trial . His journey to Madi son to attend the trial wasin the nature of a triumphal march . He was escorted tothe railroad station in Milwaukee by a great procession of

sympathetic citizens preceded by a band , and heralded bythe booming of cannon . His trial lasted three days . Anunwi lling jury , under the instructions of the presidingjudge, finally brought in a verd ict against Booth uponwhich the judge sentenced him to one month ’s imprisonment and to pay a fine of and costs amounting to

Again the Supreme Court of Wisconsin releasedhim on a writ of habeas corpus , basing its second judgment ,as it did the first , upon the alleged unconstitutionality of

the Fugitive Slave Law . The United States marshal wasgranted an appeal from the first judgment to the SupremeCourt of the United States , but when he attempted to

appeal from the second judgment the Wisconsin SupremeCourt refused to allow its clerk to certify the record .

Jeremiah B lack, the United States Attorney-General , afterwards managed to get a certified copy of the record and

upon that the Federal Supreme Court took jurisd ictionof the appeals of the Uni ted States marshal from both thejudgments of the Wisconsin Supreme Court , but by reasonof various delays no ruling was made on either appeal untilthe term beginni ng in December , 1858 .

Meantime Garland began a civil action against Booth fordamages for the loss of hi s slave and hi s services . The

case was tried before the same Federal judge who hadtried the ind ictment and resulted in a judgment againstBooth for and costs and Booth ’s printing

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Pol itical H istory of Secess ion

have thep0wer to decide a given question , but its decisionmay bewrong . It may be based upon an erroneous conception of the facts , or upon an erroneous conclusionas tothe law applicable to them . If its decision is wrong ,

‘

it isnot necessarily final, for it may be mod ified or reversed bythe same judges or by their successors . But until so modi

fied or reversed , it is essential to the orderly admi ni strationof government that the decision shall be regarded as thelaw of the land . If it is a law that is construed , it mustremain the law as the supreme jud icial power has construedit until overruled or repealed by the supreme lawmakingpower .These were the views of the conservative people of the

country and especially of the members of the legal profossion , includ ing many who ,

notwi thstand ing the decision of

the Supreme Court , still thought the Fugitive Slave Lawto be unconstitutional . They regarded the Supreme Courtdeci sion in the Booth cases in much the same way as theyd id the decision in the Dred Scott case, as wrongly decided ,but not as a nullity ; a decision that , if not approved ,

should be obeyed until overthrown in the orderly methodsprovided by the Constitution .

A large number of people in the North did not at thatperiod share in these conservative views . They had no

respect for the Fugitive Slave Law , which , as before stated ,

they believed to be not only unconstitutional but wickedin princi ple. Nor d id they have any great respect for thedecisions of Chief Justice Taney , formerly himself a slaveholder , whose decisions involving the interests Of slaveryhad uniformly been in favor of the slaveholder . In theState of Wisconsin the], various proceed ings in the Boothcases had inflamed the people of that State to a high pitchof excitement . During the early part of these proceedingsand before the decision of the Federal Supreme Court ,Booth was represented by Byron Paine, then a young andrising lawyer of Milwaukee. Painemade a strong argumentin the habeas corpus cases against the constitutionality of

H igher Law in the North 235

the Fugitive Slave Law , for which he received the warmpraise of Charles Sumner , Wendell Phillips , and other notedAbolitionists .As Judge Smi th ’s term expired in 1858 , it was necessaryat the State election in Wisconsin in that year to elect hissuccessor . Although Smith was a Democrat , the Demo

cratic party of Wisconsin passed him by and nominatedin his stead a lawyer of high standing in Wisconsin , WilliamP . Lynde. The Republicans nomina ted as his opponentByron Paine and , strangely enough , the election turned on

the question of States ’ Rights . In the campaign thatfollowed one of the most zealous of Paine’s supporters wasCarl Schurz , who in one of his speeches thus clearly defined the issue : Our poor State has suff ered much ; itscred it is ruined , its prosperity blighted , its political honorhas been forfeited by wholesale corruption and maladmin

istration . There is almost nothing to be proud of but thatgallant independence of our Supreme Court and the sp iritof liberty which caused the people to sustain them . Willyou sacrifice that also? Will you suff er the enemies of

your liberty to nestle in your own citadel ? Will you see

Judge Miller ’ s Op inions and pretensions infest the highestCourt of this State? [Cries of No ! Never Will you see

the d irty finger marks of Buchanan ’s admi ni stration on

the Supreme Bench ofWisconsin ? If not , place a man therewho dares to be himself . Let the friends of liberty and

self-government present an unbroken front . Their bannerbears the inscription

‘States ’ Rights and ByronOf course there was no withstand ing such appeals and

States ’ Rights and Byron Paine won.

“

There were some in the South also who believed the Fugitive SlaveLaw to be unconstitutional as an infringement upon State sovereignty.

This was the view of the Charleston Mercury and of Rhett of SouthCarolina and of Jefferson Davis — Victor, Hi story of the Southern Rebellion, vol. i . , p . 139 ; Davis, Ri se and Fall, vol. i . , p . 8 1 .

Schurz in his Remini scences tells us that he had scarcely begunpracticewhen his political services were demanded , naively adding that“he was in great dejection of mind about the loss of a cow case in the

236 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

As already stated , several years elapsed between the time

of Booth ’s first arrest and the decision of the Supreme Courtof the United States . The decision was accompanied withan order , usual in such cases , d irecting the WisconsinSupreme Court to reverse its decisions in the two habeascorpus cases and to return Booth into Federal custody .

But the Wisconsin Supreme Court not only refused to

obey the order but refused even to allow it to be enteredon its records . Nevertheless , Booth was again arrestedon the origi nal judgment of the Federal District Court andimprisoned in the Milwaukee custom-house. He againapplied to the Wisconsin Supreme Court for a wri t of

habeas corpus , but in themeantime Judge Paine had become

one of the judges and was d isqualified ,by reason of having

been Booth ’s counsel , to sit in the hearing of hi s applicationfor the writ , and the two other judges d isagreed , so thatBooth could get no relief from theWisconsin Supreme Courtand remained in prison .

The people of Wisconsin were now wrought up to the

hi ghest pitch of exci tement . Ind ignation meetings wereheld in many places in Wisconsin . At one of these it wasResolved , that we cannot lookon the course of JudgeMillerwith the least degree of allowance, and that we regard himas a d isgrace to the name of judge, a tyrant when clothedwith a little brief authority , an old granny , and a miserabledoughface.

”

The General Assembly of Wisconsin , by a vote of fortyseven to thirty-seven in the Assembly and thirteen to

twelve in the Senate, adopted a set of resolutions , amongwhi ch were the following :Therefore Resolved the Senate concurring , that we re

court of a justice of the peace. He also says that he di d not includehis “States’ Rights and Byron Paine speech in the collection of his

speeches afterwards published , because he became convinced that theconclusions expressed in the speech above quoted , “as to the functionsand necessary powers of government, were unsound .

” —Remini scences,

vol. ii. , pp . 105, 1 13 .

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238 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

l Slave Law . Here then we have the Legislature, the Gover“ v ”u m l ar gw h w

Supreme Court , and the peopleof VViscOnsi n com

mitted to nul lification as rankas anything of the kind everadvocated by Calhoun or the authorities of South Carolina .

All this goes to illustrate the old spelling-bookstory whichteaches the lesson that in the practical application of ah

stract principles of law, especially in“practical politics ,

” itmakes a great d ifference whose ox is gored . The

“ins

”are

for large national powers ; the“outs

”are opposed .

But ind ignationmeetings and legislative resolutions couldnot get Booth out of jail. His only hope now was in ex

ecutive clemency and he presented a petition for pardon toPresident Buchanan , who referred the application to the

Attorney-General , Jeremiah B lack . B lack could find no

evidence that either Booth or the Wisconsin communityhad repented . Moreover , B lackthought that the enormityof Booth ’s off ense had been aggravated by a “

lawlesscourt ” and so he advised against granting the pardon .

But after B lackhad been succeeded by Stanton the latterrecommended the pardon . Probably both Stanton and thePresident thought that the rebellion in the South was allthat the Administration could managewithout encouraginganother in Wisconsin . So on the

’ast day of Buchanan ’sAdmini stration , Booth was pardoned .

For a statement of the facts in the Booth cases, I have drawn principally from the following authori ties : Paper by Vroman Mason on

The Fugitive Slave Law inWisconsin, with Reference to NullificationSentiment, ” found in the P roceedings of the State Hi storical Society ofWi sconsin, at the Forty-third Annua l Meeting held December 1 2 , 1 895,p . 1 17 ; Paper by Judge John B . Winslow of the Wisconsin SupremeCourt

,on

“The Booth Case ; A Chapter from the Judicial History of

Wisconsin, found in the P roceedings of the I llinoi s StateBarAssoci ation,at the Twenty-ninth Annual Meeting in May, 1905 , Part p . 43

Paper by Stephen S .Gregory, President of theAmerican BarAssociation,on A Historic Judicial Controversy and some Reflections Suggestedby it

, found in the Proceedings of the Indiana State BarAssociation, atits Annual Meeting in July, 1912 , p . 268 ; Flower, Hi story of the Republi

can P arty, pp . 120— 13 1 . The legal proceedings are officially reported in

H igher Law in the North 239

Not long after the Glover rescue case in Wisconsin , thecase of Antony Burns in Boston stirred

fl

Massachusetts to

its very depths . This occurred, soon_

after PresidentP iercehad signed theKansas-Nebraska bill and furnished anotherand striki ng object lesson of the workings of the Fugi tiveSlave Law . Burns , an alleged fiigi tive slave, had beenarrested , and after a trial before a Federal commissionerwas given over into custody to be taken back to his Southernmaster . To guard against threatened rescue, a greatmilitary force had been gathered of cavalry , artillery , andinfantry , which included several battalions of United Statestroops besides twenty-two companies of Massachusettsinfantry and the United States marshal ’s civil posse of

one hundred and twenty-five men . Surrounded by this formidable military force, and over the indi gnant but futileprotests of the citizens of Boston , the poor fugitive wasmarched through the streets , along which American flagswere hung d raped in mourning , to the harbor , wherehe wastransferred to a United States revenue cutter , placed at thedi sposal of the slave-catchers by order of President Pierce,whi ch conveyed him backto Virg inia . Thus

Mthe majesty

of the Fugi tive Slave Law was vind icated , and thus President Pierce

,for a time, awed into submission his rebellious

subjects i n Massachusetts , as King George had done beforehim . Of course, such a scene, enacted under the veryshadow of Bunker Hill monument , aroused the people _

of

BOston to a frenzy , and the protests against it reached farbeyOnd the boundaries of Massachusetts .Fromthis period there were fewer forcible rescues be

cause there were fewer captures ; there werebecause of the increased activities of anti-slavery men inaid ing fugitives to elude -their pursuers . The old antislavery societies redoubled their eff orts ; new ones were

the reports of the decisions of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin and of

the Supreme Court of the United States in 3 Wi s., 1

— 197 ; 1 1 Id . , 5 17

558 ; 2 1 How. U. S . , 506 .

240 Politica l H istory of Secess ion

formed ; the operations of the underground railway werelargely extended . Of the new anti-slavery societies , one

in Boston was formed on an entirely new and novel plan .

It was called the“Boston Anti-Man-Hunting League.

”

It is described as “a secret organization , with its grips andpasswords , its object being to protect the fugitives , if needbe by kidnapping the kidnapper . It consisted of morethan one hundred men and was composed of lawyers ,physici ans , literary men , merchants men of ability , character, social position , and influence.

Wilson minutely describes the plan of Operations of themembers of the League, some of them nearly eighty yearsold , and their grotesque drill which included the use of

b illies instead of firearms and d rilling in the practice of

seizing , hold ing , and carrying away any one they wanted tocapture and remove.

” Looking at the matter from one

standpoint , wemight see in it only the contrast between thelofty purposes of the League, and the comic character of itsd rills , and accept it as illustrating the truth of the sayingthat “there is but one step from the sublime to the ridicu

lous . But looking at the matter from a d iff erent standpoint , we see clearly how intensemust have been the feelingagainst slavery— even though it be called fanaticism— thatinspired men , venerable with age and of the highest character and social stand ing , to join in such a movement .The State authorities of no other State went so far in

defying theprovisions of theFugitive Slave Law as did thoseof Wisconsin . Nevertheless , several Northern Stateswhich before had no personal liberty laws now proceededto enact them . Other States like Vermont and Massachusetts which already had such laws passed others stillmore stringent . 2

The object of most of these laws was to prevent kidnapping of free negroes and to provide for a fair trial of the

Wilson, Ri se and Fall, vol. pp . 44 1-443 .

A synopsis of several of these laws is given in McPherson’s History

of the Rebellion, pp . 44—47.

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242 Po litical H istory of Secession

It was in attempting to make slave-catchers of the peopleof the North that the power of slavery received its firstserious check. No Congress , no Supreme Court , no President , nor all combined , could suppress in the hearts of themen of the North the instincts of manhood and the naturalfeeling s of humanity . Against these the power of slaverydashed and broke in vain , as vainly as the ocean billows dashand breakagainst the rugged cliff s of a rockbound coas t .

CHAPTER XII

POPULAR SOVERE IGNTY IN PRACTICE

ROFESSOR SPRING quotes x Theodore Parker assaying in 1856 in reference to the slavery struggle in

Kansas : I know of no transaction in human history whichhas been covered up with such abundant lying from the

death of Ananias and Sapphira down to the first nominationof Governor Gardner . ” The d ifficulty of picking out thetruth from the conflicting stories will be admitted by all

who havemade the attempt . It is not wi thin the provinceof this volume to recount in detail the story of the earlytroubles in Kansas . It is necessary , however , briefly to re

fer to it in order to get a clear understand ing of subsequentevents and especially of the Lecompton Constitution .

Immed iately after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska‘J ‘b r y ,u m -vu

act , a determined”

effort was made tomakeKansas a slaveState,

'

a

'

nd largeii iimbers'

from the slave States , but mostlyfrom Missouri , some W i th

"

their slaves ,~

began moving intotlié

‘

Te‘

ri ‘iW This eff ort to convert the Terri tory into a

sTe‘

GE‘

sfate was met by an equally determined eff ort in theNearth tomake i t a free S tate. TheNewEngland EmigrantAid Society was chartered by the Legislature of Massachfi

'

setts with the avowed object of aidi ng emigrants whowished to find homes in Kansas . Societies with simi larobjectswere afterwards formed in other parts of the North .

Undoubtedly a large majority of those sent out under theauspices of these societies were hostile to slavery , but theywent as peaceful citizens and for the bona fide purpose of

securing cheap homes .

1 In preface toKansas .

244 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

The first colony of about thi rty came in July , 1854 , andpitched their camp on what is now the site of Lawrencenear the Kaw River . They were soon joined by anothercolony of about seventy . They brought a sawmill and

began to make preparations for building houses and es

tablishing a permanent settlement . Other Northern colo

ni sts followed and settled in various parts of the Territory .

These movements speed ily attracted the attention of

those whose hearts were set on making Kansas a slaveState and they at once set about organizing

“B lue Lodge,”

Sons of the South , and other secret oath-bound societies ,chiefly in Missouri but also in other places in the South ,whose avowed object was to make Kansas a slave State.

For the same purpose a persistent effort was made throughthe newspapers and by public meeting s to encourage emigration from the slave States to Kansas and to d iscourageemigration from the free States . General Stringfellowaddressed a public meeting in St . Joseph , Missouri , at whichhe said : I tell you to mark every scoundrel among youwho is in the leas t tainted with Abolitioni sm or Free-soilismand exterminate him . Neither g ive nor take quarter fromthe damned rascals . Dr . John H . Stringfellow , a brotherof General Stringfellow , made himself specially notoriousin the workof making the Territory a slave State. The

Atchi son Sguatter S overeign said :“We can tell the imper

tinent scoundrels of the Tri bune that they may exhaust anocean of ink, their Emigrant Aid Societies spend theirmillions and billions , their representatives in Congressspout their heretical theories till doomsday , and his Excellency Franklin Pierce appoint Abolitionist after Freesoiler as our Governor , yet we will continue to lynch and

hang , to tar and feather and drown every whi te-liveredAbolitionist who dares to pollute our soil .

I But Northernimmigrants continued to pour into the Territory , and itwas soon perceived that stronger measures must be adoptedto stay the tide of Northern immigration , else the free

1 Quoted in Phillips ’s Conquest of Kansas , p . 61 .

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246 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

Bibles by some of the Southern ministers,having been

al ready provided with rifles . Indeed the mini sters both inthe North and in the South seemed to lay great stress uponthe effi cacy of rifles as well as Bibles .The first Governor appointed by President Pierce was

Andrew H . Reeder , of Pennsylvania , and the first electionheld was that for the election of a territorial delegate toCongress . This was held on November 29 , 1 854 , whenseveral hundred armed men from Missouri persisted invoting . The next election was one held on March 30 , 1 855 ,

for members of the territorial Leg islature. At this electionSeveral thousand men from Missouri , under the lead of

Senator David Atchison and Doctor Stringfellow , tookforcible possession of all the polling places , except a fewin remote parts of the Territory . Nearly one thousand of

these, armed with rifles , pistols , bowie-knives , and two

pieces of artillery , went into camp in the vicinity of Lawrence and forcibly tookpossession of the polls , d riving offthe legally appointed election officers and putting others oftheir own choosing in their places , doing all thi s withoutany pretense of legal right of any kind , and proceeded toelect , or to declare elected , those chosen by them asmembersof the Legislature, and declared all of them except two tobe so elected . Governor Reeder , recognizing the fraudulentcharacter of the election , issued a proclamation for a secondelection , when several hundred Missourians again appea redand voted in one of the precincts , the twelfth .

On July 2 , 1855 , the territorial Leg islature first electedmet , unseated all themembers elected at the second electionexcept those elected in the twelfth precinct , and changed theseat of government fromPawnee to Shawnee Mission , onehalf mile from the Missouri line. Assembling at ShawneeMission , they elected Doctor Stringfellow presid ing officer ,and proceeded to enact a lot of laws . Among them wasone declaring that no term of residence in the Territoryshould be required as a qualification of a voter . Not havingthe time or inclina tion to go through the ord inary forms of

Popular Sovereignty in Practice

legi slation , the Legislature took a short cut by enacting in abody the Missouri laws of a general character , as found in avolume of Missouri statutes . Other laws were passed forthe protection of slave property and making it a felony toquestion in any way the right to hold slaves in theTerri tory .

Many of these laws were passed over the Governor ’s vetoand wi thout the slightest regard to it. This Legislaturealso provided that a new Legislature should be elected inOctober , 1 857, but should not convene until July , 1858 .

This Legislature also called a. Constitutional Convention ,which met at Lecompton , in September , 1857, and adoptedwhatwas afterwardskfiown

'

as"

theLecompton Constitutionand provided for its submission to the people at an electionto be held on December 2 1 , 1857. The convention provided for only a limited submission of the constitution tothe people by a provi sion that the ballots should be en

dorsed For the constitution wi th slavery ,"or

“For the

constitution wi thout slavery .

” It was also provi ded thatthere should be no amendment of the constitution prior tothe year 1864 , and there were other provisions exceed inglyobnoxious to the free-State men .

x

At the election for the submission of the LecomptonConstitution , the free-State men , protesting against theauthority of the Legi slature which ordered the election ,absented themselves from the polls and the pro

-slaveryvoters were in a large majority .

Meantime, the free-Statemen met at Topeka on Septem

ber 19 , 1 855 , and adopted a constitution , af terward s knownas the “q eka Constitution ,

”and at later dates provided

for election'

swr‘

territorial delegate, a Governor , variousoflicers , and members of the Legislature. The pro

-slaverymen , claiming that the elections ordered by the free-Statemen were i llegal , stayed away from them . And so therewere dual conventions , dual constitutions , dual governors ,dual legislatures , resulting in general confusion .

Such was the cri tical condi tion of aff ai rs in the Terri tory1 See Young , Ameri can Statesman, p . 983.

Politica l H istory of Secess ion

that Governor Shannon , who had now superseded GovernorReeder , wrote to President Pierce saying :

“It is vain toconceal the fact ; we are stand ing on a volcano ; the upheavings and agitations beneath we feel and no one can tellthe hour when an eruption may take place.

”1 Shannon

accordi ngly asked the President to send Uni ted Statestroops to the Territory and a detachment was promptlysent .The President ’s annual message to Congress on Decem

ber 3 1 , 1 855 , had in it a little, but only a little, in referenceto Kansas aff ai rs . It was followed on January 24 , 1 856 ,by a special message in which the President upheld the proceedings of the first territorial Legislature, d isapproved theactions of Reeder , the territorial Governor , and denouncedas revolutionary the opposition of the free-State men,

whi ch if persisted in would , he said , become treasonable.

The message m ild ly di sapproved the acts of the Missouriraiders but laid all the blame upon the anti-slavery peopleof the North , especially the promotors of the Emigrant AidSocieties , who had been “thwarted in the endeavor toimpress , through the agency of Congress , their particularviews of social organization on the people of future new

States ,”and whose “

designs and acts had the necessaryconsequence to awaken emotions of intense ind ignation inStates near to the Territory of Kansas and especially in theadjoini ng State of Missouri . The message also recom

mended the passage by Congress of an enabling act preparatory to the admission of the Terri tory into the Union as aState. Themessage was followed by a proclamation issuedon February 1 1 , 1856 ,

“command ing all persons engaged

in unlawful combinations against the constituted authori

ties of the Territory of Kansas or of the United States todi sperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes ,

”

and warni ng such persons that all opposition to the territot ial government would be suppressed

“not only by the

1 Shannon to Pierce, November 28, 1 855 ; Report of Committee on

Kansas , p . 98.

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250 Pol itical H istory of Secess ion

and imprisoned in jail for fourmonths , charged wi th treason.

In order to find some pretext for“wiping out

” Lawrence,J . B . Donald son

, the territorial Uni ted States marshal ,issued a proclamation stating that there was danger of

forcible resistance to the servi ce by him of writs against thecitizens of Lawrence, for which reason he summoned to hi sassistance a large posse of the law-abid ing citizens of theTerritory .

” Pursuant to this proclamation there was a

hasty gathering of pro-slavery clans in Kansas and Missouri ,bu t chi efly in Missouri , including the numerous bands fromother slave States which were temporarily sojourni ng there,and on May 2 1 , 1 856 , a force numbering some seven or eighthundred men was concentrated in the vicinity of Lawrenceunder the lead of one of Donald son ’s deputies , accompaniedby Samuel J . Jones , a territorial sheriff , who had some writsto serve. The entire force was armed , some wi th musketsbelonging to the Uni ted States that had been furnished bythe Federal offi cers having them in charge. Part of theforce was mounted . They had five cannons . They formed

in military organizations as shown by the names of some of

them ,such as the Douglas County Militia , the Ki ckapoo

Rangers , and the Platte County Rifles . Upon their flagswere inscribed such mottoes as “South Carolina ,

” Southern Rights ,

”and other mottoes expressive of the character

of the organization . The posse was made up in part fromthe pro

-slavery settlements of the Territory on the easternborder , but largely from Missouri and slave States farthersouth . Thi s is evident from the names of the many d istinguished generals , colonels , majors , and captains who hadoffered their services for the preservation of

“law and order

in Kansas , such as General Atchi son , the Missouri Senator ,General Stringfellow and Colonel Boone of Missouri ,Colonel Zadoc Jackson of Georgia , Colonel Wilkes of SouthCarolina , and Colonel Titus of Florida .

The deputy marshal and Sheriff Jones having served all

their writs without any resistance, there was , of course,

nothing more that they and the posse could legally do but to

Popu lar Sovereignty in Practice

leave the town . Instead of leaving they remained and

proceeded to carry out the real purpose of their coming andthe sack of the town began . The offices of the two freeState newspapers were gutted and their contents were castinto the ri ver or were otherwise destroyed . The artillerywas turned on the free-State hotel , but failing to destroy itby bombardment , an unsuccessful attempt was made toblow it up and then it was burned . The house of Robinson ,the free-State Governor , was rifled of i ts contents and

burned , and private residences throughou t the town werebroken open and looted and such of their contents as werenot stolen were destroyed .

That these outrages were committed in flagrant defianceof all laws , national, territorial , human , or d ivine, is patent .It is equally clear that they were not comm itted in thesudden heat of passion , but that they had been carefully9132

6313111? fea st sfi oasted.

out

Lawrence. Thi s triumph of“law and order ” caused great

FéfOidlrrg among the pro-slavery people in Kansas and elsewhere, as expressed in the account given in the LecomptonUnion whi ch was published under flaring head lines as a“Glovri ous riumph ,

of the Law and

Fanaticism in Kansas .

”

The country fl id not fail to note— the North wi th indignation , the South with satisfaction— that President Pierce\uttered no word of censure for the participants in theselawless acts . Probably none was expected , consideringthat in his political conduct he was gui ded chiefly by thecounsel of hi s Secretary of War , Jeff erson Davis .On July 4 followi ng when the newly elected members of

the free-State Legi slature assembled in Topeka they weredi spersed , pursuant to a proclamation of President Pierce,by a force of United States troops under the command of

Colonel Sumner.

I

Matters now went on from bad to worse. Pro-slaverypickets were stationed along the river who stopped and

1 Afterwards a di stinguished Union general in the CivilWar.

252 Pol itical H istory of Secess ion

searched boats bringing immigrants to the Territory , and allwho sought ingress into the Territory by water or landwere rigidly catechi zed to ascertain their orthodoxy on theslavery question , and if their answers were unsatisfactorythey were turned backby threats or violence. But Northern immigrants found new routes through Iowa and Nebraska and men , money , and arms now flowed into theTerritory from New England and other Northern States .Secret , oath-bound free-State societies were organi zed and

also military compani es which were fully armed and drilled ;a sort of guerrilla warfare was carried on throughout theTerritory ; business was almost wholly paralyzed ; men wentarmed and in bodi es to till the fields ; at election timesarmed band s tookpossession of the polls ; election returnswere forged ; towns were sacked ; homes were burned ; citizens were murdered ; and the stories told of atrociousbutcheries by the border rufli ans were off set by stories ofequally atrocious butcheries by the free-Statemen . Doubtless , as is always the case in such turbulent periods , manyof these outrages were committed by rufli ans who were notimpelled by any sense of devotion to either slavery or

freedom but who tookadvantage of the license aff orded bythe times to commit crimes that would not have beenexcused or tolerated under d iff erent circumstances in anycommunity .

It was in these troublous times that John Brown of

Ossawatomie first became conspicuous . He was of old

Massachusetts Puritan stock, sixth in line of descent fromPeter Brown who came over in the Mayflower. He had

gone to Kansas wi th several of his sons and he took an activepart in the political struggles and in the guerrilla warfarethere. At a place in Kansas called B lackJack, Brown witha fewmen had encountered and captured a largely superiorforce of Missourians under command of Captain Pate.

Thenceforth the encounter was d ignified wi th the title of

the“Battle of BlackJack,

”and Brown was exalted as a

hero . Once he and hi s band invaded the border counties of

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254 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

War , for that war was fought mainly by bravemen on bothsides , the flower of the land , who scorned the part of

brutal ruffians , prowling guerrillas , and sneaking assassins .

On March 12 , Douglas , as chairman of the SenateTerritorial Comm ittee, submitted a majority report on so

much of the President ’s message as related to Kansasaff airs , the report uphold ing the President

’s position . Withthe report a bill was submitted authorizing the admissionof the Terri tory as a State on certain specified condi tions .Senator Collamer of Vermont submitted a d issentingm inority report . Douglas threw himself into the forefrontof the battle and supported his report and bill in a speechdelivered on March 20 ,

No unprejud iced person can read the full report of hisspeech without admitting that it was a powerful argument ,strongly supporting the majority report and the bill aecompanying it . After quoting the resolutions of various freeState conventions , he said that no man could doubt that itwas the fixed purpose of the free-State men

“to put a State

government in operation in conflict with the existing territorial government and in defiance of the authority of

Congress , and that it was a case of open and und isguisedrebellion . Quoting a portion of them inority report whichdeclared it to be clear that the proceed ings of the free-Statemen

“should not be met and denounced as revolutionary ,rebellious , insurrectionary , or unlawful , nor does it call foror justify the exercise of any force by any department ofthis government to check or curtail it , Douglas scornfullyanswered : “A movement should not be called ‘revolutionary ’ when its origin , progress , and aim consist in nothingbut revolution ! It should not be called ‘rebellious ’ whenits authors , in an event certain to happen , avowed their‘ultimate determination ’

to be rebellion ! It should not be

called ‘insurrectionary ’ when its first act , and each suc

cessive act, proclaim violent resistance to the laws of theTerritory , even to a bloody issue

’

! It shoul d not be calledCong. Globe, s4th Cong . , 1 st sess. , App . , p. 280 .

Popular Sovereignty in Practice

‘unlawful ’ when its avowed object was to overthrow byforce the whole system of laws under which they lived !Neither the government nor any department of it should useany force to ‘checkor control ’ this revolutionarymovement ,even when the supremacy of the laws could bemaintained inno other way ! Such are the conclusions of the mi norityreport !

”

Seward had introduced a bill for the admi ssion of Kansasunder the Topeka Constitution , but the convention whichadopted that constitution had been held without anysemblance of Federal authority and the Constitution hadnever been legally ratified by the people. Therefore,provi ng that the proceed ings of the pro-slavery territorialLegislature ought to be set aside did not prove that theTerritory should be admitted under the Topeka Constitution . To have admitted Kansas under the Topeka Constitution wi thout submitting it to the people of the

Territory , and thereby arbitrarily forci ng it upon them ,

would have been an arbitrary and unjust exercise of con

gressional authority . On this proposition Douglas had thedecided advantage.

‘

Moreover , Douglas had looked into the Topeka Consti tution and found that it contained a provi sion prohibitingnegroes from entering the State, wherepuon he turned thetables on Seward in this ingenious fashi on : “The consti tu

tion which your friend s have formed at Topeka , under whichthe State government has recently been organized , and

wi th which the Senator from New York [Mr. Seward ]proposes to adm it the State into the Union , forbid s thenegro forever to enter the State. You profess to be theespecial friend s of the negro ; your consciences are greatlyd isturbed lest he will not be well treated in Kansas , and , atthe same time, you are in favor of a proposition whichdenies to him forever the right to enter , live, or breathe, inthe proposed State of Kansas . If the negro be free youwill not let him come ! If he be a slave, you will not let him

SeeVon Holst, Const. and P ol. Hist. , vol. v., p. 281 .

256 Po litica l H istory of Secess ion

stay ! And yet you are so much aggrieved at his sad condition that you are willing to blot out and destroy the wholesystem of laws for the protection of white folks on accountof the injustice whi ch you fear will be done

’

to the poor

negro ! ”

enting on the proceed ings of the emi grantaid societies , he said : From these facts it is apparent thatthe whole responsibility of all the d isturbances in Kansasrests upon the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company andits affiliated societies . The remedy for these evils must befound in the removal of the causes and abandonment of thepolicy which produce them , and in faithfully and rigidlycarrying into effect the provision of the Kansas-Nebraskaact, which guarantees to the people of that Territory theperfect right

‘to form and regulate their domestic institu

tions in their own way , subject only to the Constitution ofthe United States .The arguments advanced by Douglas were skilft

presented and were supported by a great array of evidenced rawn from official reports , resolutions of public meetings ,and other documentary evidence. If Douglas had not

completely riddled Collamer’

s minority report he had leftit in a badly damaged cond ition .

Douglas ’s speech extorted admiration even from his po

litical opponents . They felt that , if unanswered , it wouldprove to be exceed ingly detrimental to the anti-slaverycause in the coming presidential campaign and they anx

iously looked about for a champion to answer . Hale, Wilson , Fessenden , and othersmade speeches in answer to it , butChase was absent , having been elected Governor of Ohio ,

and themain dependence was now upon Seward , who spokeon April 9 , speaking with great force and eloquence.

In the course of hi s speech he said , add ressing the free-StateSenators : “Senators of the free States , I appeal to you .

Believeye theprophets ? Iknow you do . You know,then ,

that slavery neither works m ines and quarries nor foundsCong. Globe, 34th Cong . , 1 st sess. ,App. , p. 399.

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258 Political H istory of Secess ion

expects the agitation of slavery to cease, while the love of

freedom animates the bosoms of mankind .

The solemnity of the occa sion draws over our heads thatcloud of d isunion which always arises whenever the subjectof slavery is agitated . Still the debate goes on , moreardently , earnestly , and angrily , than ever before. Itemploys now not merely log ic, reproach , menace, retort ,and defiance, but sabers , rifles , and cannon . Do you lookthrough this incipient war quite to the end , and see therepeace, quiet , and harmony , on the subject of slavery ? If

so pray enlighten me, and show me how long the way iswhich leads to that repose. The free States are loyal andthey always wi ll remain so . Their foothold on this continent is firm and sure. Their ability tomaintain themselves ,unaided , under the present Constitution , is establi shed .

The slave States , also , have been loyal hitherto, and I hopeand tru st they ever may remain so. But if d isunion could

ever come, it would come in the form of a secession of theslaveholding States ; and it would come, then , when theslaveholding power , whi ch is already firmly established on

the Gulf of Mexico and extends a thousand miles northwardalong both banks of the Mississippi , should have fastenedi ts grappling irons upon the fountains of the Missouriand the slopes of the Rocky Mountains . Then thatpower woul d either be intolerably supreme in this Re

pubic, or it would strive for independence or exclusivedomi nation . Then the free States and slave States of theAtlantic , d ivided and warring with each other , would dis

gust the free States of the Pacific , and they would haveabundant cause andjustification for wi thdrawing from a

Union productive no longer of peace, safety , and libertyto themselves and no longer holding up the cherishedhopes of mankind .

Seward ’s speech made a profound impression upon thenation . Its eloquence was of the highest order , surpassingthat of Douglas , but it must be admitted that in ski lful

presentation of facts and statistics , in ingenuity of argu

Popular Sovereignty in Practice

ment , in closeness of reasoning , it does not quite equal thespeech of Douglas .The speech of Charles Sumner is the subject of another

chapter.Wh ile the Kansas bill introduced by Douglas on March

17, 1856 , was still under d iscussion , an attempt was made inthe Senate to get a more definite construction of the meaning of the term “

popul ar sovereignty” as defined in the

Kansas-Nebraska act. That act had now been in forceover two years and yet no one coul d tell whether the“popular sovereignty with which it clothed the people of

the Territory gave them a right , whi le it remained in aterri torial cond ition , either to establish or to exclude slavery .

As Senator Trumbul l of Illinois said , the Kansas-Nebraskaact

“is d iscussed very d iff erently in d ifferent sections of thecountry . It has a Northern and a Southern look.

For the purpose of getting a construction of it by theSenate, Trumbull off ered an amendm ent , the substance of

which was to declare it to be the true intent and meaning ofthe Kansas-Nebraska act that every slave taken to Kansasby his owner for the purpose of settlement should be free,unless authorized to be held as a slave “by some valid act

of the duly constituted legislative assembly of said Territory.

” x Thi s amendment was promptly voted down and

then Trumbull offered another , declaring it to be the trueintent and meaning of the Kansas-Nebraska act “to conf erupon or leave to the people of the Terri tory of Kansas fullpower at any time, through its territorial Legislature, toexclude slavery from said Territory , or to recogni ze and

regu late it therein .

” 2 Thi s amendment also was defeated .

The doubts as to the proper construction of the word s inthe Kansas-Nebraska act supposed to confer “

popularsovereignty ” upon the people of the Territory arose out of

the word s subject only to the Constitution of the UnitedStates ,

” as explained by Senator Cass of Michigan .

“It

Cong . Globe, 34th Cong ., I st sess. , App.

, p . 796 .

Id . , p . 796.

260 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

is said that there is a di fference of construction between theNorth and the South of the Kansas-Nebraska act. Necessari ly it mu st be so ; and if the honorable gentleman fromIllinois [Mr. Trumbull] could not see that , he was not ableto see very far into this m illstone.

‘

Those who believe thatslavery goes to the Terri tories under the Constitutionproprio vi gore, of course believe that no power is g iven to thelegislature to prohibit slavery . But those who believe, asI do , that there is no such constitutional provision , believe ,of course, that the terri torial leg islature has the power toleg islate on this as on any other subject . The d iff erencedoes not result from the words of ; that bill , but from the

nature of things . The North and the South construethe Constitution di fferently . The South consider that theConstitution g ives them the right of carrying their slavesanywhere in the Territories . If they are ri ght you can giveno power to the territorial legislature to interferewith them .

The major part of the North believe that the Constitutionsecures no such right to the South . They believe, of course,that this power is g iven to the legislature. I repeat to thehonorable Senator from Illinois [Mr. Trumbull] there isnothing equ ivocal in the act . The d ifferent constructionsof it result from no equ ivocation of it , but from the fact thathere is an important constitutional question , undeterm inedby the supreme jud icial authority ; and in the meantime

ind ividuals in d iff erent sections of the Union put their ownconstruction on it . We are necessari ly brought to thatstate of things . There is no power which the Senator fromIllinois can use— no word s which he can put into an act ofCongress— that will remove this constitutional doubt untilit is finally settled by the proper tribunal .

” 1

If the object of Trumbull was to put the Democratic

party orDouglas him self“on record ” as gi ving some definite

meaning to“popular sovereignty the attempt failed .

“In vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird . Douglas was too wary to be caught in Trumbul l

’s net. He

1 Cong. Globe, s4th Cong .,I st sess. , App . , pp . 797

-8.

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262 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

mi litary phrase, skirmi shi ng for position in the approaching presidential campaign , getting ready to

“go on the

stump , and each was trying , using the language of politicians not of the hi ghest class , to put the other

“in a hole.

It is not as a mere political acrobat that either Douglas orTrumbull shows to the best advantage.

So that after all the d iscussion of the Kansas-Nebraskabill, in and out of Congress , nobody could say whether itvested in the people of the Territories the right , while theyremained in a territorial cond ition

, to establish or to excludeslavery , and the d iscussion still left in doubt the vital question , one of construction of the Constitution of the Uni tedStates , to be ultimately decided by the Supreme Court ofthe Uni ted States . It was not then generally known , andno reference was made in the congressional debates to thefact , that at that very time the Dred Scott casewas pendi ngin the Supreme Court of the Uni ted States , in whi ch thepreci se question was involved , the decision of which wipedout of existence the whole doctrine of

“popular sovet

eignty and adopted to its fullest extent the extreme doctrine of Calhoun that the Constitution of the United Stateswent wi th the slaveholder to the Territories , and prohi bitedei ther Congress or the territorial leg islatures from interferingwith his right of property in his slaves so long as the Territories remained in a territorial cond ition . Bu t the doctrineof popular sovereignty

” still retai ned vi tality sufficient totide the Democratic party over another presidential campaign.

For a long period Northern writers in commenting on

Douglas’s speeches , while conceding hi s ability , expressed

doubts as to his sinceri ty . They compared his speecheswi th those of a skillful advocate who can almost convince ajury that blackis white and who d isplays the same zeal inarguing a bad case that he does in arguing a good one. We

should , however , do Douglas the justice to suppose it to benot improbable that he may have been entirely sincere inthe opinions which he orig inally entertained of the pro

Popular Sovereignty in Practice

slavery men of Kansas and the Northern Abolitioni sts butthat his opinions were changed by subsequent events , aswere the Opinions of many men in the North whose politicalviews underwent a rad ical change between 1 856 and 1 860 .

In less than two years after Douglas ’s speech in 1856 he

denounced the lawless proceedings of the pro-slavery men of

Kansas with the same vehemence, the same power , the sameskill in debate that he employed in defend ing them in 1856 ,and this too when , i f tempted by considerations of politicaladvantage to himself , we should have expected him to stickto his party .

Not less curious to the political philosopher than thetransformation of Douglas himself is the transformationthat has taken place in the public estimation of him .

History has dealt kindly by him in his last years . His

faults have not been denied ; not all of them have beencondoned ; but his better qualities , his heroic courage, hisundoubted patriotism in opposing secession from the start ,are now better understood and appreciated . Moreover , thehi storical student will probably note the change in the relative positions of Douglas and Seward in the public mind .

In 1856 Douglas was execrated by large portions of theNorth ; for his advocacy of the Kansas-Nebraska bill hewas burned or hanged in efli gy in many places . On theother hand Seward was then the idol of the Opponents ofslavery . He was their chosen champion . If Seward hasnot lost in popularity wi th hi s countrymen , Douglas hassurely gained .

We shall soon see Douglas in a new rOle, battling againstthe attempt of a Democratic Administration to force a proslavery constitution upon the people of Kansas , and , s tilllater , defying , on one side, the whole power of Buchanan

’sAdm inistration , scheming for his political destruction , and ,on the other , the Opposition of theRepublican party , aggressive, confident of victory , and led by its greatest leader ,Abraham Lincoln .

CHAPTER XIII

THE CRIME AGAINST KANSAS AND THE CRIME AGAINSTSUMNER

HARLES SUMNER entered the Senate as Webster ’ssuccessor December I , 1 85 1 . He was a graduate

from Harvard , as his father had been before him . He was

hi ghly educated not only in al l branches of college learni ng ,but also in the arts and sciences and in polite literature.

He had the classics at his tongue’s end . As a young lawyerhe won the esteem and patronage of Justice Story . With ahighly eulogistic letter of introduction from that eminentjurist , Sumner traveled extensively in England and inother foreign land s and was everywhere welcomed withdi stinguished honors by great judges , learned men , and men

of rank. He enjoyed a wide personal acquaintance withstatesmen , jurists and learned celebri ties in this as well asin foreign countri es . He had acqu ired his ideas of men

more from books than he had by mingling wi th mankindin everyday li fe. His intellect was of fine fiber , but itlacked the rugged strength of that of a self-made man likeDouglas . He had not had the political training of whichSeward had the benefit , and he lacked Seward ’s poise.

He did not have the keen insight into human nature thatLincoln had acquired , not by the study of books , but bymingling wi th men and studying them , the impulses thatmove them and the arguments that appeal to their reason .

For these reasons Sumner found it di fficult to adapt histheories of political reform to actual existing politicalcond itions . He was pure in thought , conscientious, fear

264

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266 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

Milton— but the prominent characters that we see stalkingacross the stage are those of the worst monsters and fiend sof history and fable, -Mephist0pheles , Catiline, Verres , andDanton , wi th Satan at the head of the procession .

Nothing said in the speech could be attributed to the

heat of debate, for every word in it had been carefully se

lected , weighed , and measured in Sumner’s study , and only

those words had been selected that had in them the sharpeststing ; the Scriptures had been ransacked for words , not ofpeace, but of wrath , and then the whole had seem ingly beensaturated with vitriol . For example he described the proslaverymen of Kansas as murderous robbers from Missouri ,hirelings picked from the drunken spew and vomit of anuneasy civili zation , having the form of men ,

and“leashed

together by secret signs and lodges” in order to “renew the

incred ible atrocities of theAssassins and theThugs— showingthe blind submission of the Assassins to the Old Man of theMountain in robbing Christians on the road to Jerusalem ,

and the heartlessness of the Thugs , who , avowing thatmurder is their religion , waylay travelers on the great roadfrom Agra to Delhi— with the more deadly bowie-kni fe forthe dagger of the Assassin , and the more deadly revolverfor the noose of the Thug .

”

Indeed it seemed to be Sumner ’s aim to concentrate in hi sdenunciation of slavery all the bitterness of the Englishlanguage ; but its extravagance, and the bitterness of itsvituperation , off set its reasoning . It confirmed the hos

ti lity of the Abolitioni sts to slavery ; it also confirmed the

Southern hatred of the Aboli tionists ; but it convinced no

body . It lacked what Carlyle calls “the virtue to pro

duce belief .

” It lacked the strength of Chase’s speeches ;it lacked the d ignity of those of Seward ; it added nothi ngto the arguments whi ch they had presented . The markedd ifference between Sumner ’s and Lincoln ’s manner of debating with Douglas is at once apparent by comparingthe speech on the crime against Kansas with the speechesof Lincoln in the Lincoln-Douglas debates .

The Crime against Kansas and Sumner 267

The most irritating parts of the speech were those inreference to Senator Butler of Sou th Carolina and to SenatorDouglas , all the more irritating to Senator Butler and hi sfriend s because Butler was not present in the Senate at thetime when the speech was delivered . Comparing Butlerand Douglas with Don Quixote and Sancho Panza , Sumnersaid : “The Senator from South Carolina has read manybooks of chivalry , and believes himself a chivalrous knight ,wi th sentiments of honor and courage. Of course he haschosen a mi stress to whom he has made hi s vows , and who,

though ugly to others , is always lovely to him ,— though

polluted in the sight of the world , is chaste in his sight ; Imean the harlot Slavery . For her his tongue is alwaysprofuse in word s . Let her be impeached in character , orany proposition bemade to shut her out from the extensionof her wantonness , and no extravagance of manner or

hard ihood of assertion is then too great for this Senator .The frenzy of Don Quixote in behalf of his wench Dulcineadel Toboso is all surpassed . The asserted rights of Slavery ,which shockequality of all kind s , are cloaked by a fantasticclaim of equality . If the slave States cannot enjoy what ,in mockery of the great fathers of the Republic , hemisnamesEquality under the Constitution— in other word s , the fullpower in the national Terri tories to compel fellow-men to

unpaid toil , to separate husband and wife, and to sell littlechildren at the auction block— then , sir , the chivalricSenator will conduct the State of Sou th Carolina out of

the Union ! Heroic Knight ! Exalted Senator ! A secondMoses come for a second exodus ! ”

Later in hi s speech he again referred to Senator Butler ,saying :“With regret I come again upon the Senator from South

Carolina [Mr. Butler] who , omnipresent in this debate,overflows with rage at the simple suggestion that Kansashas applied for adm ission as a State, and with incoherentphrase, d ischarges the loose expectoration of his speech ,now upon her representative, and then upon her people.

268 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

There was no extravagance of the ancient parliamentarydebate which he d id not repeat ; norwas there any possibledeviation from truth which he di d not make— with so muchof passion , I gladly add , as to save him from the susp icionof intentional aberration . But the Senator touches nothingwhich he does not disfigure

— wi th error , sometimes of

principle, sometimes of fact . He shows an incapacity of

accuracy , whether in stating the Constitution or in statingthe law, whether in detai ls of statistics or d iversions of

scholarship . He cannot ope his mouth , but out thereflies a blunder.The speech deli ghted the Abolitionists of the North and

so entranced one enthusiastic admirer of Sumner with itsmelody and grandeur that he wrote to the Liberator:“It came over me like the sound of many waters . I laiddown the paper and still there seemed to press around mea solemn majestic anthem from a mighty organ .

”The

speech was widely circulated in pamphlet form as a Republican campaign document in 1856 . It angered the pro

slavery men of the South as much as it pleased the

anti-slavery men of the North . Denunciations of slaveryhad been heard before from Hale, Chase, Seward , and

others , but never before had there been heard in the Senatea speech so full of gall and wormwood as that of Sumner.The delivery of Sumner ’s Speech occupied parts of two

days— May 19 and 20, 1 856 . In the d iscussion that fol

lowed Douglas and Sumner each lost his temper and so

far forgot himself as to resort to off ensive personalities ,unbecom ing in senatorial debate and more befitting a barroom brawl. Douglas charged that Sumner

’s speech wasmade up of old pieces like a Yankee bed-quilt and sneeredat the classical quotations by saying : “We have had

another d ish of the classics served up— classic allusions ,

each one only d istingui shed for its lasciviousness and

obscenity— each one d rawn from those portions of the

classics which all decent professors in respectable collegescause to be suppressed , as unfit for decent young men to

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270 Pol itical H istory of Secess ion

mind , and let him remember hereafter that the bowie-knifeand bludgeon are not proper emblems of senatorial debate.

Let him remember that the swagger of Bob Acres and theferocity of the Malay cannot add d ignity to this body .

The Senator has gone on to infuse into his speech the

venom sweltering for months , — ay, for years ; and—

he has

alleged facts that are entirely wi thout foundation , in orderto heap upon me some personal obloquy . I will not go intodetails which have flowed out so naturally from his tongue.

I only brand them to his face as false. I say also to thatSenator , and I wish him to bear it in m ind , that no personwith the upright form of man can be allowed— [Hesitation .]“Mr. Douglas . Say it .Mr. Sumner . I will say it,— no person with the upright

form of man can be allowed ,without violation of all decency ,to switch out from his tongue the perpetual stench of Offensive personality . Sir , that is not a proper weapon of debate,at least on this floor . The noisome, squat , and namelessanimal to which I now refer is not a proper model for anAmerican Senator . Will the Senator from Illinois takenotice?“Mr . Douglas . I will— and therefore will not imi tate

you , sir .“Mr . Sumner. I d id not hear the Senator.Mr. Douglas . I said ,

i f that be the case, I would cer

tainly never im itate you in that capacity— recognizing theforce of the illustration .

“Mr. Sumner . Mr . President , again the Senator hasswitched his tongue, and again he fills the Senate withits offensive odor ”

It is hardly necessary to add that Sumner ’s characterization of Douglas was not drawn from the classics , but it was none the less off ensive and i nsulting .

Had Douglas been minded to compare Sumner with a

skunk he would have used the word without any circumlocution . Sumner used other word s and more of them but

The Crime aga inst Kansas and Sumner 271

they d id not change the odor of the animal nor lessen theoff ensiveness of the insult . Thi s illustrates the d ifferencebetween the vi tuperation of Douglas and that of Sumner.The one was blunt , often coarse ; the other was finely polished but nevertheless vituperation .

On Tuesday May 22 , two days after the delivery of hisspeech , Sumner , during a temporary recess of the Senate,was sitting alone at his deskin the Senate chamber engagedin writing . His position was such that he could not risefrom his chair wi thout pu shing it back. While so engaged ,

accord ing to his statement , he became aware that some onewhom he d id not know was stand ing in front of his deskaddressing him . The person so add ressing him was PrestonBrooks , a member of the House from South Carolina and

a relative of Senator Butler , who had come to the Senatechamber for the express purpose of chastising Sumner forhi s speech , attended by Lawrence Keitt , another mem

ber of the House from South Carolina , who had aecompanied Brooks in order to render him any assistance thatmi ght be found to be necessary . Accord ing to Sumner

’ssworn statement

Ithe stranger who addressed him began by

saying “ I have read your speech twice over carefully .

It is a libel on South Carolina and Mr . Butler , who is arelative of mine and then his assa ilant , without waitingto complete the sentence or to hear any explanation , andbefore Sumner could extricate himself from his chair , beganbeating him with a heavy cane on his bare head , which so

stunned him that he could not see, and after that he lostconsciousness . The story of what followed was continuedby James W . Simonton , a reporter for the New YorkTimes , who testified that as soon as he saw the situation ofSumner he hurried to hi s assistance, when Keitt ru shed insaying , Let them alone ; let them alone

”

; and threatened Simonton and others who attempted to interfere ;that Brooks continued beating Sumner , striking him atleast a dozen , perhaps twenty blows , until Sumner fell

Sumner’s Works , vol. iv., p . 260 .

272 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

unconscious to the floor . His impression was that Keitt ’sprecise word s were,

“Let them alone, God damn you .

”

William Y . Leader , another eyewitness , who testified on

the prosecution of Brooks before a civil mag istrate, sworethat after Sumner fell to the floor Brooks continued to beathim until his cane broke in pieces and that

“no one at

tempted to interfere though a number of persons gatheredaround crying , Don

’t interfere ! Go it Brooks ! Give thedamned Abolitionists hell.Shortly afterward s Sumner , still stunned , hi s head and

face covered with blood , was rescued from his assailant andtaken from the Senate chamber .In the course of the proceed ings in the Senate, Senator

Wilson of Massachusetts asserted that ,“Mr . Sumner was

stricken down on this floor by a bru tal , murderous , andcowardly assault , whereupon Senator Butler of SouthCarolina responded ,

“You are a liar ,

”and shortly after

wards Brooks sent Wilson a challenge whi ch was deliveredby Senator Joseph Lane of Oregon . Wilson declined thechallenge, saying : I have always regarded dueling as thelingering relic of a barbarous civilization , whi ch the law of

the country ha s branded as a crime ,

”but refusing to qualify

the word s he had used and add ing that he“religiously

believed in the right of self-defense in its broadest sense.

Senator Slidell of Louisiana stated that he and otherswho were in the anteroom of the Senate heard of the beatingof Sumner but that “we heard this remarkwithout anyparticular emotion ; formy own part I confess I felt none.

” 2

Senator Toombs of Georg ia stated :“As for rendering

Mr . Sumner any assistance, I did not do it . As to what wassaid , some gentleman present condemned it in Mr . Brooks .I stated to him or to some of my own friend s , probably ,that I approved it . That is my Opinion .

” 3

The Senate coul d do nothing but to refer the matter to

Sumner's Works , vol. iv.

, pp . 269-9 70.

2 Cong . Globe, 34th Cong ., 1st sess. , p . 1304.

3 Ia. , p . 1305 .

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274 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

Mr . Keitt , (in hi s seat) . That is false.

Mr . Burlingame. I will not bandy epithets with thegentleman . I am responsible for my own language.

Doubtless he is responsible for his .“Mr . Keitt . I am .

Mr . Burlingame. I shall stand bymine. One blowwasenough ; but it d id not satiate the wrath Of that spirit whichhad pursued him through two days . Again and again

,

qu icker and faster fell the leaden blows , until he was tornaway from his victim , when the Senator from Massachusettsfell in the arms of his friend s , and his blood ran down on theSenate floor . Sir , the act was brief , and my comments on itshall be brief also . I denounce it in the name of the Con

stitution it violated . I denounce it in the name of the

sovereignty of Massachusetts , which was stricken down bythe blow . I denounce it in the name of humanity . Idenounce it in the name of civilization which it outraged .

I denounce it in the name of that fair play which bulliesand prize-fighters respect . What ! strike a man when he ispinioned— when he cannot respond to a blow ! Call youthat chivalry ? In what code of honor d id you get yourauthority for that ? I do not believe that member has afriend so dear who must not , in his heart of hearts , condemnthe act. Even the member himself , i f he has left a sparkof

that chivalry and gallantry attributed to him , must loatheand scorn the act . God knows I do not wish to speakunkindly , or in a spirit of revenge ; but I owe it to mymanhood and the noble State I , in part , represent , to expressmy deep abhorrence of the actOn account of these word s Brooks sent a challenge to

Burlingame. Upon several occasions before this challengeshad been given by Southerners to Northern members of

Congress , which had been declined by the recipients forreasons sim ilar to those expressed by Senator Wilson in hi sanswer to the challenge of Brooks , and thereby the challengers , without incurring any danger , had achieved some

notoriety among their constituents . But much to the

The Crime aga inst Kansas and Sumner 275

delight of many in the North , and probably much tothe surprise of Brooks , Burlingame promptly accepted thechallenge, selected Lewis D . Campbell, of Ohio ,

for hissecond , and as he had a right under the code governingdueling to name the terms he fixed them as follows :Weapons , rifles ; d istance , twenty paces ; place, District ofColumbia ; time of meeting , the next morning .

”The place

of meeting was af terward s changed by,

Burlingame’s second

to Canada,but Brooks ’s friend s declined to accept the terms

on the pretense that it would be dangerou s for Brooks totravel through the North in order to reach Canada

, and so

the duel d id not come off .

Whatever may be said of Sumner ’s speech , it di d not

mitigate, far less justify , the brutality of the assault . But

it was not merely the brutality of the assault that incensedthe North ; it was the justification of it by the Southernleaders and papers , which not only ju stified it , but g loatedover it with intense satisfaction , which they made no at

tempt to conceal , extolling it as the highest exhibition of

Southern chival ry .

From contemporaneous accounts we have it is clear thatthe South with great unanim ity approved Brooks

’s assault .At many places in the South ,

especially in South Carolina ,meetings were held in which resolutions of approval werepassed . Jefferson Davis wrote regretting his inability tobe present at a public d inner given to Brooks in his d istrictexpressing his

“sympathy wi th the feeling which promptsthe sons of Carolina to welcome the return of a brother whohas been the subject of v ilification ,

m isrepresentation , andpersecution , becau se he resented a libelous as sault upon thereputation of their mother .

”The students of the Uni

versity of Virginia voted a cane having “a heavy gold headwhich will be suitably inscribed ,

and also bear upon it a device of the human head ,

badly cracked and broken ,” which

theRi chmond Enqui rer approved ,add ing that

“the chi valry

of the South , it seems , has been thoroughly aroused .

” x

Sumner'

s Works, vol. iv. , p . 277

276 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

Still more insulting was the comment of the Richmond

Enqui rer of June 12,in which it said

In themain , the press of the South applaud the conductof Mr . Brooks , without cond ition or limitation . Our ap

probation , at least , is entire and unreserved . We con

sider the act good in conception , better in execution , andbest of all in consequence. The vulgar Abolitioni sts in theSenate are getting above themselves . They have beenhumored until they forget their position . They havegrown saucy

,and dare to be impudent to gentlemen ! Now,

they are a low,mean

,scurvy set, with some little book

learning , but as utterly devoid of spirit of honor as a packofcurs . Intrenched behind ‘

privilege,’ they fancy they can

slander the South and insult its representatives with impunity. The truth is , they have been suff ered to run too

long without collars . They must be lashed into submission .

Sumner,in particular , ought to have ni ne-and-thirty early

every morning . He is a great strapping fellow , and could

stand the cowhide beautifully . Brooks frightened him ,and

at the first blow of the cane he bellowed li ke a bull-calf .There is the blackguard Wilson , an ignorant Natick cobbler ,swaggering in excess of muscle, and absolutely dying for abeating . Will not somebody take him in hand ? Hale isanother huge,

red-faced , sweating scoundrel, whom some

gentleman should kick and cuff until he abates somethingof his impudent talk. These men are perpetually abusingthe people and representatives of the South , for tyrants ,robbers , rufl‘i ans , adulterers , and what not. Shallwe standit ?“Mr . Brooks has initiated this salutary d iscipline, and he

deserves applause for’the bold ,

judi cious manner in whichhe chastised the scamp Sumner . It was a proper act, doneat the proper time, and in the proper place.

” I

The assault shocked and angered the entire North . Thi sis ind icated by the titles of the ed itorials in the Northernnewspapers , some of whi ch were as follows : The Attempt

Sumner’s Works, vol. iv. , p . 277.

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CHAPTER XIV

B IRTH OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND ITS FIRST BATTLE

INCE the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, theslavery propagand ists had everywhere grown more

and more bold and aggressive. They were now invad ingNew England and were attacking Garrison and hi s Abolition followers in their stronghold , and proclaiming to thepeople of Massachusetts the manifold blessings that slaveryshed on whites and blacks alike. Of this a significant illustration is seen in the speech of Senator Robert Toombs ofGeorgia , delivered in Boston , on January 24 , 1 856 . Hewas

presented to his aud ience in a highly complimentary introduction by Caleb Cushing , then Attorney-General inPierce’ s Cabinet . Toombs ’s speech was devoted wholly toa d iscu ssion of slavery . His two main propositions were,first,

“That Congress has no power to limit , restrain , or inany manner to impair slavery , but on the contrary it isbound to protect and maintain it in the States where itexists and wherever its flag floats and its jurisd iction isparamount ” ; second ,

“That so long as the Afri can and

Caucasian races coexist in the same society , the subordi nation of the African is its normal , necessary , and propercond ition , and that such subord ination is the cond ition bestcalculated to promote the highest interest and the greatesthappiness of both race' s and consequently of the wholesociety . Some of the worst evils of slavery , he contended ,had been caused or aggravated by the Abolitioni sts . Hisconclusion was that slavery ’s “politicalwisdom is vind icatedin its effects on society ; its morality , by the practices of thepatriarchs and the teachings of the apostles .

”I

i The speechwill be found in Cluskey’

s P olitical Textbook, p . 5 12.

278

B irth of the Repub l ican Party 279

Toombs ’s speech is all the more significant when con

s idered in connection with the events which preceded and

those which followed it . It was delivered shortly afterPresident Pierce had made such an ostentatious d isplay inBoston of all the power of the national government— execu

tive, jud icial, military , and naval— in his obsequious zeal toaid the slave-catchers to carry Antony Burns back intobondage. It was made shortly before an honored Senatorof Massachusetts had been struckdown on the floor of theSenate by a representative of Southern chivalry .

Toombs ’s word s sounded strangely in Boston , especiallyto thosewho recal led the stirring appeals for liberty that hadbeen made by those whose memories were still cherished inMassachusetts ; to those who had been thrilled by the impassioned eloquence of Wendell Phi llips . Should FaneuilHall no longer be called the Cradle of Liberty ? Could i t bepossible that the boast attributed to Toombs might yetcome true,

“that he expected to live to see the day when hecould call the roll of his slaves at the foot of Bunker Hillmonument ” ? xThe times werenow ripe for the formation of a new polit

ical party . There was no longer any hope of Opposingthe further extension of slavery through either the Democratic or the Whi g party . So far all efforts to convert theWhi g party of the North into an anti-slavery party hadbeen of no avail. The shores of the political ocean werestrewn with abandoned hulks bearing such names as

ConscienceWhigs , Anti-Nebraska Democrats , Barnburners ,Free-soilers , and the like that had been wrecked in trying tocarry anti-slavery crews and cargoes . And so men of all

parties in the North now set about to construct a new partythat would voice their Opposition to the further extension ofslavery .

In justice to Toombs, it should be added that in a letter to B . F.

Hallett in 1 855 he denied ever having used the words above quoted ,saying that they originated in a misrepresentation of Senator Hale of

NewHampshire. See Stovall , Life of Toombs, p . 1 19.

280 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

The Republican party was not the successor of any other,al though it appropriated many of the ideas formerly held bythe Whigs and the Federal ists . It was , when formed , the

political protest of the North against the extension of

slavery . In one respect political parties are like poetsthey are born , not made. At least they are not made bypoliticians . Politicians may shape but they cannot createa political party . On the contrary , the political forces thatseethe under the surface usually find vent notwithstandi ngthe eff orts of the politicians to repress them .

It may requi re many years to form an enduring politicalparty and put it on a stable foundation . The people mustfirst of all be convinced of the existence of the wrongs tobe redressed and of the feasibility of the proposed plan of

political reform . To evolve theories of reform is one thi ng ;to put them into practical operation is quite another thing .

Then the practical reformer must be willing to make reasonable concessions and alliances . He must keep up with thepeople but not get too far ahead of them , and hemust plan,like a skillful general, to strike at the right time and at theright point .The calamity-bowler who does nothi ng more than to cry

out against existing evils , without suggesting any practicalmethod of reform , has done somethi ng , but not enough .

Moreover , one man will have one remedy and another man

a d iff erent one. Selfish interests will be found to have so

interwoven themselves about the roots of old abuses thatit is di ffi cult to cut them loose. Again , such is the strengthof old party ties , that men wi ll persist in cling ing to theirold party long after having been convinced that it is wrong ,in the hope that it mayeventually right itself .So that , for all these reasons , the development of enduring

political parties in this country has been very slow . Indeed ,although there have been many in the Uni ted States , mostof them , such as the Anti-Mason , the American or KnowNothing , the Granger , the Greenback, and others , havebeen of an ephemeral character . Only four have endured

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282 Pol itical H istory of Secess ion

but the first State convention to adopt the name wasone which met pursuant to a call for a mass meeting of allOpposed to the extension of slavery to meet at Jackson ,Michigan , July 6 , 1 854 . No hall was large enough to holdthemeeting , and so it was held under the friendly canopy ofsome ad jacent oaks , and is now celebrated as

“the conven

tion under the oaks . ” Among the resolutions adopted atthis meeting was the following :

“Resolved that, in view of

the necessity of battling for the first principles Of republican government and against the schemes of an aristocracythe most revolting and oppressive wi th which the earth wasever cursed or man debased , we will cooperate and be

known as ‘Republicans’

until the contest be terminated .

”t

The convention nominated a full State ticket , whi ch waselected by a large majority . Such was the formal birth ofthe Republican party . But the name was not generallyadopted by those opposed to the extension of slavery untila much later date, not indeed until 1 856 . In New Yorkand Massachusetts the Whigs held out for a year or twolonger , refusing to d isband . In other States most of theWhig s went into the American or Know-Nothi ng party .

In some, as in Ind iana and Pennsylvania , the Whigs , AntiNebraska Democrats , Know-Nothing s , and Free-soilersmade common cause under the name of the People

’s party .

But under one name or another the political elementsopposed to the extension of slavery after the repeal of theMissouri Compromi se made rapid progress toward con

solidation .

For a time after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska actother political topics partially obscured the slavery question and d istracted public attention from i t. Maine had

passed a prohibitory liquor law in 1 854 , and similar lawswere enacted in several other States , and in that and in thefollowing year there was a general , and in many States , asin Indiana , a very heated , d iscussion of so-cal led sumptuarylaws .

Flower, Hi story of the Republican P arty, p . 175 .

B irth of the Repub l ican Party

About the same time a new secret political party , calledthe American , but more generally known as the KnowNothing party , sprang up . It was based on Opposition toforeigners and particul arly to the Roman Catholic Church ,and was probably an outgrowth of the Native Americanparty which began in 1837 and developed considerablestrength in 1 844 . It was a secret , oath-bound organization ,with lodges , rituals , grips , and passwords , which spread overthe country like wildfire. In 1 855 it elected governors innine Northern States and forty-three members of the national House of Representatives .But the temperance agitation speed ily waned and the

Know-Nothing party lasted for only a year or two and

d isappeared almost as suddenly as it had appeared . In thebreak-up of the old parties it was a sort of gateway throughwhich large numbers of anti-slavery Whigs and Democratspassed after leaving their old parties and before reachi ng theRepublican ranks . The slavery question was now rapidlybecoming the one cardinal question upon whi ch men everywhere were d ivid ing . While they still retained their oldconvi ctions as to tariff , internal improvements , nationalbanks , and other questions upon whi ch campaigns in thepast had been so vigorously fought , slavery was now uppermost in the mind s of all . The struggle in Kansas wasagitating the entire nation . By this time it was plain toall that slavery and freedom could no more dwell togetherpeaceably in a Territory than they could in a State. It wasal so plain that the theory of popular sovereignty , especiallyunder an admini stration like that of Pierce, was a hollowmockery .

Near the close of 1855 a call was i ssued by the chairmenof the State Republican committees of Maine,

Vermont ,Massachusetts , New York, Pennsylvania , Ohio,

Michigan ,Indi ana , and Wisconsin (not signed ,

however , by the Maine,New York, and Ind iana chairmen) , for an

“informal convention ,

”to meet in Pittsburg on February 22 , 1856 , for

the purpose of perfecting a national organization and to

Pol itica l H istory of Secession

provi de for the holdi ng of a Republican national delegateconvention to nomi nate candi dates for President and VicePresident for the next presidential election . The conven

tion assembled at 1 1 o’

clockA.M .,in Laf ayette Hall , on the

d ay fixed . The call did not contemplate a nominatingconvention , nor even a delegate convention , composed of

delegates selected as they are ord inarily selected , but

invi ted all“the Republicans of the Uni on to meet “in

informal convention . Without thi s explanation it mightbe a matter of wonder who were the constituents of thedelegates from Virg inia , South Carolina , and some otherSouthern States , and what authority the delegates had torepresent them .

The accounts we have of this celebrated convention are

rather meager . The convention ordered ,

“That the offi cialproceedi ng s of the convention be published in pamphletform by the Republican Association of Washing ton City.

” I

The offi cial report shows that“a committee of three, in

conjunction with the temporary offi cers , were appointed toobtain the names of the delegates to the convention , but

i f the comm ittee reported a li st it is not contained in theprinted report .

2

The following is a list of the names of all the delegatesthat have been preserved , gathered chiefly from the offi cialreport and from Mr . Errett

’

s list . The names included in

Pursuant to this order a pamphlet report of twenty-four pages wasissued , entitled , “Offi cial Proceedings of the Republican Convention,convened in the city of Pittsburg , Pennsylvania, on the 22d of February,1856 , published atWashington, D . C. ,

in 1856 .

3 Mr. Russell Errett, a delegate from Pennsylvania, and one of the

secretaries of the convention, has g ivenhis recollection of theproceedingsand also a partial list of the delegates, in a paper on the Formation ofthe Republican Party in Magazine of Western Hi story, vol. vii . ,p . 180. Hon . George W. Julian who was also present as a delegatefrom Indiana has contributed his recollections of the proceedings in a

paper on The First Republican Convention,” Ameri can Hi storicalRevi ew,

vol. iv. , p . 3 13 . In Curtis’s Republi can Party, vol. i . , p . 250,

there is also an account of the proceedings of the Pittsburg convention,including a report of the proceedings compiled by Charles W. Johnson.

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286 Po l itical H istory of Secession

H . E . Peck , C . Spink, J . M . Brown , Dr . 0 . White, WilliamDennison , Jr.

,Jacob Heaton , R . Brinkerhoff , E . Pardee,

H . Howard , Henry Everts , I . McFarland ,O . Harmon ,

Thomas Bolton , L . H . Hall,R . Steadman

,Dudley Baldwi n ,

Seth Day,H . Carter , Frederick Wadsworth , S . E . Edgerton ,

Dudley Seward , Joseph Med ill , D . E . Doon , R . D . Harrison ,

I . M . Benson , A . J . Page, I . H . Wilkinson,R . Rogers , W . B .

Fish , I . L . Wharton) . Indiana— William Grose, GeorgeW . Julian , Oliver P . Morton . I llinoi s— Owen Lovejoy ,John H . Bryant

,Ichabod Codd ing , John (I . ) H . McMi llan ,

John (J . ) C . Vaughan , E . S . Leland , (W . F . M .) Arney ,Carlin) . M i chigan— Gov . K . S . Bingham ,

F . C .

Beman (Beaman) , Jacob M . (J . M . ) Howard , ZachariahChand ler , Whitney Jones , Charles Dickey , (Rufus Hosmer ,

Sinclair) . Wi sconsi n— Charles Durkee, David Jones ,Israel S . Love, (I . S . Lovett) , Calvi n C . Bayley , WymanSpooner . Iowa— W. P . (Penn) Clarke, Andrew (A.) J .

Stevens , C . G . Hawthorne. M innesota— T . M . Newson .

Southern States : Delaware— O. U . (A.) Johnson , W . H .

Dennison . Maryland— Franci s P . Blair Vi rginia

— Joseph (James) Farley , Richard Branni n . KentuckyW . (William) S . Bailey , John G . Fee. Tennessee— H . Jarvis . M i ssouri — James Redpath , F . Kemper (N . Kampa) .

South Carolina— F . O . Willington , Bond) .Pacific States : Ca liforni a— D . H . Spratt .District of Columbia : Lou is Clephane.

Territories : Kansas— S . N . Wood , Nebraska— (S . P .

Rankin) .

It may be noted that there were many well-known opponents of slavery who were conspicuous by their absence.

This fact is commented on by both Mr . Julian and Mr .Errett . The latter says : “The eye of the reader will bestruckwith the fact that it [the list] is more remarkable forthe names not on it than for those that are. But prominentmen were more anxious to see what would follow than totake part . The times were perilous and full of uncertaintyand danger . The Opposition party in ~Congress were

B irth of the Repub l ican Party 287

trembling lest the convention should go too far and the

country contained many fearful souls .The convention was called to order by theHon . LawrenceBrainerd , of Vermont . John A . Ki ng , of New York, actedas temporary chai rman , and the Rev . Owen Lovejoy , ofIllinois (brother of Elijah , who had beenmurdered at Alton) ,opened the proceed ings with a prayer in whi ch he prayedthe Lord “

to enl ighten the mind of the President of theUnited States [Franklin Pierce] and turn him from hi s evilways

, and , if this were not possible, to take him away so

that an honest and God-feari ng man might fill his place.

”

We are told that this happy blend of piety and politicswrought up the assembled delegates to the very highestpitch of enthusiasm .

Francis P . B lair , of Maryland , was elected president ofthe convention . The president made a short speech butsubmitted a long paper in behalf of hi s Southern constituentsin which he seemed to regard the readop tion of the

compromise measures of 1 850 as a panacea for all existing political evi ls . The proposition was heard respectfullybut evidently it di d not sui t the temper of the convention ,which heard wi th enthusiasm the farmore rad ical utterancesof speakers like Owen Lovejoy and Joshua R . Gidd ings .Horace Greeley , Zachariah Chandler , of Michi gan ,

David Wilmot , of Pennsylvani a , and C01. W . H . Gibson , ofOhio ,

one of the strongest stump speakers of his day, and

Charles Reemelin , an influential German and formerDemocrat of Cincinnati , Ohi o , also made speeches , and avigorous letter by Cassius M . Clay , of Kentucky , was readto the convention .

The comm ittee on address and resolutions , of whi chAbijah Mann , of New York, was chai rman , submitted along paper , the read ing of which consumed over two hours ,in the shape of an add ress to the people of the United Statesin whi ch the history of the slavery agitation was elaboratelyrevi ewed , touching also upon the annexation of Texas , therepeal of theMissouri Compromise, the invasion of Kansas ,

288 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

and the general tendency of Federal legislation on the

subject of slavery , and declaring the objects for whichunity of political action was desired to be as follows :

1 . We demand and shall attempt to secure the repealof all laws which allow the introduction of slavery intoterritories once consecrated to freedom , and will resist byevery constitutional means the existence of slavery in anyof the Territories of the Uni ted States .

2 . We will support by every lawful means our brethrenin Kansas in their constitutional and manly resistance tothe u surped authority of their lawless invaders , and willgive the full weight of our political power in favor of theimmediate admission of Kansas to the Union as a free,sovereign , and independent State.

“3 . Believing that the present national admini stration

has shown itself to be weak and faithless , and that itscontinuance in power is identified with the progress of theslave power to national supremacy , wi th the exclusion of

freedom from the Territories , and with increasing civil di scord , it is a lead ing purpose of our organization to Opposeand overthrow it . ”

Before ad journment the convention appointed a nationalexecutive committee, of which Edwin D . Morgan , of NewYork, was chairman , and adopted the recommendation of

the committee on organization advising the holdi ng of anational Republican convention for the nomination of

cand idates for President and Vice-President to be held atPhiladelphia , on June 17, 1856 . The convention , havingconcluded its labors , ad journed on February 23 , 1856 . The

address was printed in pamphlet form and thousand s ofCop ies were sent broadcast over the North .

Taking it all in all , thi s was a most notable poli ticalconvention . Though only the beginning , it was a greatbeginni ng of a great political party . Of thi s conventionMr . Julian says

r : This convention represented all of

Paper on The First Republican Convention, American Hi storicalReview,

vol. iv. , p . 32 1 .

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290 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

Southern States . Many lead ing men of. the old partiesin the North seemed to be stand ing aloof , probably not

wishing to comm it themselves to the support of a party sonew and untried . Nevertheless , there were many wellknown men there. From New Yorkwere Thurlow Weed ,

Simeon Draper , James Watson Webb , John A . King ,Pres ton King

,Philip Dorsheirner, and Edwin D . Morgan ;

from Michi gan , Zachariah Chandler and Isaac Chri stiancyfrom Connecticut , Gideon Welles ; from Ohio

,George

Hoadley , JudgeRufus B . Spaldi ng , and Joshua R . Gidd ings ;from Virg inia , John C . Underwood ; from Pennsylvania ,Thaddeus Stevens , Henry C . Carey , David Wilmot , andothers ; from Indi ana , Henry S . Lane and John D . Defrees .

Henry S . Lane of Ind iana was elected president of theconvention , and David Wilmot of Pennsylvania was madechairman of the committee on resolutions .An amusing ep isode in connection with the selection of

Lane as permanent chairman is thus told by Mr . RussellErrett , who was present as a delegate from Pennsyl

vania I

“The president of the convention was Henry S . Lane of

Ind iana a long , lank , raw-boned man , who gave but poorpromise in appearance of possessing any talent , but themoment he opened his mouth the people knew him for anorator . He was a man of the Henry Clay stamp ,

full of

natural eloquence, and his short speech on taking the chairso carri ed away the Eastern men , who were taken com

pletely by surprise, that they burst into a spasm of noisyenthusiasm . He came near , however , putting the fat in thefire when he sat down , for his first act was to lay his heavycane on the table, tilt backhi s chair , and elevate hi s feetso as to confront the aud iencewith them as he asked , Whatis the further pleasure of the convention ? ’ Eastern propriety was at first shocked ,

and then amused , for thewholeEastern part of the convention broke into a quiet laugh and

RepublicanNominating Conventions of 1856 and 1860, Magazine

of Western Hi story, vol. x. , p . 257.

B irth of the Republ ican Party 291

settled down to the conviction that it was a mere specimenof the Western spirit of freedom . The Western delegateswere too familiar with such things to be astonished . Hissplendi d burst of oratory was a full atonement for anysubsequent roughness . ’

The chief plank of the platform was the second ,which

affirmed :“That the Constitution confers upon Congress

sovereign power over t he Territories of the Uni ted Statesfor their government , and that in the exercise of their powerit is both the right and duty of Congress to prohibit in theTerri tories those twin relics of barbarism—

polygamy and

slavery .

Looking at the first national platform of the Republicanparty , we see in it little resemblance to those of later date.

In 1 856 the general feeling was that it was necessary for thepreservation of freedom that all opposed to the furtherextension of slavery should , for a time, subord inate all otherissues in order to stand together on this , and that in orderto get recruits it was advisable to abstai n from approvingthe dogmas of any one of the old parties that might repelthe adherents of the others . Hence, we do not find in thefirst national Republican platform a word about the tariff ,banks , or currency . The furthest it went in favor of internal improvements was a resolution recommend ing government a id in favor of build ing a railroad to the Pacific , and

another in favor of reasonable appropriations for necessaryriver and harbor improvements .Nearly all the card inal principles contained in the later

platforms of the party have been taken on since its formation . Some of them were absorbed from the old Whigand Federal parties . Most of them have been promul

gated to meet new political issues . In later Republican aswell as in later Democratic platforms we may trace the

development of new and exciting political questions of

which the politicians in 1 856 had little or no conception ,presagi ng others yet to come upon which political partieswill be arrayed and the people will be di vided , not upon any

292 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

geographical lines , so much dreaded by Thomas Jeff erson , but upon lines equally dangerous .Edwin D . Morgan , of NewYork, and Godlove S . Orth ,

of Indi ana , were appointed tellers . Upon the first ballotfor President John C . Fremont received 359 votes to 196

for John McLean , of Ohio ; one for Nathani el P . Banks ofMassachusetts ; two for Charles Sumner , and two for

William H . Seward . But the vote for Fremont wasimmed iately made unanimous . On the next day, WilliamL . Dayton of New Jersey was nominated for Vice-President ,receiving 250 votes , while 1 10 were cast for Abraham Lincoln of Illinois and scattering votes were also cast forDavid Wilmot , Charles Sumner , and others .Without an explanation it might be cause for surprise

that Seward received only two votes for the presidentialnomination , when he was everywhere recognized as theRepublican party

’s greatest leader and logically the onewhoshould be its standard-bearer in the coming election . Itwas reasonably certain before the convention met that theslavery plank in the platform would be one that Sewardcould consistently stand upon , and yet no one knew butthat it might be too rad ical or too conservative. N0 one,

however , could pred ict with any certainty before the adoption of the platform what it would say on the KnowNothing question . It was well understood that there wasin the Republican party a large, but unknown and uncer

tain,Know-Nothing element ; to this element Seward had

always been opposed , and this element was Opposed to

him . Seward had long been a pronounced Whig and itwas uncertain whether his nomination would be acceptableto the new converts from the Democratic party . The con

servatives of the country were still shivering from Seward’

s

higher law pronouncements . For these reasons Sewardwas not just the kind of a presidential cand idate that theRepublican political managers were looking for. Theywere looking for a “vote-getter , one who would not scareaway either Democrats , Whigs , or Know-Nothi ngs , but

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Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

a seeming endorsement of Douglas’ s “popular sovereignty

doctrine, but when carefully analyzed it is at once apparentthat there was in fact no recognition whatever of the doctrine of

“popular sovereignty

” as defined by Douglashimself . NO right was g iven to the people of a Territorywhen the number of inhabitants justified the formation of

a territorial governm ent to organize such a governmentprohibiting slavery , but only the right , which had neverbeen denied , to prohibit slavery when the number of inhabitants justified formi ng a constitution for admissionas a State.

In the only other resolution on thi s subject it was resolvedthat the American Democracy recognize and adopt theprinciples contained in the organic laws establishing theTerritories of Nebraska and Kansas , as embodying the onlysound and safe solution of the slavery question and

non-interference of Congress with slavery in the Terri toriesor in the District of Columbia .

”

But what was the status of slavery in a Territory in caseof non-interference by Congress ; that is , provided Congressshould pass no law either allowing or prohibiting it ? Uponthis question the platform was silent .Prior to the Dred Scott decision it had generally been

conceded , at least in the North , and by some in the South ,

that the Federal Constitution , of itself , and without anycongressional legi slation , did not legalize slavery in the

Territories , and that Congress had the power to prohibitslavery while such Territories remained in a territorialcond ition . This was the vi ew of Benton and of otherSouthern Democrats and Whigs . Another view was that ofthose of the South who, while conced ing that the Federalgovernm ent had the power to prghibit slavery _in the Ter

ritories , contende that it would be unjust to do so for

reasons that had been urged by Calhoun and others referredto in a former chapter . Still another view was that of

Southern extremists of the Calhoun school who maintainedthat whi le a Territory remained in a territori al condi tion

B irth of the Repub l ican Party 295

neither Congress nor the territorial legi slature had any

power to prohibit slavery there.

NO one was authorized to say what the platform meanton this subject and Buchanan in his letter of acceptanceavoided saying what he thought it meant , and so everyDemocrat , North and South , construed the platform according to hi s own notions , wi th the resul t that in the Northit was generally construed as meaning what Douglas said itmeant , while in the South it was construed by some according to the ideas of Calhoun and his followers and by othersin accordance wi th the ideas of Benton and those whothought as he di d .

Juggling platforms so as to make them convey one

meaning in one section of the country and qu ite a d ifferentmeaning in another section has since been developed to ahigh state of perfection , but the Cincinnati platform is afair specimen of early art .It is quite probable that i f the platform had been con

strued in the North as Jefferson Davis and those of the

Calhoun school construed it , the North woul d have been assolidly Republican in 1856 as it was in 1860 . It is not quiteso clear , however , what the result would have been in theSouth i f the platform had been generally understood thereas meaning what Douglas contended that it meant , becauseDouglas had a far larger followi ng in the South than Jefferson Davis had in the North .

The American party held its convention in Philadelphia ,on February 22 , but spli t on the slavery question . Thosewho remained in the convention nominated Millard Fillmorefor President and Andrew J . Donelson for Vice-President ,and these nomi nations were indorsed by the scatteredfragments of theWhig party in a convention held in Baltimore on September 17.

The Democratic nominee for President had been a lifelong political ally of the slave power . Governor Wise, of

Virginia , vouched for him as ever true to the interests of

the South , and “as reliable as Mr . Calhoun himself . The

296 Po litica l H istory of Secess ion

Ri chmond Examiner enumerated eleven reasons why heshould receive the votes of the South , among them beingthese xz

“In 1836 Mr . Buchanan supported a bill to prohi bit thecirculation of Abolition papers through themail .

“In 1837 he voted for Mr . Calhoun’s famous resolutions ,

defining the rights of the States and the limi ts of the Federalauthority , and affirm ing it to be the duty Of the governmentto protect and uphold the institutions of the South .

“In 1838 , 1 839 , and 1 840 he invariably voted withSouthern senators against the consideration of anti-slaverypetitions .

“In 1 856 he approved the repeal of the Missouri restriction , and supported the principles of the Kansas-Nebraskaact.

He never gave a vote against the i nterests of slavery, and

never uttered a word whi ch could pain the most sensi tive

Southern heart.

The political campaign of 1 856 was a memorable one ;

exciting events followed so closely upon one another thatinterest never flagged . Aff airs in Kansas stead ily grewworse and more warlike. Nearly every day the papersreported some lawless raid by Stringfellow , Pate, and theirgangs of Missour i border ru ffi ans or some equally lawlessraid by Colonel Lane and John Brown of Ossawatomie and

their followers . Scenes almost as shocking and as bloodthirsty were at the same time being enacted in the veryhalls of Congress . The bru tal assault of Brooks uponSenator Sumner of Massachusetts was still fresh in the

public mind . All these events served to keep the public ina state of continual ferrhent and to inflame still more theangry passions , already at fever heat , of those who advo

cated and of thosewho opposed the extension of slavery .

New leaders were now coming to the front . John C .

Calhoun , the great leader of the South , d ied in 1 850 . DanielWebster and Henry Clay , the idol of theWhigs , both died in

Quoted in Clarke, Anti-Slavery Days, p. 1 13.

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298 Politica l H istory of Secess ion

House from 1 845 to 1 85 1 but di d not enter the Senate until1 86 1 . Lyman Trumbull of Illinois , after having served inthe House in the Thirty-fourth Congress , was elected tothe Senate in 1 855 . Charles Sumner of Massachusetts ,and Benjami n F . Wade of Ohio entered the Senate in 1 85 1

Sumner as the successor ofWebster , and Zachariah Chandlerof Michi gan , as the successor of General Cass in 1 857.

John Sherman of Ohi o served in the House in the Thi rtyfourth , Thirty-fifth , Thi rty-sixth , and Thirty-seventh Congresses , but did not enter the Senate until 186 1 . ThaddeusStevens of Pennsylvania , Joshua R . Giddings of Ohio ,

Henry S . Lane and George W . Jul ian of Ind iana were alsoknown in national politics . James G . Blai ne of Maine hadalready become prominent in the politics of that State butdi d not enter Congress until 1 862 . Abraham Lincoln hadbeen one of the five nom inees of the Illinois Whi g s for

presidential electors in 1 840 . He had served one term inthe House f rom 1 847 to 1 849 , but had not done or saidanything worthy of special note as a member of Congress ;although he had , as alread y stated , become well enoughknown to receive 1 10 votes in the National RepublicanConvention of 1 856 for nomination for Vice-President .Many others who soon became promi nent , like Oliver P .

Morton of Ind iana , had scarcely acquired a State reputationin 1 856 , but everywhere in the North younger men werecoming to the front and d isplacing the old political leaders .Indeed , one of the advantages of the Republican party wasthat so many of its leaders were, comparatively speaking,young men wi th all the fire and vigor of youth . Of all the

1 It is told of Sumner that ,on hi s admi ssion to the Senate Senator

Thomas H . Benton of Missouri congratulated him ,but added to hi s

congratulations these remarks, which forcibly illustrate the unreliabilityof political prophecies : “

You have come upon the stage too late, sir,not onlyhave our greatmen passed away, but the great issues have beensettled also. The last of these was the national bankand that has beenoverthrown forever. Nothing is left you ,

sir, but puny sectional questions and petty strifes about slavery and fugitive slaves, involving nonational interest.”

Repub l ican Party’

s First Battle 299

Republican leaders Seward still maintained his supremacy .

Whi le there were other strong men it was chiefly to Sewardthat the Northern Opponents of slavery had long looked , and

still looked , for guidance. He took an active part in thecampaign in New York, making speeches there and elsewhere. He saw clearly that the allegiance of the Demo

cratic party to slavery which made it strong in the Southmade it vulnerable in the North , and it was agai nst itsmost vulnerable point that Seward d irected all his attacks ,always avoiding claptrap but speaking wi th di gnity , andwi th a force and eloquence that not only charmed the ear

but appealed strongly to the judgment and consci ence of hishearers .In some respects the campai gn was like that of 1 840 . It

was characterized by great meetings and great enthusiasm .

It was al so a singi ng campaign and the songs were quite asidiotic as were those of 1 840 . One of the most popular oftheRepublican songs was called TheWhi te Hou se Race,”

and was sung to the tune of Camptown Races .”

The

words were as follows

There’s an old gray horse whose name is Buck,Du da , du da ,

His namewas Folly and his sire Bad Luck,Du da , du da day.

ChorusWe

’re bound to workall night,We

're bound to workall day.

I’

ll bet my money on the Mustang Colt,Will anybody bet on the Gray?

The Mustang Colt is strong and young ,Du da , du da ,

His wind is sound and his knees not sprung ,Du da , du da day.

The old gray horse is a well-known hack,Du da , du da ,

He’s long been fed at the public rack,Du da , du (13. day.

300 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

The Mustang is a full-blood colt,

Du da ,du da

,

He cannot shy and hewill not bolt,Du da , du da day.

The Old gray horse, when he tries to trot,Du da , du da ,

Goes round and roun d in the same old spot,Du da , du da day.

The Mustang goes at a killing pace,i

Du da , du da ,

He’

s bound to win in the four-mile race,Du da ,

du da day.

Then do your best with the Old gray hack,Du da , du da ,

The Mustang Colt will clear the track,Du da , du da day.

We’re bound to workall night,We

’re bound to workall day ;

I'

ll bet my money on the Mustang Colt,You’

d better not bet on the Gray.

The Tippecanoe and Tyler too song of 1840

parod ied in 1856 in a song which began as follows

Have you heard of one Frémont, mont, mont,SO honest and true ;

He’s just the man that’ll do all he can

For liberty here and in Kansas too !For liberty here and in Kansas too !

And with him we’ll beat old Buck, Buck, Buck,And his slavery crew!

And with him we’ll beat old Buck!

Of course Colonel Fremont ’s wife, Our noble youngJessie, the flower of the land

” was a prominent figure in thesongs : It is almost incredi ble that sensible people shouldhowl themselves hoarse in singing such miserable doggerel,but it is an indisputable fact that they di d . In time of

i The foregoing songs are copied from Songs f or Freemen, publi shedin 1 856 byH . H . Hawley, Utica, N. Y .

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302 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

new Republican party . The conservative interests of

the country were undoubtedly alarmed by the Southernthreats of secession in the event of Fremont ’s electionand for this reason many of this class , whose sympathieswere wi th the Republican cand idates , were induced to

vote for Fillmore and Donelson , the American or KnowNothing cand idates . Considering all the circumstances , thevote received by Fremont was surprising and showed thegreat depths to which the people of the North had beenstirred by the slavery question . Buchanan was elected ,

receiving the electoral votes of all the Southern Statesexcept Maryland , which gave its eight votes to Fillmore.

Buchanan received also the electoral votes of Pennsyl

vania , Ind iana , Illinois , California , and New Jersey .

There is little doubt that an attempt at secession wouldhave been made i f Frémont had been elected . The seces

sion feeling was especially strong in South Carolina , whichhad felt the galling restraints of the Union ever since Jackson suppressed nullification there in 1 832 . Since that timethere had always been an element there that would havewelcomed a favorable opportunity to secede and that wouldhave gladly seized upon the election of Fremont or any otherRepublican as a pretext for secession . As evidence of thiswe need not rely on the ravings of such fire eaters as Brooksand Keitt . The only significance to be attached to theirutterances is the enthusiasm with which they were receivedby the people to whom they were addressed .

I Moresignificance is attached to what Senator Butler of SouthCarolina sai d :

“When Fremont is elected we must relyupon what we have— a good State government . Everygovernor of the South ' should call the legislature of his

State together , and have measures of the South decidedupon . If they did not and submitted to the degradation ,they would deserve the fate of slaves . I should advi se myState to go at the tap of the d rum .

” 2

1 See Greeley and Cleveland , Poli tical Text-Bookfor 1 860, p. 170.

Id ., p . 170.

Republ ican Party’

s F irst Battle 303

The secession sentiment was not confined to South Carolina . Senator James M . Mason of Virginia wrote on Sep

tember 29 , 1 856 , that “should the dominant sectional votebe d irected to bring into power those pledged in advanceto breakdown the barriers interposed by the compact of

federation for the security of one section against the other ,then , in my calmest judgment , but one course remains forthe South— immed iate, absolute, and eternal separation .

The Richmond (Va . ) Enqui rer said : If Fremont is electedthe Union will not last an hour after Mr. Pierce’s termexpires . If Frémont is elected it will be the duty of the

South to d i ssolve the Union and form a Southern Confederacy. Let the South present a compact and und ivided front .Let her, if possible, detach Pennsylvania and southernOhio, southern Ind iana , and southern Illinois , from the

North and make the highland s between the Ohio and the

lakes the di vid ing line. Let the South treat wi th Californiaand , if necessary , ally herself wi th Russia , wi th Cuba , andBrazil. ” 2

Nor did those favoring secession in the event of Fremont ’selection confine themselves to mere talk . There is cir

cumstantial evidence of a conclusive character that meetings of Governor Henry A . Wise of Virg inia and otherSouthern governors were held ,

and that there was an extensive correspondence carried on having for its purpose theperfecting of plans for secession in the event of Frémont ’selection .

3

Looking back at the result of the election it does not nowseem to have been a calamity of such magnitude as it wasthen deemed to be by the Republicans . As already stated ,

South Carolina would undoubted ly have made an attemptto secede had Frémont been elected . How many of the

Southern States would have joined in such a movement at

Quoted in Sumner's Works, vol. iv. , p . 274.

Quoted in P olitical Text-Bookf or 1 860 , p . 171 .

3 Wilson, Ri se and Fall

,vol. ii . , pp. 520

—22 ; Political Text-Bookfor1 860, p . 1 70.

304 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

that period , and what the result might have been , is now amatter of conjecture only , but it is certain that in the interval between the election and the inauguration of the newlyelected President we should have had P ierce as Presidentinstead of Buchanan , and Jeff erson Davi s as Secretary of

War instead of Floyd . Moreover , Fremont , judging himby hi s career before and after the beginning of the CivilWar

,would in all probability have been wholly unequal to

the responsibilities of the situation . Ill-prepared as was

the North to meet secession in 1 86 1 , it was probably in afar better condition than it would have been in 1857, wi thFrémont at the head of the government . This is the viewof writers whose opinions carry great weight .“In reviewing the past ,

” John Sherman says ,‘“it is ap

parent that the election oi’ Buchanan was necessary to

convince the people of the North that no successful opposition to the extension of slavery could be made except bya party d istinctly pledged to that policy . Mr . Buchananencountered d iffi culties whi ch no human wi sdom could

overcome. Whatever may have been hi s desire, he wascompelled ,

by the prevailing sentiment in hi s party , toadopt measures that made a conflict between the sectionsunavoidable. The election of Fremont would probablyhave precipitated this conflict before the North was ripefor it . His conduct during the early period of the warproves that he would have been unequal to such an emergeney . His defeat was the postponement of the irrepressible confli ct until it became apparent to all that ourcountry must be all free or all slave territory . Thi s wasthe lesson taught by the Adm inistration of Buchanan ,

and

Lincoln was best fitted to carry it into execu tion .

Andrew D . White 2expresses substantially the same

Opinion :“Certainly Providence was kind to the United States in

that contest . For Frémont was not elected . Lookingback over the history of the United States I see, thus far ,

Recollections , p. 1 10. Autobiography, vol. i ., pp. 75—76.

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306 Pol itical H istory of Secess ion

objectionable enactment,unconstitutional in eff ect and

injurious in terms to a large portion Of the States .

”The

deluded people of theNorth who had opposed the repeal hadbeen “drawn into one evanescent political issue of agitationaf ter another ,

”and

“then followed the cry of alarm fromthe North against imputed Southern encroachments , whi chcry sprang in reality from the spirit of revolutionary attackon the domestic institutions of the South , all of whi ch inthe recent presidential election

“had been rebuked by the

voice of a patriotic people. He also devoted a considerablepart of his message to a defense of his Kansas policy .

While not approving the lawless acts of the Missouri borderruff ians and their pro-slavery allies in their efforts to forceslavery upon Kansas , he was careful to state that they hadbeen provoked into the comm ission of them by a longseries of acts of aggression

”on the part of the North , the

first being a strenuou s agitation by citizens of the NorthernStates in Congress and out of it of the question of negroemancipation in the Southern States .

” It aff orded him“unmingled satisfaction thus to announce the peaceful

cond ition of things in Kansas , especially considering themeans to which it was necessary to have recourse for theattainment of the end , namely , the employment of a partof themilitary force of the United States . He denouncedindi scriminately all those — Abolitioni sts , Republicans , andDemocrats al ike —who had opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise or his own Kansas policy , as enem ies ofthe country , who had

“entered into a path whi ch leads no

where unless it be to civil war and d isunion .

” Withoutreferring to the Republican party by name he denounced itas a “geographical

”and

“sectional ” organization whichhad had the audaci ty to attempt

“to usurp the control of

the government of the Uni ted States . Against this partyhe charged atrocious acts and d iabolical designs , the mostmal ignant of such charges not being made openly but bycovert insinuation and innuendo . This he d id in the following spiteful language :

“To accomplish their objects they

Repub l ican Party’

s First Battle 307

dedicate themselves to the odious task of depreciating thegovernment organization which stands in their way and of

calumniating wi th indi scriminate invective not only the

citizens of particular States wi th whose laws they find fault ,but all others of their fellow-citizens throughout the countrywho do not participate with them in their assaults uponthe Constitution , framed and adopted by our fathers , andclaiming for the privi leges it has secured and the blessings ithas conf erred the steady support and grateful reverence of

their children . They seek an object whi ch they well knowwill be a revolutionary one. They are perfectly aware thatthe change in the relative cond ition of the white and blackraces in the slavehold ing States which they would promoteis beyond their lawful authority ; that to them it is a foreignobject ; that it cannot be eff ected by any peaceful instrumental ity of theirs ; that for them and the States of whi chthey are citizens the only path to its accomplishment isthrough burning cities and ravaged fields and slaughteredpopulations , and all there is most terrible in foreign , complicated wi th civil and servile war ; and that the first stepin the attempt is the forcible di sruption of a countryembracing in its broad bosom a degree of liberty and anamount of individual and public prosperity to which thereis no paral lel in history , and substituting in its place hostilegovernments , dri ven at once and inevitably into mutualdevastation and fratricidal carnage, transforming the now

peaceful and felicitous brotherhood into a vast permanentcamp of armed men like the rival monarchies of Europe andAsia . Well knowing that such

,and such only

,are the

means and the consequences of their plans and purposes ,they endeavor to prepare the people of the United Statesfor civi l war by doing everything in their power to deprivethe Constitution and the laws of moral authority and to

undermine the fabric of the Union by appeals to passion andsectional prejudi ce, by indoctrinating its people with reciprocal hatred

, and by educating them to stand face to faceas enemies , rather than shoulder to shoulder as friend s .

”

308 Politica l H istory of Secession

This portion of the message bore upon its face unmis

takable marks ind icating that , i f not written , it was atleast inspired by the two most influential members of 'hi s

Cabinet , Caleb Cu shing , Attorney-General , and JeffersonDavis

,Secretary of War.

I

The President ’s message greatly angered the Republicans .Of all the responses to it in Congress that of John Sherman ,then a member of the House from Ohio ,

was the most outspoken and caustic . This was a speech on the President ’smessage delivered in the House on December 8 ,

a speech which added greatly to Sherman’s reputation in

the North and to his prestige as a leader in the new and

growing Republican party . Sherman denounced the mes

sage as a perversion by the President of the prerogativebefore exercised by his predecessors of communicating toCongress in a respectful manner such information and

recommendations as the public welfare might require, andsaid that he had “

embod ied in his message a stump speechin defense of hi s policy ,

” filled with “unmannerly impu

tations”

and“m isrepresentations of the principles of his

political opponents .” What made thi s all the more galling

was, as Sherman expressed it , that the Republicans were

expected to“listen to the message patiently and not open

their mouths in reply ; and not only that , but to orderthirty thousand or forty thousand extra Oop ies to be distributed among the people.

” Taking up in detail thecharges in the message against the Republican party ,Sherman denied them all in severe and sarcastic language.

He denied that the Republican party was an Abolitionparty or that he himself was an Abolitionist , or that eitherhad any intention of interfering with slavery in the Stateswhere it already existed . To the charge that the Republican party was responsible for the angry passions that had

Thi s was directly charged by Benton, Examination of the Dred Scott

Case, p . 145 , and by Joshua R . Giddings in a speech in the House on

December 10,1 856 (Cong . Globe, 34th Cong . , 3d sess. , p.

3 Cong . Globe, 34th Cong ., 3d sess. , p . 53 .

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Pol itical H istory of Secess ion

federacy . Indeed it has been said of Pierce’s Administration that , in comparison with that of Buchanan , it made thelatter respectable.

In the Democratic National Convention at Charleston ,South Carolina , in 1 860 , on one of the fifty-seven ballotsPierce received one and only one vote for the presidentialnom ination . Pierce was conspicuous among the Presidentsof the United States because, and only because, he was themost subservient of them all to the slaveholding interestsof the South . Jeff erson Davi s dominated his administration and after its close Pierce’s sympathies were entirelywith the South , as is evi denced by his letter to Davis ,mentioned in a former chapter . It is unprofitable to speenlate upon impossibilities , but we cannot repress the thoughtthat it woul d spare the nation a most hum iliating chapter ,and relieve Pierce’s memory of some of the od ium thatnow attaches to it , i f the story of his presidential careercould be entirely wiped off the pages of Americanhistory .

NOTE — I havea very distinct recollection of the campaign of 1 856. Iwas then a lad of about sixteen

,living in Franklin, the county seat of

Johnson County, Indiana. The county had been peopled largelyby settlers from Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee and was

strongly Democratic, but my own predilections were Republican. The

public interest was intense and party feeling ran high. TheRepublicanswerenever so called butwere always referred to as BlackRepublicansby their Democratic opponents. The campaign was characterized bymonster meetings and I attended all, Republican and Democratic, farand near, that I coul d reach, and in this way I heard many of the notedspeakers of the day. The meetings were generally entertained by g leeclubs, which got all of the music possible out of the doggerel campaignsongs. To thesemeetings long-iprocessionswould come

, often from greatdistances, usually headed by some neighborhood political chief astridea dashing steed . An invariable feature of these processions was agayly decorated wagon filled with beautiful young ladies representingthe various States of the Union. On the Democratic wagons wereusually inscribed on canvas the words, Give us white husbands ornone, ” “

God save us from nigger equality,"or some such orthodoxDemocratic sentiment. The handsomest lady in the Republicanwagonusuallyrepresented Bleeding Kansas.” At this period the old-fashioned

Repub l ican Party’

s F irst Battle 3 1 1

Kentucky barbecues were popular. On such occasions long trencheswere dug in which beeves and sheep were roasted whole, accompaniedin the late summer and fall with roasting ears and potatoes, and the

multitudes were fed in both body and mind . At one of the barbecuesI first heard Governor Oliver P. Morton

,the Republican candidate for

governor, then in his prime. In his speech he quoted the dying wordsof Madame Roland , when, just before her execution, she pointed to thestatue of Liberty and said , Oh , Liberty ! what crimes are perpetratedin thy name !" The dignity of gesture and the impressiveness of

manner with which he repeated the quotation made an impressionupon my youthful mind that ha s never been effaced .

Perhaps it was because my mind was young and plastic that thespeeches I then heard made so great an impression, but I do not, evennow

,after the lapse of nearly sixty years, recall any subsequent

political campaign in Indiana that called forth greater interest or a

higher class of political orators. On the Republican sidewere Henry S .

Lane, Oliver P. Morton, Caleb B . Smith, Schuyler Colfax, Daniel Pratt,GeorgeW. Julian, Benjamin Harrison, Albert G . Porter, Samuel Parker,William Cumback, John Coburn, Godlove S . Orth

,and others after

ward noted in the politics of the State. Prominent on the Democraticsidewere JosephA. Wright, thenGovernor ; Ashbel P .Willard , candidatefor Governor ; Jesse D . Bright, then United States Senator ; John L.

Robinson, United States marshal ; Thomas A. Hendri cks, then com

missioner of the United States land office ; Daniel W. Voorhees, DavidTurpie, Graham N. Fitch, Cyrus L . Dunham, William H . Eng lish,Joseph E . McDonald , Oscar B . Hord , and Michael C. Kerr. RichardW.

Thompson, a former Whig , and later an American, d id not become aRepublican until a subsequent date.

All these were men of marked ability. Nearly allwere then or afterward members of Congress or filled other high official places in the Stateor nation. Lane

,Morton

, Willard ,Hendricks, and Porter became

governors of Indiana. Fitch, Lane, Morton,Pratt

,Hendricks , Voorhees,

Turp ie, and McDonald became members of the United States Senate.

Caleb B . Smith became amember of Lincoln’sCabinet, and Thompson amember of Hayes 's Cabinet. Various others afterward held importantFederal offices. Colfax and Kerrbecame Speakers of the House and theformer and Hendricks became Vice-Presidents, and Harri son, Presidentof the United States.Caleb S . Smith

,Henry S . Lane, Samuel Parker, Dani el Pratt, Richard

W. Thompson, Graham N. Fitch, JosephC.Wright, and Jesse D . Brightwere past forty ; nearly all the others were between twenty-fiveand thirty-five

,averaging about thirty. Lane was forty-five, MeDon

ald thirty-seven, Hendricks thirty-seven, Morton thirty-three, Colfaxthirty-one, Voorhees twenty-nine, Turpie twenty-seven, and Harri son

3 12 Pol itical H istory of Secess ion

twenty-three. Most of the Republicans had been Whigs. Mortonand perhaps a few others had been Democrats.The leading political speaker on the Republican side was Henry S .

Lane, who had formerly been aWhig . He had served with distinctionas Lieutenant-Colonel in theMexicanWar ; he had also served a term inCongress. Hewas witty and ready, impassioned in hi s delivery, fluentof speech, and exercised great power over hi s audience. Next to him wasMorton. He had formerly been a Democrat. He had never held apolitical offi ce, and had had little experience as a political campaigner.He rarely attempted to tell a funny story. He never indulged in any

thing bordering ou the spread-eagle” style of oratory. But all who

heard him felt that a new and great force in politics had come to the

front. Before the campaign was over all recogni zed in him a politicalorator of matchless strength. Others like Lane orWillard or Voorheesmight sway the multitude and for themoment make them captives totheir oratory, but Morton battered down all the arguments of hi s political enemies and left them no alternative but retreat or surrender. On

the Democratic side Ashbel P. Willard was easily the great politicalorator. A clear

,bell-like voice, commanding presence, exqui site grace

of delivery and di ction, impassioned utterance, indeed al l the graces oforatory combined , stamped him as probably the most eloquent politicalstump-speaker that Indiana ever produced .

“He was, ” says SenatorTurpie,

“a born prince of the hustings, and in the power to entrancepolitical audi ences he has never had an equal in Indiana. He died ,still a young man

,before the expiration of his term of offi ce as Governor.

There were other able and influential political speakers on the Demo

cratic side, but Hendri cks, Voorhees, and others had not then achievedthe renown they afterward acquired .

Many of the men I have named I came to know personally, some of

them intimately, in later years. In 1909 , I acted as one of the pall

bearers at the funeral of Senator David Turpie. He had outlived all

hi s contemporaries of 1 856 who have added luster to the history of

Indiana. He had survived by several years President Harrison, whowas four years his junior. Of his old-time political friends,

The names he loved to hearHad been carved for many a yearOn the tomb.

It has been said that, Old age ne’er cools the Douglas blood but

not so with Senator Turpie, for the mellowing influences of time hadsoftened the spirit that anima ted him in hi s early political contests.As a candidate for Congress he had been personally Opposed to SchuylerColfax; as a candidate for Lieutenant-Governor he had been opposed toOliver P. Morton. He had been active in great political M paigns

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CHAPTER XV

THE DRED SCOTT CASE

~HEN James Buchanan wasw

inauguratedPresident

i

f“

he United States on”March; it looked ,

upon the surface_

of things , as though thehad gained a new lease of

“life, [awp fi

dwthat there was nothi ng

to obscure the delightful vi sion spread out before him of afour years ’ happy reign , in which no wicked Abolitioni stwould dare to pester him ,

for backof him were a solid Southarid the great Democratic partyof the North .

In the North the Abolitionists had dwindled into aninsignificant band , and were almost everywhere 1n disre

pute ; Opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law had apparentlynearly run its course ; the people of the North seemed to be

weary of the story of“Bleed ing Kansas , and many of

the people in that section wi shed , as far as they could , to

shut their eyes to Slavery as an ugly picture to be kept in thebackground and out of Sight . Judging by Buchanan ’sinaugural address , it seemed to him that hi s election hadsettled the political storm s bred by the d iscussions of the

slavery question and had ushered in a politicalmillennium .

“When the people, he said ,

“proclaimed their will , the

tempest at once subsided and all was calm . The voiceof the majority , Speaking in the manner provided by theConstitution , was heard and instant submission followed .

”

Referring to the question of slavery in the Territories , hepaid a hi gh tribute to the Kansas-Nebraska bill .

“Whata happy conception , he said ,

apply

this S imple rule, that the wi ll of the majori ty shall,govern

3 14

The Dred Scott Case 15

the settlement of the”domestic, slavery in _ the

neither to legislate slavery intoany Territoa oru

tou exclude to leave

the perfectly free to regulate their domesticinstitutions in their own way , subject only to the ConstitutiO

'

ri'

of the United States .” True it was that “a d ifferenceof opinion had arisen in regard to the point of timewhen thepeople of a Territory shall decide the question for themselves .” This very small fly in the ointment was , however ,he thought ,

“happ ily a matter of but little practical importance. Besides it is a jud ical question whi ch legi timatelybelongs to the Supreme Court of the United States , beforewhom it is now pend ing , and will , it is understood , be

speedi ly and finally settled .

” In saying this , he referredto the Dred Scott case, then pend ing in the Supreme Court .Although professing ignorance of what the deci sion mightbe, he gave it as his “ind ividual Opinion

” that “under theKansas-Nebraska act, the appropriate period would be

when the number of actual residents in the Territory shalljustify the formation of a constitution with a view to admi ssion as a State into the Union .

”To the decision of the

Court , whatever it might be, he thought it the duty of all

good citizens to “cheerfully subm it . Al l this having been

accomplished , there would be little left for political partiesto quarrel over and nothing for the people to do but tocul tivate contentment . “

The whole territorial questionbeing now settled upon the

'

p'

riri'

ciplé Of"

pOpular sovereigntyin the people; as

'

ancient as ‘

free government itself , everything of a political nature has been decided . No otherquestion remains for ad justment . May we not thenhope that the long agi tation on thi s subject is approaching itsend , and that the geographi cal parties to which it has g ivenbirth , so much dreaded by the Father of his Country , wi llspeed ily become extinct .Never had there been a time in the hi story of the nation

when all outward signs so fully augured acquiescence in thedecision about to be made. It was announced on March

3 16 Politica l H istory of Secession

only two day s after Buchanan’s inauguration

, andW ‘“ M M .”W M-tu m fil m

startled« thewhole country from one end to the other.Briéfly

i

stated the case was thi s : Dred Scott was a negroslave. His master , _

one Emerson , an army surgeon , formerlyresid ing in Missouri , had taken him to a Uni tedStates military post in Illi nois , where he lived several years ;thence to a Uni ted States military post at Fort

"

Shelling ,situated in what was then Upper Louisiana Territory.

Later -sgn returned toMissouri , taking Scott with him ,

and afterwards sold Scott to one Sandf ord , who continuedto held

“Sc-(gt and his family as slaves . Afterwards Scott

brOught “su i t against Sandford , whi ch wasto recover his freedom, inthe United States Circu it Courtof Missouri . The defendant filed a plea in abatement tothe juri sd iction of theCourt , alleg ing that the said plaintiff ,Dred Scott , is not a citizen of the State of Missouri , asalleged in his declaration , because he is a negro of Africandescent ; his ancestors were of pure African blood and werebrought into this country and sold as negro slaves . l gthis plea Scott filed a demurrer whi ch was sustained , andthe defendant then filed an answer the second paragraphof which set up substantially the facts above stated . The

case was tried upon an agreed statement of facts whi chwere substantially as above stated and thereupon the Courtgave judgment for the defendant , from which Scott appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States . The

full report of the case covers two hundred and forty-onepages of the offi cial report .

I

For seventy years the Supreme Court had possessed therespect and confidence of the people of all sections , and

during all this time no Suspicion had ever been entertainedthat any of its decisions had been influenced by any politicalbias . The Court , as then constituted , consisted of the

Chief.

Justice, Taney , then eighty years of age, and eightassociate justices , Wayne, Daniel, Campbell , Catron , Grier,Nelson , McLean , and Curtis . The Chief Justice and fourHoward

’s Reports, vol. xix. , pp . 393

-633 .

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3 1 8 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

Court q

of Missouri , which held that when ,

afl

negrq slgxe,although he may have temporarily resided in a free Stateoi"TgffitOry, returned to Missouri, the cond itionp f

‘

slai’

réryrefl vgmg

and this was the g round upon whi ch it was atfirst determined to base the decision of the Court . So lateas April 8 , 1 856 , a majority of the judges were of opinionthat

w

it'wast fibf flnecessary to decide the question as to the

constitutional ity of the Missouri Compromise.

I

The case in the Supreme Court was first argued at theDecember term , 1855 , but the judges were very muchd ivided in opinion . Nelson was appointed to prepare theOpinion of the Court , and we know what the opinion of

the Court then was from Nelson ’s opinion published in theoffi cial reports , which was substantially the opinion prepared by him as the opinion of the Court after the firstargument . In this opinion the decision is based whollyupon the Missouri decisions that when Scott returned toMissouri his cond ition of slavery revived , and the Opinioncarefully avoids any di scussion of any of the other questions so elaborately argued in the other opinions subse

quently filed . Indeed , we are told by Curtis ’ s biographerthat the “astuteness with whi ch this opinion avoided adecision of the question arising out of the residence of Scottin a Territory of the United States where slavery was prohi b ited by an Act of Congress , and the remarkable subtletyof the reasoning that thi s too was a matter for the Statecourts to decide, because the law of the Territory could

have no extraterritorial force except such as the Stateof Missouri might extend to it under the comity of nations-show very d istinctly that after the first argum ent of the

gease in the Supreme Court at‘wagwnot deemedh y a majori ty[ offi the fl

b'

en‘ch to be eithei ggggsfiwn

qg i pgggent to expressi‘any

'

opinipn upon the cpnstitutionalm pq er of Cong ressto

,prohibit slavery in the ,Terfitggies of theUnited States .

” 2

” fla m u u bw v l ” V! “ \ . M

Af ter the first argument Nelson‘

ea‘

s: in doubt and on his

Letter of Curtis to Ticknor, April 8, 1 856, in Lifeof Curtis, vol. i . , p.

180. Id . p. 203.

The Dred Scott Case 3 19

motion the case was set down for a second argument ,which was had on December 18 , 1 856 . Curtis ’s biographer ,spEaking

'

guafdedly'

and with due deference to the “patri

otic motives of Wayne,

" states that “after this secondargument , and at some time during the same term , Mr .Justice Wayne became convinced that it was practicablefor the Supreme Court of the Uni ted States to quiet all

agitation on’

the question of slavery i n the Territories byaffi rming that Cong ress had no constitutional power toprohibit its

’

introduction . With the best intentions , withentirely and believing thoroughly thatsuch was the law on thi s constitutional question , heregarded it as em inently exped ient that it should be so

determined by the Court . In the short observations whichhe read in the Court , referring to the constitutional questions involved , he said that ‘the

“peace and harmony of thecountry requ ired the settlement of them by jud icial decisionjand

'

1t i s well known from hi s frankavowals in converSationat thetime that he regarded it as a matter of greatgood fortune to his own section of the country that he hadsucceeded in producing a determination on the part of asuffi cient number of his brethren to act upon the constitu

tional question which had so di vided the people of the

United States . He persuaded the Chief Justice, JudgeGrier , and Judge Catron of the public exped iency of thiscourse, and being perfectly convinced , as he somehow hadconvinced himself , that the appellate court could hold thatthe circui t court had no jurisd iction of the case, because afree

“

negro could not be a ‘citizen ,’

and yet could go on and

decide all questions arising upon the meri ts , he could

conscientiously concur , as he did , in every part of the

opinion which the Chief Justice, after the second argum ent ,felt called upon to write, and which was denom inated theOpinion of the Court , although no other judge, exceptingMr . Justice Wayne, concurred in all its points , reasonings ,and conclusions .

Curtis, Life of Curti s , vol. i . , pp . 206—207.

320 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

The second argument was had upon the questions di scu ssed upon the first and also upon several addi tionalquestions suggested by Chief Justice Taney . Between thefirst and second arguments , and in the absence of JusticeNelson , but after his opinion had been written , it was setaside, and Chief Justice Taney was selected to write anOp ini on

“as the Opinion of the Court ” on all the questionsthat had been argued , each judge “to deal with them ashi s judgment d ictated . Upon the second argument allthe judges except

“ g “Curms and M cLean were still of the

U -‘ D u on. ‘w

Opinion that the lower Court wa“u u -u M —W “ w "

Missouri deci sions,“

but d id nOtbaSifig the Opinion of the Supreme

alone, as di d Nelson , and as the majority , after the firstargument , had determined , for the majority were now

ready to go a great deal further than Nelson was willingto go. The actual judgment of the Supreme Court wasthat the

l

Mi’

s-

Sbu’

riw

Circuit Court “had no jurisdi ction inthe case and coul d give no judgment in it.

,

Its judgmentfor the

'

defendant must consequently be reversed,

and amandate issued di recting the su it to be d ismissed for wantOf jurisdi ction .

Chief Ju stice Taney delivered what is called in the

offi cial report“the opinion of the Court .” Each of the

associate judges delivered a separate opinion , but noneconcurred with the Chief Justice throughout except Wayne,who concurred “

entirely in the Opinion of the Court as ithas been written and read by the Chief Justice— wi thoutany qualification of its reasoning or its conclusions .

”

Chi ef Justice Taney decided :First : That Dred Scott was not and could not be,

because he was of slave descent , a citizen of the Uni tedStates and could not sue in the United States courts .Second : That the Missouri Compromi se Act of 1820

See letter of JudgeCampbell, Tyler, Memoi r of Taney, p . 384. See

also Campbell 's address before the Bar Meeting in Memory of JudgeCurtis, 20 Wallace Reports, p. xi .

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322 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

court decides that a lower court had no jurisdi ction , thereis properly nothi ng more to decide, for an appellate courthas no jurisdi ction to decide any question that the lowercourt had no jurisd iction to determine.

Another well-settled general rule is that when a judgegoes “

out of the record ,” as lawyers say , to decide a

question not properly before him , his remarks are regardedas obi ter d i cta , and , whatever weight may be given to hisopinion as an ind ividual , it does not have the bindi ng forceof a jud icial decision .

These propositions were pressed with great v1gor in hi s

d issenting op inion by Justice Curtis , who contended thatthequestion of the valid ity of the Missouri Compromisewas not properly before the Supreme Court after its rul ingthat the lower Court had no jurisd iction . On this pointhe said that the majority “having first decided that theywere bound to consider the suffi ciency of the plea to the

jurisd iction of the Circuit Court , and having decided thatthi s plea showed that the Circuit Court had notjuri sdi ction and consequently that thi s is a case to whi ch the jud icial power of the United States does not extend , they havegone on to examine themerits of the case as they appearedon the trial before the Court and jury on the issues joinedon the pleas in bar , and so have reached the question of thepower of Congress to pass the act of 1820 . On so gravea subject as this I feel obliged to say that , in my opini on ,such an exercise of the jud icial power transcends thelimits Of the authority of thi s Court , as described by itsrepeated decisions , and as I understand , acknowledged inthis opinion of the majority of the Court . I do not

consider it to be wi thin the scope of the jud icial power ofthemajority of the Court to pass upon any question respecting the plaintifl

’

s citizenship in'

Missouri , save that raisedby the plea to the jurisd iction , and I do not hold anyopinion of this Court or any court binding , when expressedon a question not legitimately before it . The judgmentof thi s Court is that the case is to be di smissed for want

The Dred Scott Case 323

of jurisdiction because the plainti ff was not a ci tizen of

Missouri , as he alleged in his declaration . Into that judgment , according to the settled course Of this Court , nothingappeari ng after a plea to the merits can enter . A greatquestion of constitutional law, deeply affecting the peaceand welfare of the country , is not, in my opinion , a fitsubject to be thus reached .

”

In meeting this argument the ingenuity and subtlety of

reasoning of the Chief Justice were chiefly conspicuous .His opinion d isplayed his profound knowledge of the

ancient rules of law relating to pleas in abatement , a speciesof learning that flourished in England at a time whenpleadings were wri tten in law French , amongrel compoundof Latin and Norman-French ; when the rules of plead ing ,and particularly the rules relating to pleas in abatement ,were wrapped in a maze of technicalities expressed in legaljargon wholly unintelligible to laymen , requiring for theirunderstand ing a clear conception of Coke

’s di stinction between certainty to a common intent , certainty to a certainintent in general , and certainty to a certain intent in everyparticular , the last kind of certainty being that whichwas required in a plea in abatement , a di stinction whichit is doubtful if the lawyers even in Coke

’s time clearlyunderstood .

There are lawyers at thi s day who still find d iversionin d iscu ssing the techn ical legal puzzles in the Dred Scottcase.

1 But the people at the time when the decision wasannounced did not much concern themselves about theruling on the plea in abatement and it is not that ru lingwhich has given hi storic interest to the case. The greatmass of the people, not being versed in law,

knew littleand cared less about pleas in abatement or whether anypart of the opinions in the Dred Scott case was obi ter

See paper of Edward S . Corwin on the Dred Scott Decision in theLight of Contemporary Legal Doctrines,"inAmerican Hi storical Revi ew,

vol . xvii , p . 52 ; paper by Morri s M . Cohn on “The Dred Scott Case inthe Light of Later Events,” in American Law Revi ew,

vol. xlvi. , p . 548.

QM‘

324 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

d i ctum or not. There was a very general opini on in theNorth , Shared by lawyers as well as laymen , that theSupreme Court had not only gone out of the record but thatit had trumped up a pretext for doing so in order to g ivejud icial sanction to the political doctrines advocated by theultra pro-slavery men of the South .

This was Benton ’s view , expressed in a scathi ng reviewof the Dred Scott decision soon after it was published .

I

Ex-President Martin Van Buren said of it '“For the first

time S ince the formation of the present government theSupreme Bench , considerably changed in the politicalcomplexion of its members , and tempted doubtless more or

less under the pressure of an all-absorbing popular influenceat the South , to borrow a leaf from the bookof our politicalopponents , has undertaken to control, adversely to the viewsof those opponents , a great political question by an extrajud icial decision of the Court .

” 2

Most people, whether lawyers or not , understood thatpart of the Opinion of Chief Justice Taney in which heasserted that the portion of the Declaration of Independencewhich asserts that “allmen are created equal ” and endowedwi th “

certain inalienable rights ,” includi ng “

life,liberty ,

and the pursu it of happiness ,”did not include the enslaved

Afri can race.

” They were shocked by that portion of theoprmon of the Chi ef Justice in which , speaki ng of the

African race and how those of that race were regardedprior to the adoption of the Declaration of Independence,he said that “they had for more than a century before beenregarded as beings of an inferior order and altogether unfitto associate wi th the white race, either in political or socialrelations , and so far inferior that they had no legal rights

whi ch thewhi teman was bound to respect; and that the negromight justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for hisbenefit . He was bought and sold as an ord inary articleof merchandi se and traffi c whenever a profit could be madeof it.

”

3 Examination of the Dred Scott Case. P oli tical P arties, p . 374.

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326 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

thosewhich he found for deciding against the constitutionality of the Missouri Comprom ise.

What most startled the people of the North was thedecision of the majority of the judges that the MissouriCompromise was unconstitutional for the reason that theConstitution itself guaranteed the rightof a Slaveowner totakehi S slaves into any Territory and protected his rightof property in them there so long as the Territory remained

ifr"

a

i

r

territorial,cond ition , and that while it so remained ,

neither ’Congress nor the people of the Territory could

exclude it , and that it could be excluded only by the con

stitution whi ch the people might adopt preparatory to

admission into the Union as a State.

at once apparent that this was precisely the

political doctri ne advocated by John C . Calhoun and thoseof hi s school . Taney had used somewhat di fferent language, but he had not improved upon the arguments ofCalhoun and the conclusions whi ch he reached were identically the same as those of Calhoun . Calhoun ’s arguments and conclusions had been opposed and condemnedby Webster , Clay , Benton , D ix, and other great Democratic and Whig leaders ; they. l1q been rejected by Congress ; they had never been promulgated by-any nationalDemocratic or Whig conventions , by any Northern con

vention of any kind . If Calhoun ’s doctrine, or anythi ng like it , had ever been advocated in the halls of

Congress , it had been so advocated only in the speechesof Calhoun himself and others of the most ultra type of

slavery propagand ists . But now for the first time in thehistory of the Supreme Court , that time-honored tribunalsought to impart its sanction to the political doctrineadvocated by Calhoun throughout his lifetime, and afterhi s death , persistently but hitherto vainly , contended for’

\by Jeflerson Davi s and others of the Calhoun school as adoctrine which it was ind ispensable for the continuance andextension of slavery to have grafted upon the Constitutionand adopted as a fundamental pri nciple of governmental

The Dred Scott Case 327

policy . As most of the people of the North believed , the

majority of the judges had not only gone outside the record ,‘

but they had d istorted the law, spurned all precedents , and :i

trumped up an excuse for making a decision that wouldsatisfy the most exacting demand s of the slaveholding !interests of the South . It was this convi ction that in-lflamed the North .

The deci sion also made plain the meaning of the wordsin th

M

KZnsas NebraSka bill , subject only to theConstitutionOf the UnitOd States , attached to the clause Supposedto give to the people of the Territories the right to determi nethe quesfition

"of Slavery for themselves . There had been

a violent protest in the North against the repeal of theMissouri Compromise, but the opposition had been partially allayed by what seemed to be a guaranty of “popular sovereignty , giving the people of the Terri tories theright themselves to adm it or exclude slavery , and the

words subject only to the Constitution of the UnitedStates had been universally construed in the North as

meaning only that the laws and the constitutions whichthey might make in the regulation of their domestic institutions should conform to the Constitution of the Uni tedStates , a provi sion similar , as before stated , to that in manyother enabling acts and one that would probably have beenimplied whether expressed or not . But under the new

doctrine of the Dred Scott decision , right ofpopular Sovereignty, as applied to the people of the Territories , was seen to be a barren right . The Constitution ,under this doctrine, itself admitted slavery into the Territories , and the only right the people had to exclude it wasa right , which had always been conceded , to exclude itwhen permission was gi ven them by Congress , throughan enabling act, to form a constitution preparatory to

admi ssion into the Union as a State.

But Congress was not bound even then to admi t themunder a constitution prohibiting slavery , and so mightkeep them out of the Union indefinitely , i f they persi sted

328 Politica l H istory of Secess ion

in coming in under a free State constitution . That isprecisely what was done with Kansas , which was excludedfrom adm ission until 186 1 , when the Republicans , by reasonof the resignation of several Senators from the seced ingStates , had acqu ired a majority in the Senate.

There was also a sentence in the opinion of Justice Nelsonthat had a sinister look, all the more ominous becau se,when the opinion was originally prepared , he had expressedthe view of the majori ty of the judges . “A question ,he said ,

“has been alluded to on the argument , namelythe right of the master wi th hi s Slaves , of transit into or

through a free State on business or commercial pursu its ,or in the exercise of a federal right , or the d ischarge of afederal duty , being a citizen of the United States , which i snot before us . This question depends upon d iff erent considerations and principles from the one in hand and turnsupon the rights and privileges secured to a common ci tizenof the Republic under the Constitution of the UnitedStates . When that question arises , we shall be prepared todecide it . Could it be doubted what would be the decision in such a case i f it should come before the same judgesthat decided the Dred Scott case?

cott case, whether so designedor not, was a fitting sequel to the repeal of the MissouriComprom ise. That repeal had broken down the con

gressional barrier to the adm ission of slavery into the Territories , and now came a decision of the Supreme Court of theUnited States protecting it after its admission from all

interference either by Congress or by the territorial legislatures . No one could foresee, but all opponents of

slavery dreaded , the future consequences . The next stepwould probably be the passing of a federal slave code for

all the remaining Territories , a code patterned after thatof South Carolina , or some other slave State —it matteredlittle which one, for the best of the slave codes were barbarous , codes that virtually suppressed freedom of speechand of the p ress , codes that inflicted inhuman punishments

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330 Po litical H istory of Secess ion

United States neither perm its Congress nor a territoriallegislature to exclude slavery from any United StatesTerritory , they all omit to declare whether or not the same

Constitution permits a State, or the people of a State, toexclude it . Possibly this is a mere om ission ; but who can

be qu ite sure,i f McLean or Curtis had sought to get into

the opinion a declaration of unl im ited power in the peopleof a State to exclude slavery from their limits , ju st asChase and Mace sought to get such declaration , in behalfof the people of a Territory , into the Nebraska bill- I ask,

who can be qu ite sure that it would not have been voteddown in the one case as it had been in the other ? The

nearest approach to the point of declaring the power of aState over Slavery , is made by Judge Nelson . He ap

proaches it more than once, using the precise idea and

almost the language, too , of the Nebraska act. On one

occasion , his exact language is ,‘except in cases where the

is restrained by the ConStitufW of the “Uni tedthe law of the State is supreme over the Subject

of Slavery wi thin its jurisd iction .

’ In what cases the powerestrai

'

ned by the United States Constituis left an Open question , precisely as the same question ,the restraint on the power of the Territories , was leftin the Nebraska act. Put thi s and that together and

we have another nice little niche, which we may, ere long ,see filled with another Supreme Court decision , decla ringthat the Constitution of the United States does not permita S tate to exclude slavery from its lim its . And this may

especially be expected if the doctrine of‘care not whether

slavery be voted down or voted up’ shall gain upon the

public mind suff iciently to give promise that such a decisioncan be maintained whenmade.

“Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of beingalike lawful in all the States . Welcome or unwelcome,

such decision is probably coming , and will soon be upon us,unless the power of the present political dynasty shall bemet and overthrown . We shall lie down pleasantly dream

The Dred Scott Case 33 1

ing that the people of Missouri are on the verge of makingtheir State free, and we shal l awake to the reality insteadthat the Supreme Court has made Illi nois a slave State.

” x

Coupled with the ind ignation over the announcement ofthe Dred Scott“ __

dee1s1on was a widespread feeling in the

North thatu ’

the seeming recognition of the doctrine of

popular sovegeignty in the Kansas Nebraska act..was amere falsei

‘

pretense, and that there was some v

mysteriou s

connection between,it and the Dred Scott , decision, ,

indieating that both were parts of some preconceivedfurther the extension of slavery . There was also a generalsuspicion in the North that Buchanan had something todo with the deci sion , or that , at least , he knew somethingabout it before its announcement . How the President in hisinaugural , wi thout prior information from some source,could have so exactly forecast the decision of the Court ,was a question that for a long time afterwards gave riseto great speculation . It was pointed out that the time of

announcing the Dred Scott decision was Significant . If

it had been announced prior to the preced ing presidentialelection , itmight have jeopard ized the election of Buchanan .

It was not made public until after his election had beenassured , together wi th a Democratic majori ty in bothhouses of Congress and with another presidential electionfofi

'

r‘

years away . These suspicions were no doubt aggrayated by the then excited state of public op ini on in the

North , but they were wi dely entertained . There was , ofcourse, no d irect proof of the plot suspected orof Buchanan

’ ssupposed connection wi th it , but the ci rcum stantial evidence supposed to ind icate its existence was summed up

by Lincoln , in hi s Springfield speech , in which he enforcedhi s argument by this homely illustration“We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adapta

tions are the result of preconcert . But when we see a lotof framed timbers , di ff erent portions of which weknow havebeen gotten out at d ifferent times and places , and by

Lincoln-Douglas Debates, p . 4.

332 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

di fferent workmen , -Stephen , Franklin , Roger , and James ,for instance —

and whenwe see these timbers joined together ,and see they exactly make the frame of a hou se or a mill ,all the tenons and mortices exactly fitting , and all the

lengths and proportions of the d ifferent pieces exactlyadapted to their respective places , and not a p iece too manyor too few

,

— not om itting even scaff oldi ng ,— or , i f a single

piece be lacking , we see the place in the frame exactlyfitted and prepared yet to bring such piece in— in such acase, we find it impossible not to believe that Stephen and

Franklin and Roger and James all understood one anotherfrom the beginning , and all worked upon a common planor draft drawn up before the first blow was struck.

” I Inthe homely illustration used the people read ily recognizedStephen A . Douglas , Franklin Pierce, Roger B . Taney , andJames Buchanan .

Many , however , who may have been reluctant to believein the existence of a deliberately premed itated “

plot” were

quite ready to believe that there was at least a secret[communication of some kind between some of the judges

{of the Supreme Court and Buchanan by which he wasg iven ful ly to understand what the decision would be beforehe delivered his inaugural . This , indeed , was expresslycharged by Seward in a Speech in the Senate on March 3 ,

in which he said : “Before coming into offi ce he

[Buchanan] approached , orwas approached by , the Supreme

Court of the United States . The Court did not hesitate to please the incomi ng President by seizing this extraneou s and idle forensic d iscussion and converting it into anoccasion for pronouncing an opinion that the Missouriprohibition was void , and that by force of the Constitutionslavery existed , with all the elements of property in man

over man ,in all the Territories of the United States , para

mount to any popular sovereignty within the Territoriesand even to the authority of Congress itself . The day

xLincoln-Douglas Debates , p . 3 .

Seward’

s Works , vol . iv. , pp . 585— 87.

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334 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

of ofi ce in the event , which then seemed not improbable,of Seward ’s nomi nation and election to the ofl

‘i ce of Presi

dent.

I Later historians have apparently scouted‘

the

suggestion that the decision was part of a plot ,”or that

there was any improper correspondence or understand ingon the subject between Buchanan and the judges of theSupreme Court . Wood row Wilson , writing in 1903 , ex

presses such an exalted idea of Buchanan as a man of

unsullied integrity and punctilious in the performance of

what he considered to be his duty ,” as to make “such

lcalumny inexcusable“ ; and Rhodes , so late as 19 10 ,

af teroff ering various speculations as to how information of the‘nature of the decision , prior to its formal announcement ,

imight have “leaked out ,

” is quite positive that“however

Buchanan got his intelligence, his character and thatof Taney are proof that the Chief Justice d id not communicate the import of the decision to the President-elect .That either would stoop from the etiquette of hi s high officeis an idea that may not be entertained for a moment ; andwe may be sure that with Taney

’

s lofty notions of whatbelongs to an independent jud iciary he woul d have no

intercourse with the executive that could not brook the

light of day.

” 3 Curtis ’ s biographer also adm its that hedoes “

not imagine that Mr . Buchanan was a man who

would tamper with the adm inistration of justice, and I amsure that the Chief Justice and Judge Wayne would neverhave brooked such an attempt .

” 4 The only explanationgiven by Buchanan

’s latest biog rapher for the remarkableshifting of position in the Dred Scott case between the firstand final decisions is that it was owing to the activityof the minority rather than the majori ty of the Court .” s

Tyler, Memoi r of Taney, p . 391 .

Contribution on States’ Rights in The CambridgeModernHi story,vol. vi i . , p . 436.

3 Hi story of the Uni ted States, vol. p . 269.

4 Life of Curti s , vol. i . , p . 236.

5 Moore, Buchanan, vol. x., p. 108 note.

The Dred Scott Case 335

In a recent number of the American Law Review, the

leading lawmagazine in the country , 1 is a paper by GeorgeL . Christian on

“Roger Brooke Taney ,” in which Taney

is held up as“a great and good man and a great Judge

who was“hounded and denounced by the Abolitionists

of that day as few men of this country have ever been atany time in its hi story ,

”and Seward ,

formaking the cha rgeabove quoted , is denounced as the

“unscrupulous Senator

from the great State of New York ” whose whole publiccareer was “strewn with acts of perfidy, duplicity , andfalsehood ,

”and the assertion ismade that President Lincoln

“was either frequently m isled by mi srepresentations or

that he was the pliant tool of hi s wily and wicked premier .”

These intemperate assertions were evidently made in en

tire ignorance of the correspondence on the subject of theintended decision between Buchanan and Judges Catronand Grier . Despite al l explanations of the decision therehas been something like mystery in connection withthe shi fting of position of the Supreme Court betweenthe first argument and the final decision of the case, andthere has been a suspicion that Buchanan at least knewsomething about it before he delivered hi s inaugural .Recently , and more than

_

fmi fty ‘y‘

ears after the decisionin the Dred Scott cased i there have come to light two letterswritten by two of the judges of the Supreme Court toBuchanan ,while the casewas

’

Oeri drng’

These letters throwa great flood of light upon the hi stOry of the case and mustnecessitate a modi fication of some conclusions heretoforeexpressed by eminent historians . They are not suffi cientto prove a

“plot

”but they do nevertheless especial ly

in confiSétrorT 'with other und isputed evidence, an amazingstate of facts wholly inconsistent with the ‘‘

etiquette of

high offi ce” supposed to govern the President of the Uni tedStates and the judges of the Supreme Court . These letterswere both written to Buchanan while the Dred Scott casewas under advisement and before Buchanan ’ s inaugural .

Vol. xlvi., p. 1 .

A

336 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

One was written by Justice Catron of Tennessee, an old

personal friend of Buchanan , the other by Justice Grierof Pennsylvania , also an old personal friend .

These letters cannot , consistently with historic accuracy ,be abbreviated and they are here gi ven in full as copiedfrom Moore’s Works of J ames Buchanan .

‘ It is not knownwhat communications , oral or written , passed betweenJustice Catron and Buchanan prior to Catron

’s letter of

February 19 , 1857, but on that date Catron wrote asfollows

Thursday, Feby. l gth

MY DEAR SIRThe Dred Scott case has been before the Judges

several times since last Saturday , and I think you may

safely say in your Inaugural ,‘That the question involving the Constitutionality of the

Missouri Comprom ise line is presented to the appropriatetribunal to decide ; to-Wi t, to the Supreme Court of the

United States . It is due to its high and independentcharacter to suppose that it will decide settle a controversy which has so long and seriously ag itated the

country , and whi ch must ultimately be decided by the

Supreme Court . And until the case now before it,

(on two arguments) presenting the d irect question , isd isposed of , I would deem it improper to express anyopinion on the subject .

’

“A majority of my Brethren will be forced up to thispoint by two d issentients .“Will you d rop Grier a line, saying how necessary it ishow good the opportunity is , to settle the ag itation by

an affirmative decision of the Supreme Court , the one wayor the other . He ought not to occupy so doubtful a groundas the outside issuk -that , admitting the constitutionalityof the Mo . Comp . line of 1820 , still , as no domicile wasacqu ired by the negro at Ft . Snelling , he returned to

Vol. x. , pp . 106— 108.

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338 Po litica l H istory of S ecess io

and may be leg itimately considered . Those who hold a

d ifferent opinion from Messrs . McLean Curtis on the

powers of Congress 8e the valid ity of the compromi se act

feel compelled to express their opinions on the subject ,Nelson myself refusing to comm it ourselves . Amajorityinclud ing all the judges south of Mason Dixon ’s lineagreeing in the result but not in their rea sons— as the

question will be thus forced upon us , I am anxious that itshould not appear that the line of latitude Should markthe line of d ivision in the court . I feel also that the opinionof the majority will fail of much of its effect if founded on

clashi ng inconsistent arguments . In conversation withthe chief justice I have agreed to concurwith him. BrotherWayne myself will also use our endeavors to get brothersDaniel Campbell Catron to do the same. So that i fthe question must be met , there will be an opini on of the

court upon it , i f possible, without the contrad ictory viewswhich would weaken its force. But I fear some ratherextreme views may be thrown out by some of our southernbrethren . There will therefore be six i f not seven (perhapsNelson will remain neutral) who will decide the compromi selaw of 1 820 to be of non-efiect. But the opini ons wi ll notbe delivered before Friday the oth of March . We Will notlet any others of our brethren know any thing about thecause of our anxi ety to produce this result , and , thoughcontrary to our usual practice, we have thought due to youto state to you in candor confidence the real state of the

matter.Very Truly Yours

D . GRIER .

HoN. JAME S BUCHANAN .

P . S .

— It is the weakstate of the Chief Justice’s healthwhich will postpone the opinion to that time.

” I

The originals of these letters are now on file in the archives of thePennsylvania Historica l Society, but no mention is made of them byM r. George Ticknor Curtis in his Life of Buchanan ,

norwere they everpublished , so far as I have been able to d iscover, until published in theWorks of James Buchanan edited by Mr. John Bassett Moore.

The Dred Scott Case 339

A conci se statement of the facts evi denced by these letters , in connection wi th other established facts , may a id

in arriving at a clearer understand ing of them . The im

portant dates should be borne in mind . The first argument in the Dred Scott case was at the December term ,

1855 ; the second argument , on December 18 , 1856 ; Catron’s

letter to Buchanan was wri tten February 19 , 1857 ; Eu

chanan’

s letter to Grier was received February 23 , 1 857 ;

upon the same day Grier wrote to Buchanan ; Buchanandelivered hi s inaugural March 4 ; the Dred Scott decisionwas announced March 6 .

It is clear that there must have been some communica

tion , written or oral , between Catron and Buchanan , priorto the date of Catron ’s letter on the subject of the forthcoming decision , because it would be incred ible to supposethat Catron , wi thout such communication , would have beenso presumptuous as to advise Buchanan as to what

“he

might safely say” in his inaugural address concerning

a case then pendi ng in the Supreme Court of the UnitedStates . But Catron not only advi sed Buchanan as towhat he might safely say , but he suggested the preci se

phraseology in whi ch to say it .The importance of getting Grier converted to the properview of the case is evident , when we recall that he con

curred wi th Nelson in the opinion first prepared by him asthe opinion of the Court , which left the question of the

constitutionality of the Missou ri Compromi se untouched .

In this opini on the majori ty of the judges concurred ,

namely , Chief Justice Taney , Justices Wayne, Nelson ,Daniel, and Catron . But there were several changes of

opinion af ter the second argument , so that five of the

judges finally concluded that the question of the constitu

tional ity of the Missouri Comprom ise was properly in the

case for decision and they were ready to decide the MissouriComprom ise unconstitutional . These were Taney , Wayne,Daniel , Catron , and Campbell . These made a majoritywithout Grier . But these were all from the South , and it

340 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

was desired to avoid the danger of having the line of

latitudemarkthe decision of the court ,” in which case the

op inion of the majority would fail of much of its effect .”

There were four Northern men on the bench . It wasknown that two of these, Curtis and McLean ,

wouldd issent and that Nelson was doubtful . It was thereforeall the more important to get Grier to join his Southernbrethren . But the prospect of settling the slavery questionforever by a decision making slavery lawful in all the

Territories d id not at first seem so alluring to Grier as itdi d to his Southern brethren . He had first wanted to S idewith Nelson by decid ing the case in such a way as to leavethe question of the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise untouched . Who could have more influence overhim than his old personal and political friend Buchanan?And who , other than Catron , another old political and

personal friend of Buchanan , could more successfully appealto Buchanan to help convert Grier ? Catron it seems stillfeared that Grier m ight seek to avoid responsib ility fordecid ing the Missouri Compromise to be unconstitutionalby decid ing that “admitting the constitutionality of the

Mo . Comp . line of 1820 , still as no dom icile was acqu iredby the negro at Ft . Snelling he returned to Missouri ,he was not free Catron assured Buchanan that Grierhas no doubt about the question on the ma in contest, but

has been persuaded to take the smooth handle for the sakeof repose,

”and for thi s reason Catron urges Buchanan to

“drop Gri er a line

” saying “how necessary i t i s 69’ how good

the opportuni ty is to settle the ag itation by an affirmativedecision of the Supreme CourtBuchanan lost no time in dropping Grier a line, for

Gri er ’s letter written on February 23 begins with“your

letter came to hand thi s morning .

”

We do not have Buchanan ’s letter to Grier and we donot know the precise word ing of it , but the substance of itis plainly inferable from Grier ’s statement that “

we,”

meaning , it is to be presumed from what follows , him self ,

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342 Po litica l H istory of S ecessio

slavery in the Territories,and that while they remained in

a terri torial cond ition neither Congress nor the territoriallegislatures coul d prohibit slavery there. But here the“troublesome questions ” intruded themselves . Two of

the judges , Curtis and McLean , d issented from the viewsof the majority of their brethren and

“were determined to

come out wi th a long and labored di ssent, includ ing theiropinions and arguments on both the troublesome points ,

”

and Judge Nelson ’s position was doubtful . Moreover , amajori ty of the judges

“including all thejudges south of

Mason {if D ixon’

s line, though agreeing“in the result ,

"

d id not agree“in their reasons ,

”and there was not only

danger of “clashing 69

’ inconsi stent arguments ,”but there

was also danger that “the line of lati tude might mark the

line of deci sion of the court, in which case,“the opi ni on of

themajori ty would f a i l of much of i ts effect.”

In this d ilemma Grier says that the advice of Taney wasagain sought , and so

“on conversation with the Chief

Ju stice” it was determ ined that Taney should write anopinion and that Grier should concur wi th him , and that“Brother Wayne and myself will also use our endeavors

to getDani el 69”Campbell 83

’ Catron to do the same. It may

be noted that Grier in his Solicitude to convert his brotherCatron was evidently entirely ignorant of Catron ’s priorefforts to convert Grier himself .There was also danger that some rather extreme vi ews

might be thrown out by some of our southern brethren ,

”

but Grier assures Buchanan that , i f worse comes to worst,

there will , therefore, be six out of seven (perhaps Nelsonwill remain neutral) whowi ll decide theM i ssouri Compromi seof 1 820 to be of non-eject.”To insure smooth sailing of the plan agreed on betweenTaney , Grier , and Wayne, Grier says further that we wi ll

not let any others of our brethren know any thing about our

anxi ety to produce thi s result.

The secrecy with which Taney , Grier, and Wayne werecarrying on their proselyting efforts and keeping to them

The Dred Scott Case 343

selves the correspondence with Buchanan is also shown byother evidence. Manifestly Grierknew nothing of Catron ’

s

letter to Buchanan . If Grier had known what was in it,

he might have resented Buchanan ’s letter to him . Campbell assures us that he had “

not the slightest informationof any connection between Mr . Buchanan or any otherperson with the d iscussions in the court or the conference

,

or with the preparation of any opini on of either of the

judges , save the judges themselves .” x Nelson corroborates

Campbell so far as the facts came within his knowled ge.

”

Of course neither Curtis nor McLean could have had evena suspicion of the correspondence between Buchanan and

Catron and Grier .Buchanan in his message on March 4 announced the

forthcoming decision in almost the exact phraseologysuggested by Catron and the decision came promptly on

March 6 .

Another unusual, not to say extraord inary , method of

procedure characterized the publication Of the opinion of

Chief Justice Taney . There was a rule of the Supreme

Court expres sly requiring that“all opinions hereafter

delivered by the Court Shall immed iately on the deliverythereof be in like manner delivered over to the clerkto berecorded . Some time af ter Taney

’

s op inion had beenannounced , but before it had been publi shed , Curtis wasinformed that it had been revi sed and materially altered .

On application to the clerkfor a copy , he learned that theChief Justice had made an order forbidd ing it to be takenfrom the files . When he wrote to Taney about it , Taneyd id not deny the al terations but said , you will find nothingaltered , nothing in add ition but proofs to maintain the

truth of what was announced and afiirmed in the Op iniondelivered .

” This of course left Curtis in the dark as tohow many pages of

“proofs

”had been added . But in

some memoranda left by Justice Curtis he says that these

Letter of Campbell in Tyler's Memoi r of Taney, p . 384 .

Id . , p 385

344 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

add itions amount to upward s of eighteen pages . NO one

can read them without perceiving that they are in replyto my Opinion .

” There was a volum inou s and somewhatacrimonious correspondence on the subject between Curtisand Taney and soon after Curtis resigned from the Supreme

bench .

The mere statement Of the facts above set forth leaveslittle room for further argument , for the breach of bothexecutive and jud icial propriety apparent upon the faceof them cannot be made clearer by argument , nor can itby any argument be explained away . They make a chapterwithout parallel in the history of American jurisprudenceone not at all edi fying. The

“Show a d isclosure of the

secrets of the consultation room f-

a'

ffi

mbi é f'

éérisw

urable thanthe disclosure by a juror of the deliberationsof hisfellOwjurors

“

. They Show an eff ort by the incoming President ,at the Solicitation of one of the judges of the Supreme

Court , to_

bring to bear the personal influence of the ChiefExecutive in order to control the op1ni on of another Judgein a pending case ; they show that the Chief Justice himselfwas not only cognizant of this breaoh w of executive and

judicial etff ett'

é ,“

bu”

t that it was done with his full knowledge and concurrence ; and finally they show somethingvery much like scheming for an excuse to give the sanctionof the Supreme Court of the United States to the hithertorejected doctrine of Calhoun . If all be conceded that isclaimed for the patriotic intentions Of Buchanan and

Taney , it will still be found impossible to reconcile theirconduct wi th any recogni zed code of legal etiquette or

legal ethi cs .Much as the people Of the North were opposed to the

Dred Scott decision , there was nowhere in any respectablequarter any talk Of forcibly resisting it . It was hoped tooverturn it , but in a legal and orderlymanner by subsequentjudges , holding the views of the d issenting judges , whowould overrule the decision in the same manner that othererroneous decisions have been overruled . This was Lincoln ’s

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Political H istory of Secess ion

review their opinions that they had to trample upon theOpinions of all who had gone before them .

” I It is scarcelynecessary to add that neither Lincoln nor Morton eversaid or hi nted at anything that could be construed as

giving the least countenance to the newfangled nostrumof recall of judges and jud icial decisions .

It is no exaggeration to say that the decision in the DredScott case is the most important ever rendered by theSupreme Court . Designed with such infinite care in thehope of gi ving new life to slavery , it will ever stand inthe history Of this country as the most imposing of the

monuments that markits death . Upon the decision in theDartmouth College case there has been built a greater bodyof law, but it has been for many years developing and

it aff ects chi efly the commercial interests of the country .

The development of the Dred Scott decision was soon cut

short by the CivilWar ; but i f there had been time to developit to all its log ical consequences , it would havemade Slaverydominant in this country and would have changed the

entire framework of our national government . Shortlived as it was , it is d iffi cult to estimate the enormousconsequences of the decision . They were, however , whollyd iff erent from those that were anticipated . It had beenexpected that the decision would operate as Oil upon the

troubled waters to Silence at once and forever all furtherd iscussion Of the Slavery question . On the contrary thedecision seemed to open Pandora

’s box and to let loose all

the perplexing questions that had been supposed to be

safely Shut in . Regarded by a large part of the people ofthe North as a political deci sion , it was d iscredited from the

beginning and deprived of all the sanctity that is supposedto hedge about decisions of the great Court that pronouncedit.

Looking now over the ru ins of slavery , two chief causesfor its destruction stand out clearly to view . One of themwas the repeal of the Missouri Compromise ; the other was

Foulke, Life of Oliver P . Morton, vol. i . , p . 71 .

The Dred Scott Case

the Dred Scott decision . Together they were more potentthan all other political factors combined in rend ing theDemocratic party and in solidi fying the anti-Slavery sentiment of the North .

The North d id not wait to seewhat might be the fru itageof the Dred Scott decision , but in 1860 presented for thefirst time a solid front to slavery and demanded a halt .Then came the clash of word s and next the clash of arms .

CHAPTER XVI

CONTINUATION OF THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT IN KANSAS

AND IN CONGRE SS

FFAIRS in Kansas had steadily gone on from bad to

worse. It was called “the graveyard of governors .”

The first two, Andrew J . Reeder of Pennsylvania and

William Shannon Of Ohio were appointed by PresidentPierce ; threemore, John W . Geary of Pennsylvania , RobertJ . Walker of Mississippi , and James W . Denver of Californiawere appointed by President Buchanan . All except thelast two were removed or forced to resign , and two werecompelled to flee the Territory because they would not

submit to be tools in carrying out the schemes of the proslavery men to fasten slavery upon Kansas .Every event Of any political significance in Kansas was

at once reflected in Congress and in the country at large.

On March 19 , 1856 , when the contested election case between John W . Whitfield and Andrew J . Reeder , eachclaiming a seat in Congress as a territorial delegate fromKansas , was pend ing in the lower House of Congress , acomm ittee of three, consisting of William A . Howard of

Michigan , John Sherman Of Ohio , and Mordecai Oliver ofMissouri was appointed

“to inquire into the troubles ”

in Kansas generally , and particularly in regard to any fraudor force in reference to the elections .” The members ofthe committee went to Kansas and after spend ing severalweeks in collecting evidence, they made a report on July1 , 1856. The majority and minority reports , includi ngthe testimony taken , fill a volume of 1200 pages. These

348

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350 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

of Kansas voted Slavery down or voted it up . He appearedas the special champ ion of his cherished doctrine of popularsovereignty . A few days before the convening of Congresshe called on the President to remonstrate with him againstrecommend ing , as it was then understood to be hi s purpose ,

the adm ission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution ,and to inform the President that he should oppose it. Ithas been said that Buchanan endeavored in vain to dissuade Douglas from his announced purpose and finallyattempted to intim idate him by threatening him wi th theremoval Of his friend s who had been appointed to federaloffi ces on his recommendation and thewithdrawal of furtherpolitical patronage, at which Douglas became ind ignantand retorted with cu tting sarcasm by saying,

“Mr . President , General Jackson is dead ,

”and , Without deigning

another word ,he strode away .

Douglas’s protests were unavailing and following the

President ’s recommendation , bills for the adm ission of

Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution were at onceintroduced in the Senate and in the House. This was thesignal for bitter opposition and violent debate.

“Threatsof secession again became common . In the Hou se therewas great excitement ; at one time during an all-nightsession on the message there was a

‘battle-royal ’ ; ‘thi rtymen at least were engaged in the fisticu ff .

’ Keitt of

South Carolina attacked Grow of Pennsylvania and was

knocked down .

” x All the Republicans , a portion of the

anti-Lecompton Democrats , includi ng Douglas , and anumber of the Americans , arrayed themselves in the ranksof opposition to the Administration . It was upon thisquestion that Douglas broke wi th the President and withthe pro

-Slavery Democrats in the Senate. From this period we see the beginning Of the political transformationof Douglas . On March 22 , 1858 , just before the final votewas to be taken in the Senate on the question of the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution , Douglas

Bancroft, Life of Seward, vol. i . , p . 445.

i

The Conflict in Kansas and Congress 35 1

rose from a sick-bed and made a great speech , in which hereviewed the entire history of the troubles in the Territory ,denounced the attempt to force the admiss ion of the

Territory as a State under the Lecompton Constitutionas a trick, charging that the so-called constitution had beenbolstered up by fraudulent voting , forged returns , and perjury , and vigorou sly advocated the submission of the

constitution to a vote of the people of the Territory .

It was in thi s speech that Douglas denounced the courseOf the Buchanan Adm inistration for its efforts to intimidatemembers of Congress and to compel them to sacrifice thei rown convi ctions of duty by yield ing to the wi ll of the

Executive. No holder or more vigorous protest againstsuch unwarranted exerci se of executive interference hasever been heard in the Senate of the United States .“Sir , said Douglas ,

“whenever the time comes that thePresident of the United States can change the allegianceof the Senators from the States to himself , what becomesof the sovereignty of the States ? When the time comesthat a Senator is to account to the Executive and not to

his State, whom does he represent ? If the wi ll of myState is one way and the will of the President is the other ,am I to be told that I must Obey the Execu tive and betraymy State, or else he branded as a traitor to the party , andhunted down by all the newspapers that share the patronage of the Government ? and every man who hold s a pettyoffi ce in any part of my State to have the question put tohim ,

‘Are you Douglas

’ s enemy ? If not, your head comesOff ?

’ ‘Why ? ’ ‘Because he is a recreant Senator ; becausehe chooses to follow his judgment and hi s conscience, and

represent hi s State instead of obeying my executive behest . ’

I should like to know what is the use of Congresses , whatis the use of Senates and Houses Of Representatives , whentheir highest duty is to obey the Executive in di sregard of

the wi shes , rights , and honor of their constituents ? Whatdespotism on earth would be equal to this , i f you establishthe doctrine that the Executive has a ri ght to comm and the

352 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

votes , the consciences , the judgment of the Senators and of

the Representatives , instead of their constituents ?“For my own part , Mr . President , come what may, I

intend to vote, Speak, and act accordi ng to my own senseof duty so long as I hold a seat in thi s chamber . If ,

stand ing firmly by my principles , I shall be driven intoprivate life, it is a fate that has no terrors forme. I preferprivate life, preserving my own self-respect and manhood ,to abject and servi le submi ssion to executive will . If the

al ternative be private life or servile obed ience to executivewill , I am prepared to retire. Offi cial position has no

charms for me when deprived of that freedom of thoughtand action which becomes a gentleman and a Senator.

” I

Douglas ’s courage in thus openly defying theAdministration compels our admiration when it is remembered thathe was then expecting to be a cand idate for reelection bythe Illinois Legislature as Senator from that State, and thathe was also a prospective cand idate for the presidentialnomination by the next Democratic National Convention ,to be held in 1860 .

When the bill to admi t Kansas under the LecomptonConstitution came to a vote in the Senate, Senator Crittenden Of Kentucky moved a substitute provid ing for the

subm ission of the constitution to the people of the Territory , and in case of its rejection , that they be authorizedto choose delegates to frame another constitution , but thesubstitute was lost by a majority of ten . The bill as reported passed the Senate by a vote of thirty-three to twentyfive, Douglas and two other anti-Lecompton Democrats ,and Crittenden , Bell, and Kennedy , Americans , votingwith the Republicans against it . When the bill came up

in the House Crittenden ’s substitute was adopted by eightmajority . The Senate rejected the substitute, and the

result was a conference committee, which reported what isknown as the English Bill , a bill that carried both a bribeand a menace to the people of Kansas -a bribe in the

Carr, Life of Dougla s, pp. 233—34.

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354 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

this was as d iscouraging to the Republicans as it wasencouraging to the Democrats . Consequently the Stateelections of 1857 nearly everywhere showed great Republican losses and correspond ing Democratic gains . They alsoshowed that the Democratic party was gaining more thanthe Republicans from the di sintegration of the Americanparty , now going on rapidly .

But the Republicans were not long in recovering fromtheir first defeat and this was greatly hastened by the con

tinued eff orts of the Federal Adm inistration to force upon

the people of Kansas the Lecompton Constitution and bythe aggressive and arrogant tone of some of the extremeadvocates of Slavery extension .

On March 4 , 1858 , James H . Hammond , Senator and

former Governor of South Carolina , delivered a speech inthe United States Senate in favor of the admission of

Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution .

‘ The Speech

was not remarkable for the reason that it favored forcingthe Lecompton Constitution upon the people of Kansas .Such speeches had ceased to be novel . It was not remarkable as a defense of Slavery . History and the Scriptureshad been ransacked for arguments to prove that therewas no Sin in Slavery and wi th such arguments the peopleof the North were fam iliar . Nor was it remarkable forfrothy declamation and scurrilous abuse of NorthernAbolitionists , in which term were classed all in the Northwho were opposed to Slavery , such as characterized the

utterances of many of the Southern orators and newspapersOf the lower order of the fire-eating type. Indeed , the

speech was qu ite free from language that exposed it to anysuch critici sm . Nevertheless , it at once attracted great attention , as an exposition , wi thout any attempt at d isguise,of the views of themore rad ical of the Southern leaders . Itexpressed clearly the consequences of Republican success asviewed in the South , consequences towhich it was clear thatthe South did not intend to subm it , preferring a d issolution

Cong. Globe, 3sth Cong . ,I st sess. , pt. p . 959.

The Conflict in Kansas and Congress 355

of the Union to remaining in it under Republican rule.

“What guaranty have we, he said , when you have thisgovernment in your possession , in all its departments , evenif we submit quietly to what the Senator exhorts us to

submit to— the concentration of slavery in its presentterritory , and even to the reconstruction of the SupremeCourt— that you will not plunder us with tariffs ; that youwill not bankrupt us with internal improvements and

bounties on fish ; that you will not restrain us with navi gation laws and other laws imped ing the facilities of transportation of Southern produce? What guaranty have wethat you will not create a new bank, and concentrate all

the finances of this country at the North , where already ,for the want of d irect trade and a proper system of bankingin the South , they are ruinously concentrated ? Nay , sir ,what guaranty have we that , you will not emancipate _

our

slaves , or, at least , make the attempt ? We cannot relyon your faith when you have the power . It has been alwaysbroken whenever pledged .

”

A striking feature Of the speech was the frankness withwhich it laid bare the contempt felt by the slaveholdersof the South for all the laboring people in the North . The

sentiments avowed in the speech were none the less insulting and off ensive because they were expressed in polishedlanguage.

“In all social systems there must be a class to do themean duties , to perform the d rudgery of life. That is , aclass requ iring but a low order of intellect and but littleSkill . Its requisites are vigor , docility , fidelity . Such aclass you must have , or you would not have that other classwhich leads progress , refinement , and civilization . Itconstitutes the very mudsills Of society and Of politicalgovernment ; and you m ight as well attempt to build ahouse in the air , as to build either the one or the other ,except on the mud sills . Fortunately for the South , she

found a race adapted to that purpose to her hand . Arace inferior to herself , but eminently qualified in temper ,

356 P o l itica l H istory of S ecess io

in vigor , in docility , in capacity to stand the climate, toanswer all her purposes . We use them for the purpose,and call them slaves . We are old-fashioned at the Southyet ; it is a word d iscarded now by ears polite ; but I will notcharacterize that class at the North with that term ; but

you have it ; it is there ; it is everywhere ; it is eternal .“The Senator from New York said yesterday that the

whole world had abolished Slavery . Ay, the name, but

not the thing ; and all the powers of the earth cannot abolishit . God only can do it when he repeals the fiat , the poorye always have with you

’

; for the man who lives by dailylabor , and scarcely lives at that , and who has to put out

his labor in the market and take the best he can get for

it ; in short , your whole class of manual laborers and Operatiyes , as you call them , are Slaves . The d iff erence betweenus is , that our Slaves are hired for life and well compensated ;there is no starvation , no begging , no want of employmentamong our people, and not too much employment either .Yours are hired by the day,

not cared for, and scantilycompensated , whi ch may be proved in the most deplorablemanner , at any hour , in any street in any of your largetowns . Why , S ir, you meet more beggars in one day

'

, inany S ingle street of the City of New York, than you wouldmeet in a lifetime in the whole South . Our Slaves are

black, Of another , inferior race. The status in which wehave placed them is an elevation . They are elevated fromthe cond ition in whi ch God first created them , by beingmade our Slaves . None of that race on the whole face of

the globe can be compared with the Slaves of the South ,and they know it . They are happy , content , unaspiring ,

and utterly incapable, from intellectual degradation , everto g ive us any trouble by their aspirations . Your slavesare white, of your own race ; you are brothers of one blood .

They are your equals in natural endowment of intellect ,and they feel galled by their degradation . Our slaves donot vote. We g ive them no political power . Yours dovote, and being the majority, they are the depositaries of

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358 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

not that territory enough to make an empire that shallrule the world ? With the finest soil , the most delightfulclimate, whose productions none of those great countriescan produce, we have three thousand miles of continentalshore line, and so indented with bays and crowded withislands , that , when their shore lines are added , we h avetwelve thousand miles of shore line. Through the heartof our country runs the great Mississippi , the father of

waters , into whose bosom are poured thirty-six thousandmiles of tributary streams ; and beyond we have the desertprairie wastes , to protect us in our rear . Can you hem insuch a territory as that ? You talk of putting up a wallof fire around eight hundred and fifty thousand squarem iles so Situated ! How absurd !“But, sir , in this territory lies the great valley of the

Mississippi , now the real , and soon to be the acknowledgedseat of the empire of the world . The sway of that valleywill be as great as ever the Nile knew in the earlier ages ofmankind . We own the most of that valley . The mostvaluable part of it belongs to us ; and although those whohave settled above us are now Opposed to us , anothergeneration will tell a di fferent tale. They are ours by all

the laws of nature ; slave labor will go over every foot ofthis great valley where it will be found profitable to use it ,and those who do not use it are soon to be united with us

by such ties as will make us one and inseparable.

On this fine territory we have a population four times aslarge as that with which these colonies separated from the

mother country , and a hundred ; I might say a thousand ,fold as strong. Our pOpulation is now sixty per cent .greater than that of the whole United States when weentered into the second war Of independence. It is twi ceas large as the whole population of the United States wasten years after the conclusion of that war , and our exportsare three times as great as those Of the whole United Statesthen . Upon our muster-rolls we have a mi lli on of men .

In a defensive war , upon an emergency, every one of them

The Conflict in Kansas and Congress 359

would be available. At any time, the South can raise ,

equip , and maintain in the field , a larger army than anypower of the earth can send against her, and an army of

sold iers— men brought up on horseback , wi th guns in theirhand s .”

Then be compared the wealth-producing resources of thetwo sections , claiming that former Federal legislation hadd iscriminated in favor of the North and against the South ,but that , were the South an independent nation , itsresources would largely exceed all its need s ,

“for the South

would never go to war ; she would never need an army or anavy , beyond a few garrisons on the frontier and a fewrevenue cutters . It is commerce that breed s war . It ismanufactures that are requ ired to be hawked about over theworld , and give ri se to navies and commerce. But we havenothing to do but to take off restriction on foreign merchandise and open

’

our ports and the whole world will come to

us to trade. They wi ll be too glad to bring and carry forus , and we never shall dream of a war . Why , sir , theSouth has never yet had a just cau se of war . Every time

she has seized her sword it has been on the point of honor ,and that point of honor has been mainly loyal ty to hersister colonies and sister States , who have ever sinceplundered and calumniated her.

”

Not only would the Mississippi Valley , but England , the

whole world , would be tributary to the new South , for all

would be compelled to pay homage to King Cotton .

“If

there were no other reason why we should never have awar , would any sane nation make war on cotton ? Withoutfiring a gun , wi thout d rawing a sword , when they makewar on us we can bring the whole world to our feet . The

South is perfectly competent to go on , one, two , or threeyears without planting a seed of cotton . I believe thatif she was to plant but hal f her cotton , it woul d

.

be animmense advantage to her. I am not so sure but thataf ter three years ’ cessation she would come out strongerthan ever she was before and better prepared to enter

360 Po litical H istory of Secess ion

afresh upon her great career Of enterprise. What wouldhappen i f no cotton was furnished for three years ? I willnot stop to depict what every one can imagine, but this iscertain : Old England would topple headlong and carry thewhole civilized world with her. NO, sir , you dare not

make war on cotton . N0 power on earth dares make warupon it . Cotton is king .

”

Hammond ’s Speech , in connection with other evidence,leaves little doubt that , whatever other Southern leadersmay have thought , those of South Carolina not only deemed

themselves fully prepared for secession , but were ready toaccept any plausible pretext for it , and that they wouldprobably have accepted the election of Fremont as an excuse as eagerly as they did the election of Lincoln .

The speech made a greater impression in the North thanit did in the South . In the North it was quoted by everyRepublican Speaker and newspaper and was found to beone of the most eff ective of Republican campaign documents in all subsequent elections .It was in this year that Seward made his great Speech

on the Irrepressible Conflict .

I It was an arraignment ofthe Democratic party for its record of subserviency toslavery , such as had never been made before. Rapidlytracing the history of slavery and its effect on societywherever established and the free labor system establishedin this country by imm igrants from Great Bri tain , Germany ,Sweden , and others of German extraction , he went on toShow the debasing influence Of the Slave system on societyand the despotic laws requ ired for its maintenance, therad ical incompatibility of the system of slave labor withthat of free labor , and the certainty that in governmentswhere both existed one must predominate over the other .“These two antagonistic systems ,

”he said ,

“are continu

ally coming into closer contact and collision results . ShallI tell you what the collision means ? They who thi nk that

At Rochester, N. Y. , October 25 , 1858 ; Seward ’s Works, vol. iv. , p.

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362 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

themselves . Continuing he expressed hi s views in thiseloquent passage :

“I shall not stop to Show how speedy andhow complete would be the ru in which the accomplishment of these slavehold ing schemes would bring upon thecountry . For one, I Should not remain in the country totest the sad experiment . Having spent my manhood ,

though not my whole life, in a free State, no aristocracy of

any kind , much less an ari stocracy of slaveholders , shallever make the laws of the land in which I shall be contentto live. Having seen the society around me universallyengaged in agricul ture,manufactures , and trade, which wereinnocent and beneficent, I Shall never be a denizen of aStatewheremen and women are reared as cattle and boughtand sold as merchand ise. When that evi l day shall come,

and all further effort at resistance shall be impossible, then ,if there be no better hope for redemption than I can now

foresee, I shall say with Franklin , while looking abroadover the whole earth for a new and more congenial home :

‘Where liberty dwells , there is my Then heshowed that the Democratic party was inextricably

aon m -l~ “ nav p an—uh oa

q ua -um: W “ M

commi tted to the deS1gnSm

Of'

the slaveliOl ers , whatever

having p ractically” its "seat'wvithin ”

the

count ing ' i ts“

aridi

at Sr‘

éxi

Olusivelythere.

”

After'

sliowing how closely the Democratic party from itsorganization had allied itself to the slavehold ing interestshe said : “Such is the Democratic party . It has no policy ,State or Federal , for finance, or trade, or manuf acture, or

commerce, or education , or internal improvements, or forthe protection or even the security of civil or relig iousliberty . It is positive and uncompromising in the interestof Slavery— negative, compromising , and vacillating in re

gard to everything else. It boasts its love of equal ity , andwastes its strength and even its life in fortifying the onlyaristocracy known in the land . It professes fraternity,and , so often as slavery requ ires , allies itself wi th proscrip

The Conflict in Kansas and Congress 363

tion . It magni fies itself for conquests in foreign land s ,but it sends its national eagle forth always with chainsand not the olive branch in hi s fangs .”

In Seward ’s Opinion there was onl y one way in whichto defeat the design s of the slaveholders and that was that“the Democratic party must be permanently d islodgedfrom the government . As thekeynote of al l the speeches ofCato was that “Carthage must be destroyed ,

”so the key

note of all Seward ’s speeches was the destruction of the

Democratic party. This speech , free from rant or claptrap , d igni fied , eloquent , classical in expression , struckat the Democratic party the most powerful blow that ithad ever received and marked out the line of Republicanattack that was followed by all other Republican leadersuntil the final triumph of the Republican party in the

election of Lincoln .

Extended quotations have been made from the speechesof Hammond and Seward , becau se, when read together ,as they Should be to get the full significance of either , theygive us a clear insight into the nature of the IrrepressibleConflict ” and how each side viewed the probable conse

quences of it . Readi ng these Speeches now it is cause forwonder that so few then realized the gravi ty and the dan

ger of the situation . It is cause for still greater wonderthat Seward , who had so accurately d iagnosed the di seaseaffl icting the body politic , should him self have been amongthe last to beli eve that the crisis was SO near at hand .

By the end of the year 1858 the Republican party hadfully recovered from the depression caused by its defeat in1856 . Everywhere in the North it was well organized ,

enthusiastic , aggressive, and there was no lackof able and

vigorous leaders.

CHAPTER XVII

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE S

HE event whi ch , far more than any other , gave character to politics at this period was the political duel

between Douglas and Lincoln . AS the term for which'

Douglas had been elected United States Senator fromIllinois would expire on March 4 , 1859 , it was necessaryfor the Illinois Leg islature to elect his successor . All the

Housemembers of this Legislature and part of themembersof the Senate were to be elected at the general election inthat State in the fall of 1858 . Douglas was a cand idatefor reelection and had no opposition in his own partyexcept that of the Buchanan Administration , which was notstrong enough in Illinois to defeat him . By common con

sent the Republicans Of Illinois turned to Abraham Lincolnas the one man to Oppose Douglas . Lincoln was wellknown in Illinois , not only as a strong lawyer , but al so as aneflective political speaker . He had often been opposed toDouglas , not only in lawsuits , but also in State politics .He was not wholly unknown outside the State Of Illinois .He had appeared as a lawyer in a few cases in the SupremeCourt of the United States . He was one of the five Whignominees for presidential

l

electors in Illinois in 1 840 . He

had been elected as a Whig member of , Congress fromIllinois , and had served in the House from 1847 to 1849 .

At the Republican National Convention in 1856 , he had

received one hundred and ten votes for nomi nation as VicePresident .As before mentioned , he had made campaign speeches

364

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366 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

known to politicians , to accompli sh the defeat of Douglas .

Douglas was also handi capped by hi s own pet doctrine of

popular sovereignty ofwhich hehad long been the champion ,and hewas forced to make the defense of it the lead ingissue of the campaign , and was thereby compelled to fighton a battle-ground not of his own choosing and in defenseof an issue for which he would probably have been glad tosubstitute another .Probably there was no man in the country so well quali

fied as Lincoln to meet Douglas in political debate inIllinois . Lincoln was thoroughly acquainted wi th boththe man and the State. He knew Douglas

’ s political history , his method s of debate, his arts of stump-speaking ,all his strong and all his weakpoints . He knew the peopleof Illinois , how best to meet Douglas

’s appeals to them ,

what appeals to make himself , and how to present them .

No other man could have filled Lincoln ’s place SO well ashe coul d fill it him self . He was ju st the man for the hourand the occasion . A man like either Seward or Sumnerin Lincoln ’s place would have been a misfit . While therewere marked d ifferences between Lincoln and Douglas ,both were self-made men , with many of the characteristicscommon to men of that class . For this reason we do not

get the striking contrast by comparing them that we see

by comparing either with a man like Charles Sumner , whocombined all the qualities of a cultured gentleman , a finishedscholar , and a polished orator . Lincoln was born poor ,lived poor, and d ied poor . He never enjoyed the advan

tages that wealth brings in theway of education , refinement ,and social life. Born and reared in theWestern backwood s ,he had no opportunity of iacquiring more than the Simplestrud iments of education , or of cul tivating the graces of

refined society. He knew little of general literature, lessof the arts and sciences , and nothing of the Greek and

Roman classics . He had but little, if any , personal ac

quaintance with noted men of learning . He had nevertraveled in foreign lands nor extensively in his own . Prob

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 367

ably he never saw a representative of English or Europeannobility except such as he might have viewed from afaroff during his brief sojourn in Washington while there as

a member of Congress . Nevertheless , Lincoln had some

advantages that Sumner had not , chiefly the independenceof character and the development Of stout mental and

moral fiber that comes to one who starts into the battleof life relying mainly upon himself and goes through itdetermined , not to succumb to the temptations , the hardships , and the dangers that lie in hi s path , but to conquerthem . Moreover Lincoln had mi ngled much with men

in the daily walks Of mankind and he was thoroughlyfamiliar wi th the affairs of everyday li fe and wi th the modes

of thought of the great mass of the people and the impulsesthat move them . He had made a li felong study of humannature in all its phases . He was naturally gifted with astrong intellect . He had developed at the bar and inpolitical campaigns conspicuous ability as a strong reasonerand a ready debater . But it was not these qual ities thatgave him his greatest strengtm s gu iding principle

expressed in his Cooper Institute speech that _ _

ri ght makes“ nah-0 “n v-n‘ a w» ,

might,” a belief that pervaded and gave tone to all hispolitical utterances . Moreover his m ind was a vast storehouse of inf ormation , gained , not from books , but frommingling with men , from whi ch he drew his illustrations ,expressed in plain , simple language that all could understand , and that made his speeches far more effective wi thhis aud iences than would have been the finest passagesOf the most polished orations of Sumner . Indeed , in theart of convincing his hearers by apt anecdotes , droll illustratiOnS , and homely phrases Lincoln had no

v

superior.

'

Long before the beginning of the joint debates , longbefore the Dred Scott decision , Lincoln , in a speech atSpringfield , Illinois , on October 4 , 1854 , had shown thatthe doctriné

w

Of popular sovereignty rightfully interpretedutterly failed to support the application of it whi ch Douglas

368 Politica l H istory of Secession

sought to make in defense“

of the Kansas-Nebraska bill.In this speech Lincoln said : The doctrine of self-government is right— absolutely and eternally right— but it hasno just application as here attempted . When the

whi te man governs himself , that is self f government ; butwhen he governs himself and also governs another man

,

that IS more than self-government ,— that i s despotism .w

Moreover , the Dred Scott decision had sapped out Of the

doctrine Of popular sovereignty all the vitality it ever had .

Politicians of less ability or less nerve than Douglas wouldhave shrunk from undertaking to galvanize new life intothe corpse of popular sovereignty and attempting to make

it do duty in another campaign . But Douglas was not aman to be abashed by the opposition of Presid ents or by thedecisions of courts . Opposed by the Democratic Admini stration and by the leaders of the new and vigorous Republican party , Douglas had no alternative but to make theattempt to steer between Scylla and Charybdis on the

rickety barkof popular sovereignty , which , as wi ll be hereafter seen , he attempted to patch up with his newly inventedtheory Of “un friendly leg islation .

”

Douglas ’s pet doctrine had yet to encounter the inexorable logic , the unsparing criticism of Abraham Lincoln ,kind-hearted in everything else, but merciless in his ex

posure of sophistry Of every kind . Douglas was destined tofind his peer in debate, not in some cultured college scholar ,but in a man self-made like himself ; not within the wallsof the United States Senate, where crowds had been wontto gather to hear classic orators , but in a country town in aState still regarded in theEast as part of theWestern backwoods .

Before the beginning Oi the joint debates , whi ch gavecharacter to the campaign such as no other has ever hadbefore or since, both the candi dates had made severalSpeeches at various points in the State. Lincoln ’s firstnotable speech was at Springfield on June 17, 1 858 , accepting hi s nomination as Senator . In thi s he sounded the

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370 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

joint debates . The challenge was accepted and it wasarranged for seven joint debates to be held at Ottawa on

August 2 1 ; at Freeport on August 27 ; at Jonesboro on

September 15 ; at Charleston on September 18 ; atGalesburg on October 7 ; at Quincy on October 13 ,

and at Alton on October 1 5 .

I

At the beg inning of the debates neither Lincoln nor

Douglas seemed fully to meet expectations . Carl Schurzd id not like Lincoln ’s “jerky ” movements and thoughtthat the Little Giant ’s style smacked of the barroom .

”

Schurz , however , was a cultivated orator and was morefastid ious in his tastes than were most of those who com

posed the Illinois aud iences . Not only were the Illinoisaud iences eager to hear the debates , but the whole countrywas equally eager . They were reported in all the leading newspapers and were read and d iscu ssed from one end

of the country to the other , in the centers of intellec

tual thought , in every crossroads country store, in everyworkshop .

These debates have been aptly characterized as The

Battle of the Giants .” No debates ever heard in Americabefore or since excited such profound attention or wereheard and read wi th such intense interest . In read ingthem at thi s day we miss the high-flown language of the

modern spellbinder , the funny jokes Of the popular stumpspeaker . Each of the Speakers put his whole strengthinto an effort to convince his hearers and , in order to dothis , he used the simplest and plainest word s .If there had been any doubt before, there was none after

these debates , of Lincoln’s ability to cope with his great

adversary . Douglas was master of the art of sophistry ,and at times he seemed to stoop to conquer by artsclosely bordering on what lawyers call “pettifoggi ng

”and

These debates were published in ful l by Follett, Foster Company,Columbus, Ohio ,

in 1860 . A tolerably full abridgment of them willbe found in an Appendix to John A. Logan’s TheGreat Conspiracy, pp.

675-753

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 371

politicians call claptrap This is always dangerous andgenerally reacts against the man who resorts to it . Itwas certain to do so when used against an opponent who wasso close a reasoner as Lincoln . Some illustrations of this wereseen in the speeches made by Lincoln prior to the beginningof the joint debates . Many other examples may be foundin his speeches during the debates .In the art of convincing his hearers by homely phrases ,

quaint illustrations , and pertinent anecdotes , Lincoln , asalready stated , had no superior . An example of this isseen in the way in which he illustrated his point that theKansas-Nebraska bill and the Dred Scott decision wereparts of a well-understood general plan in which all the

leadi ng actors worked harmoniou sly to a common end , and

hi s characterization Of the actors as Stephen , Franklin ,Roger , and James , read ily understood by the people asdesignating Stephen A . Douglas , Franklin Pierce, RogerB . Taney , and James Buchanan! Such quaint illustrationswereeasily understood by his hearers and were very eff ective.

At times , however , Lincoln rose to the hi ghest flights ofeloquence.

In his speech at Chicago on July 10 , 1858 , Lincoln said ,

after speaki ng Of the immigrants from other nations whohad sought homes in America since the adoption of the

Declaration of Independence, the Germans , Irish , French ,Scandi navians , and others If they look back throughthis hi story to trace their connection wi th those days byblood they find they have none ; they cannot carry themselves backinto that glorious epoch and make themselvesfeel that they are part of us ; but when they look throughthat Old Declaration of Independence, they find that thoseOld men say that ‘we hold these truths to be self-evident ,that all men are created equal ,

’

and then they feel thatthat moral sentiment taught in that day evidences theirrelation to those men , that it is the father of all moralprinciple in them , and that they have a right to claim it asthough they were blood of the blood and flesh of the flesh

372 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

of the men who wrote that Declaration , and so they

‘

are.

That is the electric chord in that Declaration that linksthe h earts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together ,that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the loveOf freedom exists in the mind s of men throughout theworld .

” I

To Douglas’s assertion that the provi sions of the Declara

tion of Independence were not intended to include negroesas entitled to any inali enable rights , and to his insinuationthat the Republicans were in favor of negro equality , anappeal to the prevalent prejud ice of the great mass of thewhite voters of Illinois , Lincoln said in his speech at Ottawa :“Anything that argues _

me_

into his idea of perfect socialand political equality with the negro is but a specious afid

’

fantastic arrangement of words by which a man can provea horse chestnut to Be a chestnut horse. I have nopurpose to introduce political and social equality betweenthe white and the blackraces . There is a physical di fference between the two , which 111 my judgment will probablyforever forbid their living together upon the footing of

perfect equality,and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity

that there must be a d ifference, I , as well as Judge Douglas ,am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superiorposition . I have never said anything to the contrary ,but I hold that , notwithstanding all this , thereis nOrea

i

s

'

Off

in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the naturalrights enumerated in the Declaration of Independencethe right to life,

liberty , and the pursuit of happiness . Ihold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man .

I agree,with Judge Douglas , he is not my equal in manyrespects— certainly not in"color , perhaps not in moral orintellectual endowment . But in the right to eat the bread ,

wi thout the leave of anybody else , which hi s own handearns , he ismy equal and the equal of Judge Douglas , andthe equal of every livingDouglas often appealed to the prejudice of hi s he’arersLincoln-Douglas Debates , pages 22 , 23 .

3 Id., p . 75.

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374 Politica l H istory Of Secess ion

I remind him [Douglas] , said Lincoln , of anotherpieceof history on the question of respect for jud icial decisions ,and it is a piece of Illinois history— belonging to a timewhen the large party to which Judge Douglas belonged wered ispleased with a decision of the Supreme Court of Illinois ,because it had decided that a governor could not removea secretary of state. You will find the whole story inFord ’s Hi story of I llinoi s , and I know that Judge Douglaswill not deny that he was then in favor of overslaughingthat decision by the mode of adding five new judges , so as

to vote down the four Old ones . Not only SO, but it endedin the Judge’s sitting down on that very bench as one of

the five new judges to break down the four old ones . Itwas in thi s way precisely that he got hi s title of Judge. Nowwhen the Judge tells me that men appointed condi tionallyto sit asmembers of a courtwi ll have to be catechized beforehand upon some subject , I say :

‘You know , Judge ; you

have tried it . ’ When he says a court of this kind will losethe confidence of all men ,

will be prostituted and di sgracedby such a proceeding , I say :

‘You know best , Judge ;

you have been through the mill .Lincoln , speaking further on the same subject , in his

speech at Quincy , said :“And let me ask you , di dn

’tJudge Doug las find a way to reverse the deci sion of our

Supreme Court , when it decided that Carlin'

s father— old

Governor Carlin— had not the constitutional power toremove a secretary of state? Did he not appeal to the‘mobs ’ as he calls them ? Did he not make speeches inthe lobby to

_

Show how villainous that deci sion was , andhow it ought to be overthrown ? D id he not succeed , too ,

in getting an act passed bythe Legislature to have it overthrown ? And di dn ’t he himself sit down on that benchas one of the five added judges , who were to overslaughthe four Old onesa getting hi s name of Judge in that wayand no other ? ” 2

Referring to Douglas’s charge of sectional ism against

Lincoln-Douglas Debates, p . 82. Id., p. 21 1 .

The L incoln-Douglas Debates 375

the Republicans , for the reason that a Democrat could

make the same kind Of speech in the South that he could

in theNorth , while theRepublicans dared not do so , Lincolnsaid in his speech at Galesburg : I presume that JudgeDouglas could not go into Russia and announce the doctrineof our national democracy ; he could not denounce the

doctrine of kings and emperors and monarchies in Russia ;and it may be true in this country , that in some places wemay not be able to proclaim a doctrine as clearly true as

the tru th of democracy , because there is a section so directlyopposed to it that they will not tolerate uS in doing so. IS

it the true test of the soundness of a doctrine, that in some

places people won’t let you proclaim it ? Is that the way

to test the truth of any doctrine? ” And he continued bypred icting , what afterward s proved to be true, that theday was rapidly approaching

“when his [Douglas’s] pill

of sectionalism which he has been thrusting down the

throats of Republicans for years past will be crowded downhis own throat.

” I

If we study Lincoln ’s speeches carefully , we Shall discover that their mai n strength was in the wonderful powerthat enabled him to win the conscience of his hearers ; totouch some chord that reached and thri lled their moralnatures and roused into fervent enthusiasm some moralsentiment that perhaps had long been dormant .After all, the strength of oratory is in the force with

which it appeals to the best and not to that which is worstin human nature. Even the rabble, though it may applaudthe crator who panders to the baser passions , respectsthe more the orator who appeals to man

’ s nobler impulses .The ord inary politicians take no account of this ; the professional politicians do not because they have no conceptionof a moral sentiment and cannot measure its force as afactor in poli tics .In his speech at Ottawa on August 3 1 , 1858 , Lincoln saidJudge Douglas is going back to the era of our Revolution ,Lincoln-Dougla s Debates, pp . 179, 180.

376 Po litica l H istory of Secession

and , to the extent of hi s ability , muzzling the cannonwhich thunders its annual joyous return . When he invites any people, willing to have slavery, to establish it ,he is blowing out the moral lights around uS . When hesays he ‘cares not whether slavery is voted down or votedup

—that it is a sacred right of self-government— he is inmy judgment penetrating the human soul and erad icatingthe light of reason and the love of liberty in thi s Americanpeople.

In his Speech at Alton in the last of the seven jointdebates , speaking of the attitude of the Democratic partytoward Slavery , he said “

You may turn over everythingin the Democratic policy from beginning to end , whetherin the Shape it takes on the statute book, in the shape ittakes in the Dred Scott decision , in the shape it takes inconversation , or the shape it takes in Short maxim-likearguments— it everywhere carefully excludes the idea thatthere is anything wrong in it . That is the real issue. Thatis the issue that will continue in thi s country when thesepoor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself Shall be Silent .It is the eternal struggle between these two principlesright and wrong — throughout the world . They are the

two principles that have stood face to face from the beginni ng of time ; and will ever continue to struggle. The one

is the common right of humanity , and the other the divineright of kings . It is the same principle in whatever shapeit develops itself . It is the same spirit that says ,

‘You

work , and toil , and earn bread , and I’

ll eat it . ’ No matterin what shape it comes , whether from the mouth of a ki ngwho seeks to bestride the people Of hi s own nation and liveby the frui t of their labor , or from one race of men as anapology for enslavi ng another race, it is the same tyrannicalprinciple.

’ 2

The most Significant feature of the debates occurred atthe second ,

which was at Freeport on August 27. In hi sOpening speech , Lincoln had propounded to Douglas a

1 Lincoln-Douglas Debates , p . 83 .

3 I d. , p . 234 .

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378 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

it to save the Senatorship . It served its purpose but itlost Douglas forever after the support of the South . suchdoctrine in -the South was looked upon _ as no better thanout-and-out Abolitionism . Lincoln , with that propheticpolitical instinct whi ch was one of his chief characteri stics ,had foreseen thi s when his Republican friend s to whom he

had shown the questions to Douglas had tried to d issuadehim from asking them lest Douglas might by some plausibleanswer escape from the d ilemma in whi ch he was floundering . But Lincoln persisted , saying that “

he was afterlarger game than the Senatorship , and that Douglas couldthen never be President and that the battle of 1 860 wasworth a hundred of this .

” I

Even after the lapse of over half a century , it is possiblethat there may still exist a d iff erence of opinion as to the

relative oratorical merits of Lincoln and Douglas , but all

must concede that Douglas was master of the art of politicaldebate. If , in the joint d iscussion , Lincoln seems to Showto better advantage, it must be remembered that Douglaswas forced to advocate what seemed then , and still seems ,to the great mass of the people of the North to be the worstside of the subject of debate.

The Republicans had a majori ty of about 4000 on the

popular vote of Illinois , but the Democrats , by reason of

the Senators who held over from the last precedi ng election ,had a majority of the Legi slature and Douglas was re

elected . But Lincoln was now known in every corner ofthe land and was in great demand as a political speaker ,not only in Illinois , but in other States as well , and mademany speeches afterwards in other States , themost notableof which was one delivered to a great and d istingui shedaudi ence at Cooper Institute in New YorkCity on Pebruary 27, 1 860 . The debates made Lincoln President . Theymade Douglas an exile from his party— from so much of

it, at least , as dwelt south of Mason and D ixon ’ s line— and

resulted m hi s political destruction .

Remini scences of Carl Schurz, vol. p. 98.

CHAPTER XVIII

PREPARING FOR THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1860

SOURCES OF REPUBLICAN GAINS

HE State elections of 1858 resulted in surprising Republican gains in nearly all the Northern States . The

Republicans carried all the States that had voted for

Fremont in 1856 . Of these New York had gone Demo

cratic in 1857, and in Ohio and several other States theRepublican majori ties of 1856 had been prior to 1858 nearlywiped out. The Republicans had lost a Senator in Illinoisbut had elected their State ticket and four out of the nineCongressmen , the five Democratic Congressmen being all

anti-Lecompton or Douglas Democrats . The Republicansal so carried New Jersey and , what was more S ignificantthan anything else, they triumphed in Pennsylvania for thefirst time and by a majority of over Elsewherea number of Democratic Congressmen elected were antiadmini stration Democrats , who subsequently followed thelead of Douglas , so that in the Thirty-sixth Congress , whi chmet on December 5 , 1859 , there were in the House, outof a total of 237 members , Republicans 1 13 , administrationDemocrats 93 , anti-Lecompton or anti-administrationDemocrats 8 , Americans 23 , no party having a clearmajority but the Republicans lacking only 6 of having amajority over all.Little was done in the political field in the year 1859 ,

except to prepare for the approaching presidential campaign of 1860 . But several things occurred during thatyear which added fuel to the flames and heated still more

379

380 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

the political cauldron , already fiercely boiling. One was

the bringing into public notice a bookpubli shed some th e

before. It was written by Hinton Rowan Helper of NorthCarolina and was entitled The Impend ing Cri si s . It wasnot written primarily in behalf of the Slaves , but its mainobject was to Show the d isastrous effects of slavery uponthe whites , and especially upon the poorer class of nonslavehold ing whites of the South . It was in fact an attackupon the slaveholdi ng aristocracy of the South and anattempt to Show the danger it threatened to the liberty of

the poorer Classes . The booksoon began to attract attention and to excite acrimonious d iscussions and addedintensity to the passions aroused by the d iscussion of the

slavery question in the newspapers and in the congressionaldebates .But the event whi ch , far more than Helper

’

s Impend ingCri si s , stirred the nation to its very depths , was JohnBrown ’s invasion of Virginia in the year 1 859 . Afterthe Pottawatomie massacre it became unsafe for Brownto remain longer in Kansas ; so he left and soon after beganpreparations for carrying out a scheme which he had con

ceived of making a raid into Virginia , inciting a greatinsurrection among the slaves , and setting up a free government . In anticipation of this he had called a conventionwhi chmet at Chatham , Canada , in May 1 858 and adopted a“provi sional constitution and ord inances for the people of

the United States , providi ng for theestablishment of courtsand congress , president , commander-in-chief , Secretary of

war , and other government offi cials and machinery . The con

stitution itself was such a crazy patchworkas upon the faceof it to create a strong suspicion that its author must havebeen in a frame of mind closely bordering on lunacy.

I Afterraising in Boston and elsewhere a considerable sum of

money and a supply of arms , Brown started on Sunday ,October 16 , 1 859 . With a force of seventeen white men

Greeley, Am. Conflict, vol. i . , p . 287 ; Villard , t u Brown, pp. 332

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382 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

from Harpers Ferry . True the slave 1S still there. So

when the tempest uproots the pine on your hi lls it looksgreen for months— a year or two . Still, it is timber , nota tree. John Brown has loosened the roots of the Slavesystem : it only breathes— i t does not live hereafter .”

Afterward s he said in Boston John Brown has gone toGod with the shackles of all Virginia ’s slaves in hi s righthand f

’

It would have been impossible for Phi llips to speakwithout speaki ng eloquently . His judgment was not

always equal to hi s eloquence. To strike the shacklesfrom the slaves in the South required somethi ng more thanJohn Brown ’s raid ; something more even than the Emanci

pation Proclamation ; it requ ired great armi es of a millionmen or more, the flower of the youth of the North

,with

the arguments they carried in their cartridge boxes .Most of the denunciations heaped on John Brown , as

well as the excuses g iven for him , presuppose that he wassane. If he was sane his crimes were off enses against themoral as well as against human law. It cannot avai l himthat his ultimate aim was the extermination of slavery .

Nothing can be found in moral law justifying the Pottawatomie massacre or his attempt to incite an insurrectionin Virgini a , which , i f successful , would have resulted inwholesale and indi scrimi nate slaughter of innocent persons—women and children included— i n order to redress thewrongs committed by some slaveholders . Their “damnation is just ” is the scriptural penalty for doing evil thatgood may come, although done under pretense that the

truth of God hath much more abounded through my lieunto His glory .

” Surely there was nothing but evil in thewi cked murders whi ch Brown committed and those whi chhe attempted .

Nor wi ll it suffice for hi s defense to say that he wasactuated by a conscientious conviction that in violatingthe laws of man he was obeying the laws of God . Similarexcuses have been made for some of the worst butchers

Preparing for Campa ign of 1860 383

in history . It is possible that Booth and Guiteau im

agi ned that they were carrying out God ’s wi ll . It may be

that we cannot accurately determine the moral guilt of

such men by any human standard s , but these are all we

have to go by , and under these i f sanemen persist inmurdering their fellow-being s they cannot escape the penalties ofthe law by plead ing that they were compelled to do so by asense of duty growing out of a perverted conscience.

If there was any legal or moral defense available to

John Brown it was that he was insane, and there are cogentreasons for believing that he was ; that he had broodedover the S ins of the slaveholders and the wrongs of the Slavesuntil he had become a monomani ac on the subject , possessed with the delusion that he was the chosen instrumentof the Lord to smi te the slaveholders as Davi d smote thePhilistines . But Brown himself would not set up as a

defense the claim that he was insane nor permi t it to be setup in his behalf . Nor do his admi rers , who will have itthat he was a martyr , set up any such claim . Indeed theplea that he was insane and the plea that he was a martyrwoul d be wholly repugnant to each other ; for i f a man has

not mind enough to d istinguish between ri ght and wronghe deserves neither cred it for the one nor censure for theother . If he is sane enough to be a martyr he must bedeemed sane enough to be a criminal . We must , therefore,conclude that John Brown was either a cri minal or a lunatic ;by no process of reason can we make him out a martyr .Brown ’s raid Opened anew the di scussion of the slavery

question in the North , vastly enlarged its bound s , andgreatly aided in crystallizing the anti-slavery sentimentin the North ; for the people there looked beyond the lifeless body of John Brown hanging from the Virginia gallowsto the picture of slavery in the background and saw itsugly features more clearly than ever before.

On the other hand , it is certain that Brown’s attempt

to stir up the slaves of the South to armed revolt was asignal failure. Brown m iscalculated the temper of the

384 Po litica l H istory of Secession

slaves themselves . Those in Virgini a , at least , had not

generally suff ered from the barbarities practiced by mastersin ancient times , and many of them entertained such feelings of attachment for their masters that they could not

be persuaded to rise up and butcher them and thei r wivesand Chi ldren . Thi s feeling was strikingly shown by thefact that during the Civil War there never was a considerable insurrection of the Slaves , though in many sectionsthe blacks largely predominated in numbers , and most ofthe white men capable of bearing arms were in the Confederate armies and were absent from their homes .The ri di cule heaped on the Southern people because of

the panic caused by the insignificant number of invaderswas not deserved and only added to their anger . A verysmall sparkmay ignite a great powder magazine, and whatthe people of the South dreaded SO much was not the littlehandf ul of invaders under John Brown , but the unforeseenconsequences of the Spread of the fire that they mightkindle. Especially was thi s the feeling of Virginians whohad not forgotten the Nat Turner insurrection . Brown ’sraid also added to the bitterness with which the people of

the South regarded the Republicans of the North , whoseleaders were believed in the South to have aided and abettedthe raid . Henry A .Wise, then Governor of Virgi ni a , assertsthat

, from the time of Brown ’s raid , Virgini a began toincrease her armory and to put the State on a war footing .

The recollection of the raid , still fresh in the minds of theVirgini ans in 1 860 and in the early part of 186 1 , undoubtedlygreatly aided those who final ly succeeded in inducing theState to secede.

Memorials are still written and monuments are stillerected to perpetuate Brown

’ s memory . The heroes wemake and worshi p , like the idols made and worshiped bythe heathen , are Often made of very common clay . JohnBrown ’s soul is still “marching on

” in hi story as well asin song , and it may be that in fifty or one hundred yearshe will be apotheosized as one of the most illustrious of

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386 Politica l H istory of Secess ion

in thinking slavery wrong . That cannot excuse violence,bloodshed , and treason . It could avail him nothi ng thathe might think himself right . The Republican party ,in its national platform of 1 860 , denounced hi s raid in thestrongest terms in a resolution which asserted : “We

denounce the lawless invasion by armed force Of the soilof any State or Territory , no matter under what pretext ,as among the greatest of cri mes .”

The first thing done in the Senate at the opening sessionof the Thi rty-sixth Congress , which met on December 5 ,1859 , was the appointment of a committee to investigatethe John Brown raid . The committee, of which SenatorMason , of Virginia , Jeff erson Davis , of Mississ ippi , andGraham N . Fitch , of Indi ana , constituted a majority , beganits investigations on December 16 , 1859, and concludedon June 14 , 1860

, but found nothing implicating anyprominent Republican of the North in having incited or

approved the rai d . The speeches on the subject in theSenate were, as might have been expected , of a hi ghlyinflammatory character .In the House the Republicans nominated John Sherman ,

of Ohi o , for Speaker . He, with other Republicans , hadsigned some kind of paper which was construed as anendorsement of Helper

’s Impending Cri si s , and this wasmade the pretext for the introduction of a resolution byone of the Democratic members to the eff ect that no one

who had endorsed Helper’s book was fit to be Speaker . A

violent debate followed in which threats of disunion bythe members of the Southern States were met by sarcastictaunts from Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvani a and otherNorthern members ,

'

and the excitement at times reachedsuch a pitch that there was great danger of a riot on thefloor of the House. The accounts of the disgraceful scenesthat took place there would be incredi ble were they not

vouched for by reliable authority . One day Kelloggand Logan , both of Illinois

,had an altercation growing

out of a charge made against Senator Douglas ; on another,

Preparing for Campa ign of 1860 387

a hot personal di spute on the floor of the House betweenBranch , of North Carolina , and Grow , of Pennsylvania

,

led to a virtual challenge to a duel from Branch , whichmet a di gnified refusal from Grow . Both were afterwardsarrested and placed under heavy bonds to keep the peace.

Another day when Haskin , an anti-Lecompton Democratfrom New York , was making exci ting and bitter personalremarks about a colleague, a pistol accidentally fell to thefloor from the breast-pocket of his coat . Some members ,believing that he had drawn the weapon with the intentionof using it , were wild with passion . Many Democratsrushed towards the center area near which Haskin stood .

The loud cries for order , the nervous demand s for thesergeant-at-arms , and the clamor of excitement made ascene of pandemonium . A bloody contest that day wasimminent . ‘

The members on both Sides ,’ wrote Senator

Grimes , of Iowa ,‘are mostly armed wi th deadly weapons ,

and it is said that the friends of each are armed in thegalleries . ’ Senator Hammond told the same story .

‘Ibelieve,

’

he wrote to Lieber ,‘every man in both Houses

is armed wi th a revolver— some wi th two— and a bowieAfter forty-three ballots Sherman ’ s name was

withdrawn and a compromi se was eff ected , pursuant towhich Willi am Pennington , of New Jersey , a Republican ,was , on February 1

,1 860 , elected Speaker .

All di scerni ng politicians coul d now See, none moreclearly than the Southern poli tical leaders , that successin the approachi ng presidential election was of the utmostimportance to slavery , and that the election would likelybe decisive. They could see that the scepter had departedfrom the Democratic party , its last and strongest ally inthe North , and was about to pass to the Republican party .

They reasoned , and it must be admitted that there wasmuch to warrant them in their reasoning , that , inasmuch asrevolutions never go backward ,

in case the Republicansshould succeed it would not be long until the Fugitive Slave

Rhodes, Hi story of the United States, vol. ii . , p. 423 .

388 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

Law would be repealed ; next the abolition of slavery in theDistrict of Columbia , the abolition also of the interstateslave trade, and the final penning up of Slavery within thelimits of the slave States , where, surrounded by free States ,if not sooner put an end to , it would surely d ie a lingeri ngdeath . It was worth whi le, however , to make one moresupreme effort to retain control of the Federal government

,

and , if the eff ort should fail, to secede from the Union and

set up an independent government . This was undoubtedlythe reasoning and the policy of the Southern leaders .The di scussions in Congress , outside those pertaining to

mere routine business , related chiefly to the acquisition of

Cuba, the slave trade, and slavery in general and were

marked by extreme party rancor . A Signi ficant incidentshowing the bitterness of feeling between the advocates ofslavery and its Opponents was a heated controversy betweenLovejoy , of Illinois , and Pryor , of Virginia , which Came nearprecipitating a riot on the floor of the House. Lovejoymade a very excited harangue against slavery in which

,

among other intemperate expressions , he said that“slave

holding was worse than robbery , than piracy , than polygamy ” ; that it was the

“doctrine of Democrats and the

doctrine of devils as well, and that there was “no placein the universe outside of the five points of hell and theDemocratic party where the practice and prevalence of

such doctrines would not be a d isgrace.

” As he utteredthese words he advanced toward the Democratic side of

the House, shaking his fists . At this point Pryor , of

Virgi ni a , objected and insisted that Lovejoy Should keepon hi s own Side of the House. Instantly there arose agreat uproar , above wh ich could be heard the voice of

Lovejoy accusing the Democrats of murdering hi s brotherin Alton , and the voice of Barksdale, of Mississippi , callingLovejoy a “black-hearted scoundrel and nigger-stealingthief .” Potter , the big Republican member from Wisconsin , was conspicuous in the melee, shouting and gesticulating like one beside himself and insisting that Lovejoy

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Politica l H istory of Secess ion

known that Douglas woul d be a cand idate before the

Democratic National Convention for the presidentialnomination . It was equally well known that , if a cand idate, he would receive the enthusiastic support of a greatmajority of the Democrats in the North . Douglas ’s latepolitical theories , especially hi s

“unfriendly legislation ”

thegry , were now well known and Heu

ci'

de'

dlym

unpopularin the South , so that it was deemed necessary by hi s political enemi es to render both him and them more unpopularstill by making a platform of principles of such a rad icalpro

-slavery cast that,if Douglas stood upon it , he would be

politically ru ined in the North , but that , i f he refused tostand upon it , he would be rui ned politically in the South .

For this purpose, on February 2 , 1 860 , Jefferson Davisintroduced

‘

n the Senate a series of resolutions , six innumber.

I For some reason , probably because they werethought to be not qui te strong enough for the purposefor which they were off ered , Davis withdrew them , and on

February 29 he offered as a substitute another set of

resolutions , seven in number . 2 Of these the fourth , fifth ,and sixth were as follows :

4 . Resolved , That neithee ongress ‘nor a terri torial

legi slature, _whethe-

EEL d irect.

legislation or legi slation of

an indi rect and unfriendly character , possesses power toannul or impair the constitutional right”

ofof the Uni ted States to take his slave property intot hecommon Territories , and there_

to hold andg njoy themsame

whi le the territorial5 . Resolved , That if experience should at anytimeprove

that the“

jud ici ary and executive authority do no_

t_ _ possess

means to insure adequate protection _

to constitutionalrights

"

in a Territory , and if the territorial governmentshall fai l or refuse to provide the .

necessary“remedi es for

that purpose, it will be the duty of Congress to supply suchdeficiency .

6 . Resolved , That the inhab itants of a Territory of theCong .

‘Globe

, 36th Cong . ,I st sess. , pt. i . , p . 658 . Id . , p. 935.

Preparing for Campa ign of 1860 39 1

United States , when they ri ghtfully form a constitutionto be admi tted as a State into the Union , may then ,for the first time, like the people of a State,

whenforming a new constitution

, decide for themselves whetherslavery as a domestic institution shall be maintained or

prohibited wi thin their jurisd iction ; and they shall bereceived into the Union with or without slavery , as theirconsti tution may prescribe at the time of their admi ssion .

"

These resolutions embod ied substantially the ul traSouthern doctrines on the question of slavery that had beenadvocated by Calhoun and that had been expressed in theresolutions of the Nashville convention

,as well as in the

Georgia and Alabama platforms . As explained by Davis ,they were intended , not as a basis for any immedi atelegislation , but as declarations of great fundamental principles on which legislation might thereafter be founded .

He might also .have truthfully added that they were greatfundamental principles upon which future Democraticplatforms , particularly the one for 1860 , might be con

structed .

Of these resolutions , the fourth dealt a death-blow_

to

Douglas ’s theory of“popular sovereignty,

” by reassertingas a political doctrine, what had already been decided inthe Dred Scott decision , ,

vi z . , that neither Congress nor

any territorial legislature “had any power to annul or

impair the constitutional right of any citizen to take intoand hold his slaves in such Territory . The fifth annihi

lated Douglas ’s doctrine of‘‘unf riendly legi slat1on by

declaring that if any territorial legi slature should fail tOprovide proper police regulations for the protection of the

slave owners in their property rights , it woul d then be“the

duty of Congress to supply such deficiency. The sixthpostponed the exercise of the right Of the people of a Territory to have a voice in the admission or exclusion of slaveryto the period when they should be permitted to form aconstitution preparatory to admission as a State. The

seventh was aimed at the personal liberty bills of several of

392 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

the Northern States by declaring that al l acts of Statelegislatures designed to nullify or impair the fugitive-slavelaws of the United States and the laws made pursuantthereto were revolutionary and subversive of the Con

stitution .

It must have been evident to Douglas by thi s time, if

not before, that he had come to the parting of the ways .He must d ishonor himself in the North by abandoninghis past record ; or he must breakwith the Democrats ofthe South by refusing longer to travel with them . He d id

not hesitate, but ,boldly took.up the gauntlet thrown downby Davis and led

fi

th_

e_

opposition to the latter’s resolutions .

Douglas had now been abandoned by all the SouthernDemocratic Senators , and of those from the North onlyGeorge E . Pugh of Ohio remained steadfast . On everyside he was beset by his political enemies lying in wait togive him a thrust , so that he may be said to have fought hisway , almost single-handed , from the beginning to the end

of the session . Part of the time he was in i ll health , sometimes confined to hi s bed , but the attacks of his enemiescontinued . When able to be on the floor of the Senatehe was almost incessantly engaged in combat with hi sadversaries , fighting with his old-time courage and determination , now parrying a thrust of one of his assailants ,now himself giving a keen thrust to another . He yieldednothing ; he asked no quarter . The more his doctrine of.

popular sovereignty was assailed , the more earnestly di dhe defend it . To the Southern Senators he said : “I amnot seeking a nomination . I am willing to take one pro

vided I can assume it on principles that I believe to besound ; but in the event of your making a platform thatI could not conscientiously execute in good faith if I wereelected , I will not stand upon it and be a cand idate. Why ?I will never be guilty of the act of being elected on aplatform and ki cking it over the moment I am elected .

” I

Again he said : I assail nobody . I make no tests on any

Cong . Globe, 3oth Cong .,I st sess. , pt. i .

, p . 424.

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394 Politica l H istory of Secession

motion always and without force. I expect that it willstand and work right on until men shall fear its futureno more than we now apprehend that the sun wi ll ceaseto hold his eternal place in the heavens . The earthseems to be heaving under our feet , and the pillars of ournoble fabric that protects us to be trembling before our eyes .But the appointed end of all this agitation comes at last ,and always seasonably ; the tumults of the people subside ;the country becomes calm once more, and then we findthat only our senses have been di sturbed , and that they havebetrayed us . The earth is firm as always before, and thewonderful structure, for whose safety we have feared so

anxiously , now more firmly fixed than ever,still stands ,

unmoved , enduring, and immovable.

” These were the

words of an eloquent orator , but after all they were onlyglittering general ities ; they were not the word s of a wisepolitical seer ; they d id not meet the exigencies of the times .Another man , outside the senatorial arena , scarcelythought of then as destined to be the central figure of the

coming presidential campaign , was also heard . On Pebruary 27, 1860 , two days before Seward

’s speech in the Senate,a great meeting was held in Cooper Institute to hearAbraham Lincoln . It was a notable gathering , notablenot only for its size but for the character of the aud ience,whi ch comprised many of the intellectual leaders of NewYorkCity . Among them were many who had heard themagical eloquence of the g reat Webster , the classic ora

tions of Edward Everett , the polished speeches of Seward .

Many, doubtless , were drawn by their eagerness to hear a

d iscussion of the momentous questions then agitating thepublic mi nd ; many others probably came out of curiositywho had heard the stories , even then told , of Lincoln ’sawkward , ungainly figure, of hi s quaint style of speech .

All were eager to see what kind of man this might be whohad so lately come out of theWest ,

” this odd specimen ofthe genus homowho had shown such courage, such eloquence,

such political sagacity , in political contest wi th the renowned

Preparing for Campaign of 1860 395

Little Giant . Lincoln made a great speech . If anywondered at his appearance or style of speaking , they wondered but a moment for they sat for two hours listeningwi th rapt attention to the words that fell from Lincoln

’

s

lips . Whi le there was in his speech no evasion of the issuesof the day, no backdown from hi s prior political utterances ,the general tone of his remarks was moderate and conciliatory toward the South .

“Let us have faith ,

”he sai d in

closing,“that right makes might , and in that faith let us ,

to the end , dare to do our duty as we understand it .”

At thi s meeting Lincoln scored a great success . Beforeit few, if any , in the East contemplated even the possibilityof his being selected as the Republican candidate for thePresidency . He had , it is true, they said ,

“bushwhacked ”

wi th Douglas in the wi ld s of Illinois , but could he be so

presumptuous as to contest for a presidential nominationin a Republican convention wi th Seward ,

the great statesman , the polished orator , the idol of the Republican masses ?After the Cooper Institute meeting there were many Republicans in the Eastwho,

in casting abou t for a Republicanstandard-bearer for the coming campaign , looked kindlyupon Abraham Lincoln , destined not only to be nominatedand elected President , but to

“live for the ages .”

The gains of the Republican party were all in the North .

From its birth to the Civil War no Republican was everelected a member of Congress from any of the slavehold ingStates ; indeed there were few places in those States where itwould have been safe for aman to announce himself as a Republican cand idate for any office. It was , therefore, in theNorthern States that the Republican party made its gains .Its recrui ts were chiefly from the old parties . After therepeal of the Missouri Compromise a large number of

Democrats left their party altogether and never went back .

After the rupture between Buchanan and Douglas thoseof the Democrats who sided wi th Buchanan became knownas adm inistration Democrats and in the campai gn of 1 860

as Breckinridge Democrats ; those who followed Douglas

396 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

were known general ly as Douglas or anti-Lecompton Demo

crats . But there was a large exodus from the Demo

cratic party in the years 1 858 , 1 859 , and 1 860 that wentd irectly to the Republican party . After the Wh ig partywent to pieces a few of the Northern Wh ig s , sometimes

called “old line Whig s , went to the Democratic party ,

but the great mass of Northern Whi gs went , some di rectly ,and some by way of the American or Know-nothing party ,to the Republican party , into which by 1 860 the great massof Northern Whigs had been absorbed .

There was a very marked change between 1850 and 1 860

in the voice of the clergy , especially in New Eng land ,where

in 1 860 denunciations of slavery were thundered fromnearly every pulpit . There was a noticeable change also

in the colleges of the North , whose influence in 1 860 wasdecidedly in favor of the Republican party . The sympathies of the young voters of the North were also with thenew party . Another source of strength from which the

Republican party drew more largely_

in 1 860 than everbefore was the German vote, particularly in the WesternStates . The influence of the German vote in this countryis fully d iscussed by Mr . Ernest Bruncken in a pamphletpublished in 1904 .

I In estimating the number of Germansand their descendants living in the United States thisauthor refers to a table given in Eickoff ’s Aus der Neuen

Heima th, the table having been compiled by TheodorePoesche,

for many years statistician in the Treasury Department at Washington , in which it is estimated thatfrom 1820 to 1 860 inclusive,

the number of Germans whocame to the United States was A great tide of

imm igrants from Germanycame between 1 850 and

The early German immi grants to America were not in

German Poli tical Refugees in the Uni ted States during the Periodf rom 1 815

— 1 860.

2 There does not seem to be any accurate information as to the

number. In the Preliminary Report of the Eighth Census, page 1 8, it

is computed that the number was

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398 Pol itical H istory of Secess ion

Bruncken x To understand why it was that for twentyyears and more the great mass of Germans , as of otherf oreigners , were stout adherents of the Democracy , it isbut necessary to consider the principles and tendenci es oftha t party and those of its Whig opposition , and especiallyto compare the elements of which each was mainly oomposed . It may be said that one of the foundations on whi cht he Whig organization rested was a strong sense of Americ an nationality . The Whig , whether he reasoned it out ornot, was a man who believed that the American peoplewas d istinct from al l others as an organism with an indiv iduality of its own , and he was proud of the fact . He dis

liked , instinctively , anything which might tend to eff acethe self-contained character of thi s national indi viduality .

Therefore he was apt to look with di sfavor on the foreignelement , and was inclined to either throw obstacles intothe way of its growth or else force it into a more speedyamalgamation with the American ‘

people, provided the

foreigners would simply become Americans of the traditional kind , without mod ifying the popular type by con

tributing some of their own characteristics . The Nativistmovement was nothing but the radical expression of ten

d encies strongly existing wi thin the Whi g party . In the

Democracy , on the other hand , the consciousness of nationalind ividuality was far less strong , and the force of

‘Jeff er

somian ’ ideas about the equality of all men ,with their

strongly cosmopolitan tinge, much stronger . Where the

Whig looked askance at the immigrant , the Democratwelcomed him and facilitated his progress . The Jeff ersonian jargon abou t liberty , equality

,and the rights of the

people was as apt to flow from the lips of theWhig as fromthat of the Democrat , but the latter

’s acts seemed moreoften in accord with the glittering phrase. Anotherimportant characteristic of the Whig party was that itseconomic principles were, on the whole, those findi ngspecial favor among the wea lthi er classes . The merchant ,

Bruncken, p, 25

—26

Preparing for Campa ign of 1860 399

the manufacturer , the banker , the land-speculator wasmost likely a Whig ; the Democrats claimed to favor , and

to a great extent real ly d id favor , more particularly theinterests of the workingman , the small farmer , and the

settler in the West . There was a certain amount of tru that the bottom of the exaggerated charges by the Jacksoniansthat the Whigs were an aristocratic party , and that theDemocrats alone were the party of the people and the up

holders of true American principles , as laid down in theDeclaration of Independence.

“The immigrant was generally poor ; he would naturally

be d rawn toward the party which claimed to be the specialchampion of the common people against the encroachmentof the wealthy . If , in add ition , that party took hisside when the other party attempted to restrain him infollowing customs he had learned in his old home, or re

fused to give him equal political rights wi th the nativecitizen , was it not natural that the Democracy was theparty for him ?

“While such were, undoubtedly , themotives of themasses ,the educated German , and particularly the political refugee,had addi tional reasons for feeling d rawn toward s Jacksoniani sm . The doctrines of Thomasjefferson were on the

whole identical with those for whi ch he had fought andsuffered in Europe. His highest social and political ideals ,like Jeff erson ’s , were

‘Liberty and Equality .

’

He wasvery apt to identify the Whigs wi th the aristocracies of

European countries ; for during many years after hi s arrivalin thi s country he had the habit of measuring everythingwith European standard s , and he could hardly conceiveof political parties except as the respective champions ofaristocratic , which he called reactionary , and democratic,which to him were necessarily progressive, principles .Under these circumstances the educated Germans were,like their more ignorant brethren , apt to be Jacksonians

, unless like the old settlers of 1 835 , they had become well-to-do and Americanized before the German

400 Pol itica l H istory of Seces s ion

immigrant had become an appreciable factor in Americanlife.

”

The rad icals among the Germans , almost to a man , wereopposed to the repeal of the Missouri Compromi se, whichsharply presented the conflict between freedom and slavery.

Of the eighty-eight German newspapers then publishedin the United States , eighty were Opposed to the repeal , 1

but after that the prohibition question and the Knownothing question entered into the political field and the

Democratic party promptly took the aggressive againstboth . A few prominent Whigs , conspicuous among whomwas William H . Seward , opposed the Know-nothi ngparty , but the Whig party , as a party , did not take adecided stand on either the temperance question or the

Know-nothing question , as did the Democratic party ,and most of the Germans who were opposed to both prohibition and slavery again sought refuge in the Democraticparty .

It was not until after the presidential election of 1 856 ,

when the question of the extension or restriction of slaverybecame the dominant political question , that the greatbody of Germans severed their allegiance to the Democraticparty . On the question of freedom or slavery the greatmass of German voters di d not hesitate, especi ally thoseof the Western States , and undoubtedly in those Statesthey exercised a large influence. Bruncken and otherGerman writers , indeed , claim that “

the success of the

Republi can party in the Northwest was made possiblebecause the Forty-eighters had succeeded in winni ng alarge proportion of Germans into their ranks . Withoutthis element Lincoln would probably not have beenelected .

”

After the Civil War began great numbers of Germansenlisted in the Uni on army . Of the soldi ers of

foreign birth who enlisted were Germans . Manyof the German leaders , like Generals Schurz and Siegel and

Von Holst, Const. and P ol. Hi story, vol. iv., p . 429.

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402 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

Connecticut 8

Illinois 5

Indiana 9

Maine 10

Massachusetts 14

Michigan 3

New Hampshire 7New Jersey 8

New York 42

Ohio 2 1

Pennsylvania 30

Rhode Island 4

Vermont 7

168

classification further extended is as followsFree States 168

Slave States 126

The States west of the Alleghany Mountains and east ofthe Mississippi and North of the Ohi o, all free States , viz

5

9

3

2 1

The States west of the Mississippi River , all slaveStates , viz .

3

4 7

Therewas still in 1 840 an abundance of cheap land in theStates carved out of the Northwest Territory . In Ind iana ,on account of the necessity of first extingu ishing the Indiantitle, the lands in the imiddle third of the State were not

thrown open to settlement until 182 1 and the lands in thenorth third until aboutThe vast region beyond the Mississippi was still unset

tled ; over it buff aloes and antelopes and red men roamed atwill . But whitemen with sharp eyes had spied out the landWhere now cornfields stretch out mi les in extent and wheat

AlabamaArkansasDelawareGeorgiaKentuckyLouisianaMarylandMississippiMissouriNorth Carolina.South CarolinaTennesseeVirginia

Preparing for Campaign of 1860

fields expand like illimitable oceans , where great cities havesprung up as if bymagic , a region rich in all the resources , agri cultural , mining , manufacturing , and commercial, thatcontribute to make rich and populous States . This invitingexpanse had been seenbyintrepid explorers , traders , hunters ,and trappers . The Forty niners , the adventurous goldhunters , had seen them on their way to the gold fields of Califormia . To these lands , so fullof promise, emigrants from theolder States were looking with eager eyes and as fast as theland s were opened for settlement they were filled up and or

ganized , first into Territories and then into States . Between1840 and 1860 several Western States had been admi tted .

Free

Iowa in I 846

Wisconsin 1847 Texas in 1845

California 1850

Minnesota 1858

Oregon I 859In 1860 the total number of electoral votes to whi ch the

States were entitled was 303 , di stribu ted as follows

Free Slave

CaliforniaConnecticutIllinoisIndianaIowaMaineMassachusettsMichiganM innesotaNew Hampshire.

New JerseyNew YorkOhioOregonPennsylvaniaRhode IslandVermontWisconsin

AlabamaArkansasDelawareFloridaGeorgiaKentuckyLouisianaMarylandM ississippiMissouriNorth CarolinaSouth CarolinaTennesseeTexasVirginia

404 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

The States west of the Alleghany Mountains and eastof the Mississippi and north of the Ohio , all free States ,

The States west of the Mississippi

Free States

It was plain long before 1 860 ,not only that the free

States woul d increase much more rapidly than the slaveStates in population and wealth , but al so that the overflowfrom the free States would go into the newly acquiredTerritories and States . The course of empire was stilltaking its way westward . But there are some things

plainer now, perhaps , than they were then . It is plainnow that freedom and slavery could no more have dwelttogether in a Territory than they coul d have so dwelt ina State.

1Many of the early immigrants to the southern parts of

Ohio ,Ind iana , and Illinois had come from Virginia , Ken

tucky , Tennessee, and North Carolina . Cincinnati , byreason of its proximity to Kentucky and by reason of its

large commercial dealing s wi th the Southern States , washostile to the agi tation of the slavery question , but northern Ohio , especially the portion known as the Western

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CHAPTER XIX

THE POLITICAL CAMPAIGN or 1 860

HERE had never been any political campaign in thiscountry like that of 1 860 . In i t there was arrayed

the solid South against the solid North and upon a singleissue— the question of the extension or restriction of slavery .

Before that campaign politicians had often succeeded ind iverting public attention from the slavery question to

other political questions ; now there was but one. Before,

politicians had often exhibited great agility as politicaldodgers , and the people had become familiar with thosewho sought to curry favor with both the North and the

South by trying to face both ways ; men of the kind described in the old rhyme

Hewired in and wired out,

Leaving the people still in doubt,Whether the snake that made the trackWas going south or coming back.

But now every man , at least every cand idate, was expectedto declare himself on the slavery question in plain , um-f.

ambiguous language, to face the rugged issue of slavery‘

extension or restriction .

‘

More than in any prior campaign the passions of the

people were wrought up to the highest pitch . Those of

later generations can have no conception of the intensefeeling that characterized politics during this period . Fromthe time of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise there hadbeen scarcely an intermission in the poli tical exci tement .

406

Po l itical Campa ign of 1860 407

Politics was everywhere the all-engrossing topic , in the

newspapers , in daily conversation , not only during cam

paigns but between campaigns . The bitterness of feelingexhi bited in the debates of Congress and in the newspapershad permeated all classes of people, North and South . Inthe North opposi tion to slavery had been intensified by thewi de read ing of Uncle Tom’

s Cabin ,by the enforcement of

the Fugi tive Slave Law , by the assault on Senator Sumnerand by the universal and openly expressed exultation overi t in the South , by the outrages of the Missouri borderrufl‘ians , and by the attempt to force upon the people of

Kansas the Lecompton Constitution . By the year 1 860

the Northern clergymen had found their voices and werenow almost a unit in denouncing slavery . Nearly all,

especially in New England , had become“political preach

ers ,” as they were termed by the Democratic speakers and

newspapers .If Uncle Tom

’

s Cabin created a great sensation in theNorth , it created a greater sensation in the South , where itwas regarded as a malicious libel on Southern society .

Helper’s Impending Cri si s had added fuel to the flames .

The operations of the anti-slavery societies of the North ,through their secret emissaries in the South and the underground rai lroad , in aid ing the escape of fugitive slaves , theopposition in the North to the eff orts of their '

Southern

masters to recapture them , and finally the John Brownrai d— all these had combined to throw the whole Southinto a cond ition bordering on frenzy .

In the South al l Republicans— B lack Republi cans asthey were usually called— were regarded as Abolitioni stsand all Northern men as Yankees . Mingled with the

bitterness felt throughout the South toward the Republicanswas a feeli ng of contempt for what in the South was regarded as the mercenary spirit of the people of the North ,and a settled conviction that Northern men who wouldnot fight duels would not fight on the battlefield . The

debates in Congress during thi s period are full of illustrations

408 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

of thi s spirit on thepart of the South . William Howard Russell , the correspondent of the London Times , visited Washington in April , 1 86 1 , and met wi th the South Carolinacommi ssioners and many other leading Southern men , and

thus recordshi s impressions of their feeling toward the peopleof theNorth , and particularly those of NewEngland The

tone in which they alluded to thewhole of the Northern people ind icated the clear conviction that trade, commerce, thepursuit of gain , manufacture, and the base mechanical artshad so degraded the whole race, they would never attemptto strike a blow in fair fight for what they prized so highlyin theory and in word s . Whether it be in consequenceof some secret influence which slavery has upon the mindsof men ,

or that the aggression of the North upon theirinstitutions has been of a nature to exci te the deepestanimosity and most vind ictive hate, certain it is that thereis a degree of something like feroci ty in the Southern mindtowards New England which exceed s belief ” I The same

Spiri t is clearly shown in the writings of the Southernhistorians . Pollard writes 2 “In the early history of the

Northern colonists we find no slight traces of the modern

Yankee ; although it remained for those subsequent influences which educate nations as well as ind ividuals to com

plete that character , to add new vices to it , and to give itits full development . But the intolerance of the Puritans ,the painful thrift of the Northern colonists , their externalforms of piety , their jaund iced legislation , their convenientmorals , their lack of the sentimentalism which makesup the half of modern civilization , and their unremittinghunt after selfish aggrandizement , are traits of characterwhich are yet visible ini their descendants . On the otherhand , the coloni sts of Virgini a and the Carolinas were fromthe first d istinguished for their polite manners , their finesentiments , their attachment to a sort of feudal life, theirlanded gentry , their love of field-sports and dangerousadventure, and the prodigal and improvident aristocracy

Diary, p. 63 . Lost Cause, p. 49.

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4 10 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

to please his vision . Northern men rid iculed thi s apparentscantiness of the South , and took it as an evidence of

inferiority . But this was the coarse judgment of the sur

face of things . The agricultural pursuits of the Southfixed its features ; and ,

however it might decline in the scaleof gross prosperity , its people were trained in the highestcivilization , were models of manners for the whole country

,rivaled the sentimentalism of the oldest countries of

Europe, established the only schools of honor in America ,and presented a striking contrast in their well-balancedcharacter to the conceit and giddiness of the Northernpeople.

”

These are bitter words , tinged perhaps wi th a feeling ofresentment for the defeat of the Lost Cause They werewritten nearly fifty years ago . Probably no Southernhistorian

,not even Pollard were he living , would write

them now,for in the years since Pollard wrote them the

history of the Civil War has been more fully told . The

story of the B loody Angle’

and other never-to-be-forgottenfields , where the Stars and Stripes and the Stars and Barsmingled their folds and underneath them men in blue and

men in gray fought to the death , has proved beyond question the heroism of the sold iers of the South ; it has alsoproved that the blood of themen who fought at Bunker Hillstill coursed through the veins of their descendants . But

there is little doubt that before the beginning of the CivilWar the feeling towards the people of the North , as expressed by Pollard , was that generally entertained in the

South .

At the beginni ng of the year 1860 all were looking forward to the political conventions that were to frame the

platforms and put forward the cand idates to be voted uponat the presidential election of that year . The first nationalpolitical convention held was that of the Democratic partyat Charleston , South Carolina . At the time of holdi ngthe convention there was probably no place in the Uni tedStates where Douglas and the doctrine of popular sov

Pol itical Campa ign of 1860 4 1 1

ereignty were more detested than they were in Charleston .

The convention assembled on April 23 , 1860 .

t

In an introductory note to his report of the proceed ingsof the Charleston convention Halstead thus aptly states thecentral questions uppermost in the mind s of the delegates :“The Hon . Stephen A . Douglas was the pivot ind ivid

ual of the Charleston convention . Every delegate was foror against him . Every parliamentary war was pro or con

Douglas . On the route to Charleston delegates and otherswho were proceed ing to attend the convention talked aboutMr . Douglas . The questions on every car and at everyway-station were : Would he be ? Could he be? Should hebe nominated ? Could he get the

'

two thirds ? Would

the South support him i f he should be nominated ? Would

the Administration acquiesce i f he were nominated ? ” Inthe list of delegates were noted politicians of that day :from New York , Dean Richmond , Isai ah Rynders , AugustBelmont , Erastus Corning , Sanford E . Church , PeterCagger ; from Massachusetts , Caleb Cushing , BenjaminF . Butler ; from Ohio ,

GeorgeW . McCook, George E . Pugh ,Washi ngton McLean ; from Illinois , W . A . Richard son ;from Alabama , W . L . Yancey ; from M iss1ss1ppi , E . Barksd ale. Many of the delegates were then , or afterward sbecame, noted in civil or military life. Other noted men ,

not named as delegates , were also present . From the

North were John A . Logan and John A . McClernand , both

Murat Halstead , then a newspaper reporter, attended all the nationa l political conventions of that year and published a full reportof them in pamphlet form entitled A Hi story of the Nationa l P oli tical

Conventions, S m, 1 860. An offi cial report of the Charleston and Baltimore national Democratic conventions , entitled Proceedings of the

Conventions at Cha rleston and Baltimore,was published under the super

vision of the National Democratic Executive Committee in a pamphletof 255 pages. The recording secretary, John G . Parkhurst, also pub~lished a pamphlet of 1 88 pages entitled Oflici al P roceedings of the Democratic Nati onal Convention held i n 1 860 at Charleston and Baltimore. Inthis report, at page 27, is a full list of the delegates , not contained inthe report published by the national executive committee.

4 12 Pol itical H istory of Secess ion

of Illinois , who were there in the interest of Douglas .From the South was John Slidell , whose

“special missionwas to see that Douglas was not nominated

”; also Senator

Jesse D . Bright of Ind iana , who was there for the same

purpose. The Mississippians had“the Freeport speech

of Douglas with them , intend ing to bombard Douglas inthe convention with ammuni tion d rawn from it .” Halsteadgoes on to say : The ultra S outhern men sneer at theidea of Douglas

’s nomination and inquire ‘Where was hetwo years ago ?

’

and answer the question themselves‘caucusing wi th Seward—“ leagued wi th the Black Republicans agai nst a Democratic Administration .

’

Butler of Massachusetts made himself conspicuous earlyin the convention . He had a unique political and m ilitarycareer before and after the convention . His poli tical principles were as variegated as the colors of Joseph

’s coat . He

was“everything by turns and nothi ng long . From the

beginning to the end of his life he never was suspected of

political sincerity . Halstead says of him :“He is as

pro-slavery as possible. He admits that he had a

Free-soil attack— a sort of political measles— but considershimself all the better for having recovered from it .”

Caleb Cushing of Massachusetts ,who had been AttorneyGeneral in Pierce’s Cabinet , was selected as president of theconvention . The comm ittee on platform could not agreeand on April 27 submitted two reports , W . W . Averyof North Carolina presenting the majority and George E .

Pugh of Ohio the minority report . The resolutions on thesubject of slavery recommended by the majori ty weresubstantial ly the same as those introduced by JeffersonDavis in the Senate of the iUnited States . The resolutionson the subject of slavery off ered by the minority evadedany d irect expression of Opinion on the questions involvingthe right to hold slaves as property in the Territories , butasserted that these were judi cial , and pledged the partyto abide by the decisions upon them of the Supreme Courtof the United States.

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4 14 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

to Halstead , he charged that the defeats of the Democracyin the North were to be traced to the pandering by theparty in the free States to anti-slavery sentiments ; theyhad not come up to the high ground that must be takenon the subject in order to defend the South , namely thatslavery was right .

”He denounced Douglas for

“refusingto admit Kansas into the Union as a slave State under theLecompton Constitution . He also spoke of

“the deep

d istrust the South had begun to entertain of the NorthernDemocracy and urged the fulfilling of the demand of the

South that the Democratic party should now take clearand high g round upon a constitutional basis .

” There weresome passages in his speech that were probably gall andwormwood to the Northern delegates . Speaking to themhe said You are not in the ascendant now because youhave tampered with the anti-slavery feeling of that section .

You advocated that slavery was wrong . You

gave up the real ground of battle,the key of success , when

you acknowledged , what was the foundation of antislavery sentiment , that slavery was wrong. If you

had taken the position that has been taken by one gallantson of the North , who proclaimed , under the hisses of

thousand s , that slavery was right , that anti-slavery demon ,i f not dead , would long since have been in chains at yourfeet . But you have gone down under the admission on

your part that your Opponents placed their feet upon thestrong foundation-stone of natural and Divine right ; andI tell you , gentlemen , that you will continue to go lowerstill unless you change front and change tactics .” Con

tinuing he said“Go before your Northern people and

appeal to their loyalty to the Union and their loyalty tothe Constitution . Make it a question of union or d isuni on ,between you and Sewardism . Take this issue by thehorns ; throttle anti-slavery in the very heart of its poweron the question of the constitutional protection . Let

them see that there wi ll be d isuni on . Do you urge uponthem that there wi ll be d isuni on i f we are defeated .

Pol itica l Campa ign of 1860 4 15

Go to the wall upon this issue, i f events demand it . Acceptdefeat upon it . Let the threatened thunder roll and the

lightning flash through the sky and let the dark cloud be

pointed out by you , now resting on the southern horizon .

Let them know that our people are in earnest .”He closed

with an appeal to Northern Democrats , in which he urgedthat i f actuated by “love of God , by love of truth , by loveof the great principles of equality , they would let the men

of the South “hoe their own row in these Territories ,

”

add ing : “If you beat us at the end you wi ll be entitled

to the palm of victory . If we beat you we will give yougood servants for life and enable you to live comfortably ,and we will take your poor whi teman and elevatehim fromthe off ice of bootblack and from the other menial officeswhich belong not to the highest order of civili zation , willelevate him among the master race and put the negrorace to do his d irty work which God designed that theyshould do .

”

As soon as Yancey had concluded ,George E . Pugh of

Ohio took the floor . He was heard wi th interest , but notwith approval, as the spokesman of Stephen A . Douglas .His speech was mainly a defense of the Northern Democracyagainst the charges of Yancey and other Southern leaders ,mingled wi th supplications formercy . He told how Northern Democrats had fought agai nst fearful odds , and how so

many of its chosen leaders had gone down in battling forthe cause of the South . Once only d id he betray resentment for the cruel taunts of Yancey .

“Now when we

come here to debate with you ,he said , you commence

by telling us that we are an inferior class of beings ; thatwe shall not assume to have or express any Opini ons ; thatwe shall not call on you to stand by your plighted fai th ;that we shall put our hand s on ourmouths and our mouthsin the dust . Gentlemen , you mi stake us . We wi ll notdo it .”

On reassembling on the afternoon of April 28 , the sixthday of the convention , the committee on resolutions agai n

4 16 Pol itical .H istory of Secess ion

reported their inability to agree and submitted majorityand minori ty reports . Mr . Avery of North Carolina sub

mitted the report of a majority of the committee. The

resolutions relating to slavery were as follows“Resolved , That the platform adopted by the Democratic

party at Cincinnati be affi rmed , with the following explanatory resolutions :“Fi rst, That the government of a Territory organized

by an act of Congress is provisional and temporary ; and ,during its existence,

all citizens of the United States have anequal right to settle wi th their property in the Terri torywithout their rights , either of person or property , beingdestroyed or impaired by congressional or territori alleg islation .

“Second , That it is the duty of the Federal government ,

in all its departments , to protect , when necessary , the rightsof persons and property in the Territories , and whereverelse its constitutional authority extends .

“Thi rd , That when the settlers in a Territory , having

an adequate population , form a State constitution , theright of sovereignty commences , and , being consummatedby admission into the Union , they stand on an equal footing with the people of other States ; and the State thusorganized ought to be admitted into the Federal Union ,whether its constitution prohibits or recognizes the institu tion of slavery

Fif th, That the enactments of State legislatures todefeat the faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave Law are

hostile in character , subversive of the Constitution , and

revolutionary in their effect .”

It will be observed that these resolutions incorporate thesubstance of those introduced in the Senate by JeffersonDavis for the purpose of exterminating Douglas . Mr.Samuels of Iowa submitted a mi nority report , the resolutions relating to the slavery question being as follows :“1 . Resolved , That we, the Democracy of the Union , in

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4 1 8 Po litica l H istory of Secess ion

sections of the Union ? You at the West said it meant onethi ng ; we at the South said it meant another ; either wewere right or you were right ; we were wrong or you werewrong . We came here to ask you which was ri ght andwhi ch was wrong. You have mai ntained your position .

You say that you cannot give us an acknowledgment ofthat right which , I tell you here now, in coming time willbe your only safety in your contests with BlackRepublicansof Ohi o and of the North . In such a situation of

things in the convention of our great party it is ri ght thatwe shoul d part . Go your way and we wi ll go ours . The

South leaves you— not like Hagar , driven into the wilderness , friendless and alone, but I tell Southern men here,and for them I tell the North , that in less than sixty daysyou will find a united South , standing side by side withus .

”

On the 8th day a majority of the delegates from Georgiaand al so a majority of the delegates from Arkansas withdrew . W . B . Gaulden of Georgia gave his reasons for re

maining in the convention , and proceeded to make a speechin which he said that “there was but one remedy at presentfor the evils the South complained of , and that was to re0penthe African slave trade. In thi s he looked to the NorthernDemocracy to aid them. The

“African slave trademan ,

”

he said ,

“is the Uni on man— the true Christian man .

For the African slave trader goes to a heathen land and

brings the savage here and christianizes and moralizeshim and sends him down to posterity a happy man .

”

Continuing , he said that “he had himself purchased someSlaves in Virginia and had to pay from one thousand totwelve hundred dollars , whi le he could buy a better negroin Africa for fifty dollars . Gaulden

’

s speech was receivedwith “shouts of laughter and applause, repeated roundafter round .

”

Most of the Northern delegates , regardi ng the slave tradeas piracy , as it was declared to be by the laws of nearly all

civilized nations , were probably not familiar , before heari ng

Po l itica l Campaign of 1860 4 19

Gaulden , wi th the moral arguments adduced by him in

favor of reopening the slave trade as amissionary enterprise,

whereby the Af rican barbarians might be rescued from theirheathenish surround ings and brought to a land where theycould enjoy the blessings of Christian slavery ; this too whenraw material for Chri stian converts of the best qualitycould be got in Africa at $50 per head , while an inf eriorgrade in Virginia cost at least $ 1200 per head .

The balloting on nominations for President began on theeighth day. Before proceed ing to ballot for President a resolution was adopted that no persons should be declared nomimated who had not received “

two third s of all the votes thefull convention was entitled to cast .” On the first ballotDouglas received 145% votes , whi le the rest were scattered among James Guthrie of Kentucky ; Dani el S . D icki n

son oi New York ; Robert M . T . Hunter of Virgini a ;Andrew Johnson of Tennessee ; Joseph Lane of Oregon ;Isaac Toucey of Connecticut , and Franklin Pierce of New

Hampshi re. The balloting continued for three days and57 ballots were taken . On the last ballot Douglas re

ceived 15 1% votes , less than the two thi rd s required fora nomi nation . On May 3 , the tenth and last day, the

convention adjourned to meet at Baltimore, Maryland ,

on June 18 . One of the reasons for ad journing was inorder to give the States whose delegates had seceded anopportunity of filling their places with other delegates , andthi s was provided for in the resolution for adjournment .The secedi ng delegates , after withdrawing from the

regul ar convention , met in Charleston on May 1 and

organized under the name of“The Constitutional Demo

cratic Convention ,”electing James A . Bayard of Delaware

president of the convention , styled itself the representativeof

“The Constitutional Democracy ,

” adopted for a platform one substantially like that which had been reported bythe majority of the comm ittee on resolutions at the regularconvention , and then ad journed to meet in Richmond ,

Virginia , on the second Monday in June.

420 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

The Northern delegates probably returned home sadder,

possibly madder , i f not wiser men . To some, at least , thehard terms of salvation proposed by their Southern alliesmust have come with something like a shock. Must theygo home and preach the new gospel of Democracy accordi ngto the apostle Yancey , and exhort their Northern brethrenthat if they would be saved they must repent and acknowledge the d ivi ne right of slavery , else all were doomed to

political perd ition ! Must they tell them to be preparedto accept , at no d istant day, as an add itional article of

faith , the sacred duty of reopeni ng the African slave trade !Must they tell their brethren of the North that they had nofurther political mi ssion on earth except to be hewers ofwood and drawers of water for the slave masters of theSouth ! Was it to such base uses that Northern Democracyhad come at last !In the light of subsequent events we see now that the

secession from the Democratic convention of the delegatesfrom the cotton States was a preparatory step to the

secession of those States from the Union . This was undoubtedly so intended by Jeff erson Davis , Yancey , andother Southern leaders . There is abundant evidence not

only that the extreme pro-slavery leaders of the South intended before the assembling of the Democratic NationalConvention to secede from it i f it did not adopt a platformin conformity with their views of slavery , but that they alsointended before the Republicans had made any presidentialnomination or adopted any national platform , to secede,

or at least to make an attempt to secede from the Unionin the event of the election of any Republi can to the Presideney . Indeed this was expressly avowed in a letter of

C . C . Clay of Alabama , whi ch is publi shed without contradiction and evidently wi th approval by Jeff erson Davisin hi s history of the Confederacy.

I In this letter Claystates that “before the election of Lincoln all the SouthernStates , excepting one or two

, had pledged themselves to1 Ri se and Fall, vol. i . , p . 307.

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422 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

resolutions was appointed and then the convention ad

journed until the next day. On the next day the platformcomm ittee reported as the platform of the party a resolution : That it is both the part of patriotism and of dutyto recognize no political pr1nc1ples other than— The Constitution of the Country ; the Union of the States ; and theEnforcement of the Laws .” John Bell , of Tennessee, wasnomi nated for President and Edward Everett of Massachusetts for Vice-President , both

“old line” Whi gs. Of

the platform it was wittily said “that i t meant everythi ng in general and nothing in particular.

”

CHAPTER XX

POLITICAL CAMPAIGN or 1860 (Continued)

Y thi s time the Republican party had absorbed nearlyall the Free-soil Democrats and anti-slavery Whigs .

A great crowd assembled in Chicago to witness the gatheringof the Republi can National Convention on May 16 , 1 860.

A temporary build ing called theWigwam had been erectedfor the use of the convention , said to have been large enoughto accommodate people. The crowd began to gatherseveral days before the meeting of the convention . It issaid that over from outside the city were in attendance. The hotels were packed , especially the Tre

mont House where Horace Greeley and Frank P . B lairwere stopping . The boomers ” of the various candidateswere there, and there was a goodly number of the latter :William H . Seward of New York , Abraham Lincoln of

Illinois , Simon Cameron of Pennsylvani a , Edward Batesof Missouri , and others . Ohio had a surplus of cand idates :Salmon P . Chase, Benjami n Wade, and John R . McLean .

Thurlow Weed ,a poli tician noted for his skill in mani pu

lating conventions , was the general manager for Seward ,

assisted by Willi am M . Evarts and other d istinguished NewYork men , and by Carl Schurz of Wisconsin and otherwell

known Republicans from other States . Lincoln ’s principalmanagers were N . B . Judd , David Davis , and O . H .

Browning of Illinois . Thewell-known ed itor A . K . McClure

and others were there to look after the interests of othercandi dates . There was a bitter contest in the Ohio delegation between the friend s of Chase and Wade, which left no

423

424 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

chance for the nomination of either of them . There wasalso a considerable undercurrent of opinion favorable tothe nomination for President of William Pitt Fessenden of

Maine, but this was not encouraged either by him or byhis friends . Long before the convention assembled , however , it was well understood that the contest lay betweenSeward and Lincoln , with the chances seemingly in favorof Seward . The New York delegation made a gorgeousdi splay . The delegates had brought a great crowd withthem and marched through the streets strong , preceded by a fine band , all shouting for Seward . But thiswas more than off set by the admirers of Lincoln . Infront of the offi ce of the Chi cago P ress and Tribune wered isplayed two fence rails , which were vouched for as bemgpart of three thousand cut and split by Honest Old Abe”in the Sangamon river bottom more than twenty yearsbefore. Inside the office were two more, brilliantly lighted .

Crowds stood about these sacred relics and gazed on themwith mingled awe and admiration and shouted themselveshoarse for the backwoodsman who had fashi oned thesewonderful specimens of primitive pioneer art . Aspaign arguments the rails were quite as effective as theHarrison log cabin of 1 840 , wi th its coonskins and its

out-hanging latchstring . Thousands of Illinois Republicans were in attendance, all enthusiastic for Lincoln , whohelped to shout for him . The Chicago Republican newspapers were a unit for him . Indeed the local politicalatmosphere was of a di stinct and unmistakable Lincolnhue.

Among other curiosities which served to interest thecrowd was a huge bowie knife, seven feet long and weighingover forty pounds , bearing on one side the inscription :“Presented to John F . Potter by the Republicans of

Missouri ,”and on the other : “Will always keep a

‘Pryor’

engagement .”

All the free States were represented by delegates equalin number to the electoral vote to whi ch they were respec

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426 Pol itical H istory of Secess ion

and the other was tall and slender , and when King at

tempted to speak to Schurz he was compelled to throwhi s head back and cookone eye as though gazing at somefar-away object hi gh up in the firmament above. All thisappealed so strongly to their sense of the ludi crous,

that the

delegates broke out into a general titter . Ashmun provedto be an excellent presidi ng officer . A committee on resolutions was appointed , includi ng Horace Greeley of Oregon

,

and then the convention adjourned until the next day.

At the beginni ng of the second day ’s session , Wilmotobjected to receiving the delegations of States like Virginia and Texas that had no constituencies , but the

committee on credentials reported in favor of admi ttingthe full delegation from Virgini a and al lowing Texas six .

The report of theminori ty of the committee on rules wasadopted , requiring for a nom ination 304 votes , this number being a majority of the whole number of delegates , ifall the states were represented in the convention by fulldelegations .

The next thing was the report of the platform committee.

Before a vote was taken upon it , Joshua R . Gidd ing s ofOhi o off ered an amendment to the first resolution , the objectof which was to incorporate in the platform the clause of

the Declaration of Independence defining the inal ienablerights , but the amendment was voted down . One delegateobjected that the amendment was all gas and anotherthat “the principles of the Declaration of Independence,though good , would be as much out of place in the platformas would be the Ten Commandments . Probably one of

the real reasons for objecting to the amendment was thatthe delegates were in a hurry to proceed with the balloting ,and possibly another reason was the fear that Gidd ings ,a well-known Abolitionist , might , under the gui se of anamendment , slip into the platform something that mightbe construed as pledging the party to Abolitionism . Gid

d ings , deeply grieved , started to leave the convention . On

hi s way out he met George William Curtis . When Curtis

Pol itica l Campa ign of 1860 (Continued ) 427

was informed of the trouble he at once offered substantiallythe same amendment off ered by Gidd ings , except that itwas off ered as an amendment to the second resolution .

By thi s neat little parliamentary coup the objection thatthe amendment was out of order was obviated and Curtisin support of the amendment made a graceful and eloquentSpeech , in which he said :

“I have to ask the conventionwhether they are prepared to go upon the record and beforethe country as voting down the words of the Declaration ofIndependence. I rise simply to ask the gentlemen to thinkwell before , upon the free prairi es of theWest in the summerof 1860 , they dare to wi nce and quail before the assertionsof the men in Philadelphi a in 1 776 , before they dare toshrink from repeating the words that these great men

enunciated .

” There was no resisting Curtis ’ s appeal ,which took the convention by storm

,and the amendment

was adopted amid great applause.

x The platform con

f ained a plankfavoring a protective tariff ; another favoringthe bui ld ing of the Pacific railroad ; another washi ng itshands of Know-nothi ngism ; another favoring appropriations for river and harbor improvements of a nationalcharacter ; but the chief interest was in the planks concerning slavery in the Territories . These were the seventh andeighth , whi ch were as follows“7. That the new dogma that the Constitution , of its

own force, carries slavery into any or all of the Territoriesof the Uni ted States , is a dangerous political heresy , atvariance with the explici t provi sions of that instrumentitself , with contemporaneous exposition , and with legi slative and jud icial precedent ; is revolutionary in its tendency ,and subversive of the peace and harmony of the country .

8 . That the normal cond ition of all the territory of

the United States is that of freedom . That as our republican fathers , when they had abolished slavery in al l our

national territory , ordained that ‘no person should be

deprived of life, liberty , or property , wi thout due processJulian, Life of Gi ddings, pp . 372

—74.

428 Pol i tica l H istory of Secess ion

of law,

’ it becomes our duty , by leg islation , whenever suchlegislation is necessary , to maintain this provision of the

Constitution , agai nst all attempts to violate it ; and we denythe authority of Congress , of a terri torial legislature, or ofany ind ividuals , to g ive legal existence to slavery in any

Territory of the United States .”

As soon as the platform had been adopted the Sewardmen urged going at once into a ballot for nomi nations forPresident , but the clerks had not yet got their tally sheetsready and the convention ad journed until the next day.

At the close of the second day the New York men werein hi gh feather . They deemed the nomination of Sewardthe next day a certainty . Besides the NewYorkdelegatesthere were many influential New Yorkmen present urgingSeward ’s nomi nation- Thurlow Weed , Moses H . Grinnell,James Watson Webb , and others . Up to thi s time Seward ’

s

cand idacy had been managed with consumm ate skill . His

opponents were d isheartened . Near midni ght Greeleysent a di spatch to the New YorkTri bune, g iving it as hisconclusion that Seward would be nominated on the next day.

But James G . B laine , who was present , not as a delegate,but as an interested spectator , although only thirty yearsof age, knew far more than Greeley and many older men

about practical politics . His great political sagacity ismani fest from a letter written by him to Fessenden on

May 16 the first day of the convention , in which he said*:“I arrived here Saturday night . I may mention ,

however , that the Seward force is on the g round and assumean air of d ictation whi ch is at once unwarranted and off ensive, and whi ch I thinkwill create a reaction beforeWednes

day. They cannot count up more than a third of the votesfrom States that can carry the ticket , and how much theyintend or expect to make from such delegates as come fromslave States has not yet transpired . Should he be nominated by the ai d of the delegates that can promi se him no

support , the Pennsylvanians would consider it a most1 Life and Public Servi ces of Wi lliam P i tt Fessenden, vol. i . , p. 1 12.

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430 Po l itical H istory of Secession

would weaken hi s candi dacy among those who had beenformerly workers in , or in sympathy wi th , the Americanor Know-nothi ng party ; as before stated that party in 1 855had elected governors in nine Northern States and fortythree members of Congress and its strength in the comingcampaign was an unknown and uncertai n quantity . Sew

and had al so gai ned the favor of the Catholi cs in NewYorkby hi s sid ing wi th them on questions growing out of

the d istribution of the school funds , but thi s also , it wasfeared , might exci te the hostility of themembers of the oldKnow-nothi ng party . Another argument used againstSeward was that he could not carry the States of Pennsylvania , Illinois , and Indiana . Andrew G . Curtin , theRepublican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania , and

Henry S . Lane, the Republican nominee for governor ofInd iana , threatened , so it was rumored , that the nomi nationof Seward meant certain defeat to them , and that if Seward were nominated , both Curtin and Lane woul d refuse tocontinue as gubernatorial cand idates . Thi s was a mosteffective argument for at that time both Pennsylvani a andInd iana held their State elections on the second Tuesdayin October and defeat in October meant certain defeat atthe presidential election . That the arguments , whateverthey were, were effective, was proved by the balloting onthe following day.

Thenominations were thenmadebut the greatest applausegreeted the nominations of Seward and Lincoln . Therewas renewed shouting when the nomi na tions of both wereseconded . There were many surprises in the first ballot .Upon calling the roll , the New England States d ividedtheir votes between Lincoln and Seward . Neither RhodeIsland nor Connecticut gave Seward a vote. Virginia ,which had been expected to vote for Seward ,

gave him onlyeight and gave fourteen for Lincoln . Illinois and Ind ianavoted solidly for Lincoln , but Michi gan , Wisconsin , andMinnesota voted solidly for Seward . The Oregon delegation voted for Bates . On this ballot , Seward received

Pol itica l Campa ign of 1860 (Continued ) 43 1

173% votes and Lincoln 102 , the others sca tteri ng. On

the second ballot the Chase and Frémont votes of New

Hampshire all went to Lincoln , and he then got the

entire vote of Vermont . The Pennsylvanians gave 48 oftheir 54 votes to Lincoln . On thi s ballot Lincoln gained 79votes , the vote now stand ing for Seward , and

Lincoln ’s 1 8 1 , with a few scattering . The number of votesnecessary to a choicewas 233 , and before the third ballot wasconcluded Lincoln had received 23 1%— only lacking 1%votes of the number requi red to nomi nate him . The ex

citement was now intense. At this point Cartter of Ohiorose and announced the change of four votes in Ohio fromChase to Lincoln . Mr . Halstead describes the scene thatfollowed x “

The deed was done. There was a moment ’ssilence. The nerves of the thousand s , which through thehours of suspense had been subjected to terrible tension ,relaxed , and as deep breaths of relief were taken there wasa noise in the Wigwam like the rush of a great wind in thevan of a storm- and in another breath the storm was there.

Therewere thousand s cheering wi th the energy of insani ty .

”

A man who had been on the roof , and was engaged incommunicating the results of the ballotings to themightymass of outsiders , now demanded by gestures at the skylight over the stage to know what had happened . One of

the secretaries , wi th a tally-sheet in his hands , shouted‘Fire the salute ! Abe Lincoln is nominated ! ’ As thecheering in side the Wigwam subsided , we could hear thatoutside, where the news of the nomi nation had just beenannounced . And the roar , like the breaking up of the

fountains of the great deep , that was heard , gave a new

impul se to the enthusiasm inside. Then the thunder of

the salute rose above the d in , and the shouting was re

peated with such tremendous fury that some d ischargesof the cannon were absolutely not heard by those on the

stage. Puff s of smoke, d rifting by the open doors , and thesmell of gunpowder , told what was going on .

Halstead , p . 149.

432 Po litical H istory of Secess ion

Then followed speeches from the friends of Sewardthe various delegates who had voted for him- in supportof a motion to make the nomination of Lincoln unanimous .Nominations were then made for Vice-President , the

principal cand idates being Hannibal Hamlin of Maine,and Cassius M . Clay of Kentucky , and on the second ballot Hamlin was nomi nated , and then the convention ad

journed .

As before stated , the conventions of the two ri val factionsof the Democratic party had adjourned at Charleston , theregular convention to meet at Baltimore on June 1 8 , the

seceders to meet at Richmond , Virg inia , on the secondMonday in June. The regul ar convention , the

“rump ,

as Yancey sarcastically styled it , assembled at Baltimoreon the appointed day. Trouble began at once in determining the qualifications of those claiming to be entitledto participate in the proceedings of the convention , andthis was the first matter to engage the attention of the

convention . On the first roll call there were no responseswhen the States of South Carolina , Georgi a , Florida , Alabama , Loui siana , Mississippi , and Texas were called , and

but one delegate answered for Arkansas . It appeared ,

however , that there were a number of persons presentclaimi ng seats as delegates from all the States except SouthCarolina. Some had been appointed originally as delegates to the Charleston convention and some had not ;

some had been appointed ,or claimed to have been ap

pointed , to fill the vacancies made by the Charlestonseced ing delegates , but there was in nearly all such casesa d ispute as to the valid ity of their appointment . Therewere also various contests , some between two entireState delegations , each claiming to be entitled to sit asrepresentatives of the same State, and some betweenindi vidual contestants . The committee on credentialscould not agree and on the second day asked further time,and di d not make any report until the fourth day, whenit submitted a ma jority and two minority reports .

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434 Political H istory of Secession

delegates to it were in the habit of attendi ng the sess ionsand mingling with the delegates , of the Baltimore convemtion , though not taking part in the proceed ings . Allud ingto them , King said that the Richmond convention “

had

not ad journed , but simply tooka recess ; and its memberscome here as the man went to camp meeting— because hehad a right to go . They come here only for mischi ef , and ,

if they could not have their own way , intended to go backand nominate somemanwho had not heels or bottom enoughto get the nomination of this convention and run him againstthe regular nominee of the Democratic party made here.

They would never get in here by his vote, so help him God .

Would not such men have their own way at Richmond ? Word was sent from Washing ton to Richmondby certain parties who had better been mind ing their ownbusiness there, encouraging these seceders to come to Baltimore.

‘Come back,

’ it was said ,

‘come backand we have

good reason to believe your platform will be conceded toyou , and , if not , you can go away again .

’ Then they saidVirginia had got to go too , and , of course, Kentucky wouldfollow Virginia . Virginia was almost the only State thatthe Democrats of this State looked up to . North Carolinathey reckoned would go and Tennessee will follow her

mammy . Some, he supposed , calculated upon Missourifollowing sui t . And then it had been said that the nomination of Douglas would be denounced as equally sectionalwith thatof Lincoln . If nothing elsewould do , theywould denounce this as a bogus convention . They had the opinionof the highest legal authority , Washington

’ s AttorneyGeneral B lack, he supposed , that thi s convention was f unctus ofi

’ici o, the moment it ad journed at Charleston , and so

these seceders were to go to Richmond and make a nomimation , and turn round and call us bogus . He did not

believe these men were backed by their constituents , orthat they would be able to set the world on fire or d is

solve the Union . Let them leave the party if they wi shed ,there were plenty of good men remaining.

”

Pol itica l Campaign of 1860 (Continued ) 435

The majori ty report of the credentials committee recommended the seating of certain delegates named as the dulyaccred ited delegates of the States of Mississi ppi , Louisi ana ,

Arkansas , Texas , Alabama , and Georgi a , and the seatingof certain indivi dual delegates whose seats were contested ,

one in Delaware, one in Missouri , and one in Massachu

setts , their recommendations being embod ied in a seriesof nine resolu tions accompanying their report . On the

fifth day a vote was taken on the main minori ty report ,which was defeated by a vote of 150 to A di visionhaving been called for, a vote was taken on each of the

resolutions of the majority report separately , which resultedin all of them being adopted .

Up to this time the New York delegation had been re

garded as a doubtful quantity , but all its thirty-five voteswere now cast in favor of the majority report of the creden

tials committee. The significance of thi s vote was that itsecured for Douglas a majority of the delegates and insured his nomination . At this point the convention beganto go to p ieces . Russell of Virginia at once announcedthe wi thdrawal from the convention of a large majority of

the delegation of that State, and thi s was speedi ly followedby similar announcements of withdrawals , of a majority ,or a considerable part , of the delegations of North Carolina ,Tennessee, and Kentucky . On the next day there weremore withdrawals and before the balloting began the entiredelegations of California and Oregon withdrew , and variousothers , among them fifteen of the Massachusetts delegation ,includ ing Caleb Cushing , the president of the convention ,and Benjamin F . Butler . The latter gave as one of hi s

reasons for withdrawing that “he could not sit in a convention where the African slave trade— which is piracy bythe laws of my country— is approvingly advocated .

” Thiswas said in reference to the speech of Gaulden of Georgiaadvocating the reopening of the African slave trade, a repetition of the same speech whi ch he had made in the Charlestonconvention . Butler had heard thi s at Charleston wi thout

436 Po l itica l History of S ecess io

any perceptible shock and remained until the close of the

convention , voting on all the fifty-seven ballots . His

sudden and unexpected spasm of conscience amused the

delegates and was greeted with derisive laughter .Therewere few gusts of passion on the part of the seced ing

delegates . Most of them apparently felt the sobering influence of the responsibility resting upon them , and ex

pressed in their speeches their appreciation of the gravi tyof the situation and of the weighty consequences likely tofollow breaking up the convention and d isrupting the old

Democratic party under whose flag they had participated inso many hard —fought battles . The most notable exceptionwas the speech of a Northern man , that of Smith of California , who on retiring made a virulent speech insulting tothe Douglas men ,

and so ill—timed and i ll-mannered thatthe president of the convention ruled him out of order.The speeches of the wi thdrawi ng delegates , however , whilegenerally cour teou s in tone, were significant as manifestinga deep-seated determination to yield nothing of the demandsof the South .

When Cushing resigned the presidency of the conventionhe took his seat with the Massachusetts delegation and

ex-Governor David Tod of Ohio ,one of the vice-presidents ,

occupied the presid ing officer ’s chair . Then the ballotingbegan on the nom inations for President . On the firstballot the whole vote cast was 190% of whi ch Douglasreceived the other votes being scattered . On thesecond ballot Douglas received 18 1% votes and was

declared the nominee. Benjamin Fitzpatrick of Alabamawas nominated for Vice-President but declined the nomination and Herschel V . Johnson of Georg ia was afterward ssubstituted in hi s place. At 10 PM . on the sixth day, June23 , the convention ad journed .

The seceders from the Baltimore convention assembledat the Maryland Institute hall in Baltimore on June 23

and organized by electing Caleb Cushing president of theconvention . There were present full delegations from

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438 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

Douglas Democrats present and the anti-Douglas leadershad everythi ng their own

‘

way , we may read ily accept theaccount of the Ri chmond Enqui rer whi ch states that thevery brief session of the convention was characterized by“great enthusiasm ”

and that “all the proceedi ngs were

conducted with a calmness , di gnity , and decorum whichwe have never seen excelled .

There were the usual formal notifications to the can

di dates nominated by the various conventions of theirrespective nominations , of which fact , accord ing to a time

honored political fiction , they were supposed to have beenpreviously wholly ignorant , and then the campaign opened .

The first session of the Thirty-sixth Congress continued until June 25 , 1 860 . Davi s , af ter the nomination of

Douglas , continued to hang over him like a vampi re.

Douglas ’s nomi nation seemed to have added fresh venomto Davis ’s hatred of him and the Mississippi Senatoravailed himself of the first opportunity to make a savageonslaught in the Senate on the doctrine of

“squatter sovereignty. In the senatorial debates he so far oversteppedthe ord inary courtesies of the Senate as to make severalpersonal allusions to Douglas of an off ensive character .At one time he said , referring , as every one understood , to

Douglas : “I would sooner have an honest man on anykind of a rickety platform you coul d construct than tohave a man I did not trust on the best platform that couldbemade.

” 1 Senator Wigfall of Texas also made a speechin the Senate sneering at Douglas as a man

“who had

deserted the principles of our party .

”The Republicans

could not help Douglas , because they also were Opposedto the doctrine of popular sovereignty , and so remained ,

for the most part , silent , though far from ind iff erent ,spectators of the battle between the rival Democraticleaders .

Davis continued to press the passage of the resolutionsintroduced by him in the early part of the session . So

Cong. Globe, 36th Cong . , I st sess. , pt. iii . , p . 2155.

Po l itica l Campa ign of 1860 439

completely d id he dominate the Senate that all the resolutions passed by decisive majorities , every Northern Demoerat voting for them except Pugh and Douglas , the latterbeing absent .Douglas throughout the session had fought a losing , ia

deed a hopeless , fight against Davis and his Democraticallies . These were aided by all the power of Buchanan

'

s

Admini stration , which pursued Douglas with a vindictiveness scarcely inf erior in its malignant spiri t to that of Davi shimself . Nevertheless Douglas continued to be, as he hadbeen from the beginning , conspicuous as the hero of the

session .

He denounced Yancey and hi s fellow-bolters from the

Charleston convention as d isunioni sts , di vining and exposing their plans with marvelous preci sion . After quotingfrom the articles of the Southern League and from Yancey ’sletter to Slaughter he said : “

The first article of the

Southern League explains Yancey’s whole plan— that our

motto shall be ‘a Southern confederacy .

’ Mr . Yancey ’splan was to remain in the organization of the Democraticparty ; form the Southern League, bound by secrecy , fora Sou thern confederacy— involving di sunion , of course ;wait in the Democratic party until the proper momentcame, and then by a sudden movement d isrupt the partyand plunge the cotton States into revolution . The proofis here clear that d isunion was Mr . Yancey 's object . Aseparate Southern confederacy was his whole end . He

believed the South could not find safety anywhere else.

His plan was to keep in the Democratic party until theproper moment came for revolution , then plunge the cottonStates into it , breakup the party and with the party thenational conf ederacy . Sir , I cannot doubt but that thi swasMr . Yancey ’s plan. I submit to the Senate and the countrywhether the ‘

proper moment ’ selected by him was not theCharleston convention , and whether the secession of thesesame States at Charleston was not in obed ience to that

Cong. Globe, 36th Cong . , I st sess. , pt. iii., pp. 232 1-50.

440 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

plan ? I do not mean to say , nor do I believe, that all themen who approved or defended that secession were di sunionists , but I do believe that d isunion was the promptingmotive that broke up that convention .

”x He was un

sparing in his denunciation of the Buchanan Admini stration . Thi s shows the folly ,

”he said ,

“of attempting to

erect any one man as an idol to be worshipped , whose nodis to be authority to Senators and Representatives . Itshows the folly of allowing the President and hi s Cabinetto tell us what our duty is . I concede to the executivebranch of the government freedom of thought and actionin the performance of all the functions vested in him by theConstitution ; but when it comes to voting on a measureI am as independent of him as he is of me. He has no

more right to tell me how I shall vote than I have to tellhim what he shall recommend , or whether he shall sign or

veto a bill. Sir , whenever I shall recognize the President ,be he who he may, of what party he may, as the head of

my party to tell me how I shall vote in this chamber, Ishall d isgrace as well as betray the sovereignty of the

State that sent me here. No , sir , republics are a sham un

less the representatives of the States are as independentof the executive as he is of them .

” 2

The Democratic and Republican platforms containedplanks on subjects other than slavery , such as the annexation of Cuba , the Pacific railroad , and the tariff , but noneof them now interested the people. All interest was focused on the one subject of slavery . The one cardi nalquestion was that of its extension or restriction . It couldnot be hidden , obscured , or evaded by any sort of phraseology in any platform . It was upon this question that allmen talked , wrote, and thought , and probably not a singlevote was cast in the ensuing election that was not influ

enced chi efly by the voter ’ s convictions on this one question.

The American party amounted to but little in the cam

Cong . Globe, 36th Cong . , I st sess. , pt. i ii . , p . 2 154.2 Id. , pt. iii . , p . 2 152.

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442 Pol itical H istory of Secess ion

Republican cand idate. Who is this huckster in politics ?Who is thi s county court advocate? ” sneered WendellPhillips , speaking of Lincoln shortly after hi s nomination ;and Garrison published in the Liberator of June 2 , 1860 , anarticle headed ,

“Abraham Lincoln , the slave-hound of.

Illinois , beginning with this sentence : “We gibbet a

Northern hound to-day, side by side with the infamousMason of Virginia .

”1

Many of Seward ’s friend s felt that he had been sacrificedin the Chi cago convention to exped iency , and that Lincolnwas wearing the crown that rightfully belonged to Seward .

Seward was still f aci le princeps in the Republican councilsand the great body of Republicans in the North still lookedto him rather than to Lincoln for counsel and guidance.

If Seward himself felt anythi ng like resentment againsteither Lincoln or the Republican party for his defeat henever showed the least sign of it by word or action . He

d id not sulkin his tent but at an early period in the cam

paign he began an extensive speaking tour in behalf of theRepublican ticket that embraced most of the NorthernStates . His itinerary took him as far west as Kansas andresembled a triumphal tour . Great ovations awaitedhim at every stopping point , and enormous crowd s listenedwith breathless interest whenever he spoke, and everywhere hi s words left a deep and lasting impression , especi ally upon the old Whigs and the Germans . His speech atDetroit to an immense aud ience on September 4 , 1 860 , wasprinted in all the principal Republican papers in the Northand undoubtedly carried great weight .In the North one of the most noted of the Republican

speakers was Carl Schurz‘

of Wisconsin , a German by birth .

He had not only mastered the Engli sh language well enoughto spea kand to write it , but he had become thoroughly i ami liar with its strength and classic beauty . His speecheswere ma sterpieces of political oratory . They were especially influential with the Germans , many of whom had

Wi lliam Lloyd Garri son, by his children, vol. iii. , p . 503.

Po l itica l Campaign of 1860 (Conti nued ) 443

al lied themselves in 1856 wi th the Democratic party , somebecause of its Opposition to the Know-nothings

, othersbecause of its opposition to the so-called “sumptuarylaws ." But the Germans were lovers of liberty . Theytrusted their countryman , Schurz , and in locali ties wherethere was a large German vote Schurz ’s speeches wereprobably more potent than all others in inducing the

voters of that national ity to vote the Republican ticket .Prominent among the newspapers that espoused the

Republican cause was the New York Tri bune. Mentionhas already been made of its influence in the formation of

theRepubli can party . Its ed itorials in opposition to slaveryhad left a lasting imprint upon mul titudes of Northernvoters . It had a great ci rculation and was a powerfulfactor in securing the success of the Republican cand idates .Douglas made a bold but hopeless fight . By nature he

was of a hopeful di sposition . In all his previous politicallife, in whi ch he had fought many hard-contested politicalbattles , he had been victorious . But , whatever may havebeen hi s hope at the beginning of the campaign , he was tood iscerning a politician not to see, as the campaign progressed , that all the political signs forecast hi s defeat . The

Republicans of the North were uni ted and enthusiastic .

So were the Democrats of the South , but they were enthu

siastic for Breckinridge— not for Douglas . In both Northand South the Buchanan Admini stration was fightingDouglas wi th unrelenting and unceasing vindi ctiveness .It is scarcely poss ible, says oneof Douglas

’

s biographers ,for the people of this generation to have a proper appreciation of the di fficulties under whi ch Senator Douglas laboredand the obstacles wi th which he was conf ronted duringthat great campaign. He was a Democrat nomi nated bya convention which represented a great majori ty of hi s

party ; yet, wi th all the bitterness and malice of revenge,the President and the whole Admini stration (a Presidentand Administration to whose success in gaini ng the election

Carr, Life of Douglas , p. 100.

444 Po l itica l H istory o f Secession

he had contributed more than any other human being)pursued him wi th malignant hatred from the opening of

the campai gn to its close. Every possible inducement wass till held out to Democrats to turn against Douglas . The

best offices wi thin the gi ft of the President-_ marshalships ,collectorships , postmasterships— were off ered to Democratsas a reward for turni ng against Douglas . Democrats werestill g iven to understand that support of Douglas closedevery avenue to position , but that they might be favoredif they should make a record of antagonism to Douglas .”

One cannot look upon Douglas at thi s critical period of

hi s life wi thout a feeling of sympathy , not unmingled wi thadmi ration . The fates were now against him . Most men

in hi s si tuation woul d have been appalled and unnerved ;but Douglas , bold and defiant , continued to fight like a

lion at bay . He entered upon a speaking campaign , makingspeeches in many places in the South as well as in the

North . To a question put to him at Norfolk , Virgi nia ,whether the Southern States would be “justified in seced

ing from the Union if Abraham Lincoln was elected President ,

” Douglas , promptly and without any attempt atevasion , replied : It is the duty of the President and of

others in authority under him to enf orce the laws of the

United States as Congress passes and the courts expoundthem ; and I , as in duty bound by my oath of fidelity to theConstitution , will exert all my power to aid the governmentof the United States in maintaining the supremacy of the

laws against all resistance from any quarter whatever .”

At Petersburg ,Virg inia , he said there was “no grievance

that can justify di sunion .

” Goaded by the bitter opposition of both the Buchanan Admini stration and the SouthernDemocratic leaders , Douglas

’s courage and patriotism bothseemed to rise to the occasion . At Raleigh , North Carolina , he sai d that

“there is one thing remaining to be done,in order to prove us capable of meeting any emergency ; andwhenever the time comes I tru st the Government will showitself strong enough to perform that final deed— hang a

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446 Politica l H istory of Secession

It was now plain to Douglas , as to all others , that hecould not be elected ,

but he d id not despair .“Mr . Lin

coln , he said ,

“is the next President . We must try tosave the Union . I will go South .

”He at ’

once canceledall his speaking engagements in the North and made a tourthrough the South , making an heroic but hopeless eff ortto stem the rising tide of secession .

In the presidential election in November following ,Lincoln received the electoral votes of all the free Statesexcept three from New Jersey , 169 in all ; Breckinridgethe electoral votes of all the Southern States , except thoseof Virg inia , Kentucky , and Tennessee, 72 in all ; Bell , theelectoral votes of Virg inia , Kentucky , and Tennessee, 29

in all ; while Douglas received only the electoral votes of

Missouri and three from New Jersey , 12 in all. The pOpu

lar vote was d istributed as follows

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

It will be seen from these figures that while Lincoln ’smajority over Douglas was Lincoln lacked nearlyone m illion of a majority of the popular votes . The voteby States showed that Bell and Breckinridge togetherreceived more than votes in the free States , whileLincoln and Douglas together received less thanvotes in the slave States . Lincoln d id not receive a singlevote in either North Carolina , South Carolina , Georg ia ,Tennessee, Louisiana Mississippi , Alabama , Arkansas ,Florida . or Texas. For

'

the first time in the hi story of the

government the question of the extension of slavery hadbeen made a d irect and di stinct political issue. Practical lyand for the first time, a solid North was arrayed againsta solid South .

The presidential campaign of 1 860 will ever be a memor

able one, memorable for the importance of the principles

Pol itica l Campa ign of 1860 (Confirmed ) 447

at stake,for the orators it called forth , for the high pitch of

exci tement to which the people were wrought up , but morememorable still because in the North the campai gn wasfought upon a higher moral plane than any other before or

since. The voter in order to decide the question at issued id not have to puzzle his brain over it as he would indecid ing questions of tariff or finance. It was a plainsimple question that went straight to his conscience and

demanded a decision by it .Looking back now over a period of more than fifty

years , the picture of Douglas stand s out in bold relief .For some years after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraskaact, he was looked upon by a large portion of the

people of the North with d istru st , and by many withaversion . Before the end of. the presidential campaignthey saw another Richmond in the field . It was indeedthe same man who had been so largely instrumental insecuring the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act, but he

himself had changed . In all the strange evolutions of

American politics , nothing is stranger than the politicaltransformation of Douglas . From a staunch ally of the

slavehold ing interests of the South , he had become theirmost courageous and determ ined antagonist . And whenthe crisis came with the firing on Fort Sumter , his attitudewas that of unswervi ng and uncompromi sing loyal ty to

the Union . He will be remembered in future history ,not for his record as a politician , but for his services as apatriot . If he had been loyally supported by the BuchananAdm inistration , and by the Southern Democratic leaders ,he would probably have been elected over Lincoln . Pos

sibly he might have been elected notwi thstand ing the

opposition of the Sou thern leaders i f he had received thesupport of the Buchanan Admini stration .

What might have been the result i f he had been elected isnowonly a matter of specul ation . It is certain , however , thatneither Douglas nor any other man could have reconciledthe advocates and the opponents of the extension of slavery .

448 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

Perhaps the election of Douglas might , for a time, haveprolonged the Union ,

but it wou ld al so have given slaverya new lea se of li fe, and as long as slavery conti nued it wouldhave been a di sturbing factor in poli ti cs and a menace topeace. It was impossi ble, as Lincoln had sai d , for the

country to endure permanently half free and half slave.

It mu st become all one or all the other . The Sou th woul dnever wi llingly have consented to its being all free and the

North woul d never have consented to its being all slave.

No peacem aker ,no Supreme Court decision , no compromise

could eff ect a las ting pea ce between Freed om and Slavery ,

and , without the enti re reconstruction of the Union itself ,there was but one way in which the slavery ques tion couldbe finally settled and tha t was by the old method of wagerof battle.

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450 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

lim its of South Carolina and generally to negotiateas to all other measures and arrangements proper to bemade and for the continuance of peace and amitybetween thi s Comm onwealth and the Government of

Washington .

In the light of subsequent developments we can now see

more clearly what were the plans , then not generally known ,of the leaders of the secession movement . That they con

templated secession in the event of Lincoln’s election , thereis no doubt . The more radi cal of them were in favor of

secession l ong before Lincoln’s election and were doubtless

glad of the pretext for secession which Lincoln ’s electionfurni shed . Nor is there any doubt that the leaders of

secession contemplated resort to arms , if necessary , to carryout their plans . But it was believed to be possible that thesecession movement mi ght be accomplished without resortto arms , or, at least , without resort to arms until theSouthern States should be fully prepared for it . In layingtheir plans}the secession leaders made several miscalculations as wi ll presently more fully appear .The second session of the Thirty-sixth Congress was

convened on December 3 , 1 860 . Its proceedi ng s werewatched in both North and South wi th intense interest .Before the assembling of Congress the President had prepared a tentative draft of his annual message and had

submitted it to Jefferson Davis , who made some sugges

tions whi ch the President approved . Davi s says thatsome alterations were subsequently made that he di d not

approve, but as the principal criticism whi ch hemade on themessage, as it was delivered , was that it denied the constitutional right of a State to secede,

it is fai r to infer that theresidue of themessage met wi th hi s full approval .

”

War Records , vol. i . , p . 1 1 1 .

Davis’s account of thi s matter is given in a manner that leaves nodoubt of its accuracy.

“While engaged ,"he says, “in the consultation with the Governor [of Mississippi] just referred to ,

a telegraphicmessage was handed to me from two members of Mr. Buchanan’s

Secess ion in B loom 45 1

The message was devoted almost wholly to a di scuss ionof the di stracted cond ition of the country , for which the

blame was laid chiefly on the opponents of the extensionof slavery . On the question uppermost in the minds of allmen , the threatened secession of the Southern States , _

the

substance of the message was that they had no constitu

tional right to go out of theUnion , but that theGovernmenth om ~

had no constitutional right to compel them t o stayin .

Mr . Blaine suggests that there were two Buchan ns i n the

closing months of the adm inistration— one the Buchananat the meeting of Congress in December , when he was stillsmarting under the result of the presidential election , the

other the Buchanan appalled by the d iscovery of the factthat secession ,

so long threatened , was no longer a poli ticalbogie, but a frightful real ity , and that it was near at hand .

cabinet, urging me to proceed immediately’ to Washington. Thisdispatch was lai d before the Governor and the members of Congressfrom the State whowere in conferencewith him , and it was decided thatI should comply with the summons. I was afterward informed thatmy associates considered me

‘too slow,

’

and they were probably correctin the belief that I was behind the general Opinion of the people of the

State as to the propriety of prompt secession. On arrival atWashington ,I found , as had been anticipated , that my presence there was de

sired on account of the influencewhich it was supposed I might exercisewith the President (Mr. Buchanan) in relation to his forthcoming mes

sage to Congress. On paying my respects to the President, he told methat he had finished the rough draft of his message, but that it was stillopen to revision and amendment

,and that he would like to read it to

me. He did so , and very kindly accepted all the modi fications whichI suggested . The messagewas, however, afterward somewhat changedand ,with great deference to thewisdom and statesmanship of its author,I must say that, in my judgment, the last alterations were unfortunate—so much so that when it was read in the Senate, I was reluctantlyconstrained to cri ticize it. Compared ,

however, with documents of

the same class which have since been addressed to the Congress of theUnited States, the reader of presidential messages must regret that itwas not accepted by Mr. Buchanan's successors as a model, and thathi s views of the Constitution had not been adopted as a guide in thesubsequent action of the Federal government."— Davis, Ri se and Fall,vol. i . , pp . 58

—9 .

452 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

But there can be no doubt that the Buchanan who wrotethe message was then wholly under the domination of the

Sou thern leaders . Of Buchanan at this period Mr . Blainesays : “Mr . Buchanan had always looked to the statesmen oi the South as a superior class ; and af ter a politicalli fe wholly spent in close associ ation and constant servicewi th them ,

it could not be expected that , even in a crisisthreatening destruction to the Uni on , he would breakaway from them in a day. They had fast hold of him , and

against the influence of the better men in his Cabinet theyused him for a time to carry out their own ends . Secessionists and Abolitioni sts Mr . Buchanan no doubt regarded as

equally the enemies of the Union . But the Secessioni stsall came from the party that elected him President , and theAbolitionists had all voted against him . The Abolitionists ,in which phrase Mr . Buchanan included all men of antislavery conviction , had no opportunity , even i f they haddesired , to confer with the President , while the Secessioni sts , from old and friendly association , were in daily and

intimate relations wi th him . They undoubtedly persuadedthe President by the most plausible arguments that theywere not in fault ; that the whole responsibility lay at thedoor of Northern anti-slavery men ; and that

,if these

d isturbers of the peace could be suppressed , all would bewell. It was under these influences , artfully insinuatedand persistently plied , that Mr . Buchanan was inducedto wri te his mi schievous and deplorable message of the

first Monday of December , 1860— a message whose evileff ect can never be estimated , and whose evil charactercan hardly be exaggerated .

” I

With his message, thePresident also submi tted an elaborate Opini on of Jeremiah Black, the Attorney-General ,written on November 20 . In this opini on Black arguedthat “war cannot be declared , nor a system of generalhostilities carried on by the central government againsta State,” and from this he concluded that “an attempt to

1 Blaine, Twenty Years, vol. i . , pp . 223—2 4.

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454 Politica l H istory of Secession

and unmistakable manner are wi thheld . It is strangethat the attorney-general , or anybody else, should com

plain against a company that keeps itself wi thi n bound s ,which are always thus clearly marked , and equally strangethat a company which has happened to trangress themshould come before us with the faintest hope of beingsustained . In such cases ingenuity has nothing to workwi th , since nothing can be either proved or di sproved bylogic or inferential reasoning . If you assert that a corporation has certain privileges , show us the words of the legislature conferring them . Failing in this , you must give up

your claim ,for nothing else can possibly avail you . A

doubtful charter does not exist ; because whatever is doubtful is decisively certain against the corporation .

” ll He

held the same views of theConstitution of the Uni ted States .It would not be profitable here to enter into an elaborate

analysis of the Opinion . There is room for argument toshow that the opinion , taken as a whole, did not justify theconstruction generally g iven to it at the time. Black’

s

version of it is clearly and favorably stated in his letters toSenator Henry Wilson .

2 In view of the subsequent conduct of the Attorney-General, and especi ally in view of the

part taken by h im in drafting the answer of the Presidentto the South Carolina Commissioners

,it is probable that

he did not intend his Opinion to bear the construction whichwas in fact generally given to it at that time and whichgave much comfort to the secession leaders and greatlydi sappointed and di scouraged the people of the North .

The secession of South Carolina gave a fresh impetus tothe cause of secession throughout the South . To inspireenthusiasm for secessionamong the people of South Carolina had not been d iffi cult

,for in the minds of the people

of that State there still rankled the recollection of the Forcebill and of President Jackson ’s summary suppression of

Opinion in Commonwealth vs. Erie N. E . R . R . Co.,27 P enn. St. ,

Essays and Speeches of Jeremi ah S . B lack, pp . 245—92.

Secess ion in B loom 455

nullification in 1832 . Nor was there much d iffi culty ingaining converts in the other cotton States— Mississippi ,Florida , Alabama , Georgia , Louisi ana , and Texas— althoughin the earlier period of the secess ion movement there was aconsiderable anti-secession feeling in Georgia which foundexpression in a speech of Alexander H . Stephens to the

Georgi a Legi slature on November 14 ,

In thi s speech Stephens declared that the election of

Lincoln di d not, per se, justify secession and advised waiting until Lincoln should do some

“unconstitutional act .

The speech was widely heralded in the North as a Uni onspeech and Lincoln wrote to Stephens for a copy of i t butgot no encouragement from the subsequent correspondence.

’

When Stephens’

s speech was carefully exam ined it was seenthat the kind of Union which he had in m ind was the same

as Cal houn ’s . He thought that it would be suffi cientcause for secession i f the Northern States should refuse torepeal their personal liberty bill s and redress other grievanoes enumerated in the Georgia platform .

“I stand ,

”

he said ,

“upon the Georgia platform and upon every plank

and say that if these aggressions therein provided for takeplace,

I say to you and the people of Georgia ,‘keep your

powder dry and let your assailants have lead i f needHe wanted the question of secession submitted to a convemtion , and i f the convention should determi ne to go out of

the Union he would “bow to the will of the people.

”But

Stephens’

s protest agai nst secession , m ild as it was , availednothi ng against the fiery appeals of such men as HowellCobb and Senators Toombs and Iverson . His loyal ty tothe Union di d not prevent him from accepting the VicePresidency of the Conf ederacy . A short time after hisspeech to the Georgia Legislature he made another inSavannah , Georgia , praising the new Confederacy and

lauding its constitution , in which he said that“its founda

tions are laid , its corner-stone rests , upon the great tru th

See McPherson, Hi story of the Rebellion, p . 20.

See War Between the States, vol. ii. , pp . 265—70.

Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

that the negro is not equal to the whi teman , that slaverysubordi nation to the superior race— is his natural and normalcondi tion .

” I

But until after the Montgomery congress , which di d

not convene until February 4 , 1 86 1 , Virg ini a , Maryland ,

North Carolina , Tennessee Arkansas , Kentucky ,and Missouri had refused to jom the secedi ng States .Therewas a strong Union sentiment in Maryland , Kentucky,and Missouri , in western Virginia , and in eastern Tennessee.

The border States hesitated for the further reason thatthey realized that in the event of civi l war these Stateswould be the first to see the invad ing armies of the North .

There was no cessation , however , in the workof perfecting the plans of the secession leaders for the formation of aConf ederate government and putting it upon a war footing .

It is amazing to see what was accomplished in the formation of the Confederacy and how it was accomplished .

The“protests of conservatives ,

” says Pollard 2 “werevoices against the wind . The Montgomery conventioncarried everything with swift and irresistible force, and

gave neither time for the popular alarm to take eff ect northe slightest opportunity for the popular judgment to re

cover control of its aff airs . In tru th what the thoughtfulhistorian must most deeply medi tate of the causes and

origi n of the late war is the extent to which the popularelement of the South was excluded from its inception . Itwas in constant subjection from the moment a conspiracyof Southern Senators at Washington held at arm

’s lengththe States and d ictated their course. Indeed there werecases where it was ignored to the extent of States passingord inances of secession , even after the leg islatures callingthe conventions had forbidden the eff ect of such ordi nancesuntil ratified by the vote of the masses . It had no di rectrepresentation in the convention at Montgomery . It didnot confirm its work. It had nothing to do wi th the

Greeley,American Conflict, vol. i . , p . 4 17.

Life of Davi s, p . 94,

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458 Po litica l H istory of Secess ion

that in times of profound peace the great mass of intelligentpeople, like those of New Yorkand Pennsylvani a , can bedominated for such long periods by a political machineoperated by a few men , ruling conventions , di ctating nominations , and controlling elections .

If we wi sh to understand how easily the mass of thepeople can be influenced , we have only to recall the mem

orable campaign of 1 840 , when the whole country, and

particularly the North , sang itself , by the singing of dog

gerel, into a delirium of excitement , and the election wasdetermined , not by sensible arguments , but by the exhi bi

tion of mini ature log cabins , coonskins , and hard cider .It is more d iff icult to explain how the great mass of non

slavehold ing whi te voters in the South , far outnumberingthe slavehold ing voters , became equally enthusiastic in thecause of secession , yet this is a well-established fact.

I

See the explanation off ered by Mr. David Y . Thomas in a paper onSouthern Non-Slaveholders in the Election of 1860, Poli tical ScienceQuarterly, vol. xxvi , p . 222 .

CHAPTER XXII

PREPARING PEACE PANACEAS

T the second session of the Thirty-sixth Congress petitions and memorials imploring Congress to devi se some

method by which war could be averted and peace could be

secured poured in from every quarter ; from legi slatures ,municipal organizations , commercial bod ies , from organizations of all kind s , and from ind ividual citizens . Everyman

in Congress and out of it seemed to have a peace panacea ofsome kind .

The first matter to engage the attention of Congress wasthe consideration of the President ’s annual message, andthe di scussions turned al together upon the al arming con

ditions then confronting the country . On December 4the House appointed a commi ttee of thirty-three, of whichThomas Corwin of Ohio was chairman , to consider and

report upon the condi tion of the country . Several of theSou thern members declined to serve and others failed to

attend or take part in the proceed ings of the commi ttee.

On December 1 8 Senator Cri ttenden of Kentucky introduced a series of compromise resolutions in the Senate.

On December 20 the Senate appointed a committee of

thirteen members , similar to the House committee of

thirty-three, consisting of Senators Powell, Crittenden ,Bigler , Hunter , Seward , Toombs , Davi s , Rice, Douglas ,Collamer , Wade, Doolittle, and Grimes

,all strong men

representing the various political parties of the country .

About the same time some seventy-five of the Senatorsand Representatives of the fourteen border States held a

459

460 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

meeting , of which Senator Crittenden was the chairman ,and adopted various peace propositions , in the main likethose which Senator Crittenden had introduced in the

Senate.

On January 8 , 1 86 1 , the President transm itted to Congressa special message in which he recommended that themem

bers devote themselves exclusively to the consideration of

the various peace propositions which had been proposed .

“Time,”he said ,

“is a great conservative power . Let u s

pause at this momentou s point and aff ord the people, bothNorth and South , an opportunity for reflection .

” Furtherhe said : “A common ground on which conciliation and

harmony can be produced is surely not unattainable. The

proposition to compromise by letting the North haveexclusive control of the territory above a certain line and

to give Southern institutions protection below that lineought to receive uni versal approbation . In itself , indeed ,

it may not be entirely satisfactory , but when the alternative is between a reasonable concession on both sides anda destruction of the Union it is an imputation upon thepatriotism of Congress to assert that its members willhesitate for a moment.

” I

On January 19 , 1 861 , the General Assembly of Virginiaadopted a resolution reci ting the unhappy controversywhich now di vides the States of this confederacy ” and thatunless satisfactorily adjusted “a permanent d issolution of

the Uni on is inevitable,

”and resolving :

“That on behalfof the commonweal th of Virginia an invitation is herebyextended to all such States , whether slaveholdi ng or non

slavehold ing , as are willing to unite with Virgini a in anearnest eff ort to ad just the present unhappy controversiesin the spirit in which the Constitution was orig inally formhdand consistently wi th its principles , so as to aff ord to thepeople of the slavehold ing States adequate guarantees for thesecurity of their rights , to appoint comm issioners to meeton the fourth day of February next in the City of Washi ng

P residents’ Messages and P apers , etc. ,

vol. v . , p . 657.

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462 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

how far sensible men had been swept from their mooringsby the flood of secession talk. Of the propositions considered one was submitted by Charles Francis Adam s ofMassachusetts and was afterwards incorporated in the

committee’s report . This recommended an amendmentof the Constitution provid ing that

“no amendment of the

Constitution having for its object any interference wi thinthe States with the relations between their ci tizens and

those described in section second of the first article of the

Constitution as ‘all other persons’ shall ori gi nate wi th any

State that does not recognize that relation wi thi n its ownbounds , or shall be valid without the assent of every one

of the States composing the Union .

Noel of Missouri proposed that the committee be 1n

structed to inqu ire and report as to the exped iency of

abolishi ng the office of President of the United States andestablishing in lieu thereof an Executive Council of threemembers to be elected by d istricts composed of contiguousStates as nearly as possible, each member to be armed

wi th a veto power ; and al so as to whether the equilibriumof free and slave States in the United States Senate cannotbe restored and preserved , particularly by a voluntary division of some of the slave States into two ormore States .

”

Anderson of Missouri wanted “to refer the questions at

i ssue between the free and slave States to the Supreme

Court of the United States for their opinion , and whenobtained , that Congress should pass all necessary laws forgiving effect to the opinion of said Court .

”

Vallandigham of Ohio submitted an elaborate scheme

for d ivid ing the States into four sections , Maine, NewHampshi re, Vermont , Massachusetts , Rhode Island , Con

necticut, New York , New Jersey , and Pennsylvani a to

constitute one, to be known as the North ; Ohio , Indiana , Illinois , Michigan , Wisconsin , Minnesota , Iowa , and

Kansas another , to be known as the West ; Oregon and

Californi a and all new States carved out of the territorywest of the Rocky Mountains and the R io Grande to

Preparing Peace Panaceas 463

constitute another , to be known as the Pacific ; Delaware,

Maryland ,Virgi nia , North Carolina , South Carolina ,

Georgi a , Florida , Alabama , Mississippi , Louisiana , Texas ,Arkansas

,Tennessee,

Kentucky , and Missouri to constituteanother , to beknown as the South ; together wi th a complicated system of checks and balances .

The committee on January 14 , 186 1 , reported a seri es of

propositions , twenty-five in all . Accompanying the reportof themajority of the commi tteewere ni neminority reports .One of them was by Charles Francis Adams , who ,

on furtherreflection , condemned his own proposition , inasmuch as

“no form of adjustment wi ll be satisfactory to the recusantStates which does not incorporate into the Constitutionof the United States a recognition of the obligation to

protect and extend slavery .

”For this reason he was op

posed to the further introduction of any measures whatever for the consideration of the House. The absence of

so many members of the committee at its meetings and thei rreconcilable d ivergence of vi ews of the remaini ng numberdetracted largely from the strength which the report mightotherwise have carried . NO vote was taken on the propositions of the commi ttee until February 28 and the

vote on the last of them was not taken until March I .All were passed but their passage then was too late inthe session to secure any good results .The Crittenden resolutions‘ proposed six amendments

to the Constitution of the United States . Article 1 pro

vided for the prohibition of slavery north of lattitude 36°

30'but that “in all the terri tory south of said line of

latitude slavery . of the African race is hereby recognizedas existing and shall not be interfered with by Congress ,but shall be protected as property by all the departmentsof the territorial government duri ng its continuance,

”

thus incorporating, not only into the laws , but also into theConstitution of the United States the principle of the DredScott decision and provid ing against the contingency of

Cong. Globe, 36th Cong . ,2d sess. , pt. i . , p. 1 14.

464 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

its being overruled by the Court whi ch decided it . Article2 prohibited Congress from abolishing slavery in placesunder its exclusive jurisd iction and situate wi thin the limitof States that permit the hold ing of slaves .” Article 3prohibited Congress from abolishing slavery in the Districtof Columbia “so long as it exists in the ad joini ng States ofVirg inia and Maryland , or either , nor wi thout the consentof the inhabitants , nor wi thout just compensation firstmade to such owners of slaves as do not consent to suchabolishment . It also prohibited Congress from interferingwith the rights of

“off icers of the Federal government or

members of Congress ” to“bring and hold their slaves

there.

” Article 4 provided that Congress shall have no

power to prohibit or hinder the transportation of slavesfrom one State to another , or to a Territory in which slavesare by law permitted to be held , whether that transportationbe by land , navigable rivers , or by the sea .

” Article 5provided :

“That in addi tion to the provisions of the thirdparagraph Of the second section of the fourth article of the

Constitution of the United States , Congress shall havepower to provide by law, and it shall be its duty so to provide

,that theUnited States shall pay to the owner who shall

apply for it , the full value of his fugitive slave in all caseswhen the marshal or other offi cer whose duty it was toarrest said fugitive was prevented from so doing by vio

lence or intimidation,or when

,after arrest

,said fugitive

was rescued by force, and the owner thereby preventedand obstructed in the pursuit of his remedy for the recoveryof his fugitive slave under the said clause of the Constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof . And in all

such cases when the United States shall pay for such fugitive they shall have the ri ght in their own name to sue the

county in which said violence,intimidation , or rescue was

committed , and to recover from it , with interest and damages , the amount paid by them for said fugitive slave. And

the said county , after it has paid said amount to the Uni tedStates , may,

for its indemnity , sue and recover from the

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466 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

the slightest attention to the recommendation of Virginiathat while the peace convention was in session the seced ingStates and the general government should abstain from all

acts “calculated to produce a collision of arms ,”but con

tinned their warlike preparations with unabated vigor .Nevertheless most of the Northern States courteously re

sponded to the invitation and sent commissioners, but

with various restrictions on their authority and in severalinstances expressly declining to commit themselves to an

approval of. the Virgini a plan of ad justment or to adm itthe necessity of any amendment of any kind to theConstitution of the Uni ted States .

I

The peace conf erence commissioners met in Washi ngtonon February 4 , 186 1 , and proceeded to organize.

2 ExPresident John Tyler , of Virginia , was selected as permanentpresident , and he addressed the conf erence in a speech fullof florid rhetoric . Before the close of the convention therewere present delegates from Maine and Iowa , which wererepresented by their respective congressional delegations ;delegates from Tennessee, Ohio ,

Kentucky , Delaware,Illinois , New Jersey , New York, Pennsylvania , Massachusetts , Rhode Island , and Missouri , appointed by theirrespective legislatures ; delegates from New Hampshire,Vermont , Connecticut , Maryland , North Carolina , Indi ana ,and Kansas , appointed by their respective governors .The following Northern States were not representedMichigan , Wisconsin , Minnesota , California , and Oregon .

The seven States which had already seceded , namely ,South Carolina , Florida , Georgia , Alabama , Mississippi ,Arkansas , and Texas , were not represented . Lou isianawas also unrepresented . One of the rules adopted provided that “all votes shall be taken by States , and eachState to give one vote.

” A committee on resolutions was

Chittenden, Peace Conventi on , pp . 454—64 .

2 A full report of the proceedings is contained in Chittenden’s P eaceConventi on; see alsoAppleton’s Annual Cycloped ia for 1 86I ; McPherson,

Hi story of the Rebelli on, p . 67.

Preparing Peace Panaceas 467

appointed consisting of onemember from each of the Statesrepresented , of whi ch James Guthrie of Kentucky was madechai rman .

More harmony was shown in the conf erence than mighthave been expected and the debates were conducted withdecorum . At one time

, however , Mr . Stockton , a delegatefrom New Jersey , whose sympathies were, however , verypronounced in favor of the South , became very muchexci ted over some remark of Lot M . Morrill of Maine

,and

exclaimed :“If the gentleman from Maine wants to get

up a row, we are ready for him . He shall have enough of

it right here. I should like to know why he makes suchcharges against Virgi nia ? They are unfounded ; we don

’ twant to hear them .

” x Stockton , however , was promptlysuppressed and afterward the debates went on smoothl y .

It is apparent , however , in read ing the reports of the

proceedings that there was from the beginning an irreconcilable di vergence of views and that no substantial resultswould be gained by the conference. It was clear that thesympathi es of the slavehold ing States which had not yet

seceded were with those whi ch had al ready done so , and

that the former would at once ally themselves with thelatter in the event that any attempt at

“coercion ” should

be made by the Federal government . James A . Seddonof Virginia took a very active part in the proceed ings ,speaking on all the resolutions adopted . In one of his

speeches he sai d Why should you undertake to interferewi th the policy of a neighboring State concerning a peopleabout which you know nothi ng? We feel, we know , thatwe have done that race no wrong . Deep into the Southernheart has thi s feeling penetrated . For scores of years wehave been laboring earnestly in our mission . In al l thistime we have contributed far more to the greatness of theNorth than to our own . Yet all this time we have beenassailed ,

attacked , vi lified , and defamed by the people of

the North , from the cradle to the grave, and you haveChittenden, Peace Conventi on , p. 149.

468 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

educated your children to believe us monsters of brutali ty ,lust , and iniquity .

“You say that the whole power of the country, the

whole power of the adm ini stration , shall be used infuture for the final extinction of slavery . Thi s , now,

is the ruling idea of your great sectional party . It issimply the rule of one portion of the country over another .There is no d iff erence between attacking slavery in the

States and keeping it out of the Territories . It is onlyd rawing a paral lel around the citadel at a more remotepoint . In my deliberate judgment , the Uni on and

the Constitution , as they now stand,are unsafe for the

people of the South , unsafe without other guaranteeswhich will give them actual power instead of mere paperrights . Her stake in this controversy is too deep . In myjudgment she has asked too little ; I think fuller and greaterguarantees ought to be required , and that this conventionshould not stand upon ceremony

, but in a free and liberalspiri t of concession should yi eld to us all that we ask.

” I

To this George M . Boutwell of Massachusetts repliedI have not been at all clear in my own mi nd as to when ,

and to what extent , Massachusetts should raise her voicein this convention . She heard the voice of Virginia ,expressed through her resolutions in this crisi s of our

country’s history . Massachu setts hesitated ,

not becauseshe was unwilling to respond to the call of Virgini a , butbecause she thought her honor touched by the manner ofthat call and the circumstances attend ing it. She had

taken part in the election of the sixth of November . Sheknew the result . It accorded well wi th her wi shes . She

knew that the government whose political head for thenext four years was then chosen , was based upon a Constitution which she supposed still had an existence. She saw

that State after State had left that government— seceded

is the word used ; had gone out from this great confederacy,and were defying the Constitution and the Union.

Chi ttenden, P eace Convention, pp . 94, 95.

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470 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

wi ll faithfully abide by their constitutional obligations, and

remain in the Uni on until their rights are in fact invaded ,all will be well. But if they take the responsibility of

involving the country in a civil war , of breaking up the

government which our fathers founded and our people love,but one course remains to those who are true to thatgovernment . They must and will defend it at every sac

rifice— if necessary , to the sacrifice of their lives .

” I

Salr'

non P . Chase of Ohio was equally explicit , sayingI have listened wi th attention to the appeals made bygentlemen who urge the interests of the South in favor of asettlement of these questions . But you are nowprosecutinga plan which wi ll be the subject of debate throughout thecountry . Adopt your article in either form , and the

question , What does sta tus mean ? will still remain .

“A majori ty of the people have adopted the Opinion thatunder the Constitution slavery has not a legal existencein the Territories . The triumph of this opinion is not theresult of any sudden impulse. A President has been elected ,

and a government wi ll soon be organized , whose duty itwill be to respect and observe the Opinions of the people.

You are now seeking , by the adoption of a single section ,to change these opinions and this policy . Do not deceiveyourselves , gentlemen . You will never accomplish thisresul t so easily . You are presenting such a subject fordebate and excitement as the country never had before.

It is best we deal frankly .

” 2

On a later day he said :Gentlemen , Mr . Lincoln will be inaugurated on the

4th of March . He will.take an oath to protect and defendthe Constitution of theUnited States— of the whole— oi all

the United States . That oath will bind him to take carethat the laws be faithfully execu ted throughout the Uni tedStates . Will secession absolve him from that oath ? Willit dimini sh , by onejot or tittle,

its awful obligation? Willattempted revolution do more than secession ? And if not

Chi ttenden, P eace Convention , 98-102 . Id . , p . 327.

Preparing Peace Panaceas 47 1

-and the oath and the obligation remain— and the President does his duty and undertakes to enforce the laws ,and secession or revolution results , what then ? War !Civil war ! ” x

The final vote on the proposed amendments was takenon February 27, 186 1 , and they were on the same day

transmi tted to Congress wi th the request that that body“submi t it to the conventions of the States as ArticleThirteen of the Amendments to the Cons titution of the

United States .” The following is a copy of the proposedamendments :

ArticleXI II

Section 1 . In all the present terri tory of the UnitedStates north of the parallel of 36

°

30’of north latitude,

involuntary servi tude, except in punishment of cri me, is

prohibited . In all the present territory south of that line,the sta tus of persons held to involuntary service or labor ,as it now exists , shall not be changed ; nor shall any law bepassed by Congress or the territorial legislature to hinderor prevent the taking of such persons from any of the Statesof thi s Union to said territory , nor to impair the rightsarising from sai d relation ; but the same shall be subjectto judi cial cogni zance in the Federal courts , accordi ng tothe course of the common law. When any Territory northor south of said line, within such boundary as Congressmay prescribe, shall contai n a population equal to thatrequired for a member Of Congress , it shall , i f i ts form of

government be republican , be admi tted into the Unionon an equal footing with the original States

,wi th or wi thou t

involuntary servitude, as the constitution of such Statemay provide.

“Sec . 2 . No territory shall be acqui red by the United

States , except by d iscovery and for naval and commercialstations , depots , and transit routes , wi thout the con

Chittenden, Peace Convention, p. 433 .

472 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

currence of a majority of all the Senators from Stateswhi ch allow involuntary servitude, and a majority of all

the Senators from States which prohi bit that relation ;nor shall terri tory be acqu ired by treaty , unless the votesof a majority of the Senators from each class of Stateshereinbefore mentioned be cast as a part of the two-thirdsmajority necessary to the ratification of such treaty .

“Sec. 3 . Neither the Constitution , nor any amendment

thereof , shall be construed to give Congress power to regulate,

abolish , or control wi thin any State the relationestablished or recognized by the laws thereof touchingpersons held to labor or involuntary service therein , norto interfere wi th or abolish involuntary service in the

District of Columbia wi thout the consent of Marylandand without the consent of the owners , ormaking the ownerswho do not consent just compensation ; nor the power tointerfere wi th or prohi bit Representatives and others frombringing with them to the District of Columbia

,retaini ng

,

and taking away , persons so held to labor or servi ce ; northe power to interfere with or abolish involuntary servicein places under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Uni tedStates wi thin those States and Territories where the same

is established or recogni zed ; nor the power to prohibitthe removal or transportation of persons held to labor orinvoluntary service in any State or Territory of the UnitedStates to any other State or Territory thereof where it isestablished or recogni zed by law or usage, and the rightduring transportation by sea or river of touching at ports ,shores , and land ings , and of landi ng in case Of di stress , shallexist ; but not the right of transit in or through any Stateor Territory , or of sale or traffi c, against the laws thereof .Nor shall Congress have power to authorize any higherrate of taxation on persons held to labor or service than onland . The bringing into the District of Columbia of

persons held to labor or service, for sale, or placing them indepots to be afterwards transferred to other places for saleas merchandi se, is prohibited .

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474 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

The various sections of the amendments proposed by theconvention were voted upon separately . Upon the firstsection there was the greatest controversy and d ifferenceof opinion . The vote upon it was : yeas , Delaware, Illinois , Kentucky , Maryland , New Jersey , Ohio, Pennsyl

vania, Rhode Island , and Tennessee— 9 ; nays , Connecticut ,Iowa , Mai ne, Massachusetts , North Carolina , New Hampshire,

Vermont , and Virginia— 8 ; d ivided , New York and

Kansas ; not voting , Ind iana .

So that this section was adopted by a vote of only ni neStates . Moreover , but for the absence of David DudleyField of New York at the time of voting upon it, the voteof NewYork would have been against it.

I For the reasonsalready stated the report of the proceedi ngs of the peaceconvention went to Congress d iscred ited at the time of

its presentation . What little respect was paid to it in theSenate was on account of the courtesy felt to be due to themembers of the convention . Even thi s di d not preventsome of the Senators from expressing their contempt forthe work of the convention . The proposed amendmentsof the peace convention were more unsatisfactory to the

pro-slavery men of the South than they were to the anti

slavery men of the North . Senator Green of Missouridenounced them as “

wi shy-washy .

” Both the Virgini aSenators

,Hunter and Mason , denounced them as putting the

Southern States “in a far worse position than they wereoccupying under the present Constitution and with the

Dred Scott decision .

” They laid particular stress upon theindefini teness of the word s “

status”

and“course of the

common law” in the first section . Special objection was

also made to the concludi ng clause in Section 7 that Con

gress shall provide by law for securing to the citizens ofeach State the privileges and immuni ties of citizens in theseveral States .” Might not this

,itwas said , give Aboli

tion leaders the right to promulgate their doctrines in theslave States ? ” Various objections were also made to

Chittenden, Peace Convention, p . 596.

Preparing Peace Panaceas 475

other sections . They claimed that the Cri ttenden resolutions were far preferable to those of the peace convention ,and also, which was true, as had been argued by Chase inthe convention , that the plan recommended by the convention would lead to new controversies far more bitterand more complicated than any that had ever exi stedbefore.

Senator Wigfall, of Texas , on March 2 , in speaking of thepeace convention propositions ,‘said : As to the resolutionswhich the peace congress has offered us , we might as wellmake a clean breast of it . If those resolu tions were adopted ,

and ratified by three fourths of the States of thi s Union ,and no other cause ever existed , I make the assertion thatthe seven States now out of the Union would go out uponthat . The first proposition is to do what ? The Wilmotprovi so north of 36

°

30' north latitude, and a lawsuit

south of it . The next is to give the Federal governmentthe right to declare a free negro a citizen . Those two propositions would be enough of itself to d issolve the Union ,if nothing else were off ered .

”

On the final vote in the Senate the peace conventionpropositions were rejected . Owing to the fact that theywere presented to the House only a few days before itsadjournment , they could not be taken up wi thout di splacingthe regular order of business , and thi s coul d not be doneexcept by a two-third s vote, whi ch the propositions fai ledto receive, and so they fai led to get even somuch as a hearingin the House.

During the debate in the Senate on the peace conven

tion propositions , Senators Powell of Kentucky chargedthat “there is and has been a fixed purpose in certainquarters that the peace conference should do nothing ,

”

and in support of thi s charge he read a characteristicletter of Senator Chandler to Governor Austin Blair , of

Michigan .

2

Cong . Globe, 36th Cong . , 2d sess . , pt. p. 1373 .

Chittenden, Peace Convention, pp . 468—6 9.

:476 Politica l H istory of Secess ion

WASH INGTON , February 1 1 , 1861 .

MY DEAR GOVERNOR : Governor Bingham and myselftelegraphed you on Saturday , at the request of Massachu

setts and New York , to send delegates to the Peace or

Compromise Congress . They admi t that we were rightand that they were wrong ; that no Republican State shouldhave sent delegates ; but they are here and cannot get away .

Ohi o ,Indiana , and Rhode Island are caving in

,and there

is danger of Illinois ; and now they beg us , for God’s sake,

to come to their rescue, and save the Republican partyfrom rupture. I hope you will send stifl-backed men , or

none. The whole thing was gotten up against my judgment and advice, and will end in thin smoke. Still, I hopeas a matter of courtesy to some of our erring brethren , that

you will send the delegates .Truly your friend ,

Z . CHANDLER .

His Excellency AUSTIN BLAIR .

P . S .

— Some of the manufacturing States think that afight would be awful . Without a little blood-letting thi sUni on will not, in my estimation , be worth a rush .

”

The letter was not denied by Chandler , but it proves , notthat he and others , and there were many of them , who

thought as he d id were opposed to any compromise, butthat they believed it to be hopeless to expect that anycompromise that would be acceptable to both the Northand the South could be devised by the conference, and thatall its proceed ings would end ,

as they d id ,

“in thin smoke.

"

Crittenden ’s resolutions had been defeated in the Senateby tacking on an amendment proposed by Senator Clarkof New Hampshire on January 16 , whi ch took the lifeout of them ; but on March 2 , the last day of the session ,Crittenden managed to get another vote on them , whenthey were defeated by a vote of 19 yeas , 20 nays .

The most that was accomplished in Congress in uni tingupon any of the peace propositions was the passage by both

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CHAPTER XXIII

CONGRESS IONAL DEBATES ; CLOSE OF THE THIRTY-S IXTHCONGRESS

HE whole nationwas watching wi th intense interest theprogress of the various peace propositions in Congress

and out of it . The views of the people are not alwaysaccurately reflected in the utterances of their leaders , butin the debates in Congress we get a clearer idea than we canget from any other source of the feelings of the leadersthemselves and of the reasons that controlled their actions .It would not be profitable to attempt a synopsis of all

the speeches in the closing session of the Thirty-sixthCongress upon the cond ition of the country . Quotationsfrom a few of them will su ffi ce to show their general tenor . tSenator Clingman , of North Carolina , speaking of the

President ’ s message, made a courteous and fair presentationof the Southern view .

2 “As to the general tone of the

message,he said ,

“everybody will say that it is eminently

patriotic , and I agree with a great deal that is in i t ; but Ithink it falls short of stating the case that is now before thecountry . It is not, for example, merely that a dangerousman has been elected to the Presidency of the United States .We know that under our complicated system that mightvery well occur by accident and he be powerless ; but II deem it preferable to select some of themost striking passages and

to give these in thewords of the speakers themselves, instead of attempting an abridgment, for in any abridgment we get only the language of

the abridger. Fair abridgments will be found in Appleton’s AnnualCyclopedia f or 1 861 ; Victor's Southern Rebelli on, VOLi.

Cong . Globe, 36th Cong . ,2d sess. , pt. i . , p . 3

478

Congress iona l Debates 479

assert that the Pres ident-elect has been elected because hewas known to be a dangerous man . He avows the principle that is known as the

‘irrepressible confli ct.

’

He

declares that it is the purpose of the North to make warupon my section until its social system has been destroyed ,and for that hewas taken up and elected . That declarationof war is dangerous , because it has been indorsed by amajority of the votes of the free States in the late election .

It is this great , remarkable , and dangerous fact that hasfilled my section with alarm and dread for the future.

“The President says that he may be powerless by reason

of the Opposition in Congress now ; but that is only a temporary relief . Everybody knows that the majori ty whichhas borne him into the chair can control all the departmentsof this government . Why , sir , five or six of our conservative Senators have already to give place to others on the

4th of March ; and i f the others do not, it is simply becausetheir terms have not expired . Both the Senators fromIndiana and the Senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas] , andother gentlemen , would be beaten by that same majority ,i f i t were not that their terms have time to run . Theymust

,

however , be cut down at no d istant day. Not only that ;but i f the House of Representatives is divided to some littleextent , how long can it be so ? We all know that New

England has presented an unbroken front for some timepast ; and does any man doubt that the same organizationthat elected Abraham Lincoln can make a clear majority ofboth branches of Congress ? The eff orts of theAbolitionistswi ll be d irected to the few doubtful districts , and they wi llsoon be subjected to their control . So powerful and steadyis the current of their progress that it will soon overwhelmthe entire North . In this way they must soon control thePresident , both Houses of Congress , the Supreme Court ,and all the officers of the government . 32Wa

. _

sectional party ysrill wield -the the

departments of the government .But useis

"

Vi ew of the case. We are not

480 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

only to be governed by a sectional domination whi ch doesnot respect our ri ghts , but by one, the gui d ing principle of

whi ch is hostility to the Southern States . It is that,Mr.

President , that has alarmed the country ; and it is idle forgentlemen to talkto us about thi s being done accordi ng tothe form s of the Constitution .

Senator Iverson of Georgia said x You talk about re

pealing the personal li berty bills as a concession to the

South . Repeal them all to-morrow,sir , and it would not

stop the progress of this revolution . It is not your personalliberty bills that we dread . Those personal liberty billsare obnoxious to us not on account of their practical operation , not because they prevent us from reclaiming our

fug itive slaves , but as an evi dence of that deep-seated ,wide

spread hostility to our institutions , which must sooner orlater end in this Uni on in their extinction . That is thereason we object to your personal liberty bills . It is not

because that in their practical Operation they ever do anyharm . But , sir , i f all the liberty bills were repealed to-day,

the South would no more gain her fugitive slaves than ifthey were in existence. It is not the personal liberty laws ;it is mob laws that we fear . It is the existence and actionof the public sentiment of the Northern States that areopposed to this institution of slavery , and are determinedto break it down— to use all the power of the Federalgovernment , as well as every other power in their hands ,to bri ng about its ultimate and speedy extinction .

Disgui se the fact as you will there is an enmity between theNorthern and Southern people that is deep and enduring , and you never can erad icate it— never ! Lookat thespectacle exhi bited on this floor . How is it ? There are

the Republican Northefn Senators upon that si de. Hereare the Southern Senators on thi s side. How much socialintercourse is there between us ? You sit upon your side,silent and gloomy ! We sit upon ours wi th knit brows and

portentous scowls . Yesterday I observed that there wasCong. Globe, 36th Cong . ,

2d sess. , pt. i . , p . 1 1 .

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482 Politica l H istory of Secess ion

the continuance of thi s Uni on ; and the slaves thus carriedoff from the border States and sold to the South will -beconfined in a few years to some eight or ten of the Atlanticand Gulf States . Well , now,

look at the process . We

have now in the Southern States four and a half mi llionslaves . They increase, according to the census tables , atthe rate of about thirty-two per cent . every ten years . If

you precipitate all this slave population into the eight orten States to whi ch I have referred , in ten years from thistimewe shall have nearly six million slaves ; in twenty years ,eight or ninemillion ; in thirty years , twelveor fifteenmillion .

Sir , in less than twenty years from the present time, by thisinevi table process , the slave population of the SouthernStates will be largely predominant over the whites ; andthen will come universal emancipation by the action of theFederal government , or such scenes of murder between thetwo races as have never been seen or heard of in the world ’

s

history .

” In the same speech he said :“Sir , what com

promise has the North ever observed in good faith that wasOpposed to their interests or their prejudi ces ? None thatthe history of the country has ever recorded . I ask, then ,how can the South rely upon any guaranties which theNorth maymake to us in the Constitution , especially underthe circumstances which now exist , when those guarantieswill be wrung from them by duress ? For one, I have no

confidence whatever in the plighted faith , P uni ca fides , ofour Northern brethren ; and I am not willing , for one,

— and

I believe my constituents are not willing ,—to accept any

compromise of this question , no matter how plausible itmay be upon paper , because we know well that it will benothing more than a paper guaranty that is not worth thesnap Of a man ’s finger . So now you may tinker theConstitution , if you please ; you may propose concessions ;you may suggest addi tional legislation ; you may presentadd itional constitutional securities ; you may attempt byall these ingenious devices to stay the storm whi ch now ragesin the Southern States , to prevent that people frommarching

Congress iona l Debates 483

on to the deliverance and liberty upon which they are

resolved ; but, sir , the words ‘too late' that ri ng here to-day

wi ll be reiterated from mountain to valley in all the South ,and arenow sounding the death knell of the Federal Union .

”

Senator Mason of Virgi nia said xz“Gentlemen have well

said , it is not the failure to execute this Fugitive Slave Law ;it is not the passage of these liberty bills , as they are called ,

in vari ous of the States ; i t is a social war— so far not a warof arms— a war of sentiment , of opini on ; a war by one formof society against another form of society . I possibly mayhave a misinformed judgment , but I rely upon it until corrected , and my judgment is satisfied that , for some reason ,the population in the States having no slaves , feeling theirgreat numericalmajority , and havi ng nursed this sentiment ,thi s mere Opinion about social forms existing elsewhere,

have in some manner unf ortunately brought themselves toa determi nation to extinguish it . I do not mean by anyimmed iate blow— by any present law ; but it is their purpose,havi ng obtained possession of the Federal power , to use thatpower in every form to bring that social cond ition to a close.

”

Senator Toombs of Georgi a said 2 “The success of the

Abolitionists and their allies , under the name of the Republica n party , has produced its logical results already . Theyhave for long years been sowing dragons ’ teeth , and havefinally got a crop of armed men . The Union , sir , is d issolved . That is an accomplished fact in the path of thi sd iscussion that men may as well heed . And whilethi s Congress , this Senate and this House of Representatives , are debating the constitutional ity and the expedi encyof seced ing from the Union , and while the perfidi ous authorsof this mischief are showering down denunciations upon alarge portion of the patriotic men of thi s country , thosebrave men are coolly and calmly voting what you callrevolution— aye, sir , doing better than that : arming todefend it . They appealed to the Constitution , they ap

pealed to justice, they appealed to fraternity , until theCong . Globe, 36th Cong .

,2d sess. , pt. i . , p. 35. Id. , p. 267.

484 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

Constitution , justice, and fraterni ty were no longer listenedto in the legislative halls of their country , and then , sir ,they prepared for the arbitrament of the sword ; and nowyousee the glittering bayonet , and you hear the tramp of armed

men from your capital to the Rio Grande. It is a sight thatgladdens the eyes and cheers the hearts of theothermi llionsready to second them .

Senator Wigfall , of Texas , made a bitter speech typical ofthe views of the most ultra of the Southern members ,‘inwhich he said : “If these States , then , desire to have a newunderstand ing of the bargai n , and can agree upon the terms ,this Union can be saved ; but this Union is not to be savedby flattering , either upon the floor of this Senate or upon thestump . You cannot save thi s Uni on by singing hosannas toit . You cannot save thi s Uni on by making 4th of Julyspeeches . Whipped syllabub is not the remedy for thepatient . You have got to come down to your work, andyou have got to do something practical . The people

of the South — I speakof the people of the d ifferent slavehold ing States , and especially those upon the Gulf , commonly cal led the cotton States— are d issatisfied with thepresent government , as it is about to be admini stered by thePresident-elect . There is nothing that can satisfy themexcept amendments to the Constitution , and those amendments must be made by the Northern States unanimously ,or they wi ll not be satisfied , and I say here that they shouldnot be. What is the use of our d iscussing on this sideof the chamber what we would be satisfied with , whennothing has been offered us , and when we do not believethat we wi ll be permitted to retain even that which we nowhave? If the two Senators from New York , the Senatorfrom Ohio [Mr. Wade] , the two Senators from Illinois , theSenator from NewHampshire [Mr. Hale] , the Senators fromMai ne, and others , who are regarded as representativemen ,

who have deni ed that , by the Constitution of the Uni tedStates , slaves are recognized as property ; who have urged

Cong. Globe, 36th Cong . , 2d sess. , pt. i . , p . 71 .

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486 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

men whom you represent shall be taken from their pocketsin order to build up Northern wealth and property , to clearout their harbors and construct their roads . Thi s is themanner in whi ch you are treated when you talk aboutcompromise. I knew what the result would be. I sayto the Senators on the other side that you will have to

abolish your Abolition societies i f you expect to live longin our company . Thus I say to the d iff erent States ,as the representative of my State, that wi thin your bordersthere are presses and there are public speakers , and unlessthe newspapers have given a false account of the fact , yourPresident-elect a fewmonths , or possibly weeks , before hisnomination was a hired Abolition lecturer , delivering at$ 100 a lecture, lectures throughout the country , excitingthe people against us . We say to those States that youshall not— that is the word I choose to use, and I reflect thefeeling and determination of the people I represent whenI use it— you shall not permit men to go there and exciteyour ci tizens to make John Brown raids or bring fire and

strychni ne withi n the limits of the State to which I owemyallegiance. You shall not publish newspapers and pamphlets to exci te our slaves to insurrection . You shall not

publish newspapers and pamphlets to excite the non-slaveholders against the slaveholders or the slaveholders againstthe non-slaveholders . Wewill have peace ; and if you do notoffer it to us , we will quietly , and , aswe have the right underthe constitutional compact to do , withdraw from the Unionand establish a government for ourselves ; and if you thenpersist in your aggressions , we wi ll leave it to the ultima

ratio regum and the sovereign States will settle that question

Where the battle's wrecklies thickestAnd death’s brief pang is quickest.

And when you laugh at these impotent threats, as you re

gard them , I tell you that cotton is king !I know that you do not regard us as in earnest . I would

save this Union i f I could ; but it ismy deliberate impression

Congress iona l Debates 487

that it cannot nowbedone. I havebeen studying thecharacter of the people that you represent for years past . The

family of Dives was themost prolific family that ever breathedor lived upon thi s earth . Thosefive brothers would not be

lieve either Moses or the prophets ; and if one rose fromthe dead ,

we are told that they would not believe him .

They were prolific and their descendants have settled in thecountry in which you live.

‘

If you suppose that weare to be amused wi th the claptrap of 4th of July froth andthe idea that there is anything of sacredness in a compactbetween nations , or that nations inherit rights , I simplysay that those among whom I live have passed that point.So devoted a friend of the Union am I that when (as I knowit must be because I see no disposition to save or to preventit) the eight cotton States have wi thdrawn from thi s Union ,as they wi ll in the next two months do, and meet in con

vention to adopt a federal form of government for themselves , and to establish a foreign department , I for one shalladvocate the adoption , wi thou t crossing a t or dotting an i ,of this same old glorious Constitution that was ratified bythe old thirteen States ; and when Virginia and Tennesseeand Maryland and Kentucky and the other border Statessee what we have done, and know that the States whopropose conf ederation to them will keep their treaty com

pacts , I have no doubt that one after the other of them willcome into our union , and many days or months will notpass before thi s beautiful fabric wi ll again be the scene of

our di scussions , in whi ch we wi ll consider not only thosematters which appertai n to us in our domestic aff airs , butour foreign relations with you ; and it may be, if war can beavoided , which you desire not to avoid , for you are wiserthan that , we may here form a treaty wi th you .

“You know full well that if thi s Union is dissolved , and

these Southern States go off , and your commerce is cut up ,

and your merchant princes are bankrupt and go to protest ,and your manufactori es are stopped , and your operativesare turned out, and your shi ps , deprived of the navi gating

488 Pol itical H istory of Secess ion

laws , are laid up to rot, and your sailors turned loose tostarve —

you know that when these things occur , your headswi ll not be safe upon your shoulders . But if , in the meantime, you can bring the power of the Federal government tocoercion , and before the treasury is drained of its last dollar ,you can make sold iers out of your operatives and yoursailors , you expect then , amid the heat of the contest , theconf usion of ideas , as well as everything else, that you can

conceal the facts , and denounce us for the calamities thatare on this people ; and you expect not to lead but to sendthem to battle. I understand your game as well as you do .

There may, in thi s general arrangement , be conservativeStates of the North included . Pennsylvania may see thather iron and coal are about to be dug in the mountains ofTennessee and Virginia and North Carolina ; Ohio and

Ind iana and Illinois may see that the grain , and the meat ,and the hemp , and the horses , and the mules which theynow furnish to us may be bought in Kentucky and in Missouri and in Tennessee ; and they may leave you in the coldand come to uS '

and when they do , they wi ll understand theblessings of thi s union from having lived out of it a fewmonths , and they will be prepared to carry out in good faiththe compact which they entered into with us . If itwere not for the memories of the past and for patrioticsentiment which I have heard from some persons who livein New England , I would regard it as the greatest blessingthat had ever befallen the human family , that they could

be left to live upon granite and ice. I do notknow whetherit would have any effect upon them ; but it is said thathunger wi ll tame a wolf . I do not know whether it wouldhave any eff ect on them

'

; but this I do know , that then theywould have to content themselves with managing theirown aff airs ; and if they permi tted their people furtherto interfere with us the sword would settle the con

test, and the next treaty whi ch was signed would be in

Faneui l Hall in the town of Boston , and in the State of

Massachusetts— there in that place whi ch has been called

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490 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

Why,I tell the Senator that that great principle of his

[non-intervention] d isrupted the Democratic party , and

has now d isrupted the Uni on ; and but for him and his great

principle, this day a Democrat would have been President ,and the Union saved . That is the fact about the matter ;and when a Senator who has contributed more than anyman in the Uni on , accord ing to hi s ability , to the destruotion of the country , comes here and charges me with com

plicity in d issolving the Uni on , and charges in terms thatextremes meet , and that I and my friends , and the Freesoilers on the other side, are cooperating for the same pur

pose ; that we are voting together and that we take greatcomfort in all these exhi bitions of the impossibility of savingthe Union , I tell him that he is not the man to come hereand preach to anybody .

”

On March 2,only a few days before Lincoln ’s inaugura

tion Wigfallmade another speech in whi ch he said :“Then ,

briefly , a party has come into power that represents theantagonism to my own section Of the country . It represents two million men who hate us , and who , by their votesfor such a man as they have elected , have committed anovert act of hostility . That they have done. You havewon the Presidency , and you are now in the situation of theman who had won the elephant at a raffle. You do not

know what to do with the beast now that you have it ; andone half of you to-day would give your right arms i f youhad been defeated . But you succeeded , and you have todeal with facts . Our objection to living in thi s Uni on , andtherefore the d ifficulty of reconstructing it , is not yourpersonal liberty bills , not the territorial question , but thatyou utterly and wholly misapprehend the form of government . You deny the sovereignty of the States ; you denythe right of self-government in the people ; you insist uponnegro equality ; your people interfere impertinently wi thour institutions and attempt to subvert them ; you publishnewspapers ; you deliver lectures ; you print pamphlets , and

1 Cong . Globe, 36th Cong .,2d sess. , pt. p . 1400 .

Congress ional Debates 49 1

you send them among us , first , to exci te our slaves to insurrection against their masters , and next , to array one

class of citizens against the other ; and I say to you that wecannot live in peace, either in the Union or out of it , untilyou have abolished your Aboli tion societies ; not, as I havebeen mi squoted , abolish or destroy your schoolhouses ;but until you have ceased in your schoolhouses teachingyour chi ldren to hate us ; until you have ceased to convertyour pulpits into hustings ; until you content yourselveswi th preaching Christ , and Him crucified , and not deliveringpolitical harangues on the Sabbath ; until you have ceasedinciting your own citizens to make raid s and comm it robheries ; until you have done these things we cannot livein the same Union with you . Until you do these thi ngs , wecannot live out of the Uni on at peace.

” In the same

speech , only a few hours before Lincoln’s inauguration ,

Wigfall contemptuously referred to him as“an ex-rail

splitter , an ex-grocerykeeper , an ex-flatboat captain , and anex-Abolition lecturer .The ki nd of constitutional amendment that was desiredby Jefferson Davis may be inferred from a resolution introduced by him , which was one of the resolutions con

sidered by the Senate Commi ttee of Thirteen and whi ch wasas follows : “Resolved that it shall be declared by amendment of the Constitution , that property in slaves , recogni zedas such by the local law of any of the States of the Uni on ,shall stand on the same footing in all constitutional andFederal relations as any other species of property so recogni zed ; and ,

like other property , shall not be subject to bed ivested or impai red by the local law of any other State,either in escape thereto , or of transit or sojourn of the ownertherein ; and in no case whatever shall such property besubject to be di vested or impaired by any legi slative act ofthe United States , or of any of the Territories thereof .The Republicans claimed that they had done nothi ng

but to exerci se their constitutional right of electing aCong. Globe, 36th Cong .

,2d sess . , pt. i . , p . 190.

492 Politica l H istory of Secess

President ; that they had not interfered , and di d not intendto interfere, with slavery in the States where it existed , andthat they woul d not be d riven into recantation of all theyhad advocated before, and setting aside the verd ict of thepeople in the preceding election , by threats of di suni on ;Senator Hale, of NewHampshire, very clearly and conci selystated the Republican position 1 in a speech on December 5 ,1 860 , in which he said : I thi nkwe might as well look thismatter right clearly in the face ; and I am not going to belong about doing it . I thi nk that this state of affairs looksto one of two thi ngs : it looks to absolute submission , noton the part of our Southern friend s and the Southern States ,but of the North , to the abandonment of their posi tionit looks to a surrender of that popular sentiment which hasbeen uttered through the constituted forms of the ballotbox, or it looks to open war . We need not shut our eyes tothe fact . It means war, and it means nothing else ; andthe State which has put herself in the attitude of secessionso looks upon it . She has asked no counsel, she has con

sidered it as a settled questi on , and she has armed herself .As I understand the aspect of aff airs , it looks to that , andit looks to nothing else except uncond itional surrender on

the pa rt of themajority . I avow here— I do not knowwhether or not I shall be sustained by thosewho usually actwith me— if the issue whi ch is presented is that the con

stitutional wi ll of the public Opini on of this country, ex

pressed through the forms of the Constitution , wi ll not besubmi tted to and war is the al ternative, let it come in anyform or in any shape. The Union is d issolved and i t cannotbe held together as a Uni on , if tha t is the alternative uponwhi ch we go into an eleétion . If it is pre-announced and

determined that the voiceof themajority , expressed throughthe regular and constituted forms of the Constitution , willnot be submitted to , then , sir , this is not a Union of equals ;it is a Union of a di ctatorial oligarchy on the one side, and aherd of slaves and coward s on the other . That is it , sir,

1 Cong. Globe, 36th Cong . ,2d sess. , pt. i . , p. 9.

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494 Pol itica l H istory of Secos

seized upon any mi nts ? Have we done one single act

looking to aggression ? Have we fired into any flag , Stateor national ? On the other hand , is not the cond ition of theNorthern States one that subjects them , in the eyes of theworld , to the charge of pusillanimity and reproach forwanting manliness in repelling the attacks that have beenmade upon them ? Gentlemen come here and preach peaceto us as i f wewere the aggressive party ; as i f the responsibilities of war must rest on us . Why , sir , if we have any of theresponsibilities of war resting upon us , it will be by a courseof conduct which subjects us , in the eyes of the world , to the

imputation of cowards that lie still and invoke aggression .

”

Senator Wade, of Ohio , spoke on December I 7.

x “How

is it ,”he said ,

“wi th the leaders of this modern revolution ?Are they in a position to complain of the action of thisgovernment for years past ? Why , sir , they have had morethan two third s of the Senate formany years past , and untilvery recently , and have almost that now. You— who

complain , I ought to say— represent but a little more thanone fourth of the free people of these Uni ted States , and yetyour counsels prevail, and have prevailed al l along for atleast ten years past . In the Cabinet , in the Senate of the

United States , in the Supreme Court , in every departmentof the government , your officers , or those devoted to you ,

have been in themajority , and have di ctated all the policiesof thi s government . Is it not strange, sir , that they whonow occupy these positions should come here and complainthat their rights are stricken down by the action of the

government ? Why , sir , I can hardly take up a

paper— and I rely , too , upon Southern papers— whi chdoes not give an account of the cruel treatment of someman

who is traveling for pleasure or for business in your quarter ;and the lightest thi ng you do is to visit him with a vigilancecommittee, and compel him to return : ‘We give you so

long to make your way out of our coast . ’ ‘What is theaccusation ? ’ ‘Why , sir , you are from Ohi o.

’ They do not1 Cong. Globe, 36th Cong .

,2d sess. , p . 99 .

Congress iona l Debates 495

even inquire what party he belongs to , or what standard hehas followed . I say this is the case, if I may rely on the

statements of your own papers ; and many of these outragesoccur under circumstances of cruelty that would di sgrace asavage ; and we have no security now in traveling in nearlyone half of the Union , and especially the Gulf States of thisconf ederacy . I care not what a man ’s character may be ;he may beperfectly innocent of every charge ; he may be aman who never has violated any law under heaven ; and yetif he goes down into those States , and it is ascertained thathe is from the North , and especially i f he d iffers from themin the exerci se of his political rights , if he has voted forLincoln instead of for somebody else, it is a mortal off ense,punishable by indigni ty , by tar and feathers , by stripes , andeven by death ; and yet you , whose constituents are guiltyof all these things , can stand forth and accuse us of beingunf aithful to the Constitution of the Uni ted States ! Gentlemen had better look at home Then , sir , what isit of which complaint is made? You have had the legislative power of the country and you have had the Executiveof the country , as I have said already . You own the Cabinet, you own the Senate, and , I may add , you own the

President of the United States as much as you own the

servant upon your own plantation . I cannot see, then ,very clearly , why it is that Southern men can rise here andcomplain of the action of this government . ”

Seward spoke on January 12 .

I In his speech he madean elaborate argument to prove the advantages of the

Union to the whole country ; of the calamities that wouldbefall all parts of it if it should be broken into separate,independent , and hostile confederacies . He dwelt also uponthe horrors of civi l war. He denied that the seced ing Stateshad any constitutional or just right to secede, but avoidedany expres sion of Opinion as to what the government oughtto do or had the power to do i f they refused to come backinto the Union . He did say , however , that he

“di d not

1 Cong . Globe, 36th Cong . ,2d sess . , pt. i p . 34 1 .

496 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

know what theUnion would beworth if saved by the sword .

He offered various suggestions for bringi ng about a reconciliation of the seced ing States , but the most extraordinaryof them was that in whi ch he said : “I should prefer a d iff erentcourse, namely : when the eccentric movements of secessionand di sunion shall have ended , in whatever form that endmay come, and the angry excitements of the hour shall havesubsided , and calmness once more shall have resumed itsaccustomed sway over the public mind , then , and not untilthen— one, two, or three years hence— I should cheerful lyadvise a convention of the people, to be assembled in pursuance of the Constitution , to consider and decide whetherany and what amendments of the organic national lawoughtto be made. A Republican now— as I have heretoforebeen a member of other parties existing in my day

— I

nevertheless hold and cherish , as I have always done, theprinciple that thi s government exi sts in its present formonly by the consent of the governed , and that it is as mecessary as it is wi se, to resort to the people for revisions of theorganic law when the troubles and dangers of the Statecertainly transcend the powers delegated by it to the publicauthorities . Nor ought the suggestion to exci te surprise.

Government in any form is a machi ne ; this is the mostcomplex one that the mi nd of man has ever invented , or thehand of man has ever framed . Perfect as it is , it ought. tobe expected that it will, at least as often as once in a century ,require some mod ification to adapt it to the changes of society and alternations of empire.

Of this speech one of Seward ’s biographersI says

Considering the actual condi tions and what was mosturgent at that time, there is reason to believe that this wasas wi se, as patriotic , and as important a speech as has everbeen delivered withi n the walls of the Capitol. If Sewardhad spoken as most of the Republicans had done, or i f hehad gone no farther than Lincoln had even confidentiallyexpressed a willingness to go , by March 4 there would

1 Bancroft vol. ii., p . 16.

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498 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

victorious at the polls . They were unalterably opposed toa d issolution of theUnion and believed it to beworth saving

,

even if it had to be saved by the sword . They could see

nothing but d isaster in the proposition to wait one, two,

or three years , until a Southern conf ederacy should befirmly established , and then endeavori ng to patch to it theremaining broken fragments of the old Uni on . Nor could

the radi cals be persuaded of the wisdom of the policy thatwould require them to sit with folded arms until the gathering Confederate armies should take the field and begin theirnorthward march ; until, as Wigf all pred icted ,

Conf ederateSenators and Representatives should fill the halls of theCapitol at Washington ; until , in further fulfillment of histhreats , some Confederate general should d ictate terms ofpeace to New England in Faneuil Hall .It is certain that the rad ical Republicans , instead of

looking at Seward ’s speech as devising a modus vivendi ,

viewed it as prescribing a fatal opiate which might possiblyenable the Union to die peacefully and without a struggle,but with the stigma of coward ice upon its memory , blottingout all that was glorious in its past history .

Seward ’s speech marks the beginning of his decline as a

political leader . He was no longer looked upon as spokesman by his old-time political followers , who were now turning to other leaders , bolder , more outspoken and aggressive.

Douglas spoke on January 3 , While strongly infavor of the Crittenden resolutions and of exhausting allreasonable efforts at compromise before resort to war hewas explicit in hi s assertion that the secession of SouthCarolina was “wrong , unlawful , unconstitutional , criminal.

Unquestionably .we have the right to use all the

power and force necessary to regain possession of thatportion of the Uni ted States in order that we may againenforce our Constitution and laws upon the inhabitants .

”

Upon the general doctrine of the right of secession he saidI will not argue the question of the right of seces sion any1 Cong . Globe, 36th Cong .,

2d sess., pt. ii. , App . , p . 35.

Congress iona l Debates 499

further than to enter my protest against the whole doctri ne.

I deny that there is any foundation for it in the Constitution , in the nature of the compact , in the principles of thegovernment , or in justice, or in good faith .

Upon the right and power of the general government tocoerce the seced ing States he was still more expli cit .Nor do I sympathize at all, he said ,

“in the apprehen

sions and mi sgivings I hear expressed about coercion. We

are told that inasmuch as our government is founded upon

the wi ll of the people, or the consent of the governed ,

therefore, coercion is incompatible with republicani sm .

Sir , the word government means coercion . There can be

no government wi thout coercion . Coercion is the vitalprinciple upon whi ch all governments rest . Withdraw the

right of coercion , and you d issolve your government . If

every man would perform hi s duty and respect the rights ofhis neighbors voluntari ly , there would be no necessity forany government on earth . The necessity of government isfound to consist in the fact that some men wi ll not do rightunless coerced to do so . The object of all government is tocoerce and compel every man to do his duty , who would nototherwise perform it . Hence I do not subscribe at all tothis doctrine that coercion is not to be used in a free government . It must be used in all governments , no matter whattheir form or what their principles .

” Indeed , upon thevital question then under discussion the bold and outspokenword s of Douglas offer a refreshi ng contrast to the vagueand dubious utterances of Seward .

Far more eff ective and far better suited to the occasionthan Seward ’s speech , perhaps better than any other onespeech on the Northern side, was that of Senator Trumbull,of Illinois , on March 2 , I S6 1 .

I

Then , and for months before, the imperative need wasfor prompt and vigorous action on the part of the Federalgovernment , i f the Union were to be saved from destruction .

1 Cong. Globe, 36th Cong . , 2d sess. , pt. u . , p. 1380 ; White, Life ofTrumbull, p. 123.

500 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

The eloquent eulogies of the Union and of the sacredness ofthe bonds that for so long had held it together had lost theirforce with those who were then bent on its destruction .

The d iscourses on the blessings of peace had little weightwith the men already preparing for war . All such appealshad failed to save a single fort or arsenal in the secededterritory or to stay preparations for seizing the few thatwere left . By continuing the debates in Washington , theleaders of secession were not losing but gaining time,

time

that was precious in enabling them to complete their preparations for organizing and putting the Confederacyupon a war footing . The Federal government needed to beawakened from its lethargy and the people of the Northneeded to be convinced that , while eloquence might bematched with eloquence and arguments met by arguments ,imm ed iate preparations must be made by the governm entto meet those of the secessionists , to get the sword ready i f itshould be found necessary to save the Union by the sword ,and to prepare to Oppose the gathering armies of the South ,or else to incur the ignominy of a surrender wi thout astruggle.

Trumbull showed all this in a speech free from rant orvituperation , felicitous in expression , and forceful in argument. He began by acknowledging Crittenden

’s longpublic service, hi s patriotism and devotion to the Union ,but claiming that Crittenden was in error in laying all theblame for the di stracted cond ition of the country upon theRepublicans Of the North and none upon the South .

“Does he expect , said Trumbull,“or can he expect , that

compromises will be made and concessions yielded when hetalks of the great partly of thi s country , constituting a

majority of its people, as being wedded to a dogma set upabove the Constitution ; when he talks of us as usurping allthe Terri tories , as ostracizing all the people of the South ,and denyi ng them their rights ? Is that the way to obtaincompromises ? Instead of turning his denunci ation uponthose who violate the Constitution and trample the flag of

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502 Pol itical H istory of Secess ion

we seize them ’

; and the Executive of the nation asks thatthe treasonable proposition be put in writing , and files itaway . Why , sir, is there another capital on the face of theglobe, to whi ch men could come from State or province, andinform the executive head that they were about to takesteps to seize the public property belonging to the government , and warn theExecutive to leave it in its insecure and

undefended state until they should be prepared to takepossession , and they be permi tted to depart ? Is thereanother capital on the face of the globe where comm issionerscoming to the Executive under these circumstances wouldnot have been arrested on the spot for treason ? But yourgovernment , i f it d id not d irectly prom ise not to arm its

forts , certainly took no steps to protect its public property ;and this thing went on , until a gallant offi cer who was incommand of less than a hundred men in the harbor of

Charleston , acting upon his own responsibility , thoughtproper to throw his little force into a fort where he could

protect himself ; and then it was that these insurgents ,rebelling against the government , demanded that he shouldbe withdrawn , and the Executive then was forced to takeposition . Then his Cabinet officers who had been in conspiracy with the plotters of treason , then the Chi ef Magistrate himself was forced to take position“Notwithstand ing this , theExecutive of the nation , d isre

gard ing theadviceof theLieutenant-Generalwho commandsthe armies of the United States , and who had warned himmonths before of themovements which were taking place toseize the public property at the South , still leaves the property unprotected ; and the insurgents go on in some of the

States , before even passing ord inances of secession , and continneto seize thepublicproperty ; tocapture the troops of theUnited States ; to take possession of the forts ; to fire into itsvessels ; to take down its flag ; until they have at thi s time

in their possession fortifications whi ch have cost this government more than and whi ch mount more than athousand guns . All this has been done wi thout any effort

Congress iona l Debates

on the part of the government to protect the public property ; and thi s is the reason that secession has made thehead it has . Why , sir , let me ask, is it that the UnitedStates to-day has possession of Fort Sumter ? Can you tellme why is Fort Sumter in possession of the United States ?Because there are a hundred soldiers in it— for no otherreason . Why is Fort Moultrie in possession of the insur

gents ? Because there were no men there to protect it ; andit is nowmatter of history that

, had the Executive done hisduty , and placed a hundred men in Fort Moultrie, a hundred in Castle Pinckney , and a hundred in Fort Sumter ,Charleston harbor tod ay would have been open , and yourrevenues would have been collected there, as elsewherethroughout the United States .“Will it be said that Carolina would have attacked those

forts , thus garrisoned ? She does not attack a hundredmen in Fort Sumter . It is a wonder that she does not.

The little, feeble garrison there is well calculated to inviteattack ; but this thi ng of secession , under the policy of the

Administration , has been made a holiday aff air in the South .

This great government , one of the most powerful on the

face of the globe, is falling to pieces just from its own

imbecility . Thi s then , briefly , is the reason that thissecess ion movement has acquired the strength it has . It isbecause thi s government has either favored i t or refused todo anything to check it . Notwithstand ing the mistakeof 1854 , the country would have survived i t all, had we had“ Overnment to take care of and preserve it .Coming to the Crittenden Compromise he sa id : The

propositionknown as the Crittenden Compromi se declaresnot only that ,

‘in the territory south of said line of latitude,slavery of the African race is hereby recognized as existing ,and shall not be interfered wi th by Congress ’ ; but it provides further , that , in the terri tory we shall hereafter acquiresouth of that line, slavery shall be recogni zed , and not interfered wi th by Congress ; but ‘shall be protected as propertyby all the departments of territorial government during its

504 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

continuance ’

; so that , i f we make acquisitions on the southof territories now free, and where, by the laws of the land ,

the footsteps of slavery have never been , the moment weacqui re jurisd iction over them , the moment the Stars andStripes of the Republic float over those free territories , theycarry with them African slavery , established beyond the

power of Congress , and beyond the power of any territorialleg islature, or of the people, to keep it out ; and we are toldthat this is the Missouri Compromise ! We are told thatslavery now exists in New Mexico ; and I was sorry to findeven my friend from Oregon [Mr. Baker] ready to vote forthis proposition , which establishes slavery . Why , sir,suppose slavery does exist in NewMexico ; are you for putting a clause into your Constitution that the people of NewMexico shall not d rive it out?

But, sir, unl ike the Senator from Oregon , I wi ll neveragree to put into the Constitution of the country a clauseestablishing or making perpetual slavery anywhere. No ,

sir, no human being shall ever be made a slave by my vote.

No foot of God ’s soil shall ever be ded icated to Africanslavery by my act— never , sir . I will not interfere wi th itwhere I have no authority by the Constitution to interfere ; but I never will consent , the people of my State, thepeople of the great Northwest , numbering more in whitepopulation than all your Southern States together , neverwill consent by their act to establish African slaveryanywhere.

The Senator from Texas [Wigfall] wants to know howwe are going to preservethe Union ; how we are going tostop the States from seced ing ? And our Southern friendssometimes askus to give them something to stand upon inthe South . The best political foundation ever laid bymortal man upon which to plant foot is the Constitution .

Take the old Constitution as your fathers made it , and go tothe people on that ; rally them around it , and not suff er

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506 Po litical H istory of Secess ion

and the government , we should see a very d iff erent stateof things in the country . If , instead of comi ng forward withcompromises , instead of asking guaranties , he had put thefaul t where it belongs , if he had called upon the government to do its duty ; i f , instead of blaming theNorth for notmaki ng concessions where there is nothing to concede, andnot making compromi ses where there was nothing to com

promise about , he had appealed to the South , whi ch was inrebellion against the government , and pai nted before them ,

as only he could do it , the hideousness of the crimes theywere committing , and called upon them to return to theirallegiance, and upon the government to enf orce its authority, we would have a very d iff erent state of thi ngs in thiscountry to-day from what now exists .This , in my judgment , is the way to preserve the Union ;

and I do not expect civi l war to follow from it. You haveonly to put the government in a position to make i tselfrespected , and it will command respect . As I said before,five hundred troops in Charleston would unquestionablyhave kept that port open ; and i f you will arm the government with suff icient authority to maintain its laws and giveus an honest Executive, I think you will find the spread of

secession soon checked ; it will no longer be a holiday affai r .But whi le we submit to the di sgrace whi ch is heaped upon

us by those seced ing States , while the President of the

United States says ,‘You have no right to secede ; but i f you

want to , you may, we cannot help it ,’

you may expectsecession to spread . Some Senators talk about theFederal government making war .

,Who proposes it ? The

Southern people aff ect to abhor civil war , when they , themselves , have commenced it . Inhabitants of the six seced ingStates have begun the war . What is war ? Is firing intoyour vessels war ? Is investing your forts war ? Is seizingyour arsenals war ? They have done it all, and more ; andthen have the eff rontery to say to the United States ,

‘Do

not defend yourself ; do not protect your government ; let itfall to pieces ; let us do as we please, or else you will have

Congress iona l Debates 507

war . ’ The highwayman meets you on the street , demandsyour purse, and tells you to deliver it up , or you will have afight . You can always escape a fight by submission . If inthe right— and which is far better than to submit to degradation— you can often escape collision by being preparedto meet it . The moment the highwayman d iscoversyour preparation and ability to meet him ,

he flies away .

Let the government be prepared , and we shall have no

collision .

In conclusion he said : I cannot believe that this mad

and insane attempt to break up such a government is tosucceed . If my voice coul d reach them , I would call uponmy Southern brethren to pause, to reflect ; to consider i fthis Republican party has yet done them any wrong .

What complaints have they to make against us ? We havenever wi elded the power of government— not for a day.

Have you of the South suff ered any wrong at the handsof the Federal government ? If you have you inflicted ityourselves . We have not done it . Is it the apprehensionthat you are going to suff er wrong at our hands ? We tellyou that we intend no such thing . Will you , then , breakup such a government as this , on the apprehension that weare all hypocrites and deceivers , and do not mean what wesay ? Wait , I beseech you ,

until the government is putinto Operation under thi s new Admini stration ; wai t untilyou hear the inaugural from the President-elect ; and Idoubt not it will breathe as well a spirit of conciliation and

kindness towards the South as towards the North . WhileI trust it will disclose a resolute purpose to mai ntain thegovernment , I doubt not it will also declare, in unequivocalterms , that no encroachments shall be made upon the con

stitutional ri ghts of any State whi le he who delivers itremains in power .The debates in the House were along the same general

lines and were of the same general character as those in theSenate. It will suffi ce here to quote from the speeches ofRoger A . Pryor , of Virgini a , and Thaddeus Stevens , of

508 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

Pennsylvani a . Pryor spoke on January 28 , 1 861 .1 Fore

most , he said , in the catalogue of Southern grievance isthe complaint that the fundamental principle of the con

federacy , the equality of the States , is subverted by acombination between a majority of States to exclude otherStates from an equal participation in the common domain ,and so to deny them equal advantages of expansion and

development under the operation Of the Federal government . ” Another ground of complaint was that the con

sti tutional provision in regard to fugitive slaves had been“shamefully annulled by the Northern States ; and by thedefault millions of Southern property have been confis

cated . Already ,”he said ,

“sovereign States are

reduced , in contemplation , to the cond ition of provincialdependency ; and that doom they would speed ily real ize,but for the indomi table spirit which quails not before all

the‘pomp and circumstance’

of your martial preparation .

Contrasting the pacific intentions of the South wi th thewarlike designs of the North he said : “Since the fatal 6thof November to the present hour , the representatives of theSouth have invariably exhibited an accommodating d isposition . The first day of our session was signalized by aproposition from a colleague of my own [Mr. Boteler] ,which contemplated a pacific ad justment of our dimculties.

A similar movement , likewise originating with a Southern man , was initiated in the Senate. Meanwhile variousschemes of settlement have been submitted in one or the

other House of Congress , of whi ch , without much regardto their intrinsic efficacy , we have uni formly avowed our

support ; while on the other side they have been as uni

formly rejected with a cohtemptuous d isdain of compromise.

Thus,whi le the South are willing to remai n in the Union

with an assurance of their ri ghts , the North declare, by a

refusal of all concession , that they will destroy the Unionrather than renounce their aggressive des igns . In the perverted patriotism of the dominant party , the Constitution

1Cong . Globe, 36th Cong . ,2d sess. , pt. i .

, p . 60 1 .

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5 10 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

Nine million of freemen— and heed not, I admoni sh you ,

the treacherous suggestion that the South will not Opposea uni ted front to the foe— ni ne million of freemen , of a racethe most energetic and indomitable recorded in hi story

,

glorying in trad itions of ancestral prowess , and attached tothe cause of liberty with a chi valric devotion— thi s people,themselves d istingu ished for valor and the genius of war ,contendi ng on their own soil for whatever imparts a felicityto life— thi s people wi ll laugh to scorn all the imposingarray of your m ilitary preparation .

”

Thaddeus Stevens spoke on January In the

course of hi s speech he said :“The secession and rebellion

of the South have been incul cated as a doctrine for twentyyears past among slavehold ing communities . At one time

the tariff was deemed a sufficient cause ; then the exclusionof slavery from free Territories ; then some vi olations of theFugitive Slave Law . Now the culm inating cause is theelection of a President who does not believe in the benefitsof slavery , or approve of that great mi ssionary enterprise ,the slave trade. The truth is , all these things are merepretenses . The restless spirits of the South desire to havea slave emp ire, and they use these things as excuses . Some

of them desire a more bri lliant and stronger governmentthan a republic . Their domestic institutions , and the

social inequality of their free people, naturally preparethem for a monarchy surrounded by a lordly nobili ty— fora throne founded on the neckof labor . ”

Continuing he said : “Let no slave State flatter itselfthat it can d issolve the Uni on now and then reconstruct iton better terms . The present Constitution was formed inour weakness . Some of its compromises were odi ous , andhave become more so by the unexpected increase of slaves ,who were expected soon to run out. But now, in our

strength , the conscience of the North woul d not allowthem to enter into such partnershi p wi th slavehold ing . If

this Union should be d issolved , its reconstruction would1 Cong. Globe, 36th Cong . ,

2d sess. , pt. i . , p . 62 1 .

Congress iona l Debates 5 1 1

embrace one empire wholly slavehold ing , and one republicwholly free. While we will religi ously observe the presentcompact , nor attempt to be absolved from it , yet i f itshould be torn to pieces by rebels , our next United Stateswi ll contain no foot of ground on which a slave can tread , no

breath of air which a slave can breathe.

Speaki ng for Pennsylvania he said :“While Pennsylvania

would go , as I would , to the verge of the Constitution and ofher pri nciples , to maintain peace,

I believe it is a libel onthe good name of her virtuous people to say that she wou ldsacrifice her principles to obtain the favor of rebels . Ibelieve it to be a libel on her manhood to say that she willpurchase peace by unprincipled concessions to insurgentswith arms in their hands . If I thought such was hercharacter , I would expatriate myself . I woul d leave theland where I have spent my life from early manhood to

declining age, and would seek some spot untai nted by thecoward breath of servility and meanness . To her pleasantvalleys I would prefer the rugged , bold State of my nativi ty ;nay , any spot in the most barren Arctic regi ons , ami dwhose pure icicles dwells manly freedom .

”

At last above the Babel-like confusion of tongues thevoice of Abraham Lincoln was heard .

1“ I will suff er

death , he sai d ,

“before I wi ll consent or advise my friend sto consent to any concession or compromise whi ch lookslike buyi ng the privi lege of taking possession of the government to which we have a constitutional right ; because,whatever I might thi nkof the merit of the various propositions before Congress , I should regard any concession in theface of menace as the destruction of the government itself ,and a consent on al l hand s that our system shall be broughtdown to a level wi th the existing d isorganized state of

aff airs in Mexico . But this thing will hereaf ter be, as it isnow, in the hands of the people ; and i f they desire to call aconvention to remove any grievances complained of , or to

1 New York Tribune, January 30, 186 1 ; quoted in McPherson,

Hi story of the Rebellion, p. 62.

5 12 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

give new guaranties for the permanence of vested rights,it is not mine to Oppose.

Lincoln told Governor Yates , of Illinois , that he wouldrather be hanged by the necktill he was dead , on the steps

of the Capi tol , than buy or beg a peaceful inaugurationand in a letter to Senator Trumbul lwritten on December 10 ,1 860 , he said :

“Let there be no compromise on the question

of extending slavery ; i f there be, all our labor is lost and erelong must be done over again . The tug has to come,

and better now than any time hereafter . ” 1

Looking back now at the excited cond ition Of the publicmind and readi ng the inflammatory harangues that weremade we see clearly how vain and futile were all the peacepropositions proposed . The wonder now is how so manysensiblemen , even statesmen like Seward , closing their eyesand ears to all signs of the approaching storm ,

should haverefused to believe that it was ready to burst forth at anymoment , and that they kept on hOping , wi th Micawberlike sereni ty , that something would yet

“turn up” by which

the storm could be averted .

Judge Robertson ’s mission to the seceded States was as

unsuccessful as were the labors of the peace conference.

Some of the States contemptuously met the proposition tosend commissioners to Washing ton with a counter-proposition to send commissioners to Montgomery , Alabama .

Robertson , instead of converting the seced ing States to thepreservat ion of the Union , was himself converted to thecause of secession .

2

During this session of Congress several other SouthernStates , following the example of South Carolina , seceded ,

and as they seceded thei r representatives in Congress withd rew . Several of the seced ingmembers made speeches , previous to taking final leave. The occasion was impressiveand some of the speeches indi cated that the speakers werenot insensible of the gravity of the situation and of the

1 White, Life of Trumbull, p . 1 1 1 .

1 Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, vol. iii. , pp . 228—9 .

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5 14 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

memorable for what it di d not do as for the little that itaccomplished . Notwithstandi ng the warlike preparat ionsOpenly going on in the seceded States , no preparation whatever was made by Congress for the national defense, nothingto increase or render more effi cient either the army or navy,

to recover any national forts or arsenals that,had been

taken , or to defend those that were left . On the contraryall the bills introduced au thorizing the President to call outthe mi li tia , to accept the services of volunteers , and to

strengthen the navy were rejected . Thi s is referred to

by Buchanan in hi s defense of his Admini stration as anexcuse for hi s not doing more than he di d to suppress secession in its early stages .

I But he had not at any time askedfor any such legislation and from the tone of his annualmessage it is probable that he di d not desire any , for it wouldhave been of no use to rai se an army and navy in order tocoerce a sovereign State, when according to themessage,

the President would have no constitutional right to use

them for that purpose. Moreover it is clear from the

debates on the bills that were introduced that there was notthe least possibility of their passage through the Senatewhile the Senators from the States which were contemplating secession remained members of it . Indeed the nationalgovernment was in a far more critical condi tion whenCongress ad journed than it was when it began .

1 Buchanan's Admini stration, pp . 160-161 ; Black, Essays and Speeches,

pp . 9—24.

CHAPTER XXIV

TEE CLOSING MONTHS OF BUCHANAN ’

S ADMINISTRATION

HE period intervening between the election of Lincolnand his inauguration was full of important and ex

citing events . Duri ng this period secession made rapidprogress . From the evidence we now have it seems that itwas originally intended by the secession leaders to deferthe formation of a Southern confederacy until everythingshould be in read iness to conf ront the incoming Admini stration , before it could be prepared for it , with a hostile government , organized and fully equipped for war , offensive or

defensive. It was taken for granted that the preliminarypreparations could be made much more easily and eli ee

tually under Buchanan ’ s admini stration than they could

be under that of his succes sor , but it was not deemed ex

pedi ent to force matters to such a point during Buchanan’ s

admi ni stration as to compel him to assume a hostile attitude,or to embarrass him by throwing upon him any responsibility that , if left to his own choice, he mi ght seek to shiftupon the succeed ing admi nistration . At any rate, so longas themembers of Buchanan ’s Cabinet retained their placesand the Southern members of Congress remained in theirseats , much could be done in the way of tyi ng Buchanan ’shands , if he should be inclined to favor any measure lookinglike coercion of the seced ing States . For these reasonssome of the secession leaders , like Howell Cobb , advisedagainst the formation of a Sou thern confederacy before the4th of March . It was hoped , however , to have everythingin readiness by that time to launch the new government.

5 15

5 16 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

Every effort was being made, and with confident expectations of success , to induceVirgi nia and Maryland to secede,and it was hoped that , when this should have been accomplished , the proposed conf ederacy would take possession ofthe city of Washington and make it the capital of the newgovernment .‘

In making their plans the secession leaders di d not expectthat Buchanan , upon the formation of the proposed con

federacy , would at once abd icate and surrender to it thecapital , the army and navy , and all the offices and propertyof the national government . But they did rely uponBuchanan ’ s supposed sympathy with his lifelong politicalfriend s and upon the vi ews expressed by him in hi s annualmessage as to the absence of any power in the nationalgovernment to resort to anything like coercion or themaintenance by arm s of its authori ty in the terri tory of the

seceded States .More reliance was placed by the secession leaders upon

the assumption that they would have the active sympathyand support of a majority of the members of Buchanan ’sCabinet . At the time of the election of Lincoln , Buchanan

’

s

Cabinet consisted of Lewi s Cass , of Michigan , Secretary ofState, Howell Cobb , of Georgia , Secretary of the Treasury

,

John B . Floyd , of Virgini a , Secretary of War , Isaac Toucey,

of Connecticut , Secretary of the Navy , Jacob Thompson , ofMississippi , Secretary of the Interior , Jeremiah S . B lack, of

Pennsylvania , Attorney-General , Joseph Holt, of Kentucky ,Postmaster-General. Various changes occurred prior tothe inauguration of Lincoln . Cobb resigned as Secretary of

1 The evidence that this was a part of the general plan of the secessionleaders and the eff orts to defeat it are fully detailed in a long letter ofHolt to Buchanan. While the evidence may not be sufficient to proveany overt act done in the carrying out of such plan, it is amply suffi cientto Show that it would have been criminal negligence on the part of thenational authorities to abstain from taking the defensive preparationstha t were taken to avert the threatened danger. See report of Holt,dated February 1 8

,1 86 1 ; War Rec.

, vol. i . , series 3 , pp . 399-401 ;

McPherson,Hi story of theRebelli on , p . 8 1 .

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5 1 8 Politica l H istory of Secession

Was there ever before any potentate who sent out of hisown Cabinet members to excite an insurrection against hisgovernment ? ” Theman in the Cabinet most dangerous tothe Uni on causewas John B . Floyd . He had been Governorof Virgi ni a , and was the son of John Floyd , a former Govemor. For a time he posed as an Opponent of secession , andCurtis , Buchanan

’s biographer , alludes to hi s“sudden

convers ion ” from an avowed and consistent Opponent of

secession to “one of its most strenuous supporters ,

”and

intimates that it occurred about the timewhen the Presidentd iscovered Floyd ’s complicity in the embezzlement of theIndian bonds , which was about the time of his resignation .

It may not be possible to fix the precise instant of his conversion , but there is not the least doubt that it was fullyconsummated long before his resignation . By hi s order asSecretary ofWar a large number of muskets which had beencondemned , but which were capable of being remodeledfor eff ective service, had been transferred from Northern toSouthern arsenals . Some of the removals had been madenearly a year before Floyd ’s resignation and these wereprobably transferred without any criminal intent . But

2500 were sold to the State of Alabama as late as November14 ,

1 860 , and to G . B . Lamar , a known agent ofSouth Carolina , as late as November 24 , 1860 . While itcould not be proved , the circumstances under whi ch theses ales were made were such as to raise at least a strong suspicion that they were made for the purpose of aid ing thesetwo States in armi ng for threatened secession . Althoughthe congressional committee which subsequently inves

tigated thematter d id not find evidence sufficient to warrantthe finding of any crimi nal intent in the matter , Floyd ,after he had left the Cabinet and had got to Richmond ,Virginia

,avowed “that he had , while Secretary of War ,

supplied the South with arms in anticipation of the ap

proaching rebellion .

”x But for Floyd ’s order for the

transfer of the heavy ordnance at the arsenal in Pittsburg ,1 Crawford , Hi story of FortSumter, p . 2 17.

C lose of Buchanan’

s Administration 5 19

Pennsylvania , no historian has ever ventured any excuse.

On December 20 , 1 860 , the day on which South Carolinaseceded , Floyd gave a verbal order for the transfer from the

Pittsburg arsenal of forty columb iads and four thirty-twopounders to be sent to the fort on Ship Island , near themouth of the Mississippi , and seventy columbiads and

seven thirty-two pounders to the fort at Galveston , Texas .The fort at Ship Island was then unfinished and not readyfor armament , and the fort at Galveston had scarcely beencommenced and could not be completed within less thanfive years . This heavy ordnance was not condemned can

non , but cannon of the most improved pattern , and the

evident purpose of shipping it South was that it mightbe seized by the secessioni sts .

x Before the cannon wereshi pped information of the proposed transfer leaked out

and caused such an angry protest of the citizens of Pittsburg that the order of transfer was countermanded , but

not until after Floyd had resigned .

2 Further and con

vincing proof of Floyd’s active efforts in aid of secession

will appear in the followi ng pagesToucey, the Secretary of the Navy , is wi ttily described by

Justice Curtis as “a person of rather uncommon breadthf or a Connecti cut man .

” 3 As already stated , the secessionleaders believed that both he and Cass , even if they shouldbe opposed to their plans , would be overruled by Cobb ,Floyd , and Thompson . The secession leaders probablycounted also upon the passive, if not active support of B lackand Holt , but in this , as it turned out , they went wide of themark.

Before the reorgani zation of Buchanan ’s Cabinet thenational government was indeed in a pitiable plight , for,besides the avowed secessioni sts in the Cabinet , Senatorsfrom the States which afterwards seceded and whi ch were

See Report of Committee on Military Affairs, February 1 8 , 1 86 1 ;

36th Cong . , 2d sess. , Rep . No. 85 .

Crawford,Sumter, p . 2 16 ; Curtis, Buchanan,

vol. p . 4 16.

3 Curtis, Life of B . R . Curti s, vol. i . , p . 193 .

520 Po litica l H istory of Secess ion

then contemplating secession held the controlling power i nthe Senate,

which enabled them to block all leg islationdesigned to strengthen and protect the government . Astoni shi ng as it may seem , the correspondence brought tolight after the close of the Civil War shows that Floyd and

Trescott , while yet in the serviceof the national government,

were actively engaged in helping the State of South Carolina to purchase of the United States War Department alot of guns bought for the avowed purpose of enabling theState to equip an armed force with which to oppose thegovernment in the event of anticipated war between it andSouth Carolina . The sale was consummated on December20 , 1860 ,

the day on which South Carolina seceded . Indeedit seems that for some time after the election of LincolnBuchanan ’ s Cabinet was a veritable secession hotbed .

I

For several weeks after Lincoln ’s election the plans of thesecession leaders seemed to beworking successfully and withlittle, i f any , opposition on the part of the national government . One of the matters that at an early date impresseditself upon the secession leaders as of prime importance wasthe getting possession of the national forts in the South ,particularly Fort Pickens , commandi ng the Pensacola navyyard , and those in Charleston harbor . The three forts inCharleston harbor were Fort Sumter , Fort Moultrie,

and

Castle Pinckney , the first being themost important . Theycommanded the entrance to the harbor , and to gain possession of them was of the highest importance to the SouthCarolina authorities ; but , until they could complete theirpreparations for attack, it was essential to prevent theirreinforcement . Major Robert Anderson was assigned to

the command of the fo'rts on November 15 , 1860 . He,

himself , with a handful of men occupied Fort Moultriewhile a small garrison occupied Fort Sumter . Almost assoon as he took possession he began to urge upon the WarDepartment the necessity of reinforcement , but Floydrefused , giving as a reason that

“the increase of the force

1 See Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, vol. chap . xviii . , p . 3 1 5.

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522 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

of his studied determ ination to pursue a course wi th reference to themi litary force and forts in this harbor which shallguard against such a collision . He has , therefore, carefullyabstained from increasing the force at this point , or takingany measures which might add to the present excited stateof the public m ind , or which would throw any doubt on theconfidence he feels that South Carolina will not attempt , byviolence, to obtain possession of the public works or interfere wi th their occupancy . But as the counsel and actsof rash and impulsive persons may possibly d isappoint theseexpectations of the government , he deems it proper thatyou should be prepared with instructions to meet so um

happy a contingency . He has therefore d irected me ver

bally to give you such instructions . You are carefullyto avoid every act which would needlessly tend to pro

voke aggression ; and , for that reason , you are not, without evident and imminent necessity , to take up anyposition which could be construed into the assumption of

a hostile attitude. These extraord inary instructionswere communicated without the knowledge of either thePresident or of General Scott . The clandestine mannerin which they were communi cated is significant . Still moresignificant is the fact that they were verbal and not inwriting and were not sent through the ordinary channelsof offi cial communications . Considering all these circum

stances , in connection wi th Floyd ’s known sympathy withthe secession cause, his prior zeal in prostituting his officialposition and betraying his trust in order to aid it, the con

elusion is almost irresistible that the instructions reallygiven , of which the wri tten memorandum was but an out

line, were of so treasonable a character that it was notdeemed prudent to write them out in full and to transm itthem through the ord inary official channelsOn December 1 8 Major Anderson agai n wrote to the

War Department that “the sand hills and the houses surrounding the fort wi ll afford safe shelter for sharpshooters ,War Rec., vol. i . , pp . 89

—90.

C lose of Buchanan’

s Administration 523

who may, wi th ordinary good luck , pick off the major partof my little band , if we stand by our guns , in a few hours ”

yet , no reinforcements . About the same time CaptainFoster of the Engineers had procured some forty musketsfrom the United States arsenal at Charleston to supply themen in the forts , but as soon as Floyd heard of it he irumed iately telegraphed Captain Foster :

“I have just te

ceived a telegraphic di spatch informing me that you haveremoved forty muskets from Charleston arsenal to FortMoultrie. If you have removed any arms , return theminstantly . Answer by telegraph .

” z Captain Foster cor

rectly interpreted Floyd’s d ispatch , as appears in one of

the former ’ s di Spatches :“The order of the Secretary of

War of last night I must consider as decisive upon the

question of any eff orts on my part to defend Fort Sumterand Castle Pinckney . The defense now can only extend tokeeping the gates closed and shutters fastened and wi ll ceasewhen these are forced .

” 2

Major Anderson again appealed for reinforcements ,wishing to God that he had men enough to man fully myguns ,

”but none came. On December 2 1 , Floyd , ev i

dently di sappointed over the fact that Major Anderson hadnot understood his “verbal” instructions as he intendedthat they should be understood , wrote d irect to him thisinsulting and shameful letter

“SIR : In the verbal instructions communicated to you

by Major Buell , you are di rected to hold possession of theforts in the harbor of Charleston , and , i f attacked , to defendyourself to the last extremity . Under these instructions ,you might infer that you are required to make a vain and

useless sacrifice of your own life and the lives of the men

under your command upon a mere point of honor . This isfar from the President ’s intentions . You are to exerci se asound military di scretion on this subject . It is neitherexpected nor desired that you should expose your own lifeor that of your men in a hopeless confl ict in defense of these

1 War Rec.,vol. i . , p. 100. Id ., p . 100.

524 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

forts . If theyare invested or attacked by a force so superior that resistance would , in your judgment , be a uselesswaste of life, it will be your duty to yield to necessityfandmake the best term s in your power . Thi s will be the con

duct of an honorable, brave, and humane officer and youwill be fully justified in such action . These orders are

strictly confidential , and not to be communicated even tothe officers under your command , without close necessity .

This letter is susceptible of only one interpretation . Itssole purpose was to suggest to Major Anderson the mannerin which hemight betray his trust and yet escape censure asa traitor . Major Anderson was assured that all that wasexpected of him was to make only a sham defense, and whenthat was no longer available, to surrender .On the night of December 26 , Major Anderson , findi ng

his position in Fort Moultrie no longer tenable,evacuated it ,

Spiking the guns and transferring his little force to FortSumter . The enraged Governor of South Carolina at oncedemanded that he return to Fort Moultrie

,and as soon as

the report reached Washing ton , Floyd telegraphed to MajorAnderson stating that it is not believed because there is noorder for any such movement , but demandi ng that MajorAnderson “

explain the meaning of this report . Imme

di ately after that the South Carolina military forces tookpossession of both Fort Moultrie and Castle Pinckney and

began to put them in cond ition for use in the bombardmentof Fort Sumter , and at the same time tookpossession of theUnited States custom-house and arsenal in the city of

Charleston .

In Major Anderson ’s explanation of December 27 toFloyd he said : “I abandoned Fort Moultrie because I wascertain that i f attacked my men mu st have been sacrificed ,and the command of the harbor lost . I spiked the guns anddestroyed the cartridges to keep the guns from being usedagainst us .

” 3 But Floyd ,still more enraged than were the

War Rec.,vol. i . , p . 103 .

3 Id .,p . 3 .

2 Id ., p . 3 .

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526 Po l itica l H istory of Secession

Carolina . Nor could any precedent be found in the historyOf the country . But there were statements in the Comm issioners ’ communication that imperatively required an answerof some kind , particularly the one referring to the pledgesbefore made and to his own orders . Finally it was determi ned to receive the Commissioners ,

“but only as private

gentlemen of the highest character . ” An informal interview between the comm issioners and the President wasarranged for I O

’

clock P .M . , on the following day. But on

the morning of the 27th the news reached Washington Of

Major Anderson ’s removal from Fort Moultrie to FortSumter . The d iscovery of this fact furnished the Commissioners addi tional and important matter about whi ch to“treat , and added fresh acrimony to the correspondencebetween them and the President . The news was at oncecommunicated to the President and soon after JeffersonDavis and Senator Hunter Of Virginia called upon him .

Floyd was sent for and soon after appeared . The Presidentwas urged to take immed iate action and order Andersonback to Fort Moultri e.

“The d iscussion ,

” accord ing to

Trescott ,ll “was long and earnest . At first he [Buchanan]

seemed di sposed to declare that he would restore the status ,then hesitated , said he must call his Cabinet together ; hecould not condemn Major Anderson unheard .

”He was

also urged to allow a telegram to be sent stating that i fAnderson 's move had been made without a previous attackhewould restore the status

, but this he declined to do . The

meeting with the Comm issioners was ad journed until thenext day,

when they had their first and only personal interview with the President , who ,

as Trescott states , “receivedthem courteously and las private gentlemen alone. He

listened to their statement but informed them that it wasto Congress that they must look , at the same time expressing his willingness to lay before Congress any propositiontheym ightmake to him . At this meeting R .W . Barnwell

,

chairman of the Comm issioners , pressed Buchanan“wi th

I Crawford , Hi st. of Fort Sumter, p . 144 .

C lose of Buchanan’

s Administration 527

great zeal and earnestness to order Major Anderson backto Fort Moultrie.

“Mr . Buchanan still hesitating , Mr.Barnwell said to him at least three times during the interview

,

‘But,Mr . President , your personal honor is involved in

this matter ; the fai th you pledged has been violated ; andyour personal honor requi res you to issue the order . ’ Mr .Barnwell pressed him so hard upon this point that thePresident said : ‘You must give me time to consider— thisis a grave question .

’ Mr . Barnwell replied to him for the

third time,

‘But, Mr . President , your personal honor is

involved in this arrangement . ’ Whereupon Mr . Buchanan ,with great earnestness , said : Mr . Barnwell, you are pressingme too importunately ; you don

’t give me time to consider ;you don

’t giveme time to say my prayers ; I always say myprayers when required to act upon any great state aff air .

’

But the Comm issioners failed to persuade the President toorder Anderson back to Fort Moultrie, and they prepared awritten statement which was formally transmi tted to thePresident on the following day.

By this time the venerable General Scott , who had beenconfined to his bed by sickness , sent a message to the President , vigorously protesting against the evacuation Of FortSumter . He also sent a personal message to the President ,informing him that up to this date no orders to Anderson orcommunications to him had been given or received throughthe army headquarters , but all had been conducted throughthe off ice of the Secretary of War . Moreover by this time

information of Floyd ’s secret verbal instructions to MajorAnderson had leaked out. It also turned out that some

kind of truce had been made between the South Carolinaauthori ties and some authority , presumably acting in behalfOf the Administration , that on condi tion that the SouthCarolina forces would not fire on Fort Sumter , not onlyshoul d Fort Sumter not fire on them , but that no attemptshould bemade to reinforce the fort wi th men or muni tionsof war . That some such truce had been made there is no

Crawford,Hi st. of Fort Sumter, pp . 148

—9 .

528 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

doubt , and there is no doubt that it was made with theknowledge and consent of Floyd , but it is certain that itwas not made with the knowledge and consent of GeneralScott . Buchanan denied that he knew anything aboutit, but this the South Carolina Commissioners vi gorouslydi sputed .

A meeting Of the Cabinet was held on the evening of

December 27 and from that time until the morning of the3 I st the sole topics Of d iscussion in the Cabinet meetingswere the questions what should be done with Anderson ,and what should be done wi th the South Carolina Commissioners ? In their first wri tten communication to thePresident on December 28 the Commissioners assertedthat the South Carolina authorities “

coul d at any time

within the past sixty days have taken possession of the

forts in Charleston harbor , but which , upon pledges givenin a manner tha t we cannot doubt, determ ined to trust toyour honor rather than to its own power . Since our arrival ,an offi cer of the Uni ted States , acting , as we are assured , not

only without , but aga inst your orders , has dismantled one

fort and occupied another , thus altering to a most important extent the condi tion of aff airs under which we came.

They demanded an explanation of these circumstances ,under threat of suspend ing further negotiations , and closedwith this threat : “And in conclusion we would urge uponyou the immed iatewithdrawal of the troops from the harborof Charleston . Under present circumstances they are astandi ng menace which renders negotiations impossible,and , as our recent experience shows , threatens speed ily tobring to a bloody issue questions whi ch ought to be settledwi th temperance and judgment . ” 1 Whi le Buchanan waspreparing hi s answer , the news came to Washington that ,wi thout waiting to “treat ,

” Castle Pinckney and FortMoul trie had been occupied by South Carolina troops , andthat they had raised the palmetto flag over the Uni tedStates custom-house and post-Offi ce at Charleston and hadWar Rec.

,vol. i . , p . 109 .

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530 Politica l H istory of Secess ion

where they should have been kept and the notes of Mr .Floyd were substituted for them . Now, it is proposed tog ive up Sumter . All I have to say is that no Admi nistration ,much less this one, can afford to lose a mi llion of money anda fort in the same week.

” I SO heated di d the di scussionbecome that at one time there was danger of a personalencounter between Floyd and Stanton . In a day or two

afterward Floyd d isappeared fromWashington , leaving hisresignation and g iving as a reason for resigni ng his Offi ce:

“ Ican no longer hold it under my conviction Of patriotism nor

wi th honor , subjected as I am to the vi olation of solemnpledges and plighted faith .

” 2 The resignation was ac

cepted and on December 3 1 Postmaster-General JosephHolt was appointed to fil l the place left vacant byFloyd . Floyd ’s departure was probably accelerated bythe imm inent danger of his arrest on the embezzlementind ictment . This was the last of Floyd as Secretary of

War . He was next heard of in Virginia , advising the

Conf ederate War Department how best to suppress the“remnant of the Union shriekers in the southwestern partof Virgini a . About the same time, he was given a com

m ission as Brigadi er-General in the Confederate army . He

belonged to the crop , so plentiful but short-lived in both theNorth and South , of political generals . He fled from FortDonelson just before its surrender and never appeared afterthat in the hi story of the war . Floyd ’s services to the

Confederacy had been of no value, except those rendered tothe enemies Of his country at a time when he was acting asits Secretary of War and filling in the Cabinet a tru sted

position that imposed on him the highest degree Of fidelity .

The services so rendered were indeed of incalculable valueto the Confederacy , but they were of the same kind as thoseby which Benedi ct Arnold has secured a place in history.

Colley Cibber wrote an Apology for his own life but noman

has yet ventured to write an Apology for the life Of Floyd .

Nicolay and Hay,Li ncoln ,

vol. iii . , p . 74.

Curtis, Buchanan, vol. ii . , p . 409 .

C lose of Buchanan’

s Administration 53 1

The President on Saturday , the 29th , submitted to theCabinet a draft of an answer to the Comm issioners that hehad prepared . What followed is told in the biography Of

Judge B lack .

‘ “Late in the evening of Saturday , the 29thof December , the President laid before the Cabinet theresult of his own reflections in the form of an answer to theSouth Carolina Commissioners . It was such a paper asnone of them expected to see. Onemember only approvedthe document and five Opposed it , but opposed it for diff erent reasons . Messrs . Black, Holt , and Stanton objectedthat it conceded too much to the contumacious State ;and Messrs . Thomas and Thompson thought its whole tonewas so hostile to the claim of South Carolina that it wouldmake the imm ediate outbreak of civil war inevitable. Mr .Toucey was fully with the President . Not much criticismwas bestowed on the document at the time. The membersall thought that further d iscussion would be useless ; in theirpast experience they had seen how inflexible were Mr .Buchanan ’ s resolutions when once formed . Each was leftto decide for himself what his duty requi red him to do . Itseemed certain that the Cabinet was about to explode and

fly Off in Opposite d irections . On the nextmorning , Sunday ,the 3oth ,

Mr . Black communicated to Messrs . Stanton ,Holt , and Toucey his convi ction that the President

’s m indwas fixed beyond all hope of change, and his own determination to resign in consequence. Mr . Toucey told thePresident , and Mr . B lack was sent for. He went reluctautly , dread ing theeff ect upon his own feelings Of the appealwhi ch he knew Mr . Buchanan woul d make to the sacredfriendship which had lasted through so many years Of

prosperi ty , and whi ch certainly ought not to be broken inthat hour of trouble and adversity . What was said between them during that interview need not be told , but itended in the Off er of the President to let Mr . Blacktake thedocument in question , strike out what he thought Objectionable, and insert what was necessary to make it meet his

1 Black’s Essays and Speeches, pp . 13— 17.

Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

own views ; but this must be done immed iately . Mr . Blackwent to the Attorney-General’s Offi ce, and there wrote thefollowing paper , which Mr . Stanton copied as rapidly as thesheets were thrown to him .

I

Blackhere gives a full copy of this important paper as followsMemorandum for the President on the subject of the paper drawn

up by him in reply to theCommissioners Of South Carolina.

I . The first and the concluding paragraphboth seem to acknowledgethe right of South Carolina to be represented near this Government byd iplomatic officers. That implies that she is an independentnation,withno other relations to theGovernment of theUnion thanany other foreignpower. If such be the fact, then she ha s acquired all the rights, powers,and responsibilities Of a separate government by themere ordinance ofsecessionwhi ch passed her conventiona few days ago. But the Presidenthas always, and particularly in his late message to Congress, denied theright Of secession, and asserted that no State could throw 03 her Federalobligations in that way. Moreover, the President has also very d istinctly declared that even i f a State could secede and go out of the Unionat pleasure, whether by revolution or in the exercise of a constitutionalright, he could not recognize her independence without being guilty of

usurpation. I think,therefore, that every word and sentence which

implies that SouthCarolina is in an attitudewhich enables the Presidentto

‘treat’ or negotiate with her, or to receive her commissioners in thecharacter of d iplomatic ministers oragents, ought to be stricken out andan explicit declaration substituted , which would reassert the principlesof the message. It is surely not enough tha t thewords Of the messagebe transcribed if the doctrine there announced be practica lly abandonedby carrying on a negotiation.

“2 . Iwould strike out all expressions of regret that the commi ssioners

are unwilling to proceed with the negotiations, since it is very clear thatthere can be no negotiation with them,

whether they arewilling or not.“3 . Above all things, it is Objectionable to intimate a willingness to

negotiate with the State of South Carolina about the possession of amilitary post which belongs to the United States, or to propose anyad justment of the subject or any arrangement about it. The forts inCharleston Harbor belong to

'

thi s government— are its own,and cannot

be given up . It is true they might be surrendered to a superior force,whether that force be in the service Of a seceding State or a foreignnation. But Fort Sumter is impregnable and cannot be taken if defended as it should be. It is a thing of the last importance that it shouldbe maintained i f all the power of this nation can do it ; for the commandof the harbor and the President’s ability to execute the revenue lawsmay depend on it.

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534 Po litica l H istory of Secess ion

embodies the sentiments of Mr . Stanton also. He com

mented upon it with strong expressions of delight , and Mr .Holt , who saw it the same day, equally approved it . Mr .Stanton would have resigned with Mr . Black i f the viewsof the latter (which were also his own) had not been adopted ;Mr . Holt , perhaps , would have done the same, but he di d

not say so .

”

merely a gallant and meritorious Officer who is entitled to a fair hearingbefore he is condemned . He has saved the country

,I solemnly believe,

when its day was darkest and its perils most extreme. He has doneeverything that mortal man could do to repair the fatal error which theAdministration have committed in not sending down troops enough tohold all the forts. He has kept the strongest one. He still commandsthe harbor. We may still execute the laws i f we try. Besides

,there is

nothing in the orders which were sent to him by the War Departmentwhich is in the slightest degree contravened by his act of throwing hi scommand into Fort Sumter. Even if those orders sent without yourknowledge did forbid him to leave a place where hi s men might haveperished , and shelter them under a stronger position, we ought all of usto rejoice that he broke such

‘orders.

“7. The idea that a wrong was committed against South Carolina

by moving from Fort Moul trie to Fort Sumter ought to be repelled as

firmly as may be consistent with a proper respect for the high characterof the gentlemen who compose the South Carolina Commission. It is astrange assumption of right on the part Of that State to say that ourUnited States troops must remain in theweakest position they can findin the harbor. It is not a menace of South Carolina or of Charleston, oranymenaceat all. It is simple self-defense. If SouthCarolina does notattack Major Anderson, no human being will be injured ; for therecertainly can be no reason to believe that he will commence hostilities.The apparent objection to his being in Fort Sumter is that he will beless likely to fall an easy prey to hi s assailants.“These are the points on which I would advise that the paper be

amended . I am aware that they are too radical to permit much hopeOf their adoption. If they are adopted thewhole paper will need to berecast. But there is one thing not to be overlooked in thi s terrible crisis.I entreat the President to order the Brooklyn and the Macedonian to

Charleston without the least delay, and in the meantime send a trustymessenger to Major Anderson to let him know that hi s governmentwill not desert him . The reinforcement of troops from New Yorkor

Old Point Comfort should follow immediately. If this be done atonce all may yet be notwell, but comparatively safe. If not, I can see

nothing before us but disaster and ruin to the country.

C lose of Buchanan’

s Administration 535

There are several other versions of thi s most importantCabinet aff air .

‘ In some of these it is stated that theinterview between Buchanan and B lack was both impressiveand affecting and that Buchanan was moved to tears . To

lose B lackwas probably to lose Stanton and Holt also , and

to leave Buchanan alone to copewith the plotters of secession on the one hand and an outraged and indi gnant Northon the other . It is plain that by the mal ign influence Of

Floyd the President had been tempted to the brink of anabyss , already yawning to engu lf in utter ruin Buchanan , hiswhole Admi nistration , and perhaps the country , and that itwas Blackthat pointed out to him the danger . Thememo

randurn prepared by Black is , perhaps , the most importantof all the State papers of Buchanan

’ s Administration .

Whatever doubts there may have been as to Black ’sattitude toward secession before, there were none after ,the wri ting of that memorandum . In the preparation of

i t he had performed , not onl y for Buchanan , but for thecountry , a servi ce of inestimable value. It cannot now bedetermined to a certainty howmuch of Buchanan ’s answerto the Commissioners was the President ’s own conceptionand howmuch of it was suggested by B lack and Stanton .

In reference to the demand of the Comm issioners that theFederal troops be removed from Charleston harbor the

answer says : “This I cannot do , this I will not do .

" Inthis and in simi lar expressions , so unl ike the President ’ susual mode of stating thing s , we hear the voice of the

President , but we feel the hand Of Black .

The President ’s answer to the Commi ssioners throwsadditional light on the alleged “truce” and the

“pledges

”

referred to by the Comm issioners in their first communica

tion . As stated by the President , several of the SouthCarolina representatives had an interview wi th him on

December 8 and they and the President “had an earnes t

xMcClure, Lincoln and Men of War Times, p . 278 ; Crawford ,Hi story of Fort Sumter, pp . 149

-156 ; Nicolay and Hay, Li ncoln, vol.

iii . , p . 73 ; Rhodes, History of the Uni ted States, vol. iii. , pp . 230-3 .

536 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

conversation on the subject of these forts and the bestmeans Of preventing a collision between the parties , for thepurpose of sparing the effusion Of blood , and the Presidentsuggested that

“for prudential reasons

” it would be bestto put in writing what they said to him verbally . They di dso and on December 10 they presented a paper to thePresident as follows

WASH INGTON , December 9, 1860.

His Excellency , JAMES BUCHANAN ,

“President of the United StatesIn compliance wi th our statement to you yesterday , we

now express to you our strong convictions that neitherthe constituted authorities , nor any body of the people of theState of South Carolina , will either attack or molest theUnited States forts in the harbor of Charleston previouslyto the action Of the convention , and we hope and believenot until an off er has been made, through an accreditedrepresentative, to negotiate for an amicable arrangement ofall matters between the State and Federal government ,provided that no reinforcements shall be sent into thoseforts and their relative military status shall remain as atpresent .

In his answer the President said that at the time the

paper was presented to him he objected to the word “pro

v i ded , inasmuch “as it might be construed into an agree

ment on his part , whi ch he never would make,”and that he

“considered it as nothing more in eff ect than the prom ise

of highly honorable gentlemen to exert their influence forthe purpose expressed .

” In the version afterwards givenby some of the South Carolina representatives they con

fessed their inability to comprehend the President ’ s nicedi stinction between an “understand ing , an

“agreement ,and a “

pledge.

” “Nor can we understand ,

” they say,

“how,

‘in a matter of honor among gentlemen ,’ in whi ch

War Rec. , vol. i . , p . 1 16.

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538 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

in bombardi ng Fort Sumter , and also to their taking forciblepossession of the United States post-Off ice and customhouse in Charleston without waiting to “treat further .On January 1 , the Commi ssioners sent to the President a

long and bombastic reply,

I still more arrogant and insultingthan their original communication . In this they treat theact Of Major Anderson in evacuating Fort Moultrie as anact of war. Scarcely had their commi ssioners left , theysay, than Major Anderson waged war . NO other wordswill describe his action . It was not a peaceful change fromone fort to another ; i t was a hostile act in the hi ghest senseOne only justified in the presence of a superior enemy and

in imminent peril. He abandoned hi s position , Spiked hisguns , burned his gun carriages , made preparations for thedestruction of his post , and withdrew , under cover Of thenight , to a safer position . This was war . But the mostcruel part of the reply was that in which the Commissionersrenewed the charges against Buchanan of breach of faith ,of the

“many and repeated assurances gi ven on your

[his] behalf which we [they] cannot believe unauthorized .

”

They wound up their reply wi th thi s grandi loquent peroration : “By your course you have probably rendered civilwar inevi table. Be it so . If you choose to force this issueupon us , the State of South Carolina will accept it , and relying upon Him who is the God of Justice, as well as the Godof Hosts , will endeavor to perform the great duty whichlies beforeher, hopefully , bravely , and thoroughly . WhatBuchanan thought of this reply may never be known .

Possibly his thoughts were something like those expressedin the dying words of Caesar to his old-time fri end Bru tus .At any rate, the Commissioners

’ reply was returned withthis short indorsement : “This paper just presented to thePresident is of such character‘

that he declines to receive it .”

This was the first d irect setback that the cause of se

cession had received from the President . The vaultingambition of the secession leaders had at last overreachedWarRec., vol. i ., p. 120.

Close of Buchanan’

s Administration 539

itself . On January 2 , 186 1 , Senator Wigfall , though stillregularly attending the sessions Of the Senate as Senatorfrom Texas , telegraphed to M . L . Bonham of Charleston ,in command of the South Carolina forces there : “Holtsucceed s Floyd . It means war . Cut Off supplies fromAnderson and take Sum ter as soon as possible.

In the reorganization of the Cabinet , Black had now be

come Secretary of State, Holt Secretary of War , Dix

Secretary of the Treasury , and Stan ton Attorney-General .Judging from Black ’s opinion to Buchanan on November20 , 1 860 , his change of attitude was as d i sappointing to thesecession leaders as it was encouraging to the people of the

North . It is possible, as already stated , that thi s opinionat the tim e when it was given was not generally interpretedas he him self intended that it should be, and that i f he hadanticipated the application afterwards sought to bemade ofit , he would have expressed himself in d iff erent language.

Whatever change, if any , had taken place in his views of thepowers of the general government , and when the changeoccurred , it is not possible now to determ ine, but it iscertain that hewas from the beginni ng opposed to secession ,and that long before the resi gnation of Floyd he had become

one of the staunchest supporters of the Union cau se. Thiswas of the highes t importance, for, from the time he became

a member of Buchanan ’

s Cabinet , he had exerci sed a greatinfluence over him .

The new Secretary of War was also a di sappointment tothe secession leaders . Born in Kentucky , but long ares ident of Missi ssippi , and duri ng his prior life intimatelyassociated wi th the Southern political leaders , he was ,nevertheless , from the beginning , outspoken in hi s opposition to secession and throughou t the Civil War was astaunch friend Of the Union , and as such he was prominentlater during the Admini stration of Lincoln .

Dix, likewi se a lifelong Democrat , and prominent in politics in the State Of New York,

had been appointed largelyon the recommendation of the business men Of New York

540 Po litica l H istory of Secess ion

City . His celebrated di spatch , sent while the South Carolina Commi ssioners were still in Washington , to the NewOrleans collector , If any man attempts to haul down theAmerican flag , shoot him on the spot , — came to the Northlike an inspiration , but coming from a member Of Buchanan ’s Cabinet was as unexpected as a voice from the tomb .

H istory speaks for Stanton , the new Attorney-General .He had been appointed chiefly upon the recommen

dation of B lack. With all Stanton ’s faults , for like othergreat men , he had some great faults , his name is inseparablyconnected with the history of the Civil War , and wi th thememory of Lincoln as his great war secretary .

These four men— especially Black and Stanton— now

became the controlling factors in the Cabinet . The re

organization Of the Cabinet was the turn ing point in Euchanan

’

s adm ini stration ; it was also the turning point inthe Union cause and preserved the national governmentuntil the coming Of Buchanan ’s successor . If his Cabinethad remained the same as it was when Lincoln was elected ,

there is little doubt that by the time fixed for his inauguration Lincoln would have found Washington in the possession of the Confederates , with Jeff erson Davis seated in theWhite House and an army and navy and all the machineryOf the government at his command . But none of the fourmen named ,

nor all together , could change the character ofBuchanan , nor instill into him their own courage and determination . That was as impossible as changing a leopard

’sspots .Another result Of the resignation of Floyd was the bring

ing of General Scott , who had been practically ignored byFloyd , into consultationwith the new Secretary of Warand the members of the Cabinet , thereby giving them the

benefit of his advi ce and cooperation .

A few days afterward the President was persuaded by themajority of his Cabinet to attempt the reinf orcement ofFort Sumter . It was then too late, as both General Scottand Major Anderson advi sed , for the works erected in the

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CHAPTER XXV

THE CLOSING MONTHS OF BUCHANAN’

S ADMINISTRATION(Continued )

Y the efforts of Black , Stanton , and Holt theAdmin i stration began to show signs of returni ng vi tality.

Not only were the eff orts made, already noted , to relieveFort Sumter , but preparations weremade to defend FortressMonroe and the arsenal at St . Loui s , to concentrate troopsat Bal timore and other points , and to protect the ci ty of

Washington from capture. Indeed the prospect of the

secessionists capturing the capital and biddi ng Buchanan

pack up and be off seems to have convinced the Presidenthimself of the necessity of making some preparations toavert so hum iliating a catastrophe. But the reorganizationof the Cabinet and putting it upon a Union basis , and thepreparations , such as they were, to preserve the nationalgovernment from utter destruction , while greatly encour

aging to the North , only added fresh fuel to the secessionfires in the South , where all these movements were lookedupon as preparations for

“coercion .

As before stated , it is now manifest that in laying theirplans , the secession leaders erred , or were lacking in foresight in several important particulars . They had not

antici pated such a turn of aff airs as would take their fastfriend s , Cobb , Thompson , and Floyd , out of Buchanan ’ sCabinet before the expiration of his term . They weresurpri sed and di sappointed by the unexpected loyalty of

Holt and Black. Holt , as already stated , though comingfrom a Southern State, was , from the beg inning , stronglyagainst secess ion and in favor of upholding the authority of

542

C lose of Buchanan’

s Administration 543

the government in the seceded States , and B lack , notwi thstand ing the opinion he gave to Buchanan , proved to be

one of the strongest advocates in the Cabinet for the preservation of the Union . The secessioni sts had not dreamed ofthe entrance into Buchanan ’s Cabinet of two such staunchopponents of secession as Stanton and Dix . They had notanticipated the reorganization of the Cabinet upon a Unionbasis . They had not believed it possible that Buchananhimself , after solemnly asserting in his annual message thatthe national government had no constitutional power tocoerce a sovereign State, or to use the mi li tary power ofthe government in any way to suppress secession , wouldtake the steps , hesitating as they were, which he d id take tovind icate the authority of the national government . Theywere both di sappointed and enraged by the measures , suchas they were, to retain the national forts and arsenals andto preserve the government from destruction . They erredin counting upon recognition , and , as a last resort , uponintervention , by foreign powers . They erred in supposingthat

,in the event of civil war , the seceding States could rely

upon the support and sympathy of any considerable part ofthe North . They erred in assuming that because Northernmen would not fight duels they woul d not fight battles .And lastly they erred in supposing that , after the secessionmovement had begun , the hot-heads in the South could becontrolled so as to travel only so fast and only upon suchlines as the leaders had planned . South Carolina could notbe restrained from immed iate secession . It had been difficult to d issuade the authori ties Of that State from bombardi ng Fort Sumter long before the secession leaders wereprepared to do so , and thus precipitating civil war beforethey were ready for it . The example of South Carolina wascontagi ous and , as in al l revolutions , the rad icals took thelead , as the rad icals finally took the lead in theNorth . Jef

ferson Davi s tells us that even he was deemed too

The seces sion leaders had lost the support of Floyd and

Rise and Fall, vol. i . , p. 58 .

544 Po l itical H istory of Secess ion

Cobb and Thompson as members of Buchanan ’s Cabinet ,but the Southern States , excepting South Carolina , stillhad their Senators and Representatives in Congress and inall the departments of the national government , and it wasassumed by the secession leaders that in carryi ng out theirplans they could still work to far better advantage underBuchanan ’s Adm inistration than they could under that ofhis successor . But Buchanan ’ s term was rapidly drawing to a close and in order to complete the organization ofthe proposed confederacy before the comi ng in of the new

Administration , it was necessary to make material changesin the orig inal ,plans of the secession leaders on accountof the unforeseen circumstances that had occurred since theelection Of Lincoln , and it was important to act promptly .

At this juncture Pollard states that a self-constitutedrevolutionary council was formed , characterized by himas “one Of the most extraordi nary councils in the historyof the country .

” 1 This revolutionary body , we are told“sat in the shadow of the Capitol at Washington ; andin a few weeks this strange authority had sent overthe country the order which led to the seizure of all the

forts in the South except two. The council summonedon this occasion at once assumed the powers of a revolutionary junta . It was composed of the Senators fromseven Southern States : Florida , Georgia , Alabama , Mississippi , Loui siana , Arkansas , and Texas . It met in one

Of the rooms of the Capitol , on the night of the sth

January , 1 86 1 . The representation was full , two Senatorsfrom each of the States named being present ; but a body offourteen Southern men , and those, too , properly acting in avery limited representative capacity , was certainly a smalland extraordi nary one to determ ine for the country theconcern of peace or war , and to assume the destini es of theSouth . It was decided to recommend immedi ate secessionof their respective States , and the holding of a conventionat Montgomery , Alabama , on the 1sth day of February .

’

Pollard , Lifeof J efl'

erson Davi s, p . 6 1 .

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546 Politica l H istory of Secess ion

South , and from the beginning it was evident that the people were to have no calm and deliberate voice in the

matter. An executive commi ttee was appointed ,

‘to carry

out the objects of the meeting .

’ It consisted of threepersons , and one of them was Jefferson Davis . That thecouncil was not merely ‘advisory ,

’ that it represented thevigor and determ ination of a revolutionary purpose, isproved from the fact that its program was carried out

with an exactness , a minute correspondence to every proposition that could only have proceeded from the force of

command . Everything was done that the council ordered .

They di d control ‘all political and military operations’

;

they d id have forts and arsenals seized , as , one by one, thedi spatches from Washington ind icated them ; they did effecta convention at Montgomery arbitrarily appointed ; andin no instance di d the movements in the South towardssecession vary from the program decided at Washingtonon the sth of January . Never was a conspiracy moresuccessful in all its designs and in every detail ; and nevercould such a correspondence of events have been producedby mere councilors , so lim ited in numbers and in representative capacity , unless there had been concealed in the guiseof

‘recommendations ’ the bold and imperious fiat of men

who had resolved to rule the people rather than to counseland then Obey them .

The secret senatorial council of the 5th of January canthen only be historically known as a revolutionary body.

It really dates the commencement of the war . To be sure,after this , there was a prolonged farce of a debate in Congress , and such affectations as might proceed from the

tactics of the parties ; but war was practically determinedwhen Anderson raised his flag at Sumter, and turned inlandthe frown of his guns . ”

See also letter of “Eaton

, understood to be Lemuel D . Evans, 3.Representative from Texas, in the Nati onal Intelligencer, of January 1 1

,

1 86 1,reprinted in McPherson

'

s Hi story of the Rebellion, p . 39 1 ; Apple

ton’s Annual Cycloped ia for 1 861 , p . 125.

C lose of Buchanan’

s Administration 547

At this meeting the following resolutions were adopted“Resolved , That in our opinion each of the Southern

States should , as soon as may be, secede from the Union .

“Resolved , That provision should be made for a conven

tion to organize a confederacy of the seced ing States , theconvention to meet not later than the 1sth of February

,at

the city of Montgomery , in the State of Alabama .

“Resolved , That in view of the hostile legi slation that is

threatened against the seced ing States , and which may be

consummated before the 4th of March , we ask instructionswhether the delegations are to remain in Congress until thatdate for the purpose of defeating such legislation .

Resolved , That a committee be and are hereby appointed ,consisting of Messrs . Davis , Slidell, and Mallory , to carryout the objects of thi s meeting .

One of the questions d iscussed at themeeting was whetherSouthern members of Congress “should go out at once,

”or

not . It was thought that the States should secede butthat their representatives in Congress should remain forthe reasons stated in a letter of Senator Yulee of Flori da toJoseph Finegan , written January 7, 1 86 1 , in which he said :“The idea of the meeting was that the States should go out

at once, and provi de for the early organization of a confederate government , not later than 1 5th February . This time

is allowed to enable Lou isiana and Texas to participate.

It seemed to be the opinion that i f we left here, force, loan ,and volunteer bills might be passed , which would put Mr .Lincoln in immediate cond ition for hostilities ; whereas , byremaining in our places until the 4th of March , it is thoughtwe can keep the hands of Mr . Buchanan tied , and d isablethe Republicans from eff ecting any legi slation which willstrengthen the hand s of the incom ing admi nistration .

” I

Several Southern members of Congress who remainedafter the secession of their respective States did so for the

reasons stated in Yulee’s letter , and also , as it was chargedat the time, that they might be in a position where theyMcPherson, Hi story. of the Rebellion, p. 392 , App . Am . Cyc . for 1 86 1 ,

p . 126.

548 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

could keep advised of themovements of the na tional government and communicate them to the secession leaders .Among them was Senator Wig fall of Texas .From this period secession made rapid progress . Ord i

nances of secession were passed by Miss issipp i on January9 ; by Florida and Alabama on the 1 1th ; by Georgia onthe l gth ; by Louisiana on the 2oth , and by Texas on February I . The secession of the Southern States wasfollowed by the withdrawal of most of the Senators andRepresentatives in Congress and by the sei zure of most ofthe United States forts and arsenals wi thi n their respectiveterritories . The work of perfecting the organization of theConf ederate government and putting it on a war footingwas pushed as rapidly as possible. The Confederate Cong ress met in Montgomery , Alabama , on February 4 , 1 86 1 ,and elected Howell Cobb of Georgia president . Fromthis time until the beg inning of the Civil War , therewas scarcely a hitch in the Confederate programme and

the tide of secession became so strong that it finally sweptfrom their mooring s and into the vortex of secession , notonly the cotton States , but al so Virginia , North Carolina ,and Tennessee, and , but for the proximi ty of the Federalarmy , would probably have taken Maryland and possiblyKentucky and Missouri . On February 7, the commi tteeappointed for that purpose by the Conf ederate Congressreported a plan of a provisional government which at alater date was adopted and ratified by the seced ing States .The name

“Confederate States of Ameri ca ” was adopted .

Jefferson Davis was elected President and Alexander H .

Stephens of Georgia Vice-President . There was some d is

cussion about the national flag to be adopted , in which Mr .Miles of South Carolina said that “he had regarded from his

youth the ‘stars and stripes’ as the emblem of oppression

and tyranny , and so the emblem selected was the “starsand bars . On the 18th the President and Vice-Presidentwere inaugurated at Montgomery . The inaugurationceremonies were conducted with imposing pomp .

“The

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550 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

stay the bombardment . Can my voice reach you ? he

said .

“If so do not attackFort Sumter . You know my

sincerity.

” I Later , on February 1 8 , he sent a telegraphd ispatch to Governor Pickens in which he referred to aprevalent rumor , “that Fort Sumter would be taken on or

before 4th of March ,‘without reference to what the Mont

gomery government may advise or order on the subject ,’

add ing ,

“This startles the President . Will you qu iet himby your reply ? ” Finally it was determ ined to postponethe bombardment until a more auspicious time.

So terrifying to the President was anything bearing thesemblance of a d isplay of themilitary strength of the government that on February 22 he hastened to write a letter toex-President Tyler apolog izing for having permitted twoor three companies Of Federal troops then in Washingtonto participate in a public parade there on Washi ng ton

’sbirthday .

3

With the close of the Thirty-sixth Congress came alsothe close of Buchanan ’s administration . The best part ofit , like that of a tedi ous d iscourse, was the end of it . Estimates of Buchanan himself varied in his lifetime and willprobably continue to vary . The bitterest critici sm of him

has come from his former political friends in the South towhose cause he had devoted his life. A Confederate hi storian 4 thus speaks of him : The policy Of Mr . Buchananwas unfortunately weak and hesitating— an attempt atambidexterity , in which he equally failed to conciliate thesecessionists and pacify their designs , or to make anyresolute effort to save the Union . He had , in his messageto Congress , denounced secession as revolutionary ; andalthough he was clear in the constitutional proposition thatthere was no right of ‘coercion ’ on the part Of the Federalgovernment , yet he did but little, and that irresolutely , to

put that government in a state of defense, in the event ofviolence on the part o f the seceded States . This timid Old

War Rec. , vol. i . , p . 254 .

2 Id . , vol. i . , p . 257.

3 Crawford , Sumter, p . 274 .4 Pollard , Lost Cause, p . 95 .

C lose of Buchanan’

s Administration 55 1

man— a cautious , secretive poli tician , who never felt thewarmth of an emotion , and had been bred in the harshschool of political selfishness— attempted to stand betweentwo parties ; and the result was embarrassment , doubledealing , weak and despicable querulousness , and , finally ,the condemnation and contempt of each of the partiesbetween whom he attempted to di stribute his favors .B laine’s estimate of Buchanan ,

‘though not flattering , isfarmore lenient than that of Pollard : “It was Mr . Buchanan ’ s misfortune to be called to act in an emergency whichdemanded wi ll, fortitude, and moral courage. In thesequalities he was deficient . He di d not possess the execu tivefaculty . H is life had been principally devoted to the practice of law in the most peaceful of communi ties , and to service in legi slative bodi es where he was borne along by theforce of association . He had not been trained to promptdecision , had not been accustomed to exercise command .

He was cautious and conservative to the point of timid ity .

It was said of Mr . Buchanan that he instinctivelydreaded to assume responsibility of any kind . Hewasnot g ifted wi th independence or self-assertion . His bearingtowards Southern statesmen was derogatory to him as aman Of spirit . His tone toward s Administrations of hisown party was so deferential as almost to imply a lack of

self-respect . He was not a leader among men . He wasalways led . If Mr . Buchanan had possessed the un

conquerable will of Jackson or the stubborn courage of

Taylor , he could have changed the history of the revoltagainst the Union . A great opportunity came to him but

he was not equal to it . Always an admirable adviser whereprudence and caution were the virtues required , he wasfatally wanting in a situation whi ch demanded promptaction and strong nerve. As Representative in Congress ,as Senator , as minister abroad , as Secretary of State, hiscareer was honorable and successful. H is life was singularlyfree from personal fault or shortcoming . He was honest

Twenty Years, vol. i . , pp. 240-4 1 .

552 Politica l H istory of Secess ion

and pure-minded . His fame would have been more en

viable if he had never been elevated to the Presidency .

”

The opinion of General Crawford upon Buchanan and

the events of the closing months of his Administration i sentitled to great weight . Crawford was in Fort Sumterduring the Siege and was conversant with the operations forits attack and defense. His mi litary experience won forhim a high rank in the Civil War . He had an intimatepersonal acquaintancewith Judge Jeremiah S . Black . Afterthe war he had access to many documents and letters ofboth an Off icial and private nature relating to men and

events connected wi th Fort Sumter . In his history heshows very fully the earnest and persistent eff orts of Black ,Stanton , and Holt to persuade the President to adoptmeasures for the protection and preservation of the UnitedStates forts and m ilitary supplies , in the secedi ng States ,and particularly measures which might , in the beginning ,have been adopted without great d iffi culty to reinforce FortSumter , and how all the opportunities for doing so werefrittered away by reason of the timid ity , hesitation , andvacillation of the President . Crawford ’

s conclusion ex

presses , as accurately and fairly as can be put in a sing lesentence, his own Opinion and probably that of posterity :“When history shall come to pen the record of the close of

his career it will judge him not from what he d id , but what ,from hi s great opportunities and grave responsibilities , heutterly failed to do.

The defense of Buchanan ’s course during the last fourmonths of his Administration , briefly summed up , is that he,like most people in theN orth , and many in the South , di d

not believe that the secessionists would go to the extreme of

making war on the Federal government ; that he could not,i f so inclined , have suppressed secession by force of arms ,for the reason that he had no mi litary or naval force ade

quate for such purposes ; that , even if he had had such aforce, the use of it , at least until all reasonable efforts for

3Crawford , Sumter, p . 287.

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554 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

Cabinet and the zealous eff orts of Floyd , his Secretary of

War , in using all the power of his great Office to ai d the

secession cause, all tended still further to encourage the

secession leaders and to d iscourage the friend s of the Unionand to demoralize the Union sentiment everywhere. It wasthis general tone that gave a coloring to Buchanan

’s policythat Lincoln ’s never had .

Possibly no President , not even Andrew Jackson , couldhave averted the CivilWar , and it may be, and probably is ,true that Buchanan has been unduly blamed ; nevertheless ,the general belief in the North to this day is that , evenconced ing that Buchanan was actuated by patrioticmotives ,his patriotism was of a d iff erent and easily d istingui shablebrand from that of Andrew Jackson .

If at the time of Lincoln ’s election a man like Jacksonhad been in the presidential chair , a man wi th Jackson ’spatriotism ,

his courage, his determ ination , his promptness ,his vigor of action , he might have donemuch to quench thefire when it first started in South Carolina ; he might havedone much to stop its spread ,

and he m ight have greatlycircumscribed the area of the conflagration and shortenedits duration . He could , at least , have done something toencourage and strengthen theUnion sentiment in the South ,particularly in Virginia , in Tennessee, and even in Georgia ;he could have made an effort to save to the United Statesthe forts and arsenals in the seced ing States that weresurrendered without a struggle ; he could have made aneff ort to save the immense quantity of arm s and muni tionsof war that were surrendered to the Confederates and prevent their being used by them to equip the Confederatearmies ; and in these ways , if civi l war had not been averted ,its duration might have been very much shortened . In

stead Oi pursu ing such a course, Buchanan’s ill-concealed

sympathy with the secession leaders in the beginning of thesecession movement , his irresolution , his timi di ty , his vacillation , his constant efforts to shirk all indi vi dual responsib ility and shift it upon Congress and hi s successor , added

C lose of Buchanan’

s Administration 555

fuel to the flames , and fanned them into a conflagration

that during the remainder of his term grew to such vastproportions as to envelop the whole of the South and to

threaten the entire nation .

‘

In Buchanan’

s Admini stration he has himself stated his own defense.

Mcclure, in Lincoln and Men of War Times , p . 273 , has also made astrong plea defending Buchanan against the charge of disloyalty. See

also pamphlet of W. U. Hensel, ex

-Attorney-General Of Pennsylvania,

entitled Buchanan’s Admini stration on the Eve of the Rebellion. The

strongest defense Of Buchanan's Administration during the closingmonths of it is that of Jeremiah S . Black in his two letters toHenryWilson, Black's Essays and Speeches, pp. 245

-92 .

CHAPTER XXVI

DEVELOPMENT OF WAR SPIRIT ‘

IN THE NORTH

HE threats of secess ion heard during the presidentialcampaign of 1 860 made little impression at the time

on the people of the North . They had been heard before in1 820 during the di scussions of the Missouri Compromise ;again during the d iscussions of the compromisemeasures of1 850 , and again in the presidential campaign of 1 856 .

They were repeated wi th increased emphasis duri ng thepresidential campaign of 1860 , but were regarded by mostNorthern voters as mere cries of “wolf .

” “D id not we

submit to the election of Buchanan , said the Republicans ,“and why should not the Democrats submit to the election

of Lincoln ? “If a majori ty shall not be allowed to rule,

what is there left of value in a republican form of government ? The events following the electionmade a profoundimpression on the Northern States . The first shock to theNorth came with the news of the secession of South Caroli na . It was no longer the mere cry of

“wolf . The wolfwas at the door . Incredul ity now gave way to convictionconvi ction to alarm alarm to panic. TheRepublicans wereindeed for a time in a pitiable plight . They had beenamazed by the magnitude of their victory ; they were now

apparently appalled by its threatened consequences . Theirpolitical opponents taunted them

'

wi th cries Of “We toldyou so, and charged them wi th responsibility for the di stracted condition of the country , with the prospect of

d isunion , wi th the threatened horrors of civil war . For a

time there was a feveri sh anxiety to find some way of

556

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5 58 Po litica l H istory of Secess ion

then di scussed shoul d have received serious considerationin any quarter in the North . It seemed that many Republicans were anxious to make to the South any atonement demanded for their sin of having elected a RepublicanPresident . Indeed , the shameful spectacle of so manyRepubli cans and Republican newspapers apparently cowering in fear and groveling in the dust to appease the wrath ofthe slaveholdi ng lords of the South , even now bring s ablush to all Northern men who fought , or whose~fathersfought , in the Civi l War and proved their bravery on so

many battlefields .Generally Speaking the people of the North were ranged

in four classes on the question of dealing wi th secession .

The first class included those (mainly Democrats who hadvoted for Breckinridge in the preced ing election) whose sympathies were with the South . The second class includedthose before known as “Abolitionists ,

”who preferred let

ting the slavehold ing States go out of the Union rather thanto stay in with slavery . The third class included those,among whom were large numbers of Republicans , who werestrongly attached to the Union and who wanted to preserveit , and who , in order to preserve it , were willing to makestill further concessions to the slavehold ing States . The

fourth , or radical, class included those, among whom was asmaller number Of Republicans , who were neither in favorof making any further concessions to the slavehold ing Statesnor in favor of letting them go in peace , but were in favor ofsuppressing secession and preservi ng the Union by arms , i fnecessary , even at the expense of civil war .Many of the Democratic papers and leaders werevi olently

opposed to preventing the Southern States from going out

of the Union or bring ing them back by anything like armed

coercion . The Albany Argus said that to employ forceagainst the seced ing States

“would be madness , and that“the first gun fired in the way of forcing a seced ing Statebackto her allegiance to the Union would probably provethe knell of its final d ismemberment . Utterances of other

Development of W ar Spirit in the North 559

Democratic papers were even more vi rulent . The Detroi tFree P ress sai d : “If there shall not be a change in the

present seeming purpose to yield to no accommodation of

the national di fficulties , and i f troops shall be raised in theNorth to march against the people of the South ,

a fire in therear will be opened upon such troops , whi ch will either stoptheir march altogether or wonderq y accelerate it

”; and

theBangor (Me.) Union sai d :“The difl‘iculties between the

North and the South must be compromi sed , or the separation of the States Shall be peaceable. If the Republicanparty refuses to go the full length of the Crittenden amendment— whi ch is the very least the South can or ought totake— then here in Maine not a Democrat will be found whowi ll rai se an arm agai nst his brethren of the South . Fromone end of the State to the other let the cry of the Democ

racy be ‘Compromise or Peaceable At aDemocratic meeting in Albany , N . Y. , on January 3 1 , 1 86 1 ,ex-Chancellor Reuben H . Walworth asserted that itwoul d be as bru tal in my Opinion to sendmen to butcher ourown brothers of the Southern States as it would be to

massacre them in the Northern States , ” and at the same

meeting ex-Governor Horatio Seymour said : “The question is simply this : Shall we have compromise after war orcompromi se wi thout war ?

”and he denounced “successful

coercion by the North ” as no less revolutionary thansuccessful revolution by the South .

On January FernandoWood , Mayor of NewYork,

in a message to the common council of that ci ty suggestedthat : “When di sunion has become a fixed and certain factwhy may not New York di srupt the bands whi ch bind herto the venal and corrupt master , to a people and a partythat has ever plundered her revenue, attempted to ru in hercommerce, take away the power of self-government , anddestroy the confederacy Of whi ch she was the proud EmpireCity .

William Howard Russell , the correspondent of the

London Times , attended a d inner in New York , on March

560 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

19 , 1861 , at whi ch Horatio Seymour , Samuel J . Tilden , andGeorge Bancroft were guests . “

The resul t left on mymind ,

”he records in hi s D iaryll

“by their conversationand arguments was that , according to the Constitution , theGovernment coul d not employ force to prevent secessionor to compel States which had seceded by the will of thepeople to acknowledge the Federal power . Russell exactly described the condi tion of aff airs in the followingstatement : “In fact the Federal government is groping inthe dark ; and whilst its friends are telling it to advanceboldly , there are myriads of voices shrieking out in its ears ,‘If you put out a foot you are lost : ’ The Democratsbehold wi th silent satisfaction the trouble into whi ch theRepublican triumph has plunged the country and are not

at all di sposed to extricate them . The most notable wayof impedi ng their efforts is to knock them down with ‘theConstitution ’

every time they rise to the surface and beginto swim out . ” r

There were doubtless many who shared the views of onewho told Russell that “the majority of the people of New

York , and all the respectable people, were di sgusted at theelection of such a fellow as Lincoln to be President , andwould back the Southern States i f it came to the Split .

” 2

But the utterances of lead ing Republican papers in theNorth were still more amazing . Few of them , until longafter the warlike preparations of the South had been begun ,were animated by anything bearing even the semblance of awar Spirit . As before stated , the New YorkTri bune had alarge circulation and wielded a greater influence among theRepublicans of the North than any other Northern paper .In an ed itorial on November 9 , 1 860 , this paper said :

“We

hold wi th Jeff erson Davis to the inalienable right of communi ties to alter or abolish forms of government that havebecome oppressive or injurious , and if the cotton Statesshall decide that they can do better out of the Uni on than init , we insist on letting them go in peace. And when

1 Id. , p . 20. Id., p. 14.

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562 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

of the President to coerce the sovereign State of SouthCarolina .

”Nor was he in the least intimidated by the

threats of war . In a speech at Indianapolis on November22 , 1 860 ,

he said : “If South Carolina gets out of the Uni on ,I trust it will be at the point of the bayonet after our besteff orts have failed to compel her submission to the laws .Better concede her independence to force, to revolution , thanto right and principle. I tru st that we Shall not , bysurrendering wi th indecent haste, publish to the world thatthe inheritance which our fathers purchased with theirblood we have given up to save our own . Seven years isbut a day in the life of a nation , and I woul d rather come

out of a struggle at the end of that time defeated in arms

and conced ing independence to successful revolution thanpurchase present peace by the concession of a principlethat must inevitably explode this nation into small and

di shonored fragments .In the interval between the presidential election and the

inauguration of Lincoln , the defiant and aggressive attitudeof the secession leaders , the seizure of the Southern fortsand arsenals , the firing on the Sta r of theWest, the preparations for the bombardment of Fort Sumter , the abandonment by the Administration of nearly every vestige of

national authority in the seceded States , made a profoundimpression on the Northern States . The radi cal leaders ofthe Republican party said : We have not declared war ,nor uttered any threats of war , upon slavery in the Stateswhere it now exists ; we have exerci sed only our undoubtedpolitical rights in electing by constitutional methods aRepublican President ; the concessions to slavery that havealready been offered ‘

go to the verge of honor and duty ;these have been spurned with contempt ; now we are askedto abase ourselves by making still further concessions , concessions that would be deemed an abandonment of vi talprinciples for which we have contended for years and thatwe still believe in , concessions that would make us appear totheworld as a herd of pusillani mous cowards , and that would

Development of W ar Spirit in the North 563

degrade us and our posteri ty— all in order to make peacewith slavery . If war shall come for this , let it come, butlet us stand fast for our principles .

” Such arguments as

these made a profound impression upon the people of the

North and by slow degrees they recovered their senses ,their self-respect , and their courage.

Still, at least up to the time of Lincoln ’s inauguration , there was a great diversity of opinion in the Northon the question of the resort to arms to suppress thethreatened secession of the Southern States . This isclear from the expressions of the newspapers and the

reports of public meetings between the presidential election and the inauguration of Lincoln . Many of the Dem

ocratic newspapers , especially those that had supportedBreckinridge for President , continued their denunciationsof the

“Black Republicans ,” as the authors of all the

impendi ng perils that now hung over the country , anddemanded further concessions to the South . There werealso many Republicans who were wi lling to make furtherconcessions to Slavery , not because they favored it , butbecause they were sincerely devoted to the Uni on , andso were in favor of making still further concessions .The commercial interests also dreaded the effect of warupon trade, and for thi s reason favored further concessions .Probably in no quarter was there a greater feeling of

suspense than in the border States . These, particularlyVirg inia , were deeply interested in the preservation Of theUni on . They could foresee that in the event of war between the North and the South their territory would bethe battle-ground . It was early apparent , however , thatin the event of such a war the sympathies of the border slaveStates would be altogether with the seced ing States . Therewere commercial ties bind ing the border States to the North ,but those which bound them to the States ad jacent tothe Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi River were muchstronger . The social ties that bound them to the South

564 Pol itica l H istory of Secession

were also much stronger than those which bound them to

the North . Above all else was the communi ty of interestin the protection of slavery . Moreover , the belief wasgeneral in the border States after the formation of the

Southern Confederacy that it would be victorious in theevent of war . In such event , it was argued , the borderStates would be bereft of poli tical power and would beunable to protect themselves against further aggressionsby the free States against slavery , and it would be only aquestion of time, and probably not a very long time, whenslavery would be extingu ished in the slave States which stilladhered to the Old Union . These were the arguments thatinclined the border States to the cause of the States whichhad already seceded , and that were chiefly instrumentalafterwards in causing Virginia to ally herself with the

Southern Confederacy . Still there was , even in Virginia ,a strong Union sentiment , suff iciently strong , at any rate,to prompt an eff ort to patch up some sort of compromisethat would avert the horrors of civil war .Secession was now, as had been stated in the debates inCongress ,

“an accomplished fact .” Thi s much , at least ,

had been settled . But the graver questions still remainedWhat would the Northern States do ? What would the

United States Government do ? Would it attempt“coer

cion ” ? Would there be peace or war ? This , of course,depended largely upon the policy of the incoming Admini stration . But what would be the policy of Lincoln ? The

Romans never waited with more eager interest to hear thewords of a Delphic oracle than d id the people of the UnitedStates to hear what Abraham Lincoln m ight say whencalled upon , as he would be soon , to define his policy . It iscertain that no one realized more clearly than he di d theresponsibilities that now rested upon him . In all the exultations of his followers , amidst all the huzzas of themultitude,

he never lost Sight of the fact that it was still to be determined whether he would be President of the whole countryor President of only a part of it.

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566 Pol itical H istory of Secess ion

events had brought about a rap id shifting of position of

many men . None was more marked than that of Douglas .A fewmonths before he had been Lincoln ’s most formidablerival for the ofli ce of President ; now he was one of Lincoln

’ sstaunchest friends , destined soon to become a tower of

strength for the incoming Admini stration .

The inaugural address was intended to be conciliatory .

In it Lincoln expressly di sclaimed any purpose di rectly orind irectly to interfere wi th the institution of slavery in theStates where it exists . ” I believe, he said ,

“that I haveno lawful right to do so and I have no inclination to do so .

But he left no one in doubt as to his duty as Chief Executive.

His duty is to adm inister the present government as itcame to his hands , and to transmit it , unimpaired by him ,

to his successor . ” “ In your hands , my di ssatisfied fel

low-countrymen , and not in mine, is the momentous issueof civi l war . The government wi ll not assail you . You

can have no conflict wi thout being yourselves the aggres

sors . You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroythe government , while I shall have themost solemn one to‘preserve, protect , and defend it .

’ His inaugural addressclosed with this eloquent and touching appeal :

“ I am loathto close. We are not enemies but friends . We must notbe enemies . Though passion may have strained , it mustnot break our bond s of aff ection . The mystic chord s ofmemory , stretching from every battlefield and patriot graveto every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broadland , will yet swell the chorus of the Union , when againtouched , as surely they will be, by the better angels of ournature.

”

Theman who spoke these impressive and touching word swas by nature one of the kindest and gentlest of men , but

his appeal to his“d issatisfied countrymen ” fell on hearts

closed to any appeal that he might make, and awakened noresponsive echo . To the great mass of the people of the

South , he had been portrayed as an uncouth monster and atyrant . His inaugural was tortured into a menace and his

The Coming of Lincoln 567

kindly words to those now maddened with the frenzy of

secession were Spurned with contempt and deri sion .

How Lincoln was then regarded in the South is thus toldby a Southern historian .

‘ “Abraham Lincoln was neitherkind nor cruel , in the proper sense of these word s , simplybecause he was destitute of the higher order of sensibili ties .His appearance corresponded to his rough life and uncul

tivated mind . His figure was tall and gaunt-looking ; hisShoulders were inclined forward ; his arm s of unusual length ;and his gait a stride, rapid and Shuflfling . The savage witsin the Southern newspapers had no other name for him than‘the Illinois Ape.

’

The new President of the United Stateswas the product of that partisanship which often di scoversits most ‘available ’

cand idates among obscure men , withSlight political record s , and of that infamous demagog ismin America that is pleased with the low and vulgar antecedents of its public men , and enjoys the imagination of

similar elevation for each one of its own class in society .

Mr . Lincoln had formerly served , without d istinction , inCongress . But among his titles to American popularitywere the circumstances that in earlier life he had rowed aflatboat down the Mississippi ; afterward s been a miller ;and at another period had earned his living by splitting railsin a county of Illinois .It is pleasant to turn from Pollard to later Southern

wri ters ; to read from the pages of a prominent Southernman— himself a gallant sold ier in the Confederate armyand afterwards a member of President Cleveland ’s Cabinet— a graceful and tender tribute to the memory of AbrahamLincoln , who was , he assures us , totally m isunderstood ”

by the people of the South prior to his assassination .

2

The new President ’s first important official duty was theselection of his Cabinet and in thi s he was forced to yieldsomewhat of his own judgment of men to political considerations . By common consent , Seward , his great competitor

Pollard , Lost Cause, p . 10 1 .

Herbert, TheAbolition Crusade, pp. 191-2 .

568 Pol itica l H istory of Sece

at the Chicago convention , was selected as Secretary of

State. In this way the claims of Seward ’

s friends , and of

the great State of NewYorkwere acknowledged . The selection of other members of the Cabinet was far more di ffi cultand was controlled by other andmore complicated considerations . It was desirable to avoid as far as possible givingthe Cabinet a sectional cast , but no really representativeSouthern man would accept a Cabinet position , and so

Edward Bates of Missouri was selected for AttorneyGeneral , and Montgomery Blair of Maryland was selectedfor Postmaster-General . Then it was necessary to avoidtaking all the members of the Cabinet from the East or allfrom the West ; to avoid taking all from those who hadformerly been Democrats , or all from those who had formerly been Whig s . It was also necessary to recognize theclaims of the President ’ s own State of Illinois , as well asthe Claims of the great Republican States of Pennsylvaniaand Ohio , which had turned the scale at the presidentialelection by decisive Republican majorities . So made up ,

the Cabinet was weakest in places where it shoul d havebeen strongest , particularly so in Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania , who was selected for Secretary of War , a notedPennsylvania politician of a type that has not added lusterto the State, wholly unfitted for the great responsibilitiesthat now rested upon the incumbent of the important ofli ceto which hewas appointed .

Notwithstand ing the fact that the logi c of politics seemed

to point irresistibly to the selection of Seward for Secretaryof State there was some Opposition to his appointment

,and

the strongest Opposition came from leading Republicans inthe State of New York, based largely upon the supposedSinister influence over Seward of Thurlow Weed .

We now know more fully , what was surmised at the time,that Lincoln did not favor the selection of Cameron , butthat he yi elded to it only to avoid what he feared might begreater evils i f Cameron should be left out of the Cabinet .One of Lincoln ’s chief managers at the Chicago convention

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570 Politica l H istory of Secess ion

As finally constituted ,Lincoln ’s Cabinet consisted of

William H . Seward of New York, Secretary of State ;Salmon P . Chase of Ohio , Secretary of the Treasury ; SimonCameron of Pennsylvania , Secretary of War ; Gideon Welles

of Connecticut , Secretary of the Navy ; Caleb B . Smith of

Ind iana , Secretary of the Interior ; Edward Bates of Missouri , Attorney-General ; Montgomery Blair of Maryland ,Postmaster-General . The strongest men in the Cabinetwere Seward and Chase, the one representing the conservative, the other the rad ical wing of the Republican party .

The Cabinet was not harmonious . Apparently the mem

bers d istrusted the President and d istrusted one another .The stories told of their bickering s are not pleasant readi ng .

It was impossible that a Cabinet SO constructed could g ivethe President the united and loyal support to which he wasentitled at the timewhen hemost needed it .Some of the d iffi culties which confronted Lincoln at the

very beg inning of his administration are thus Clearly and

tersely stated in his message of July 4 , 1 86 1 , to the specialsession of Congress : “At the begi nning of the presentpresidential term , four months ago , the functions of theFederal government were found to be generally suspendedwithin the several States of South Carolina , Georg ia , Alabama , Mississippi , Louisiana , and Flori da , excepting onlythose of the Post-Off ice Department .“Within these States all the forts , arsenals , dockyards ,

custom-houses , and the like, including the movable and

stationary property in and about them , had been seized ,

and were held in open hostility to this government , excepting only Forts Pickens , Taylor , and Jefferson , on and near

persuasions of others whose motives, whatever they were, were not

based on patriotic feeling or upon any conviction that Cameron wasthe best man obtainable for the high office to which he was appointed .

Certainly the story adds no luster to the reputation of any, not evenof Lincoln himself

,concerned in Cameron’s appointment.

The latest contribution on this subject is theD iary of GideonWelles,Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy.

The Coming of Lincoln 571

the Florida coast , and Fort Sumter , in Charleston Harbor ,South Carolina . The forts thus seized had been put inimproved condi tion , new ones had been built , and armed

forces had been organized and were organizing , all avowed lywi th the same hostile purpose.

“The forts remaining in the possession of the Federal

government in and near these States were either besiegedor menaced by warlike preparations , and especially FortSumter was nearly surrounded by well-protected hostilebatteries , with guns equal in quality to the best of its ownand outnumbering the latter as perhaps ten to one. A d isproportionate share of the Federal muskets and rifles hadsomehow found their way into these States , and had beenseized to be used against the government . Accumulationsof the public revenue lying within them had been seizedfor the same object . The navy was scattered in d istantseas , leaving but a very small part of it wi thin the immed iatereach of the government . Off icers of the Federal army andnavy had resigned in great numbers , and of those resigninga large proportion had taken up arm s against the government . Simultaneously , and in connection with all this , thepurpose to sever the Federal union was openly avowed .

In accordance wi th this purpose, an ordi nance had beenadopted in each of these States declaring the States re

spectively to be separated from the national union . Aformula for instituting a combined government of theseStates had been promulgated , and this illegal organization , in the character of Confederate States , was alreadyinvoking recogni tion , aid , and intervention from foreignpowers .But all of the di ffi culties that conf ronted the new Ad

ministration were not so fully known then as they are now.

In every department of the government , includi ng eventhe Supreme Court of the United States , there were men

whose ill-concealed sympathies were with the South , andwho availed themselves of the Opportunities which theirpositions afforded them of ai ding the Confederacy and

572 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

embarrassing the national government , especially by imparting intelligence of every action of the new Admini stration ,which should have been kept secret .Moreover , the President was besieged day and night by

hungry hordes of office-seekers intent only on spoils and

eager for the d istribution of them to begin . The scramblefor office began at Springfield , Lincoln

’s home, as soon as itwas known that he was elected .

“They came, so HoraceWhite tells us

,

’ in swarms from all points of the compassand in the greatest numbers from Illinois . Judging from the

Trumbull papers alone it is safe to say that Illinoi s couldhave filled every off ice in the national Blue Book wi thoutsatisfying half the demand s .

” Russell thus records in hi sD iary

2 his d isgu st with the office-seekers : “In the hotel theroar of Office-seekers is unabated . Train after train adds totheir numbers . They cumber the passages . The ball is

crowded to such a degree that su ff ocation might describethe degree to which the pressure reaches , were it not thattobacco smoke invigorates and sustains the constitution .

As to the cond ition of the floor , it is beyond description .

GeorgeW . Julian , then a Republican Representative fromInd iana , g ives this graphic description of the rush for offi ce :“Mr . Lincoln , in spite of the troubled state of the country ,was obliged to encounter an army of place seekers at thevery beginning of his Administration . I think there hasbeen nothing like it in the history of the governm ent . ARepublican member of Congress could form some idea of

the President ’s troubles from his own experience. I fledfrom my home in the latter part of February , in the hopeof finding some relief from these importunities ; but on

reaching Washington I found the business greatly aggra

vated . The pressurewas so great and constant that I couldscarcely find time for my meals , or to cross the street , andI was obliged to give my days and ni ghts wholly to the

business , hoping in this way I shoul d be able in a little whileto finish it ; but it constantly increa sed . I met at every

Life of Trumbull, p. 139.

3 P. 67.

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574 Pol itica l H istory"

of Secess ion

at the time in Washington among the radi cal Republicansthat Mr . Lincoln ’s Cabinet di d not contain three as abso

lute and strong defenders of the Union as Dix , Holt , andStanton , who had just retired with Mr . Buchanan . Thaddeus Stevens , wi th his accustomed sharpness of speech , saidthe Cabinet was composed of an assortment of rivals whomthe President had appointed from courtesy , one stumpSpeaker from Indi ana , and two representatives of the Blairfam ily . It was not until the war had been in progress formore than two years that Lincoln gained the confidence of

the radicals in the Republican party . Fessenden wrote onJanuary 14 , 1 862 :

“We are in a world of trouble here.

Everybody is grumbling because nothing is done, and thereare no symptoms that anything wi ll be done. The truthis that no man can be found who is equal to this crisis inany branch Of the government . If the President had hiswife’ s wi ll and would use it rightly our aff airs would lookmuch better . ” The staunchest friends of theUni on amongthe loyal Democrats were equally di stru stful of Lincolnand his Cabinet . Stanton denounced what he termed the“imbecility ” of the new Administration , and in a letter toBuchanan , written Shortly after the Bull Run d isaster, ’l

he prophesied that“irretrievable mi sfortune and national

d isgrace, never to be forgotten , are to be added to the ruinof al l peaceful pursuits and national bankruptcy , as theresul t of Lincoln running themachine, and that Jefi Daviswould speed ily

“turn out the whole concern .

” Singularlyenough , accord ing to McClure,

2 “The one man who ren

dered him [Lincoln] the greatest service of all at the beginning of the war was Stephen A . Douglas , his Old competitoro f Illinois . When theRepublican leaders were hesitatingand criticiz ing their President , Douglas came to the frontwith all his characteristic courage and sagaci ty and wasprobably the most trusted of all the Senators at the WhiteHouse.

Moore, Works of James Buchanan, vol. xi ., p. 2 13.

Lincoln and Men of War Times , p . 54.

The Coming of Linco ln 575

Indeed Lincoln was not yet fully known and trusted evenby the members of his own Cabinet , as is evidenced by theamazing letter of Seward of April 1 , more fully noted insubsequent pages .Until the completion of the organization of the Southern

Confederacy the works for the bombardment of Fort Sumter had been in charge of the military forces of the State ofSouth Carolina , but on March I , General Beauregard ,

by order of the ConfederateWar Department , was di rectedto examine and report the cond ition of aff airs at Charleston ,care having been taken , however , by the President of theConfederacy , to assure the Governor of South Carolina that“in controlling the military Operations in the harbor of

Charleston everything Should be done “that may be due

to the honor and rights of South Carolina .

” In Beauregard ’s report on March 6 , after givi ng a detailed accountof the cond ition of the fort and the Confederate works , hesaid : “ I am of the Opinion that , i f Sumter was properlygarrisoned and armed , it would be a perfect Gibraltar toanything but constant shelling , night and day, from the fourpoints of the compass . As it is , the weakness of the garrison constitutes our g reatest advantage, and we must , forthe present , turn our attention to preventing it from beingreinforced .

Continued eff orts werenecessary to restrain the impetuousGovernor of South Carolina from proceed ing to bombardFort Sumter before the inauguration of Lincoln , but coolercounsels prevailed and he was advi sed by the President ofthe Confederacy that thorough preparation must bemadebefore an attack is attempted , for the first blow must besuccessful , both for its moral and physical consequences ,or otherwise the result m ight be di sastrous to your Statein the loss of many of those whom we can least aff ord tospare. A failure would demoralize our people and injuriously aff ect us in the opinion of the world as reckless andprecipitate.

” I The South Carolina Governor was al soWar Rec.

,vol. i . , p . 259.

576 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

advised by Wigfall that it was all important not to“permit any attack on Fort Sumter without authori ty of

the government of the Confederated States . ” 1 Everyeffort was now bent toward completing the Confederateworks . Batteries were placed in position at Fort Moul trie,Castle Pinckney , Morris Island , and at all other availablepoints , and cannon of the most improved pattern wereimported from England . At the same time it was sought byprotracted negotiations and by every othermeans to preventthe reinforcement of the fort until the completion of the

Confederate works .The Confederate States followed the example of SouthCarolina in sending to Washing ton commissioners as theduly accred ited representatives of

“an independent nationde f acto and dejure, ” possessing a government perfect inall its parts and fully endowed wi th all the means of selfsupport , with authority to make overtures for the openi ngof negotiations ,

“with a V iew to a Speedy ad justment of allquestions which might g ive rise to controversy , upon suchterms of amity and good will as the respective interests ,geographical contigu ity , and the future welfare of the two

nations might render necessary .

It was now clear that the Federal authori ty could not bemaintained in the seceded States , certainly not in SouthCarolina , wi thout resort to arms . But the regular armywas not sufficient to guard the frontiers and the few fortsand arsenals that were left in the seceded territory. Moreover , it was known that there was a considerable Uni onsentiment in west Virginia , in east Tennessee, and in partsof Kentucky , and it was feared that this sentiment might bealienated if war should bebegun by the Federal government .Again , therewas still a strong sentiment in theNorth againstresort by the Federal government to arm s , so long as therewere any hopes of compromise, and it was feared that thissentiment might be offended by anything that might beregarded as precipitate action by the national government .WarRec., vol. i . , p. 261 .

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CHAPTER XXVIII

ADMINISTRATION POLICIES

HE President now had a Cabinet but no well-defined

poli cies . It was far more d ifficult to formulate a

policy than it was to form a Cabinet . From the begi nni ngthe ruling idea of Lincoln was to save the Union ; to save itby peacefulmeans , if possible ; by war if not possible to saveit in any other way , but by war only as a last resort .In the beg inning of his administration the great mass of

people in the North believed , even after seven States hadseceded and had set up a government of their own , that somecompromise mi ght be devised by which the seceded Statescould be induced voluntarily to return to the Union . Sew

ard believed this and , so believing , aimed to shape thepolicy of the Administration to accomplish this result .When it became evident , as it di d to some sooner than it didto others , that there was no hOpe of preserving the Unionby pursuing any policy based on the expectation that theseceded States would voluntarily return , new questionsarose : Should the seceded States and others that might , andprobably would , follow their example be permi tted to go

in peace, or should they be brought back by arms ? And

these questions involved a multitude of complex problems .If the right of secession Should be recognized by allowing

the seceded States to go in peace,wherewould secession stop ?Howmanymore slave States would join them ? What assurance was there that the people of southern Ohio , Ind iana ,and Illinois , where there was a large element favorable toslavery , would not follow , or at leastmake the attempt ?

578

Administration Pol icies 579

Wha t assurance was there that the Pacific States wouldnot form a Pacific confederacy ; or that some of theWesternStates would not form a Northwestern confederacy ? Thatthe fea r of a Northwestern confederacy was not an idle oneis proved by the fact that before the Civil War had been inprogress a year strenuous and persistent efforts , that gavethe people of the North great concern , were made to es

tabli sh such a confederacy , with a view of cutting loosefrom New England and making an alliance with the Confederate government . This , as stated in a letter of Governor Oliver P . Morton to Lincoln on October 27,

“is

the program and has been for the last twelve months .

During the recent campaign it was the staple of everyDemocratic speech— that we had no interests or sympathiesin common with the people of the Northern and EasternStates ; that New England is fattening at our expense ; .thatthe people of New England are cold , selfish ,money-making ,and through themedium of tariff s and railroad s are pressingus to the dust ; that geographically these States are a partof the Missi ssippi Valley , and , in their politica l associationsand destiny cannot be separated from the other States ofthat valley ; that socially and commercially their sympathiesand interests are with the people of the Sou thern Statesrather than with the people of the North and East ; that theMississippi River is the great artery and outlet of all Western commerce ; that the people of the Northwest can neverconsent to be Separated politically from the people who

control themouth of that river ; that this war has been forcedupon the Sou th for the purpose of abolish ing slavery , andthat the South has off ered reasonable and proper compromises which , i f they had been accepted , would have avoidedthe war . ” In the Democratic State Convention in In

d iana on January 8 , 1 862,Thomas A . Hendricks , who

presided ,said : “We are now being so crushed that i f we

and our children are not to become the hewers of wood and

drawers of water for the capitali sts of New England and

Quoted in Foulke’s Life of Morton , vol. i . , p . 208.

580 Po litica l H istory of Secess ion

Pennsylvania , we must look to the interests of our section ,and for the first time in my life, I intend to speak as asectional man. To encourage and stimulate the

people of the South in the production of their peculiarcommod ities , that they may be large buyers from us , has

been , and so long as ‘grass grows and water runs ’ will be,the true interest of the Northwest ; and the political partythat would destroy that market is our greatest foe. If

the failure and folly and wickedness of the party in powerrender a Union impossible, then the mighty Northwestmust take care of herself and her own interests . She mustnot allow the arts and finesse of NewEngland to despoil herof her richest commerce and trade by a sectional and selfishpolicy— Eastern lust of power , commerce

, and gain .

Again in the event of the establishment of a permanentforeign and hostile government that would hold control ofthe mouth of the Mississippi , what would be the eff ect onthe commerce of the nation and especially the terri torybordering on that river and its tributaries ? What , forexample, would become of Ohio , Illinois , and Indi ana ?Morton answered this question in one of his speeches“We Should be shut up in the interior of a continent , surrounded by independent , hostile nations , through whoseterritories we could obtain egress to the seaboard onlyupon such terms as might be agreed to by treaty . Immigrants from foreign lands could only come to us by per

mi ssion Of our neighbors and we could not reach any

Atlantic port except by passports duly vised .

” 3

Moreover what assurance could be given that peacefulsecession would be followed by a lasting peace between theold and the new government ? So long as Slavery continuedto exist in the South there would be the same di sputesbetween the nations over fugi tive slaves and every otherquestion connected wi th slavery that now existed betweenthe free and the slave States . These di sputes would con

tinne to engender the same bitterness of feeling and the

Quoted in Foulke’s Life of Morton, vol. i . , p . 175—76.

Id., vol. i ., p. 90.

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582 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

but only a plurality , of the votes cast at the presidentialelection . Had the Democrats who voted for Breckinridgeand Douglas been united on either , Lincoln would not havecarried all the Northern States . In the' North alone overa million votes had been cast for Douglas . It would havebeen hopeless to expect that the Republican party of the

North alone could wage successful war wi th the South . Itwould , therefore, have been sui cidal to adopt any warpolicy that would alienate from the support of the Unionthe followers of Douglas . Moreover the Republicans werestill d ivi ded . As already shown , many still preferred letting the seceded States go in peace to coercing them backinto the Union at the expense of civil war .Lincoln saw all these difficulties more clearly than most of

his critics . He was not , as some of them charged , irresol’

uteor vacillating or coward ly , but he thought and moved carefully , and sometimes , it was thought , too slowly .

Who can now say that any other man in his Situation ,wi th his knowledge and opportunities , would have donebetter ? Would Seward have done better ? Would anyother Republican have done better ? A man like AndrewJackson , in the situation and wi th the opportunities of

James Buchanan , would undoubtedly have done betterthan Buchanan did ; but would even a man like AndrewJackson , in Lincoln

’s situation and wi th his opportunities ,have done better than Lincoln ?The war policy that Lincoln ultimately adopted was not

of his own voluntary choosing . The first gun fired uponFort Sumter was notice to the North from the Confederategovernment of its ultimatum . There was now no choiceof policies excep t to rrieet war wi th war, or to surrenderupon such term s as the enem ies of the old Union m ightd ictate. Lincoln ’ s call to arms was hi s first announcementof a war policy . It was then clear to all, or all

’

unless itwere Seward and the few who still pinned their faith to hisdreams of compromise, that the Union , if saved at all , mustbe

“saved by the sword .

”

Administration Pol icies 583

Mention has been made of the composi tion of the new

Cabinet . During the first fewweeks Lincoln appeared to beintently studying the men as well as the events about him .

He never attempted to compel any of the members of hi sCabinet to acquiesce in his views . At a later period he saidin a jocose way that “he d id not have much influence wi ththis Adm inistration . Wh ile deferring respectfully , however , to the opinions of his advisers , he was doing a good dealof independent thinking for himself .

Next to Lincoln the chief figure in the Cabinet meetingswas William H . Seward , the Secretary of State. Hehad beena Whig and was now regarded as a conservative. During thefirst month it is clear that he exerci sed a great influence overLincoln . Seward not only felt but magnified the importance of his office. Welles charges that he was continuallyinterfering wi th other departments and meddling in afiairsthat belonged to them . This was off ensive to the othermembers of the Cabinet and excited the ire of Welles inparticular , whose hostility to Seward is mani fest throughoutthe former ’s D ia ry.

For a time there were no regular Cabinet meetings andduring this time the President consulted chiefly wi th Seward . The other members protested and after that therewere regular Cabinet meeting s on Tuesdays and Fridaysof each week . The climax of Seward ’s assumption of au

thori ty was rea ched when on April 1 he submi tted to

Lincoln the extraordi nary “suggestions ” mentioned in thefollowing pages .

Seward ’ s peace views were well known . He had been infrequent confidential consultations with leading Southernmembers of Congress du ring the closing months of Buchanan ’ s Admini stration , endeavoring to devi se some com

promise that would avert civil war , or at least postponehostilities until after Lincoln ’s inauguration , when he ex

pected , so it was said , to be chief adviser in the new Cabinet ,and be enabled thereby to exercise a controlling influence inthe incoming Adm ini stration that would enable him to carry

584 Po litica l H istory of Secess ion

out hi s peace schemes , whatever they were. Now that hehad succeeded in reaching the place which he had onlyanticipated when he made his 12th of January speech , it

is interesting to note the further developments of the

policy so vaguely outlined before.

In the Cabinet meetings Seward from the beginning wasstrenuously opposed to the reinforcement of Fort Sumter ,but was in favor of abandoning it , and also Fort Pickens ,i f by so doing civil war could be avoided or postponed . To

this policy Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury , a formerDemocrat , now classed as a radi cal , was Opposed . So wasMontgomery Blair , the Postmaster-General. The othermembers Sided in Opinion wi th Seward and for a time Lin

coln seemed to acqui esce in the opinion of themajority .

The part played by the Confederate Commissioners sentto Washington by the Confederate government was a veryimportant feature in the history of the first month of the

new Admi nistration . The Comm issioners were Martin J .

Crawford , John Forsyth , and A . B . Roman . AlthoughOfficially unknown in Washington they were extremelyactive. They worked largely through others , and chieflyby playing upon the hopes and fears of Seward ,

and perhapsupon his ambition and vanity , for he had no small Share of

both . From the beg inning the Comm issioners were guidedby the counsels of Jefferson Davis himself , certainly thepeer of Seward in all matters of di plomacy and politics .The Comm issioners did not come to trea t on terms and

cond itions preliminary to a return to the Union of the

seceded States . There was then no thought in the secededStates of their returning to the Union upon any term s .What they expected was to get all the concessions possibleto be gained for the Southern Confederacy . In view of the

utterances of some of the leadi ng Republi can papers in theNorth there was some hope that the North might be willing to let the seceded States go in peace, thus avoiding civilwar . There was also hOpe, not entirely groundless , sinceit came near being realized , that the Federal government

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586 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

except under my present relations to the government , andI do not know who could have the same freedom for all of

whi ch Davi s assured him that “in any event I will gratefully remember your zealous servi ces in a sacred cause, andhOpe your fellow-citizens may sometime gi ve you acceptablerecogni tion of your services and appreciate the heroism wi thwhich you have encountered a hazard from whi ch most men

woul d have shrunk .

Campbell had several interviews wi th Seward , the sub

stance of which he promptly reported to the ConfederateComm issioners . He as promptly reported to Sewardthe vi ews of the Commi ssioners . Campbell soon dis

covered the pacific views of Seward and was informed , or atleast inferred , that he was in favor of the evacuation of FortSumter , and probably of Fort Pickens also, as a means of

averting civil war . Campbell also got the impression thatthe majority of the Cabinet agreed with Seward upon thispolicy . So confident was Campbell that in his report to theCommissioners he expressed

“perfect confidence that Fort

Sumter would be evacuated “in the next five da ys , and for

a time the Commi ssioners were in high feather .That Campbell and the Commissioners were deceivingSeward , or at least encouraging Seward to deceive himself ,by humoring his peace projects , is establi shed by ampledocumentary evidence. Campbell wrote to Toombs , theConfederate Secretary of State, on March 6 : I have feltit my duty under instructions from your department , aswell as from my best judgment , to adopt and support Mr .Seward ’s policy , upon condition , however , that the presentstatus is to be rigidl ymaintained . His reasons and my own ,

it is proper to say , are as wide apart as the poles ; he is fullypersuaded that peace will bring about a reconstruction of

the Union , whilst I feel confident that it will build up and

cement our conf ederacy and put us beyond the reach ei therof his arms or of his d iplomacy .

On March 14 , Forsyth wrote to Walker , the Confederate Secretary of War , that “we are feeling our way here

Administration Pol icies 587

cautiously . We are playing a game in which time is our

best advocate, and if our government could afford the time,I feel confident of winning . There is a terrific fight on inthe Cabinet . Our policy is to encourage the peace elementin the fight or at least blow up the Cabinet on the question .

”

Toombs , speaking for Jeff erson Davis , wrote to the

Commiss ioners that SO long as the United States di d not

declare war it enabled the Confederate States “to make allnecessary arrangements for a public defense and the solid ifying of their government more cheaply and exped itiouslythan they could with the attitude of the United States moredefinite and decided .

General Crawford ,

‘ states that he had a conversationafter the close of the war with Colonel John Forsyth , one ofthe Comm i ssioners , in which he told Crawford that “thesecret instructions from Montgomery were to ‘

play withSeward ; to delay and gain time until the South was ready .

Other correspondence ind icates clearly that , whateverSeward thought of the Commissioners , the Comm issionersthemselves , under instructions from the Confederate government, were using Seward merely as a cat ’s-paw.

Meantime,there was a growing feeling in the North that

some more energetic policy should be adopted by the new

Admi nistration than that which had been shown by theAdmini stration of Buchanan , and especially that somethingshoul d be done for the relief of Major Anderson ; and thiswas one of the first thing s to engage the earnest attention ofthe President and his Cabinet . Military men argued the

hopelessness at that late day of endeavoring to reinforceFort Sumter with either men or munitions of war . It wastrue that when General Beauregard was first sent toCharleston he had pronounced the fort a Gibraltar . It wasalso true that General Scott had said that it might easilyhave been reinforced i f the attempt had been made earlier ,but in the last months of Buchanan ’ s Admini stration the

entrance to the harbor had been obstructed and batteriesHi st. of Fort Sumter, p . 333 , note.

588 Po l itica l H istory of Secess ion

commandi ng the fort had been planted on every foot of

ground available for that purpose. Floating batteries hadbeen constructed . By reason of the location of the Con

federate batteries , a large number of the guns of the fortwere rendered useless . The garri son had been reduced to amere handful. Small as it was , there were not provi sionsenough to have lasted a week after its final surrender . On

the second day of the bombardm ent the garrison had nothing to eat but a little pork. Had the bombardment beendelayed a weeklonger the garrison would have been com

pelled , without firing a gun , either to surrender or to starve.

On March 15 , 1 86 1 , the President addressed a communication to the Secretary of War , asking if it would be wiseto attempt to provision Fort Sumter . In his answer , the Secretary quoted the opinions of various army offi cers . MajorAnderson and other officers of the fort were of the opinionthat before the fort could be relieved the garrison “wouldbe starved out . In his Opinion (March 12 ) General Scottsaid : “As a practical m ilitary question the time for succoring Fort Sumter wi th any means at hand had passed awaynearly a month ago . Since then a surrender under assaultor from starvation has been merely a question of time.

Cameron , Secretary of War , said that it might have beendone a month before but that “a d iff erent state of thingsnow, however , exists . Fort Moul trie is now re-armed and

strengthened in every way ; many new land batteries havebeen constructed ; the principal channel has been obstructed ;in Short , the d ifficulty of reinforcing the fort has beenincreased ten , if not twenty

,fold .

” 3 The Cabinet wasd ivided in opinion upon the question of ordering Andersonto evacuate the fort . When the question was submitted bythe President on March 15 , five of the members , Seward ,Cameron , Welles , Smith , and Bates , advised againstmakingan attempt to provi sion the fort , believi ng that such anattempt could not be successfully made. Chase and Blair

WarRec. , vol. i . , p . 197. Id . , p . 197.

3 Id ., p . 198.

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590 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

‘Nothing , sai d he, can prevent war except the acquiescenceof the President of the United States in secession , and hisunalterabler esolve not to attempt any reinforcement of theSouthern forts . T o thinkof longer remaining in the Unionis simply preposterous . We havefive thousand well-armed

sold iers around this city ; all the States are arming wi thgreat rapid ity ; and this means war with al l its consequences .

Let your President attempt to reinforce Sumter and thetocsin of war will be sounded from every hilltop and val leyin the South .

’

The Governor , however , gave Lamon

written authority to visit Major Anderson , sending an ai de

along ,“to see tha t every propriety is observed toward Mr .

Lamon . Lamon “found Anderson in a quandary and

deeply despondent . Nothing encouraging could be gainedfrom Major Anderson or themen with him and Lamon add sthat “war seemed as inevitable to them as to GovernorPickens . When Lamon reported the result of hi s missionthe President “li stened with profound and saddened attention to his account of the condi tion of things in the fort onthe one hand and in the State and city on the other . 2

But Lincoln continued his search for further informationand succeeded in getting some that he thought justifiedmaking an attempt to relieve

'

both Fort Sumter and FortPickens , and on March 29 he again submitted the questionto the members Of his Cabinet . Seward was still of theopini on that Major Anderson should be instructed to

retire from Sumter forthwi th , but the majority of the

Cabinet , reversing their former decision , agreed with Lincoln that an attempt shoul d be made to relieve both FortSumter and Fort Pickens .On the same day Lincoln addressed a communication to

the Secretary of War , stating that he desired“that an

expedi tion , to move

'

by sea , be got ready to sail as early asthe oth of iApri l next , the whole accord ing to memorandumattached ,

‘and that you cooperate with the Secretary of the

1 Lamon, Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, 2d ed . , p . 74.

Id. , p. 79.

Administration Pol icies 59 1

Navy for that object . Preparations were at once begunfor send ing two expedi tions , one for the relief of Fort Sumter ,the other for the relief of Fort Pickens . Two days later(April I ) Seward sent to Lincoln a communication whichhas been characterized 2 as “unlike anything to be found inthe political history of the Uni ted States .

” It was entitled“Some thoughts for the President ’s consi deratiom In thefirst sentence Seward reminded Lincoln that “we are at thee nd of a month ’ s admini stration and yet without a policy ,either domestic or foreign . Seward then outlined a domes

tic policy for the Administration , his“ruling idea , as he

expressed it , being that“wemust change the question before

the public from one upon Slavery , or about slavery , for aquestion upon union or disunion .

“ In other words , from what would be regarded as a partyquestion , to one of P atri otism or Uni on .

Then followed these extraordi nary“suggestions

I woul d demand explanations from Spain and Francecategorically , at once.

I would seek explanation s from Great Bri tai n and

Russia , and send agents into Canada , Mexico , and CentralAmerica , to rouse a vi gorous continental spirit of independence on this continent agai nst European intervention .

“And , if satisfactory explanations are not received fromSpai n and France“Would convene Congress and declare war against them .

But whatever policy we adopt , there must be an energetic prosecution of it.

For thi s purpose it must be somebody ’s business to

pursue and di rect it incessantly .

“Either the Presi dent must do it himself , and be all the

whi le active in it , orDevolve it on some member of hi s Cabinet . Once

adopted , debates on it must end , and all agree and abid e.

It is not in my Special province.

War Rec. , vol. i . , p . 226.

Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, vol. i ii . , p . 445.

592 Political H istory of Secess ion

But I neither seekto evade nor assume responsibility .

It will be noted that this letter was not written until afterit had become apparent to Seward that his advice that FortSumter be evacuated would not be followed and that hisinfluence over the President was on the wane.

Wemay be able to surmi se the reasons upon which Sewardbased some of his suggestions . In his scheme for a domesticand foreign policy he was probably still infatuated by theOptimism whi ch made him insensible to the plans , evidentto nearly all others , -of the secession leaders . There wasneed of a change of policy but not such a change as Sewardsuggested . The change from the slavery to the secessionquestion had already come and the change had been broughtabout , not by the Adm ini stration , but by the secession leaders themselves . Appeals to their patriotism and love of theUnion had already been made and it was now evident tonearly all but Seward that future appeals of the same kindwould probably be as futile as those of the past .Seward ’s proposed foreign policy was evenmore visionary

and dangerous than hi s domestic policy . Evidently hethought that i f war could be stirred up with some foreignnation , the secessionists would at once abandon their project of secession and unite wi th the North in defend ing thecountry against a common enemy . In this he entirelym isjudged the warlike determ ination of the secessionleaders . Indeed , even after the Civil War had begun ,Seward ’s continued incredulity of thewarlikepreparations ofthe South , together with his optim istic temperament ,madehim believe that the war “would"blow over in sixty days .Had Seward ’s foreign policy been adopted , it would at oncehave precipitated this Country into war with powerfulforeign nations , making them formidable enemies of theNorth and as form idable al lies of the South .

But we are left entirely to conjecture when we try todi scover what Seward ’ s motives were in wri ting that partof his communication which vi rtually advi sed Lincoln toabdicate, coupled wi th the mai denl ike coyness in suggesting

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594 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

supply Fort Sumter without notice to you , adding“My Opinion is that the President has not the courage toexecute the order agreed upon in the Cabinet for the evacuation of the fort , but that he intends to shift the responsibility upon Major Anderson , by suff ering him to be starvedout , and suggesting that it might be well to aid in thi s bycutting off all supplies .

” 1L On April 8 , Crawford againwrote to Beauregard saying : “Wewere rea ssured yesterdaythat the status of Sumter would not be changed withoutprevi ous notice to Governor Pickens , but we have no faithin them . The war policy prevails in the Cabinet at thishour . ” The Commissioners , having gained all the time

possible by negotiation , in fact all the time needed to com

plete the preparations for bombard ing Fort Sumter , leftWashington on April 1 1 , two days before the bombardment began .

Afterwards the Conf ederates claimed that Seward haddeceived the Commi ssioners and they denounced him

and the Administration for duplicity . Judge Campbellsaid that the Comm issioners had been “

overreached .

Jeff erson Davis claimed that “the crooked path of di plo

macy can scarcely furnish an example so wanting in courtesy , in candor , and di rectness , as was the course of the

United States Government toward our Commissioners inWashington and Alexander H . Stephens asserted that theCommissioners weremetwith an equivocation , a duplicity ,a craft and deceit , which , taken altogether , is without aparallel in modern times . ” 2 The fact seems to be that inthe game which was being played between Seward and the

Commi ssioners , Seward overestimated his own Skill andunderestimated that of lhis opponents . Moreover they hadthe advantage of knowi ng his cards , while he was ignorantof theirs . In such a game the boundary line betweend iplomacy and deception is shadowy , and the question as towhich of the players outwitted the other is not one that

War Rec. ,vol. i . , p . 283 .

Bancroft, Seward, vol. ii . , p . 147, note.

Administration Po l icies 595

appeals strongly either to our sense of justice or to our

sympathy . Bancroft offers this explanation :“Each side

endeavored to overreach and outwit the other . From the

previous midwinter until the second week in April, Sewardwas determ ined to prevent the outbreak of the Civil War .80 , in secret intervi ews , anonymous notes , and ind irect intercourse,

he gave assurances that could surely be fulfilledonly in case he, instead of Lincoln , Should control aff airs .This , he was confident , would be the case. He probablythought , too , that there was no need of great scrupulousnessin dealing with thosewhowere tryi ng to destroy theUnion .

”

If Seward ’ s rule in d iplomacy was that ind icated by Bancroft , it was not the rule of Lincoln ’ s Adm inistration ;certainly it was not the rule by which Lincoln himself wasguided .

Again we see Senator Douglas . Two days before the

bombardment of Fort Sumter he sought an interview withSecretary Welles and informed him that he had receivedinformation from reliable sources that the Confederateswere about to beg in their attack, and that immediate and

d ecisive measures Should be taken by the government . AtWelles

’

s suggestion they called on Seward to whom Douglasrepeated the information he had g iven to Welles . Sewardreceived him cord ially

,

“tooka pinch of snu ff ; said hewouldSee the President on the subject . Heknew there were w 1dand reckless men at Charleston , and we should have di fficulty with them , but he knew of no way to prevent anassault if they were resolved to make AfterwardsDouglas told Welles that he was not d isappointed at theinterview , giving as a reason that Seward was not earnest ,had no heart in this matter , could not believe the storm wasbeyond his ability and power to control , but he woul d soonenough learn that no mere party management or cunni ngwould answer in such an emergency as this . Allud ing tohis hesitancy in going to Seward , he said he knew it wasuseless to make any appeal to him . Seward had no idea of

Bancroft,Seward, vol, ii. , p. 148. Diary, vol. i . , pp. 32

—35.

596 Po litica l H istory of Secession

the necessities of the case and was at that moment , as he,Douglas , knew , carryi ng on an intrigue wi th the Rebelleaders , who were deceiving him , whilst he flattered himselfthat he was using and could control them . Douglas alsosaid that the great point wi th Buchanan and his Cabinethad been to drift over the fourth of March

,and that Sew

ard had thought that he could then take the reins andmanage thing s as he pleased ; had all along treated thi smighty gathering tempest as a mere party contest which heand Thurlow Weed could d ispose of as ea sily as some of

their poli tical strife in New York .

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Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

Southern people by the strongest ties of blood and friendship . Upon the questions growing Out of slavery , hi ssympathies , like those of many other army Officers whoremained true to the Union cause, were with the Southernpeople, but not with the cause of secession . He had been a

classmate and a lifelong and intimate friend of Jeff ersonDavis . 1 For some weeks after he took command of the

forts in Charleston harbor he and his brother Officers and

their families were feted and toasted in Charleston socialcircles . It was doubtless hoped , i f not expected , by theSecession leaders that he would follow the example of Gen

eral Twigg s and of almost all the officers who had surrendered Southern forts and arsenals in the secedi ng terri tory .

Floyd had all but commanded him to surrender and hadpointed out the way in which he could do SO and still makea showing of loyalty to his governm ent . General Beauregard ’s early correspondence with him usually began withMy dear Major ” and was couched in the most chivalrous

language. On March 26 General Beauregard assuredhim that i f he would evacuate Fort Sumter no

“formal

surrender or capitulation” would be demanded , but that

Governor Pickens and Beauregard “would be happy tosee that he was provided with proper means of transportation ” and that all that would be required of him would behis “word of honor as an offi cer and a gentleman that thefort , all public property therein , its armament , etc .

,shall

remain in their present cond ition wi thout any arrangementsor preparation for their destruction or in jury after you Shallhave left the fort .

To this Anderson replied on March 26 : I feel deeply ,

hurt at the intimation in your letter about the cond itionswhich wi ll be exacted of me and I mu st statemost d istinctlythat i f I can only be perm itted to leave on the pledge you

mention I shall never , so helpmeGod ,leave this fort alive .

” 3

He wrote again on the next day regretting that Beauregard1 Davis, Ri se and Fall, vol. i . , p . 2 16.

2War Rec., vol. i . , p. 223 .3 Id ., p . 222.

E fforts to Succor Major Anderson 599

could for one moment have the slightest doubt as tothe straight path of honor and duty in which I must ,by the mercy of God , ever be found .

” 1 In MajorAnderson ’ s last letter of April 8 to the War Departmenthe said : “It is , of course, now too late for me to give anyadvi ce in reference to the proposed scheme of Captain Fox.

I fear that its result cannot fail to be di sastrous to all con

cerned . Even wi th his boat at our walls the loss of life(as I think I mentioned to Mr . Fox) in unloadi ng her willmore than pay for the good to be accomplished by theexped ition , which keeps us , if I can maintain possession ofthis fort , out of position , surrounded by strong works , whichmust be carried to make this fort of the least value to theUnited States Government . We have not oil enough tokeep a li ght in the lantern for one night . The boats wi llhave, therefore, to rely at night entirely upon other marks .I ought to have been informed that this expedi tion was tocome. Colonel Lemon

’

s remark convinced me that theidea , merely hinted at to me by Captain Fox, would not becarried out. We shal l strive to do our duty though Ifrankly say that my heart is not in the war which I see is tobe thus commenced . That God will still avert it, and

cause us to resort to pacific measures to maintai n our rightsis my ardent prayer .In this letter we ca tch a glimpse of the inner struggle

going on in the mind of Major Anderson . He knew the

impossibility of reinforcing or provisioni ng the fort ; heknew from the preparations being made, for they were infull view , that the threatened bombardment was liable tobegi n at any moment , and he knew , as well as Beauregard ,

the impossibility of making a successful defense. UnderBuchanan ’s Administration he had been not only neglected ,

but ind igni ty after ind igni ty had been heaped on him byFloyd . He had a right to expect more favorable consi deration from the new Administration and he could not understand why , i f it did not succor him in his di stress , it shouldWar Rec. ,

vol. i . , p . 223 . Id. , p . 294,

600 Politica l H istory of Secess ion

not at least relieve him from the necessity of choosing between the stigma of di shonorable surrender or starvation .

He di d not know the efforts that Lincoln had been makingin his behalf . He d id not know , what was the fact , thatLincoln supposed that he had provi sions suffi cient to lastthe garrison until a further supply could reach it . Not

withstandi ng al l this , casting behind him al l his formerfriend ships and sympathies , the blandi shments of Beauregard , the Shameful treatment of Floyd , the seemingneg lect of the new Admi nistration

,he does not for one

momen t falter in hi s allegiance to his country . His

letter is the despai ring cry of a hero determined stillto stand by his government even unto death , althoughit had , as he then saw it, abandoned him to his fate,leaving him no choice except that between destructionand d ishonor .The exped ition for the relief of Fort Pickens sailed from

New Yorkon April 6 and that for the relief of Fort Sumter on April 9 . Here again Seward appears upon the sceneunder circum stances calculated sorely to try the patienceof his friends , of even so patient and steadf ast a friend as

Lincoln , and again we are called upon , in balancing Seward’

s

account wi th the nation , to make large allowances for hisvirtues and liberal deductions from his faults . By hisbungling of orders the P owhatan , originally intended to goas the flagship wi th the expedi tion for the relief of FortSumter , was swi tched 03 to the exped ition for the reli ef .of

Fort Pickens . N0 great harm resul ted from this , however ,because Fort Pickens was saved ,

while Fort Sumter wouldprobably have been lost even if the P owhatan had arrivedbefore the bombardment began . But it turned out thatthe orders given by Seward were concerni ng matters notproperly belongi ng to his department , but to the Departments of War and of the Navy , and that they had beeng iven without consultation wi th either the Secretary of

War or the Secretary of the Navy , and without any noticeto either of them , or to the President . Moreover , it came

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602 Pol itica l H istory of Secess ion

dictatorshi p , but because he honestly believed that thatwas the way for him to serve and to save the Nation .

Horace Wh ite’s conclusion is that “Seward ’ s aims werepatriotic but futile. He wi shed to save the Union wi thoutbloodshed but the steps which he took were almost suicidal.What the country then needed was a jettison of compromi sesand a resolution of doubts . ” 2

Welles is far less lenient than the wri ters above quoted .

He says 3 : “There is no doubt that Mr . Seward was incommunication wi th the Rebel leaders , or some of them ;

not that he was implicated in , or a party to , their rebelliousschemes , but he tampered wi th them , felt confident , asDouglas stated , that . when he obtai ned power he could

shape events and control them . He overrated his own

powers always , and underestimated others . When he wassworn into the office of Secretary he expected and intendedto occupy the place of premier , and undoubtedly supposedhe could d irect the Admini stration in every department .Mr . Lincoln had , he knew , little admini strative experience.

Mr . Seward , therefore, kindly and as a matter of course,assumed that he was to be the master-mind of the government . But whilst he always had the regard and friendlywishes of Mr . Lincoln

, to whom hemade himself useful , andwho was impressed wi th the belief that his Secretary of

State had Shrewdness , knowledge, political experience, andcapabili ty far greater than he actually possessed , thePresident in a gentle manner gradually let it be understoodthat Abraham Lincoln was chief . There is no doubtthat the President was induced to take whatever steps hedi d , knowingly , in the matters referred to , through theinstrumentality and bythe advi ce of Mr . Seward ; but hewas not knowing to some of the important matters hereinstated , and as soon as hewasmade acquainted with them heat once di savowed and annulled them . It was a mi sfortuneof Mr . Seward , and one of hi s characteristics , that he de

Life of Seward , vol. p . 149. Life of Trumbull, p . 164 .

3 Diary, vol. i . , pp . 37—39.

Efforts to Succor Major Anderson 603

lighted in oblique and ind irect movements ; he also pridedhimself in his skill and management , had a craving desirethat the world should consider him the great and con

trolling mind of his party , of the Administration , and of

the country .

Where all is conjecture almost any supposition is wi thinthe range of speculation , but it is scarcely cred ible, as hintedby Welles , that there were then floating through Seward ’

s

brain visions conjured by his excessive optimism , mingledwi th more or less ambition and vanity , vi sions of a recon

Considerable allowance must be made, however, forWelles'

s strongd islikes. He is sparing in hi s praises. He d isliked Chase ; he d islikedSeward more ; Stanton comes in for unstinted censure ; Cameron “isnot great but adroit” (Id . ,

vol. iii. , p . He had a better Opinion ofMontgomery Blai r than he had of any of the other Cabinet members,notwithstanding Blair’s “egotism (Id .

, vol. i . , p . Indeed , if hisassociates in the Cabinet had known thatWelles would live to write hisD iary they would probably have felt as did Lord Brougham when hesaid that contemplation of the possibility that Lord Campbell mightlive to wri te his biography “added a pang to the thought of death.

Few of the public men with whom Welles came in contact have te

ceived hi s unstinted praise, but many his censure. Welles detestedSenator Hale, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs.Senator Harris of New Yorkwas Sly and maneuvering (Id . , vol. iii . ,p . Senator Chandler's “instincts were low and debasing"(I d . , p.

Sumner was “domineering , arrogant, insolent, and presuming"

(Id . , p . Thaddeus Stevens was a “vicious old man ”and almost

everything he di d was “dramatic and for effect” (Id ., p . Oliver

P. Morton was a hypocrite,"whose “moral stamina was gone”

(Id . , pp . 345 , SenatorWadewas “diseased with the Presidentialfever and had apparently “broken his knee joints or backbone"

(Id ., p . He distrusted Grant. I am

,

”he says, “becoming im

pressed with the idea that Grant may prove a dangerous man. He isdevoid of patriotism,

is ignorant, but cunning , yet greedy for Office and

power"(Id . , p . To the foregoing might be added many otherextracts in which Welles either condemns or damns with faint praisepublic menwith whom he came in contact during his offi cial life. Afterhaving completed his D iary it is possible that Welles felt something of

the satisfaction of Byron, when, after having vented his gall on everybody and everything he could thinkof , he wound up by saying , “Sonowall things are damned , one feels at ease.

604 Po litica l H istory of Secession

structed Union , in which Lincoln was lost sight of , and

Washington was in the background , but showing the figureof Seward standing colossal— sage, patriot , savior of hiscountry !It is d ifficult , if not impossible, even at this day, wi th all

the addi tional light we have now, to fathom Seward ’spolicy . He had said in his speech in the Senate on January12 , 1 86 1 , that he di d not see what the Uni on would beworth i f saved by the sword . On March 24 the Russianminister reported to Roman , one of the Conf ederate Commissioners , that in a conversation he had had wi th Sewardthe day before Seward had said that no coercion or blockadewould be attempted ; that he hoped the seceding Stateswould return to the Union , but if they did not they Shouldbe perm itted to depart in peace.

‘

There is no doubt that Seward was in favor of surrenderingFort Sumter . Hewas at first probably in favor of surrendering Fort Pickens also , i f such surrender would avert civilwar .But it must have been evident to Seward before the end ofMarch that no concessions which the North might be willing to make would stop the Confederates from completingthe organi zation of the Southern Confederacy and puttingit on a war footing ; that they could not be induced to come

back voluntarily by compromise or di plomacy of any kind ;that they could be brought backonly by arm s and at theend of a civil war . Seward , however , had based all his

calculations on the success of his peace policy and had no

policy adapted to the contingency of war . He is not to beblamed merely because of the failure of his peace policy ,for it was not in thewi t of any man to have devised a policythat would have kept the secedi ng States from seced ingor would have brought them backwithout war . If he i s tobe blamed it is for the stubborn pertinacity wi th which hecontinued to cling to the shattered fragments of his peace

policy after its utter failure had been so plainly demonstrated that he ought to have realized it himself . Suspicious

1 Bancroft, Life of Seward, vol. p . 1 17.

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606 Po litica l H istory of Secession

being that it had seemed to be impossible to convinceSeward that civi l war , a war of great magni tude, was impending , even after it had begun ; that he could not be

brought to realize that the day of compromi se had passedand that the North must now either fight or su rrender ; that

Fessenden, Trumbull, Sumner, Harris, Pomeroy, and Howard . A

meeting with the President was had on the evening of December 18at which there was a pretty full discussion of the situation. At the

meeting Sumner addressed the President and commented freely uponSeward 's ofii cial correspondence, averring “that he had subjected himself to ridicule in diplomatic circles at home and abroad ; that he haduttered statements off ensive to Congress and spoken of it repeatedlywith disrespect in the presence of foreign ministers ; that he had writtenoff ensive di spatches which the President could not have seen or assentedto.

The conferencewith the President lasted several hours but no definiteaction was taken. Subsequently on December 19 another conferencewas had between the President and the committee at which all the

members of theCabinetwere present except Seward and all the membersof the commi ttee except Wade, who was then absent from Washington,and a further discussion was had . At thi s interview Fessenden toldthe President tha t “Seward had lost hi s confidence before he became

Secretary of State and that if he [Fessenden] had been consulted hewould not have advised his appointment. ”Seward heard of the movement and sent hi s resignation to the

President. Chase also sent in his resignation. The reasons Chasegave to Fessenden were “that Seward and he came into the Cabinet asrepresenting two wings of the Republican party, and if he remained hemight be accused of maneuvering to get Mr. Seward out ; and he thoughthe ought to relieve the President of any embarrassment if he desired toreconstruct his Cabinet. Mr. Chase further said that Seward 's Withd rawal would embarrass him so much that he could not get along withthe treasury. He found that very di fficult as it was, and if he had tocontend with the disaffection of Seward 's friends , _

the load would hemore than he could carry.

"The President himself sai d that “he had

reason to fear ‘a general smash up 'if Seward was removed and he di d

not see how he coul d get along without an entire change in hi s Cabinet.The upshot of the whole matter was that the President declined toaccept the resignation of either Seward or Chase, and Fessenden on

December 24 records, The Cabinet is all backagain.

Welles’s account of the matter, so far as it goes, is in substantial

accord with that of Fessenden — Diary, vol, i . , pp. 194—205. See also

Efforts to Succor Major Anderson 607

it was no longer a question of letting the seced ing States goin peace, but a question of preparing to repel theConfederatehosts that were threatening the capital of the nation and theinvasion of the North ; that Seward in hunting for olivebranches was wasting precious time that should be employedin putting armies in the field and find ing generals fit tocommand them .

Rhodes, Hi story of Uni ted States , vol. iv. , pp. 204—206 ; Nicolay and Hay,

Lincoln, vol. vi . , chap . xii. Seward 's Works, vol. iv. , pp . 14 , 15 ; Schuckers,Lifeof Chase, 473 cl seq.

CHAPTER XXX

WAITING FOR THE SOUND OF THE CANNON

O the last moment , Lincoln seemed to hope that some

where out of the gathering clouds of war the dove of

peacemight emerge ; but in the nation at large therewas nowlittle thought of peace. If thewar Spirit had been slower tokindle in the North than in the South , there was now no

doubt that it was at white heat in both sections , ready atany moment to burst forth in all-enveloping , all-devouringflames . All signs now pointed to war , though no one in theNorth or in the South then anticipated its extent , its desolation , its bloody character . All knew that it would beginwith the bombardment of Fort Sum ter and that the bombardment could not bemuch longer postponed .

In the South the tension had been so long near the breaking point that there was danger of reaction . Until a fewdays before the bombardment began the garrison at FortSumter had been allowed to get smal l daily supplies of provisions in the Charleston market , but this was forbidden on

April 7 by order of General Beauregard ,who had now ceasedto address Major Anderson as “My dear Major . ” On the8th

, as before stated , themails were also cut off . But MajorAnderson still persisted in his provoking loyalty and in hisexasperating refusal to surrender . As the Mobi le Mercury

expressed it ,“The country is sinking into a fatal apathy

and the spiri t and even the patriotism of the people is

oozing out under this do-nothing policy . It was thereforenecessary that something decisive should be done prettysoon “

either evacuation or expul sion . There must be

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6 10 Po litica l H istory of Secess ion

Lincoln reasoned , that war could no longer be avoided bycompromi se, by anything , in fact , short of surrender tosecession . On the other hand , the Confederates reasonedthat i f by any chance Fort Sum ter could hold out untilreinforced the effect woul d be most d isastrous , not only tothe cause of secession in the border States , but in the cot

ton States themselves . The preparations for bombard ingFort Sumter were so nearly completed that on April IGeneral Beauregard had telegraphed to the Confederateauthorities that he woul d be ready to open fire on the

following Wednesday or Thursday . As soon as the Confederate authorities were apprised of the sailing of the

expedition for the relief of Fort Sumter , General Beauregardwas ordered to begin the bombardment wi thout furtherdelay .

On Friday , April 12 , one more demand for surrenderwas made of Major Anderson , accompanied wi th noticethat if he refused the bombardment would beg in withinone hour . Major Anderson refused to surrender and thebombardment began at o

’

clockA.M .

It was a gala day for the people of Charleston . In expectation of the promi sed spectacle, great crowd s had gatheredalong the shores of the harbor . Others of the South werethere that they might be in at the death of the Union .

Among them was Wig fall, eager to d isplay not only hiszeal but himself I From the mast over Fort Sumter stillfloated the flag of the Union , the Union that Sumter andMarion and other patriots of the Revolution had so bravelyfought to establish , but which their descendants were now

bent on destroying . Under that flag South Carolina hadmarched to glorious victories in theWar of 1 8 1 2 and in theMexican War . Al l these memories seemed to have beenforgotten and the old flag was now looked upon as a hatedemblem , and the expectant crowds were impatiently waitingto see it shot down and trailed in the dust . From every

The bellicose Senator from Texas had now been transformed intoColonelWigfall, ai de to General Beauregard .

Waiting for the Sound of the Cannon 6 1 1

Confederate battery commandi ng Fort Sumter , from FortMoultrie and Castle Pinckney , from Morris Island , fromthe floating batteries , there now burst forth sheets of flamethat illumined the gray morning mists , and shot and shellfell thick and fast upon the fort and its doomed garrison .

The dark clouds that hung over Charleston harbor werenot imaginary ; they were real, intensely real. All peacepropositions , all proposed compromises , all truces , all plansfor patching up the broken Union had now vani shed . THE

CIVIL WAR HAD BEGUN.

If the bombardment of Fort Sumter fired the Southernheart , it fired the Northern heart as well. The echo of the

guns reached every Northern home. As i f by magi c , thewar Spirit blazed forth with such fervent heat as , at least fora time, to melt all political d ifferences and weld all politicalparties in the North into one, whose only aim was thepreservation of the Uni on at whatever cost of treasure or

men .

On the day of the bombardment of Fort Sumter , StephenA . Douglas called at the White House and assured the

President of his unqualified support . The morning afterhe said to his old friend , John W . Forney : “We must fightfor our country and forget all di flerences . There can be

but two parties— the party of patriots and the party of

traitors . We see Douglas for the last time in his lastpublic speech at Chicago, May 1 , 1 86 1 , in whi ch he said :But thi s is no time for a detail of causes . The conspiracyis now known ; armi es have been raised , war is levied toaccomplish it . There are only two sides to the question .

Every man must be for the United States or against it .There can be no neutrals in thi s war ; only patriots or trait

In all the North there was probably no otherpoli tical leader , except Lincoln himself , who brought so

When Douglas made thi s speech hewas suflering from an incurablemalady from whi ch he died on June 3 , 186 1 , at the early age of fortyeight.

6 12 Po litical H istory of Secess ion

great a number of his followers to the support of the Unioncause Hewas , says HoraceWhite, the onlymanwho

could have saved southern Illi nois from the danger of aninternecine war . The southern counties followed him now

as faithful ly and as unanimously as they had followed himin previous years and sent their sons into the field to fightfor the Uni on as numerously and bravely as those of anyother section of the State or of the country .

President Lincoln issued his call to arm s Monday , Apri l15 . On the next day the descendants of the men who

fought at Lexing ton and Concord and Bunker H ill weremustering on Boston Common , and wi thin three daysafter that the Massachusetts Sixth , the first regiment fromthe North , was marching through the streets of Baltimore.

Indeed every nook and corner of the North quivered underthe tread of companies and reg iments marching to theirplaces of rendezvous . The long pent-up war Spirit was nowfiercely burning in the North as well as in the South , andthemen of both sections seemed to leap , as from leashes thatbound them , to bloody battlefields . All had yet to learnthe truth of General Sherman ’s saying , that

“War is Hell .Who woul d then have thought— strange paradox— that

the combatants who for four years had fought one anotherin deadly conflict , the verymen who stood on the firing line,should be the first to be reconciled ? Webster hoped that hemight never live to see the sun in heaven shining “on thebroken and d ishonored fragments of a once glorious Union ,on States d issevered , di scordant , and belligerent ; on a landrent wi th civil feud s, drenched , it may be, in fraternalblood . But there aremen still living who have seen whatWebster dreaded to see.

"They have also seen what Websterdid not live to see, the old Union , the Union of our fathers ,nowknit together by ties stronger than any that have everbound it since the days of the Revolution .

Life of _

Trumbull, p. 153.

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6 14 Tab le of Citations

Congressional Globe (Continued)29

107.

y200 , 20 1 , 206 .

354

354. 390 392 480 48 1 .

483 49 1 492 5 10 5 13COOPER . Ameri can P oli ti cs , 23 , 25 , 28CORWIN : The D red Scott Deci si on , etc. 323 .

CRAWFORD . Hi story of Fort Sumter, 5 19, 526 , 527, 535 , 537, 550 , 552 ,587 609 .

CURTIS (BENJ . R . Life of Benjami n R . Curti s , 334 , 5 19.

CURTIS (FRANCIS) : The Republi can P arty, 284 .

CURTIS (GEORGE Life of James Buchanan , 68 , 75 , 338 , 5 19 , 525 ,

530 , 553‘

DAVIS : Ri se and Fall of S outhern Confederacy, 17, 198, 235, 45 1 ,

DE BOW : Industri al Resources, etc. , 1 1 .

Detroi t Free P ress , 559.

D :Ix Speeches , 50, 59 .

DOYLE : The Engli sh Colonies i n America , Vi rginia , etc. 2 ,

Under theHouse 0 Hanover, 7.

D RAPER : Hi story of the American Civi l War, 1

D UNN : Hi story of Indiana , 90Paper on S lavery P etiti ons , 90ERRETT : The Formation of the Republi can P arty i n 1 856, 284.

Republi can Nomi nating Conventi ons , 290.

FESSENDEN : Life, etc. , of Wi lliam P i tt Fessenden ,205 ,

Fi rst Century of the Republic, 7FISKE : Essays , 88.

FLOWER : Hi story of the Republican Party, 238, 28 1 , 282 .

FOOTE : War of the Rebellion , 46.

FOULKE : Life of Oli ver P . Morton, 346, 579, 580.

Fox : Regimental Losses ,GARRISON : Life (By his children) , 65 , 77, 442 .

GORDON : MajorAnderson at Fort Sumter, 597.

GREELEY : TheGreatAmerican Confli ct, 1 71 , 380, 456.

GREELEY and CLEVELAND : P oli ti cal Text Bookfor 1 860, 302 , 303 .

GREGORY : P aper on A Hi storic Jud icial Controversy, 238.

HALSTEAD : Hi story ofI

the Nationa l P oli ti cal Conventions of 1 860, 4 1 1 ,

4 1 2. 4 13 ,HENSEL : B uchanan sAdmini strati on on the Eve of theRebellion, 555 .

HERBERT . The Aboli tion Crusade, 567 .

HILDRETH : Hi story of the Uni ted S tates , 6 , 7, 18 , 25.

HOWE : The P uri tan Republi c, 2 , 5 .

HOWELLS : John Brown Af ter Fif ty Years , 385 .

HUTCHINSON : Hi story of Massachusetts , 68 .

I llinoi s State Bar Associati on P roceedings, 238 .

Ind i ana Hi storical Society P ublicati ons, 77, 90.

Indi ana State Bar Associati on P roceedings, 238.

Ind ianapoli s Journal, 56 1 .

Table of Citations 6 15

EFFERSON: Works , 9 , I 5 , 22 , 23 , 57, 59 .

OHNSON : Garri son and Hi s Times , 63 , 64 , 66 , 67, 78 , 8 1 .OB NSTON : Poli tical Hi story (WOODBURN 'S 27, 28 , 196 .

ULIAN : Life of Joshua R . Gi dd i ngs , 427.

Political Recollecti ons , 102 , 574 .

Rankof Charles Osborn a s a Reformer, 77.

P aper on the First Republican Convention, 284 , 288.

LAMON : Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, 590 .

LAWRENC E : Paper on Colonial P rogress, 7.

Lecompton Union, 35 1 .

Li berator, The, 64 , 442.

Lincoln-Douglas Debates. 33 1. 332. 345. 369 . 370. 372. 374. 375. 376.377

LODGE : Life and Letters of George Cabot, 17, 18.

LOGAN : The Great Conspi racy, 369.

London Morni ng S tar, 277.

MADISON : Wri ti ngs , 16 .

Magazi ne of Western History, 284 , 290.

M ALLORY : Life and Speeches of Henry Clay, 96MANSFIELD : P ersonal Memoi rs , 102 .

MA SON : P aper on the Fugi tive S lave Law i n Wi sconsi n, 238.

Massachusetts M i li tary Historical Society P apers , 597.

Session Laws , 2 18 , 24 1 .

METZ NER : (STEMPFEL '

S translation) Hi story of theNorth Ameri can Gymnastic Union , 401 .

Mobi leMercury, 608 .

MOORE : Works of James Buchanan, 334, 336, 338 , 574 .

MCCLURE : Li ncoln and Men of War Ti mes , 535 , 555 , 573 , 574 .

MCMASTER : Hi story of the Uni ted States , 25 , 108 , 1 15 , 40 1 .

MCPHERSON : Hi story of the Rebellion, 19 1 , 240, 455 , 46 1 , 466 , 5 1 1 , 5 16 ,,546. 547. 609 .

Nati onal Era , 187.

New Orleans Bee, 92 .

New YorkEvening Post, 228.

New YorkTri bune, 5 1 1 , 560.

NICOLAY : Outbreakof Rebellion, 457.

NICOLAY and HAY : Lincoln, 198, 5 12 , 520, 530, 535 , 591 , 607.

NILES : Regi ster, 1 15 .

Tippecanoe Text Book, 90 , 9 1 , 92.

North Ameri can Revi ew, 385 .

NORTON : Tippecanoe Campaign, 90 , 96 , 98 .

Ofiicial P roceedings of the Republi can Convention Convened In the Cityof Pittsburg , Pennsylvania, on the 22nd of February, 1 856 , 284 .

OLMSTED : A Journey i n the Sea-Board S lave States , 6 , 7, 8 , 1 1 .

PARKHURST : Official Report of National Democratic Conventions of 1 860 ,

4 1 1 .

PARTON : Life of Horace Greeley, 1 52 , 158.

Pennsylvania Reports , (Sup . 454 .

PH ILLIPS : Conquest of Kansas , 244 , 245 , 249 .

Paper on Georg ia and S tates Rights , 421 .

PILLSBURY : The Church as It I s , etc. , 77.

P oli tical Science Qua rterly, 42 1 , 458.

POLLARD : Life of J efi'

erson Davi s , 2 15 , 456 , 543.

The Lost Cause, 1 5 , I 7, 408 , 550, 567.

President's Messages , etc .,67, 305 , 460 .

6 1 6 Tab le of Citations

Procee8

dings of the Consti tutional Meeting at Faneui l Hall , November 26,1

P roceedings of the Conventi ons at Charleston and Baltimore, 4 1 1 .

QUINCY : Life of John QuincyAdams , 71 , 73 .

RAY : Repeal of the M issouri Compromi se, 198 , 2 13 .

Report of Commi ttee on M i li taryAf ai rs , 5 19.

RHODES : Hi story of the Uni ted States/198 , 2 16 , 265 , 334 , 387, 535 , 607.

Richmond Enqui rer, 276 , 303 .

R ichmond Examiner, 296 .

RUSSELL : My D iary, North and South, 408 , 560, 572 .

SCHUCKER : Lif e of Salmon P . Chase, 198 , 607.

SCHURZ , CARL : Reminiscences , 235 , 236 , 377.

SEWARD : Works, 73 , 1 1 0, 174 , 202 , 203 , 2 13 , 332, 360, 607.

SHERMAN (JOHN) : Recollecti ons , 304 .

SPR ING : Kansas , 243 .

STEPHENS : War Between the States, 455.

STOVALL : Life of Senator Toombs , 279.

SUMNER : Works , 265 , 269 , 271 , 272 , 273 , 275 , 276 , 277, 303THOMAS : P aper on Southern Non-Slaveholders i n the Electi on of 1 860 ,

TUC KER : Hi story of the Uni ted S tates , 5 , 85 , 1 16 .

TURPIE : Sketches of My Own Times , 3 13 .

TYLER : Memoi r of Roger B . Taney, 320 , 334 , 343 .

United States Census Reports , 396.

Consti tuti on , 1 85 .

House Reports , 248.

S enate Reports , 195.

S tatutes , 177, 179 , 2 17Supreme CourtReports , 2 17, 239 , 3 16, 320.

VAN BUREN : P oli ti cal Parties , 324.

Vermont Sessi on Laws , 2 1 8 , 24 1 .

VICTOR : S outhern Rebelli on,235 , 478.

VILLARD : John Brown , 253 , 385.

VON HOLST : Consti tutional and P oli tical Hi story of the United States , 15 ,18. 25 . 86. I 44 . 156. 18 1 . 255. 393. 400.

War Records : 450. 5 16. 52 1 . 522 . 523. 524. 528. 536. 550. 575.

576. 588. 59 1 . 5945 597. 598. 599WATTERSON : An Aborti ve Hero, 385 .

WEBSTER (DANIEL) Works : 3 1 , 32 , 33 , 39 , 5 1 , 97, 170, 1 71 , 172 , 226 .

WEBSTER (HOMER) : Wi lliam Henry Harri son'

s Admini stration ofIndi ana Terri tory, 90.

WEISE : Life of Theodore Parker, 265 .

WELLES : D iary, 570, 589, 595 , 602 , 603 , 606 .

WH ITE (ANDREW) : Autobi ography, 79 , 10 1 , 1 86 , 223 , 304.

WH ITE (HORACE) : Life of Trumbull, 499 , 5 12 , 569 , 572 ,602 , 603 , 6 12 .

WILSON , (HENRY) : Ri se and‘Fa ll of the SlavePower, 72 , 73 , 197,

WILSON (WOODROW) : Contri buti on on States Rights , 334.

WINSLOW : P aper on the Booth Case, 238 .

Wi sconsin State Hi stori cal Soci ety P roceedings , 238.

Wi sconsin Supreme CourtReports , 239.

WOOLLEN : B i ographical Sketches of Early Indiana , 120

WYLLY : The Colony of Georgi a , 6 , 9 , 457.

YOUNG : American Statesmen, 105, 106 , 247.

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6 18 Index

Allen, William: strenuous advo

cate Of policy Of Fifty-fourForties, 120 ; Speech in Senateon Oregon boundary question,12 1 ; his subsequent career,142

Alli son, John: 285Alli son, Wi lliam B .: 425Allan (Ills ) : murder Of ElijahLovejoy there

,80

Alton Observer: Abolition newspaper. 64

American Anti—Slavery Societyorganization, 63 ; dissolution, 8 1

American or Know-Nothing P arty:its sudden rise, 282 ; for a time

d iverts attention from slaveryquestion, 283 ; Splits in 1 856 on

slavery question, but nominatesMillard Fillmore for Presidentand A. J . Donelson for VicePresident, 295 ; in 1 860 adoptsmeaning less p lat f o rm , 422 ;nominates John Bell for President and Edward Everett forVice-President, 422 ; arouses noenthusiasm , 44 1

Anderson , Thomas L. : his peaceproposition, 462

Anderson , Major Robert: assignedto command of United Statesforts in Charleston (S . C. )harbor, 520 ; his appea ls forreinforcements

, 520 ; orders andcorrespondence between himand Floyd , Secreta ry of War

,

520 ; growing feeling in Norththat somethin should be donefor his relie 587 ; militaryauthorities advise against a t

tempt, 587 ; Lincoln submitsquestion to his Cabinet, butmajority vote against makingattempt, 588 ; he sends Lamonand Hurlbut to Charleston to

confer with Governor Pickensand Major Anderson, 589 ;their reports to Lincoln, 589 ;Lincoln again submits questionof aiding Major Anderson to

Cabinet, whi ch reverses itsformer ruling , 590 ; expeditionsfor relief ordered , 590 ; Anderson’s letters to U. S . AdjutantGeneral, 597 ; scant justice of

Civil War historians to MajorAnderson, 597 ; his correspondence With General Beauregard ,598 ; his last letter to U. S . War

Department, 599 ; his unswerving loyalty to hi s Government,599 : mentioned . 537. 538. 540.See EFFORTS To S U C C O R

MAJOR ANDERSON , Chap terXXIX , p . 597.

ndrew, John A. : his efiorts tout Massachusetts on a warooting prior to outbreak OfCivil War, 577 ; mentioned ,425

Anti-Lecompton Democrats : nearlyall followed Doug las in 1 860 ,

Anti -Slavery P arti es i n Northgreat variety Of names, 279

Anti-Slavery S ocieties : organization Of , 63 ; one of causes ofirritation of South, 10, 407ppeal of the Independent Demo

crats, 198

reher, Wi lliam : 140

Arkansas : Petition Of people Ofterritory for admission as astate, 55 ; state admitted , 59 ;refuses for a time to secede,456

Arnay, W. F. M . : 286Ashley, James M . : 285shmun

, Georgezselected as permanent chairman Of RepublicanNational Convention in 1 860 ,

425 ; mentioned , 165Atchi son , Davi d : one of leaders OfM issourians in invasion of Kansas, 246 ; mentioned , 120, 246 ,250

Atherton gag : ado tion of , in Congress to hea Off Abolitionpetitions, 72 ; Opposition to,

Of

Northern Democrats, 73 ; howanti-Slavery petitions di sposedOf after its abolition, 73

Austin,James T his speech atLovejoy meeting in Boston,

.

80

Avery, W. W. : submits majori tyreport of resolutions commi tteeat Charleston Democratic Convention in 1 860 , 4 12 ; submi tssecond majority report, 4 16

Index

Bailey, William S . : 286Baker, : 28 1

Baldwi n, Dudley: 286Bancroft, Georgezon coercing theseced ingstates , 560

Bangor nion : opposes coercion,559

Banks , Nathaniel P . : 285 , 292Barksdale, E . : 4 1 1

Barksdale, Wi lliam : 388

Barn-burner Democrats : orig in ofterm , 15 1

Barnwell, Robert: one of SouthCarolina Commissioners, 449 ;mentioned , 526 , 527

Bates , Edward : cand idate forpresidential nomination in Republican National Convention in1 860 , 423 ; Attorney-General inLincoln's Cabinet, 570

Bayard , James : elected chairmanOf Democratic seceders con

vention at Charleston in 1 860,

4 19Bayley, Calvi n C. : 286

Beaman, F. C. : 285 , 286

Beaman, J. C. : 285Beauregard , General Peter: reportscond i tion Of Ft. Sumter, 575 ;correspondence with Major Anderson, 598 ; mentioned , 587,

594. 608

Beecher, Henry Ward : steadfastOpponent Of slavery, 79 ; on

logic Of Sharp ’s rifles, 245BEGINNINGS OF SECES S ION : Chapter 15

Bell, John : voted against KansasNebraska bi ll, 199 ; vo te sagainst bill to admit Kansasunder Lecompton constitution,352 ; nominated for Presidentby Ameri can party in 1 860 ,

422 ; defeated , 446Belmont, August: 4 1 1Benson , I . M . : 286

Benton, Thomas H. : votes aganistbill to prohibit circulation of

Abolition newspapers, e tc. ,

through themails, 67 ; speech inSenate on Oregon boundaryquestion, 1 25 ; aids PresidentPolk In his back-down on Ore

gon policy, 140 ; presents petition Of people of New Mexico,

6 19

154 ; his quarrel with SenatorFoote, 16 1 ; loses caste in Democratic party by his Oppositionto demands Of slave 297 ; hisadvice to Senator umner on

latter's entrance into Senate,298 ; review of Dred Scott case,324 ; mentioned , 30 1 , 326

Berrien, John M . : S p eech inSenate on Oregon boundaryquestion, 1 27 ; mentioned , 140igler, Wi lliam : 459ingham, K . S . : 286irney, James G. : nominated forpresident by Abolitionists in1 840, 89 ; nominated for president by Liberty party in 1 844 ,107

B IRTH OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTYAND ITS FIRST BATTLE , Chap.

X IV. , p . 278Black, Jeremiah S . : hi s Opinion ofWilliam H . Seward , 109 ; asBuchanan's Attorney-Generaladvises against pardon of Sherman M . Booth, 238 ; his Opiniongiven to President Buchanan onright to coerce seced ing states,452 ; his character and politicalviews, 453 ; points in hi s Opinion,454 ; succeeds Cass as Secretary Of Sta te, 5 17 ; Objects toBuchanan issuing order forWithdrawal Of garrison fromCharleston Harbor

, 529 ; sug

gests amendments to Buchanan's answer to South Carolinacommissioners, 3 1 ; his effortsin this matter 0 grea t value toUnion cause, 535 ; eflect Of hi schange of attitude, 539 ; mentioned ,

BlackJ ac : battle Of , 252Bla ine, James G. : prominent inMaine politics in 1 856 , 298 ;

predicts defeat of Seward for

presidential nomination in Republican convention Of 1 860,

428 ; his estimate of Buchanan,45I . SSIla i r, Austi n : 476la i r, Franci s P . :president ofPittsburg Republi can conven

tion, 287 ; mentioned , 286, 423,425

620 Index

Blai r, Montgomery: one of attor

neys in Dred Scott 5 17 ;Postmaster-General in Lincoln’scabinet, 570 ; Opposed to Seward ’s peace policy, 584 ; men

tioned , 603B li ss , George, 285Bolton, Thomas , 286Bond , 286

Bonham,M . L . 539

Boone, Colonel, 250

Booth, Sherman M . : his participation in rescue of Joshua Glover,23 1 ; prosecutions and suitsagainst him ,

in the Federalcourts, 23 1 ; released from im

prisonment on writ Of habeas

corpus by SupremeCourt ofWisconsin, 23 1 ; again indicted and

imprisoned and again releasedby Wisconsin Supreme Court,232 , civil action against himby Garland , owner of Glover,232 ; U. S . Supreme Courtreverses judgments OfWisconsinSupreme Court, 233 ; points inU. S . Supreme Court decision,233 ; Wisconsin Supreme Courtrefuses to Obeymandate of U. S .

Supreme Court, 236 ; Boothagain arrested and imprisoned ,

236 ; nu11ification resolutionsof Wisconsin legislature, 236 ;Booth finally pardoned byPresident Buchanan, 238

Booth, Wi lkes : 383Border States : meeting of membersOf Congress to consider peacepropositions, 459 ; sympathiesof slave border states with theseceding states, 563

Boston Anti -Man-Hunting League240

Boutwell, Geo. M speech Of , inPeace Convention Of 186 1 , 468 ;mentioned

, 425Bavay, A. he and two otherscall anti slavery meeting at

Ripon, Wis. ,28 1 ; credited with

originating name of Republicanparty, 28 1

Bowen,28 1

Brainerd , Lawrence C. : callsPittsburg Republican Convemtiontoorder

,287 mentioned ,

285

Branch, Lawrence 387Brannin , Richard : 286

Brecki nri dge, John C.: nominatedfor Vice-President by Democratic National Convention in1 856 , 293 ; nominated for President by Democratic seceders’convention at Baltimore in1 860

, 437 ; overwhelming sentiment of South in hi s favor inpresidential campaign Of 1860,

44 1 ; defeated 446B rewer, Josi ah: 285B ri ght, Jesse B . : 3 1 1 , 4 12

B rinkerhof , Jacob: 285Brinkerhofi

'

, R . : 286

Broderick, Davi d C. : 353B rooks

, Erastus : 42 1

Brooks , P reston: hi s assault on

Senator Sumner, 271 ; aftercensure by House resigns andis reelected ,

273 ; mentioned296

Brown,285

Brown, A. B . 106

B rown , J. M . . 286

Brown, John conspicuous inKansas troubles, 252 ; his Kan

sas record , 252 ; his

Harper's Ferry, 380 ; the excusesgiven for him , 382 ; effect of hi sraid on the North, 383 ; eflecton the South, 384 ; his rank inhistory

, 384 ; unsuccessful efiortsof Democratic leaders to implicate prominent Republicans inBrown’s raid , Lincoln’3Opinion of raid , 385 ; mentioned ,296

B rown, Peter: 252B rowning , Orvi lle H. : one ofLincoln’s managers at Republican National Convention in1 860 , 423 ; mentioned 425

Brownlow, W. G. : 42 1

B ryant, John 286

Buchanan,James: votes for Cal

boun’s bill prohibiting circulation of Abolition newspapers,etc . ,

through the mails, 68 ;

presents petition of Penns lvania Quakers to Congress or

abolition Of slavery, 75 ; gratified that resolution for annexation Of Texas reestablished the

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622 Index

Butler, Ben'

amin F.— Continued

gate to harleston DemocraticConvention in 1 860

, 412 ; hisvariegated political pnnciples ,4 1 2 ; hi s dissenting minorityreport and speech, 4 13 ; secedesfrom second Democratic Convention at Baltimore, 435mentioned , 4 1 1

Cagger, P eter: 4 1 1Calhoun,

John : sends certifiedcopy of Lecompton constitutionto President Buchanan, 349

Calhoun ,John C. : resolutions

and speech on the Force bill,29 ; advocates right of secession,29 ; doctrine af terward appliedto protect and extend Slavery,36 ; on

“equality Of rights, ”

40 ; on non-interference, 45 ;

his theory of needed amendments to the constitution, 52 ;estimate b f , 53 ; his vote on the

M issouri questions submittedby President Monroe to hi s

cabinet, 59 ; reports bill to

prohibit circulation of Abolitionnewspapers , etc . , through the

mails , 67 ; speech on Abolitiontition presented by Jamesuchanan , 75 ; succeeds Upshur as Secretary Of State inTyler's cabinet, 104 ; his greatinfluence over Tyler, 104 ;refuses to allow his name to go

before Democratic NationalConvention in 1844 for presidential nomination, 107 ; his

position on Oregon boundaryuestion,

130 ; hi s resolutionseclaring slavery in the territories to be protected by U. S .

constitution, 145 : his letter on“forcing the issues, ” '

I 45 ;advises retaliatory legislationby southern states againstthe North, 146 ; opposes petition Of New Mexico for territorial government, 1 54 ; speechon Compromise Measures, 169 ;hi s death, 296 ; mentioned , 326,3

Calijfhrnia : efforts to provide ter

ritorial organization for, 1 55 ,167 ; inhabitants vote for freestate constitution, 160 ; President Taylor favors admissionunder, 160 ; d isappointment OfSouth, 160 ; passage Of bill foradmission

,1 76 ; seeCompromise

Measures.Cameron, S imon : candi date for

presidential nomination in Republican National ConventionIn 1 860, 423 ; opposition to hi sappointment as Secretary ofWar in Lincoln's cabinet, 568 ;his removal , 569 ; Opinion as toattempting relief of MajorAnderson, 588 ; mentioned , 603

Campbell , John A.: one of judgesin Dred Scott case

, 3 17 ; actsas go-between for Seward andCo nf ed erat e commissioners,586 ; his correspondence withJeff erson Davis and Toombs,586 ; charges that Seward overreached the Confederate commissioners

, 594 ;mentioned, 3 16 ,

Campbell, Lewi s B .: 275Carey, Henry C. : 290Carlin , 286

Carter,H . : 286

Cartter, Davi d K . : 425 , 431Caruthers , 285Cass , Lewi s : supports policy ofFifty-four Forties in Oregoncontroversy, 1 20, 1 23 ; Democratic nominee for Presidentin 1848 , 147 ; speech on meaningOf Kansas-Nebraska Act, 259 ;Secretary Of State inBuchanan’scabinet

, 5 16 ; resigns ,Office of

Secretary Of State , 5 16 ; mentioned

,297, 298 , 517

Castle Garden: meeting to indorseCompromi se Measures of 1850 ,224

Castle Pinckney: occupied bySouth Carolina mili tary forces,2

Calrdn,John: his 0 ion in Dred

Scott case, 32 1 is correspondence with Presi dent Buchananduring pendency of case, 336 ;mentioned . 3 16. 3 19. 339. 340.

34 1 . 342 . 343

Index

Caucus system: abandoned in presidential nominations , 86

Cavalier clement: in South Carolina

,2

Chamberla in,B . B .: 285

Chandler, Z achariah: enters U. S .

Senate, 298 ; hi s letter to

Governor Blai r on the necessityOf a little blood-letting ,"475 ;mentioned , 286 , 287, 290 , 405 ,603 . 606 . 609

Cha rming, Wi lliam Ellery: 7Cha rleston (S . see emocratic National conventions ;Fort Sumter.

Cha rleston (S . C.) Courier: indorsesWilliam Henry Harri son forPresident in 1 840 , 9 1

Charleston harbor: Major Anderson assigned to command offorts in, 520

Chase, Salmon P . : his political andcivil career prior to 3 I st Con

ress,

166 ; speech in 3 I st

ngress on the CompromiseMeasures of 1 850 ,

175 ; assists in

pre aration of Address to the

n ependent Democrats, 198 ;speeches on the Kansas-Nebraska bill

,199 ; controversy

withDouglas , 208 ; candidate forpresidential nomination at RepublicanNational Conventionin1860 , 423 ; speech in Peace Convention Of Secretaryof Treasury in Lincoln’s cabinet,570 ; represents radical element570 ; mentioned , 165 , 256 , 405 ,

584 , 603. 606

Cha se, Wi lliam, J r.: 285Choate, Rufus : hi s prediction as topolitical effect of Uncle Tom

’

s

Cabi n ,187 ; speech against

slavery agitation in 1850 ,225

Chri stiancy, I saac : 290

Church, Sanford E . : 4 1 1

Churches and clergy of the Northearly attitude agamst slaveryagitation , 76 ; effect on , Of

commercial interests, 187 ;change after 1850, 396 ; in 1860 ,

407Cincinnati , Ohio: proceed ings Of

convention there of those favoring occupation of Oregon, I 14

A. M 285William T.: 285

Clarke, W. P . : 286

Clay, C. C. : speech onwithdrawingfrom U. S . Senate in 186 1 , 5 13 ;mentioned , 420

Clay, Cassius M . letter to

Pittsburg Republican Convention in 1 856 , 287 ; defea ted forvice-presidential nomination atRepublican National Convention in 1860

, 43 1

Clay, Henry: hi s compromisetari fI bill of 1833 , 36 ; Opposed toTallmadge's amendment to

Missouri bill, 56 ; quarrel withJohn Randolph, 60 ; votesagainst bill to prohibit circulation of Abolition papers. etc . ,

67 ; speeches in presidentialcampaign of 1840, 96 ; sacrificedin Whig convention in 1 839 ,

86 ; Whi g nominee for President in 1 8

“

107 ; defeated forpresidentiafl

j

homination inWhigNational Convention in, 1848 ,149 ; Greeley

’s lament for,152 ;

1118 relations to PresidentTaylor,159 ; in 3 1stCongress , 164 ; compromise measures prepared by,

In 3 I stCongress , 167 ; hi s speechon the CompromiseMeasures of1 850 , 168 ; hi s death, 296 ; mentioned , 326

Clayton, John M proposes to

leave question Of slavery in theterri tori es to the courts , 154 ;votes against Kansas-Nebraskabill, 199 ; mentioned , 140

Cleaveland, C. F. : 285

Cleaveland,George: 285

Clephane. Loui s: 286Clergy i n New EnglandChurches and clergy

Clingman, Thomas C. : speech on

secession in 36th Congress, 478 ;mentioned , 165 , 5 17CLOS ING MONTHS OF BUCHANAN 'SADMINISTRATION : Chap. XX IV. ,

p . 5 15CLOS ING MONTHS OF BUCHANAN sADM INISTRATION : (Continued)Chap . XXV . , p . 542

Cobb, Howell: Secretary Of Treassury in Buchanan’s Cabinet,

624 Index

Cobb, Howell— Continued5 16 ; advises against formingconfederacy until after March4 , 1 86 1

, 5 15 ; resi ation ofOffice of Secretary 0 Treasury

,

5 16 ; elected President of Montgomery Confederate Congress,548 ; mentioned , 165 , 297, 455 ,

Coburn,John: 3 1 1

Codd i ng , I cha bod 286

Coke, Lord : on the independenceOf the judi ciary, 34 1

Colfax, Schuyler: 3 1 1 , 3 1 2Collamer, Jacob: submits minorityreport on bill for admission Of

Kansas,254 ; member of Senate

Committee of Thirteen, in 36thCongress, 59 ; mentioned , 605

Colleges i n orth: change of attitude toward slavery af ter 1850,396

Colonization: societies for, in theSouth ; purpose Of

,10

Comins,Linus B . : 273

Compromi se Measures of 1 850

debates and proceedings in3 I st Congress; 108 ; what Southgained by, 179 ; political effectinMississippi , 1 8 1 ; little accomplished by, 1 83 ;See FORCING THE IS SUES , etc. ,

Cha pter IX . , p . 1 59Confederate commi ssioners : sentby confederate government toWashington to negotiate

6tre

atywith United States,576 ; im

portant part played y, 584 ;

attempt of,to Open 0fficial

communication with federalgovernment

, 585 ; JusticeCampbell Of U. S . Supreme Courtacts as gO-between for them and

Seward , 586 ; Toombs's letterto

, 587 ; their negotiations withSeward , 594 ; whether ‘theyoverreached Seward or he

over-reached them ? 594Confederate Congress: meets atMontgomery, Ala . ; its pro

ceedings, 656

Confederate S tates of America

preliminary work, 456 ; organization of Confederacy undername Of , 548 ; Jeff erson Davis

elected President and AlexanderH . Stephens, Vice-President,548 ; measures taken to put, inoperation and to place on a warfooting , 548 ; send commissioners to Washington, 576

Congress (of the U. S .)30th Congress: proceedings anddebates, 155 ; secret meetingsOf southern members

,1 56 ; the

address issued by them, 1 56

3 1 st Congress :first session: political complexion of , 16 1olitical leaders in Senate andouse, 164 ; political resolu

tions and debates, 167 ; passageOf compromise bills, 1763 6th Congress:first session: howmembers divided politically,379 ; eff orts to impli cate Republicans in JohnBrown's raid , 386 ;d isgraceful scenes in House, 38636th Congress : second sessi on :

peace propositions considered ,462 ; joint resolutions, 477 ;memorable forwhat it failed todo, 5 14 . See CONGRESS IONALDEBATES , etc. ,

Chap . XXI II . ,p . 478CONGRESSIONAL DEBATES ; CLOSEOF TH IRTY-S IXTH CONGRESS :Chap . XXI I I . , p . 478

Connecticut: response to Virginiaand Kentucky resolutions OfI 79S. 24

Constitution of Uni ted States

concessions in,to slavery, 3 9

views Of John C. Calhoun on

question whether it protectedslavery in the territories, 48 ;views of John A. D ix, 50 ; ofDaniel Webster

, 5 1 ; Of ThomasH . Benton, 5 1 ; Of Henry Clay,5 1

CONTINUATION OF IRREPRESS IBLECONFLICT IN KANSAS AND INCONGRESS : Chap . XVI . , p . 348

Coombs,Leslie: 42 1

Com ing , Erastus : 4 1 ICorwin,

Thomas : chairman of

House Committee of Thi rtythree in 36th Congress, 459 ;mentioned , 1 57, 425

Cotton-gin: eff ect of,

on cottonindustry and slavery, 1 1

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626 Index

Dayton, I saac: 285Dayton, Wi lliam L. : nominatedby Republicans for Vice-President in 1 856, 292 ; mentioned ,

140

Def rees , John D . : 290Delaware: response to Virginia

and Kentucky resolutions of

I 79S, 24Democratic Nati onal Conventi ons1 840: nominates Marti Van

Buren for President, $9 ; itsplatform on slavery, 891 844 : latform favors annexation 0 Texas and occupation ofOregon, 106 ; nominates JamesK . Polk for President, 106 ;reasons for linking together theannexation of Texas and occupation of Oregon, 1 171 848: eff ort to incorporate inplatform the doctrine of

“non

interference" with slavery inthe Territories, 46 ; nominatesLewis Cass for President andWilliam 0 . Butler for VicePresident, 1481 852 : the platform ,

1 8 nomi~nates Franklin Pierce or

dent, 1 891 856: nominates James Buchanan for President and John C.

Breckinridge for Vice-President,its platform , 293 : conflictingviews of platform in North and

South, 2931 860 meets at Charleston,S . C. , 4 10 ; majority and miacrity reports of resolutionscommittee, 4 1 2 ; minority platform adopted whereupon various Southern delegates Wi thdraw, 4 17 ; failing to make an

nominations,

convention ajourns to meet in Baltimore infollowing June, 4 19 ; the secedingmembers hold another convention in Charleston under nameof

“Constitutional Democracy"

and ad journ to meet in Richmond

, Va ., 4 19 ; regular convem

tion meets at Baltimore, 432secession of the President andother members of the conven

tion, 435 ; regular convention

then nominates Stephen A.

Douglas for President and Benjamin Fitzgerald of Alabamafor Vice-President, 436 ; Fitzgerald declines nomination andHerschel V. Johnson

, of Georgia,is substituted in hi s stead

, 436 ;the Baltimore seceders meetthere, 436 ; nominate John C.

Breckinridge of Kentucky for

President and Joseph Lane, ofOregon, for Vice-President, 436 ;Charleston seceders meet inRichmond

,Va . , and nominate

Breckinridge and Lane, 437

Democrati c Newspapers opposePresident Polk's back-d 0wnfrom Oregon policy, 139, 14 1 ; oncoercion of seceding states,558

Democratic P arty: adopts principles of Virginia and Kentuckyresolutions of 1798 , 27 ; reacheszenith of power in 1 852 , 189 ;

prospects at inauguration of

James Buchanan, 3 14 ; see

emocratic newspapers, Democratic National conventions,Political campaigns.

Democratic-Republican Party: 86Denni son

, Wi lli am H 286

Denni son , Wm. J r. : 286

Denver, James W. : one of governors of Kansas

, 348

Detroi t . Free P ress: denouncescoercion of sm ding states,557

Devereaux, F. : 285DEVELOPMENT OF WAR SPIR IT IN

THE NORTH : Chapter XXVI . , p .

556 ; people of North at first incredulous of Southern threats ofsecession, 556 ; anxiety to propitiete the South, 556 ; people of

North classified as to policy tobe preserved toward secedingstates, 558 ; arguments Of radicalRepublicans, 562 ; great d iversi ty of opinion in the North upto time of Lincoln’s inauguration,

as63 ; war spirit fully

arouse by firing on FortSumter, 6 1 1

Dickey, Charles: 286Dicki nson,

Daniel K .: 419

Index

District of Columbia : petitions toCongress forabolition of slaveryin 69 ,

159 ; Gott's resolutionfor

,155 ; act abolishing slave

trade in, 177D ix

,JohnA. : views on question of

constitution protecting slaveryin Territories , 50 ; Secretary of

Treasury in Buchanan’s Cabinet, 5 17 ; his celebrated dispatchinspires North, 540 ; mentioned ,

D i xon rchi bald : hi s proposedamendment toKansas-Nebraskabill, 195

Donaldson,J. B . 250

Donelson,And rew

, J . : nominatedby Americans for Vice President in 1856 , 295 ; mentioned ,

42 1

Dooli ttle,James R . 459

Doon, D . E . : 286

Dorsheimer, Phi lip: 285 , 290Douglas Stephen A. : resolutionsoff ered by, in House on the

Oregon boundary question, 1 19 ;supports policy of the Fiftyfour Forties, 120 ; reports various bills for territorial organization of Oregon, 147 ; careerprior to beginning of 3 I st

Congress, 165 ; his position on

the Compromise Measures of

1 8 o,

1 76 ; reports territorialbil for Nebraska Territory,195 ; Speech on bill in Senate,206 ; passage of bill due chieflyto efforts of Douglas, 2 13 ; hi s

temporary loss of popularity inthe North, 2 1 5 ; reports bill foradmission of Kansas as aState

,254 ; hi s speech in sup

ggrt of bill

,254 ; attempt of

nator Trumbull to commitDouglas on meaning of the

Kansas-Nebraska Ac t, 2 6 0 ;comments of Northern writerson his speech, 262 ; change inpopular estimate of Douglas,263 ; changes in relative standing of Douglas and Sewardin public esteem ,

263 ; Douglas’Sspeech in answer to that ofSumner on “

The Crime againstKansas,

268 ; acknowled ged

leader of Northern Democratsin 1

Kan297 ; opposes admissionsas under Lecompton

constitution, 350 ; his speech,35 1 ; idol Of the “Young Demo~cracy, ’ many Republicansfavor his reelection to Senate

,

365 ; opposition of BuchananAdministration, 365 ; hand icapped by his popular sovereignty

"doctrine

, 366 ; efforts ofJefferson Davis for Doug las 'spolitical extermination

, 389 ;Douglas refuses to yield to proslavery leaders

, 392 ; he is thepivot of Charleston DemocraticConvention in 1 860

, 4 1 1 ; nomimated for President by regularDemocratic Convention at

Baltimore in 1 860 , 436 ; hisdefiant attitude i n Senate, 439 ;Opposi tion to him of BuchananAdministration and of Southernpolitical leaders, 439 , 44 1 ; hi sSouthern 5peaking tour, 444 ;his bold stand for the Uni on

,

444 ; hi s speech in Senate asmember of Senate Committee ofThirteen in 36th Congress, 459other speeches in 36th Congress,498 ; prominent figure at in

auguration of Lincoln, 565

°

trusted adviser of. Lincoln, 574advises Welles and Seward of

his apprehensions of Confedcrateattackon Fort Sumter, 505on day of bombardment he

profiers his a id to Lincoln, 6 1 1 ;his last public speech, 6 1 1 ;mentioned , 165 , 167, 446 , 459See : THE LINCOLN-DOUGLASDEBATES , Chap. XVII . , p . 364

Draper, S imeon : 285 , 2DRED SCOTT CASE : Chap . XV. , p .

31 : nature of ca se, 3 16 ; theu ges of the Supreme Court,320 ; the legal questions in

volved , 320 ; diversity of opinions of judges, 32 1 ;

popular

Opposition in North to t e decision

, 325 ; establishes Calhoun’sdoctrine of constitutional protection of Slavery in the Territories , 326 ; apprehension inNorth Of ultimate results of

628 Index

DRED SCOTT CASE ,- Continueddecision, 329 ; popular belief inNorth that decision was partof a plot and that Buchananwas concerned in it, 33 1 ; vi ewsof hi stori ans, 334 ; correspon

dence between Buchanan andJusti ces Catron and Grier, 335 ;alteration of Taney'S Opini onbefore publication, 343 ; factsShow gross breach Of executiveand judicial propriety, 339 ;Northern views as t how decision Should be reg rded , 344

°

importance of decision, 346 ,

its political consequences, 346Dunham

, Cyrus , L . : 3 1 1

Durkee, Charles: 286

Edgerton,S . E .: 286

EFFORTS To SUCCOR MA OR ANDERSON : Chapter XXI . , p . 597le ,ston Benjamin: 425

Effort,Lord : 205ELECTION OF PIERCE ; REPEAL OF

THE MI SSOURI COMPROMI SE :Chap . X . , .p 1 84

Elliott, James : 285Emancipation : progress of , inSouthern States, 10

Emerson , Ralph Waldo: eulogyon John Brown, 38 1

Engli sh Wi lliam , H. : hi s bill forsettlement of Kansas troubles ,353 ; mentioned , 3 1 1

ENTRANCE OF SLAVERY INTO AMERICAN POLITICS : Chapter I . , .p I

Equality of Rights . in Territori es ;Southern doctrine of , 40

Equi li bri um of S tates: Southerndoctrine of , as to slavery, 38 ; somanaged for 8. Ion peri od asto keep free and s ave Statesequal i n number, 38

EraC1of good feeling : under Presi

dent Monroe, 6 1Errett, Russell: 285Evarts , WilliamM at Republi canNational Convention in 1860

in interest of William H .

Seward , 42 3 ; heads New Yorkdelegation, 425

Everett, Edward : as Governor OfMassachusetts recommends

Abolition societies, 67 ; nominated for Vice-President byAmerican party in 1 860, 422 ;arouses no enthusiasm , 44 1

Everts, Henry: 286

Faneui l Hall meeting : in Boston toindorse Compromise Measuresof 1 850, 224

Farley, Joseph: 286Federal courts: supremacy overState courts in decid ing on

federal statutes, 233Federal party: Opposition of NewEngland Federalists to pur

chase Of Louisiana,17 ; some,

on this account, favor dissolu

tion of Union,17 ; opposition

of,to War of 1 8 12 , 18 ; one of

chief causes of party’s downfall, 19 ; many Federalists opposed to Alien and SeditionActs, 2 1 ; part goes to pieces,85 ; see Hart ord Convention

Fee, John G. : 286

Fessenden , Wi lliam Pi tt: speechin Senate on Kansas-Nebraskabill, 203 ; estimate of 203;crowning glory of hi s life h i s

'

stand in Opposition to impeachment of President Andrewohnson,

20

4; his reply to

nator But er, 204 ; undercurrent favorable to his nomination for President at Republican National Convention in1860, 424 ; hi s 0

'nionof Seward ,606 ; mentioned:

1

297Field , Davi d Dudley: in peaceconvention of 1 86 1 , 474

Fif ty-four Forties : character Oftheir appeals, 120 ; Oppositionof Southern members Of Con

gress, 1 20 ; their completedefeat, 142See: THE OREGON BOUNDARY

QUE STION, etc. , Chap . VII . ,I I IP

Fi llmore, M i llard : normnated byWhig s for Vice-President in1 848 , 149 ; nominated byAmericans for President in

Financi al panic of 1 837: createsWide-spread di stress, 85

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630 Index

Free-soi l party— ContinuedAdams for Vice-President, 1 50 ,

nominates John T . Hale for

President and George W .

Julian for Vice-President in1 852 , 190

Fremont, John C. : nominated forPresident b Phi lad e lphiaRepublican nvention in 1 856 ,292 ; his qualifications as a voteetter, 293 ; his qualificationsor President, 301

Frey, G. H : 285FROM 1 820 To 1 840 : ms OF ANTISLAVERY SENTIMEN

'

. IN THE

NORTH : Chap . V. , p . 62

Fug itive S lave Law of I 793 : its

provisions, 2 1 7 ; efiect of decision of Supreme Court of

United States in case of Priggvs. Pennsylvania, 2 18 ; passageby Northern States of personalliberty bills, 2 1 8 ; see : Prigg

Fugitive Slave Law of 1 850: billsfor, in 3 I st Congress, 167 ; provisions of , 179 ; Northern opposition to ,

1 84 ; failure of , to meetexpectations of South 220 ;

continued Northern Opposition to,

22 1 efforts of politiciansto suppress opposition to, 223the slave catchers and ki dnappers, 227 ; eff orts of Pierce'sAdministration and federaloff i cers to enforce law,

227 ; the

Glover rescue cases and prosecution of Sherman L. Booth, 229the Antony Burns case in BOSton,

239 ; law practically a deadletter in North after 1 854 ,24 1

See NULLIFICATION ANDH IGHER LAW, Chap . XL ,

2 17

Garland ,229

Garri son,Wi lliam Lloyd : es

tablishes The Li berator, an

anti-slavery paper, 64 ; he andhi s friends burn the Uni tedStates Constitution, 77 ; theyrefuse to vote, 78 ; he is mobbedin Boston, 80 ; last issue of The

Liberator, 82 ; estimate of hi s

character and work, 82 ; he

denounces Lincoln,after his

nomination, 442

Garri son Aboli tioni sts : refuse to

vote in presidential election Of1 860 and denounce all otherparties, 44 1

Gassam,

285Gaulden, W. B . : Speech inCharleston Democratic Convention in1 860 favoring opening of AfricanSlave trade, _4 1 8

Geary, John W. : one of governorsof Kansas

, 348

Genius of Universal Emancipation : an Abolition newspaperestablished by Benjamin Lundy,64

Georgia early opposition to

Slavery,6 ; later eff ects of

slavery in, 7 ; never desiredextinction of slavery, 9 ; legislature off ers reward for arrestOf William Lloyd Garrison, 67 ;Georgia convention votes to

abide by Compromise Measuresof 1 850 , 180 ; Georg ia conven

tion and platform , 1 8 1 ; earlyUnion sentiment in, 455 ; passessecession ordinance

, 548Georgi a platform: 1 8 1Germans i n United States : Germanimmigration to United Statesbetween 1 820 and 1 860

, 396 ;their political sympathi es, 397 ;radicals among Germans op

posed to repeal of MissouriCompromise, 400 ; sumptuarylaws and Know-nothing partyconfirm allegiance of Germansto Democratic party, 400 ; on

question of freedom or Slavery

great majority of Germansvoted freedom, 400

° loyaltyto Union in American CivilWar, 400 ; in campaign of 1860 ,

443Geyer Henry S . : one of attorneysi n Dred Scott case, 3 17Gi bson

,Wi lliam H : 285 , 287

Gi dd ings, Joshua R . : unites inaddress opposing the annexation of Texas, 105 ; speech inHouse on the Oregon question,13 1 ; verification of hi s predi ction of President Polk'

s back

Index

Giddi ngs , Joshua R.

— Continueddown from his Oregon policy,142 ; assists in preparation of

an address to the IndependentDemocrats, 198 ; his opinion of

the Fugitive Slave laws, 22 1 ;

effort in Chicago RepublicanConvention to incorporateclause of Declaration of Independence in platform , 426 ;mentioned , 165 , 285 , 289, 290 ,

425Glenn

,D . C. : speech on with

d rawing from the CharlestonDemocratic Convention in 1860 ,

Glover, J oshua zhis arrest as afugitive slave and hi s rescue,229Goodrich, E . 285Gott, Dani el: resolution in the

House for abolition of slaveryin D istrict of Columbia, 155Grant, Ulysses: 66 , 603Great B rita in: controversy withUni ted States over Oregonquestion, 1 12 ; danger of warbetween, onOregon controversy,1 24Greeley, Horace: hi s lament for

defeat of Henry Clay for presidential nomination in 1848, 1 52 ;hi s brief congressional career,157 ; hi s early career, 1 88 ;founds New YorkTri bune, 1 88 ;member of committee on resolutions at Republican NationalConvention in 1 860 , 426 ; men

tioned ,28 1 . 285. 287,

425Green ,

James S . : denounces peaceconvention resolutions, 474Greene, Albert, C. : 140

Grier, Davi d : as federal judge,harshly enforces Fugitive SlaveLaw,

228 ; opinion in DredScott case, 32 1 ; correspondencewith President Buchanan duringpendency of case, 337 ; men

tioned . 3 16. 32 1 , 324 , 339, 340.

Gri er, George M . : 285

Grimes , James W. : 204, 459Grinnell, Moses H . : 428

Grose, William: 286

63 1

Grow, Galusha A. : 350, 387Guiteau, Cha rles G.: 383Guthri e, James : 4 19Hale, John P . : political careerprior to entrance into Con

gress

,164 ; nominated for

resident in '

1852 by Free-soilparty 190 ; speech in 36th

Congress, 492 ; mentioned , 256 ,

Hall, A. Oakey: 285Hall

,L. H. : 286

Hallett, B . F. : 225, 279Hamilton, Alexander: opposed to

dissolution of Union on accountof urchase of Louisiana, 1 7

Ham in,Hanni bal : nominated for

Vice-President by RepublicanNational Convention in 1860 ,

432 ; mentioned , 297Hammond , James : speech in U. 8 .

Senate in 1 8 8 , 354Hannegan, E ward A. : resolut

ions

o

ofiered by, in Senate on

t e regon question, 1 19, 1

138 ; hi s message to Phi ladfiphia Democratic meeting , 1 20 ;

speech in Senate on the Ore

gon question, 123 ; accusesSouthern Democrats of badfaith in Oregon matter, 134 ;his speech in reply to SenatorHaywood , 1 38 ; hi s subsequentcareer, 1

32

Hanway, astner: prosecution of ,for treason, 228Harmon, O. : 286

Harper's Ferry: John Brown rai don , 38 1

Harri s,Edward : 285

Harri s , I ra : 606Harri son ,

Benjamin signer ofDeclaration of Independence, 88Harri son, Benjamin, ex

-President:3 1 1

Harri son,John Scott: 42 1

Harri son ,R . D . : 286

Harri son,Wi lliam Henry: nomi

nated for President byWhigs in1840 , 86 ; hi s political and civilrecord , 87 ; his record on slaveryquestion, 89 ; hi s campaignspeeches, 97 ; hi s inauguraladdress, 103 ; his death, 103

632 Index

See : ran POLITICAL CAMPAIGN01? 1840, Chap . VI . , 85 .

Hartford Convention : its proceedings and objects

,1 8

Haskin,John B . : 387

Hassaurek, Fred : 425Hawthorne, C. G.: 286

Hayne, Robert Y. : debate betweenhim and Dani el Webster on

nullification ,28

Haywood, Wi lliam H. : speech inU . S . Senate defending President Polk's Oregon poli cy, 138

Hazzard, R. G. : 285Heaton , Jacob. 28

Helper's “Impe i ng

political eff ect, 380 , 407Hend ricks, Thomas A. : favorsestablishment of a NorthWestern Confederacy, 579 ; men

tioned , 3 1 1

Herald of Freedom: indi cted ; ofiicedestroyed ,

249Hi her law doctrine: William H .

ward ’s announcement of , 174 ;Joshua R . Gi ddings on,1 74 ;Lord Brougham on,175 ;

grounds of , 2 19 ; TheodoreParker on ,

2 19 ; as applied to

Fugitive Slave Law, 2 19 ;Webster on

,226 ; Seward 's

advocacy of, one of causes of

hi s defeat in 1 860 , 429See : NULL IF ICATION IN THE

NORTH , Chap . XL , p . 2 17.

Hi llard, George S . : 42 1

Hitchcock, C. : 285Hoadley, George: 290Hoar, E . Rockwood : 245Hollowell

,Abner R . : 285

Holt, Joseph. wi th aid of GeneralScott prevents captu re o f

Washington by Copnfederates

prior to inauguration of Lincoln, 5 16 ; Postmaster-Generaland afterwards Secretary of

War in Buchanan’s Cabinet,17 ; his loyalty di sappointsnfederates , 539 ; mentioned ,

5 19. 530, 5 2. 574

Hard , Oscar, 3 1 1

House Committee of Thirty-three

in 36th Congress, 459 ; con

siders numerous peace proposit i ons, 46 1 ; reports sevenresolutions, together with nineminority reports, 463 ; resolutions passed near close ofsession, 463

Howard,H. 286

Howard , JacobM . 286,

Kansas investigating committee,348

Howell , Mark: 28?Hunkers : origin 0 term,

1 5 1

Hunt, Washington: President ofthe American National Convention at Baltimore in 1860 ,

42 1

Hunter, 43

Hunter, Robert T member ofSenate Committee of Thirteenin 36th Congress, 459 ; de

nounces peace convention propositions, 474 ; mentioned , 4 19,526

Huntington , Jabez: 140Hurlbut Stephen A. : sent by Lincoln to Charleston S . C.

y

589Hutchinson, O. A. K .: 285

I llinoi s : Acquiescence of peopleof , in Compromise Measures of

1 850, 1 86 ; strong pro-slavery

sentiment in Southern part,405 ; in presidential campaignof 1 860 , 445

Indi ana : acquiescence of people

in Compromise Measures of1 850 , 1 86 ; strong

Ero-sla‘very

sentiment in Sout405 ; in presidential campai gnof 1 856 , 445

Indianapoli s Journal: at firstfavored letting seced ing States“go in peace, 56 1

Ingersoll, Charles J . : resolutionsintroduced by, in House, on theOregon question, 1 19

I rrepresS i ble conflict: See Seward .

Iverson,Alf red . speech in 36th

Congress, 480 ; mentioned , 455

Jackson (Mi ch ) : first Republican Convention there, 282

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634s

Index

Know-nothing party: see American party

Lamar, G. B . : agent of SouthCarolina in purchase of armsfrom Floyd , Secretary of War,

5 1 8Lamon , Ward H . : sent by Lincolnto Charleston, 589Lane, Henry S . : president of

Philadelphia Republican Con

vention in 1 860 ,his appearance

and speech, 290 ; mentioned ,298. 3 1 1 . 3 12. 4304605Lane, James : 296Lane, Joseph: nominated for VicePresident in 1 860

, 37Lawrence (Kansas ) : rst settlers,245 ; sackof , 250Leader

, Wi lliam Y. : 272Lecompte, Judge S . D . : hi s chargeto Kansas grand jury, 249Lecompton Consti tution : 247Lecompton Constituti onal Conven

tion,247Legare, Hugh B . : succeeds Daniel

Webster as Secretary of Statein President Tyler's Cabinet,104Leland , E . S . : 2861

Le Moyne, Franci s : nominated forVice-President by Abolitionistsin 1840 , 89Lewi s, Elijah: prosecution of

,for

treason,228

Li berator,The: Abolition news

paper established by WilliamLloyd Garrison, 65Li berty party: nominates JamesG. Birney for President in 1844 ,

107 ; nominates Gerrit Smithfor President and SamuelMcFarland for Vice-Presidentin 1 860 , 44 1Lieber, Franci s : 387Li ncoln,

Abraham: takes activepart in presidential campaignof 1 8 8 , 15 1 ; his congressionalrecor 156 ; receives . 1 10 votesfor Vice-Presidential nomination in Philadelphia RepublicanConvention in 1 856 , 292 ; on theDred Scott decision, 33 1 , 345 ;chosen by Illinois Republicansto oppose Douglas for U. S .

Senate in 1 858, 364 ; LincolnDouglas debates, 364 ; hi s vi sitto Thurlow Weed , 365 ; Lincolnon John Brown, 385 ; hi s CooperInstitute speech, 394 ; candi datefor presidential nomination inRepublican National Convention of 1860 , 423 ; his nomination43 1 ; refrains from entering upona speaking campaign, 44 1 ;receives plurality but not amajority of the popular vote,44 6 ; hi s opinion on compromisepropositions, 5 1 1 ; starts fromSpringfield , Illinois, toWashington to be inaugurated , 565 ; theinauguration, 565 ; conciliatorytone of inaugural address, 566 ;howhewas then regarded in theSouth, 567 ; selection of hisCabinet, 567 ; di fficulties con

fronting him, 570 ; the office

seekers, 572 ; not yet fullytrusted in the North, 573 ;Douglas one of hi s trustedadvisers, 574 ; selecting a policy,576 ; who could have done betterin his situation? 582 ; hi s warpolicy forced upon him , 582 ;his Cabinet, 583 ; Seward ’ssuggestions," 91 ; Lincoln’sanswer, 593 ; to t e last Lincolnhoped for peace , 608 ; issues callto arms on April 1 5 , 186 1 , 6 12 ;mentioned ,

298, 564See : LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES , Chap . XVII . , p . 364THE COM ING OF LINCOLN

, Chap.

XXVII . , p . 565 ; ADM INISTRATION POL ICIES , Chap . XXVII I . ,p . 578

LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES .

‘Chap .

XVII . , 364 ; doubts as to Lincoln’s ability to cope withDou las, 353;

how Douglas washan icapp 365 ; seven jointdebates arranged for, 370 ; general character of the s eechesa n d characteristics 0 t h e

speakers, 370 ; Lincoln’s an

swers to Douglas ’s arguments,371 ; secret strength of Lincoln'sspeeches, 375 ; examples of hisoratory, 375 ; Lincoln forcesDouglas t o advocate h i s

Index

LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES— Con.

doctrine of“unfriend ly legisla

tion." 376 ; respective abilitiesof Lincoln and Doug las as

political debaters , 378 ; resultsof the debates , 378Linn,Lewi s F. : resolutions of , in

Senate on the Oregon question,1 1

Localself-government: inNewEngland , 1Locke, John : hi s social contracttheory

,20

Logan ,John A. : 386 , 4 1 1London (Eng ) : Oregon treaty con

cluded there,1 12

Lord , L. L. : 285Loring , Edward G. : 77Louisiana : Opposition of N ewEngland Federalists to acquisition, 17 ; division of Territory,55 ; State passes ord inance of

secession, 548Love, I srael S . : 286

Love '

oy, Elijah: murdered by antiAbolitionists at Al ton, Illinois,80 ; meeting to denounce mur

derers at Faneuil Hall, inBoston, Mass , 80Lovejoy, Given: his prayer in 0 en

ing Pittsburg Republican n

vention,

287 ; speech in 36th

Congress, 388 ; mentioned 286 ,

573Lovett, I . S . : 286

Low, S ig i smund : 285Lundy,Benjamin: associated with

William Lloyd Garrison inpublishing the Genius of Universal Emancipati on,

an Abolition newspaper, 64

Lynde, Wi lliam P . : 235

Mad i son,James : his pred iction of

Southern secession, 16 ; pre

pares draft of Virginia resolutions of 1798 , 23 ; hi s report, 25his construction of Virginia andKentucky resolutions of 1798 , 27

Mai ne: admission of State, 59 ;

State election in 1 860 encour

ages Republicans, 5Maine liquor law: or a time

di8

verts attention from slavery,2 2

Mann, Abijah: chairman of resolu

tions committee in PittsburgRepublican Convention, 287 ;mentioned ,

285Mann , Horace: 165Mansfield , Lord : 205Markle

, C. P . : 285Markle

,Joseph: 285

Marshall,Humphrey: 165

Maryland : refuses to secede, 456Mason

,James M letter of . advxs

ing secession in event of electionof Fremont

, 363 one of SenateCommittee to investi ate JohnBrown rai d , 386 ; denouncespropositions of Peace Convemtion of 186 1 , 473 ; speech in36th Congress , 483

Massachusetts : Presidents from ,

prior to 1 829 , 62 ; legislativeresolutions against annexationof Texas

,threatening d issolu

tion of Union, 106 ; cottonmanufactories in,

in 1 850, 186 °

personal liberty laws, 2 18 , 24 1military preparations in anticipation of Civil War, 577 ;

prompt response of , to Lincoln'scall for troops, 6 12

Maveri ck,Samuel: punished for

presenting petition for redressof grievances to MassachusettsGeneral Court, 68

Medi ll,Joseph: 286

Methodi sts : general conference in1836 censures preachers for

addressing Abolition meetings,77

Mexico: war with, 143 ; by termsof treaty large tract of Territory ceded to United States.143 ; Mexico unsuccessful ly at

tempts to get provision intreaty prohibiting slavery in theceded Territory, 144See : WAR W ITH MEXICO, etc

Chap . VII I . , p . 143Mi ller, A. V. : 23 1 , 236

M i ller, Jacob W. : 140

M i lwaukee, Wis : excitement thereover rescue of Joshua Glover,230

M i ssi ssippi : votes against seces

sion in 1 850 ,18 1 ; SenatorFoote,

censured for voting for com

636 Index

M i ssi ssippi— Continuedpromise measure of 1850 butsustained at next election, 1 8 1 ;State passes ordinance of secession, 548

M i ssouri : organi zation of Territory

, 55 ; admission of State,59 ; refuses to secede, 456MIS SOURI COMPROMISE ; BEGINNINGA NEW POL ITICAL ERA : Chap .

IV. , p . 55 ; petition of inhabitants oi M issouri for admission,55 : Tallmadge’s amendmentprohibiting slavery, 55 ; arguments for and

,against it, 56 ;

Southern threats of secessionin connection wi th it

, 57 ;members of Congress divide on

geogra hi cal lines, 58 ; Jeffer

son’

5 orebod ings on th1s ac

count ,s

,

u

;

l53

8 quest1ons in relationto

,mitted by President

Monroe to his Cabinet, 59Clay’s eff orts for admission of

State under slave constitution,60 ; compromise favored bySouthern leaders, 60 ; eulogy of

compromise by Stephen A.

Douglas , 6 1 ; James Buchanan'sapproval of it, 1 10 ; subsequenteff orts to extend M issouriCompromise line to PacificOcean, 148 ; repeal of , 2 13SeezThe Election of Pierce ;

Repeal of the Missouri Comprom i se, Chapter X . p . 184

Mob Year 79Mobi leMercury: advises attackon

Fort Sumter, 608Monroe, James: elected President,13 ; submits questions relatingto M issouri Compromise to hisCabinet, 59 ; his reelection and

the“Era of good feeling ,"62

Monroe Doctrine: had no influencein settling Oregon controversy,1 12

Montgomery,Ala . : meeting of Con

federate Congress there, 656Moorhead , J. H . : 28

Morgan, Edward W. : appointedchai rman of Republican Na

tional Committee in 1 856 ,288 ;

one of tellers in PhiladelphiaRepublican Convention in 1 856 ,

calls Republican Nationalnvention in 1860 to order

,

425 ; mentioned , 285 ,Morri ll

, LotM . : i n Peace uvention 0f 1 86 1 , ;467 mentioned ,605

Morton, Oliver P . : Republicancandi date for Governor ofIndi ana i n 1 856, 3 1 1 ; hi s Speechon the Dred Scott decision, 345 °

vig orously opposes policy“of

letting the seceding States ‘‘goin peace," 562 ; his eff orts toplace Indiana on a war footing ,77 ; speech on danger of authern conf ederacy to interior

Western States, 580 ; men

tioned,286

,289, 298 , 3 1 1 , 3 12 ,

603McCabe

,R . B . : 285

McClernand , John A. : 165 , 41 1McClure, A. K . : 423McCook

,George:

McDondld , JosepI I

E . : mentioned ,

McFarland,I . : 286

McFarland , Samuel: nominatedfor Vice-President by Libertyparty in 1 860 , 44 1

McLean, John R . candi date forresidential nomination inhiladelphia Republican Con

vention in 1 856 , 292 ; his

Opini on in the Dred Scott case320 ; candidate for presidentialnomination in RepublicanNational Convention in 1 860,

523 ; mentioned , 3 16 , 320, 32 1 ,

340, 342

McLean, Washi ngton: 4 1 1McM i llen, John H. : 286

Nashvi lle, Tenn: convention meets

pursuant to address of Southernmembers of Congress in 1 850 ;its proceedings, 1 80

National Era : publishes UncleTom

'

s Cabi n, 1 87Nati veAmeri can P arty: rise of , 107Nebraska : bill for terri torial gov

ernment ; D ixon’s amendment,195 ; see : Kansas-Nebraska bill

Nelson,S amuel: opini on of

,in

Dred Scott case, 3 1 8 ; mentioned , 3 16. 320. 32 1 . 328. 339.342.343

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638 Index

NULLIFICATION , ETC — Continuedcase,

222 ; the Jerry rescue case,222 ; theGlover rescue case, 229 ;Wisconsin election turns on

question of States ’-rights , 235 ;Wisconsin Supreme Court re

fuses to obey mandate of

Supreme Court of UnitedStates, 236 ; public meetingsheld in Wisconsin denouncingthe federal judges, 236 ; Statelegislature passes resolutionsa ffirming nullification doctrineof Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of 1 798 , 236 ; AntonyBurns case

,239 ;additional

personal liberty laws passed inseveral Northern States, 240 ;after 1854 Fugitive Slave Lawpractically a dead letter inmanysections of the North, 24 1See: NULLIF ICATION IN THE

NORTH , Chap . XL , p . 2 17

Ogle, Charles : campaign speechin the U. S House of Repre

sentatives In 1 840 againstMartin Van Buren, 96

Oglethorpe, Governor: 6Ohio: acqui escence in Compromise Measures of 1 850, 186 ;opposition to slavery in Northern Ohio , 404 ; in presidentialelection of 1 860

, 404 , 445 ;bills favoring adoption of con

stitutional amendments pro

posed by peace convention, 557Oliver, Mordeca i : one of HouseCommittee to investigateKansas affairs, 348

OREGON BOUNDARY QUESTIONPOLK ’S BACK-DOWN : Chap . VII . ,p . I 1 I What included in Oregoncountry

,1 1 1 ; long pending

controversy over betweenGreat Britain and UnitedStates, 1 1 1 convention atCincinnati i n 1 843 favoringgovernmental action, 1 14 ; resolutions and bills in Congress onsubject prior to 1 844, 1 15 ;President Tyler’s message inrelation to, 1 17 ; DemocraticNational platform in 1 844 , 1 17 ;Polk's inaugural address and

W T . -1

message, 1 17; new bills andresolutions in Congress, 1 19 ;notable speeches, 12 1 ; Shi ftingof party lines in Congress, 130 ;Polk

's change of policy, 1 38 ;final compromise, 139 ; completedefeat of the Fifty-four Forties

,

142 ; What the South gained , 142Orr, James C. : one of the threeSouth Carolina commissionersto treat with the United States,449 ; mentioned

,164

Orth, Godlove S . : one of tellers inPhiladelphia Republican Convention in 1856 , 292 mentioned ,3 1 1

Page, A. J .: 286P a i ne, Byron: 234, 235P akenham, Lord : 139Pardee, E . : 286

P arker, Samuel: 3 1 1P arker

,Theodore: steadfast oppo

nent of slavery, 79 ; on higherlaw,

"2 19 ; letter of Sumner to,

265 ; eulogizes John Brown, 381Pate, Capta in: defeated by ohnBrown in battle of Black ack,252 ; mentioned

,296

P auli son, C. M . K .: 285Peace Conventi on of 1 861 : invitation to attend given by State ofVirginia, 460 ; invitation not

enthusiastically received in theNorth, 465 ; convention meetsin Washing ton and organizes,466 ; great divergence of views467 ; var i o u s constitutionamendments proposed , 471 ; theproposed amendments d enounced in Senate, 474 ; actionof Senate and House, 476Peace panaceas various peacepropositions considered in 36thCongress, 46 1 ; congressionaldebates on

, 478 ; attitude of

Republicans on, 491 ; Lincoln’sopinion of

, 5 1 1 ; shameful con

cessions proposed in the North,5 75See : PREPAR ING PEACE PAN

ACHAS, Chap . XXI I . , p . 459

P eck, H. E . : 286

P ennin ton Wi lliam e l ec t edSp r, H. R.. 387

Index

Pennsylvania : Re ublican majority in State ection in 1860 ,

Peb‘

bles ’ party: temporary organization under name of , 282

P ersonal liberty bi lls : of NorthernStates , 2 18 , 240Petition ,

ri ght of : attempt in Congress to suppress, 68Phelps , Samuel S . : 140Phi ladelphia strong feelingthere in favor of conciliatingthe South, 557Philanthropi st, the: AbolitionnewsPaper.64Phi lli ps, Wendell: hi s speech a t

Lovejoy meeting in FaneuilHall

,Boston, 80 ; prai ses ByronPayne for argument in the

Booth case, 235 ; eulogizes JohnBrown, 38 1 ; denounces Lincoln,in presidential campaign of

P ickens, Franci s W. : Governorof South Carolina ; restrainedfrom premature bombardmentof Fort Sumter, 549 , 575 ;courteously receives Ward H .

Lamon, sent by Lincoln , 589 ;mentioned , 524P ickens , Fort: expedition for re

lief of , 590, 600

P ierce, Franklin: nominated andelected b y Democrats f o rPresident i n 1 852 , 189, 190 ;estimate o f

,1 9 0 ; appoints

ee rson Davis Secretary ofar

,19 1 ; his prediction of

result in event of civil war,191 ; his inaugural address, 192 °

ai ds in repeal of MissouriCompromise, 197 : eff orts to

enf orce Fugitive Slave Law of1 850, 227, 239 ; his efforts toforce Slavery upon Kansas,283 ; his last annual message,30

523 5 subsequent career, 309THE ELECTION OF PIERCE ,

etc. , Chap . X. , p . 184Pinckney, Wi lliam: opposes Tallmadge's amendment to M issouri bill, 56POLITICAL CAMPA IGN OF 1 840 ;TIPPECANOE AND TYLER TOO

Chap . VI . , p. 85

POL ITICAL CAMPAIGN OF I 8 6 0Chap . XIX . , p . 406

POLITICAL CAMPAIGN OF 1860 (conti nued) : Chap . XX. , p. 423

P oli tical Campaigns :1 840: characteri stics of , 93 ; thecampaign speeches, 96 ; preeminently a singing campaign,28;

campai gn a carnival of'

la rity, 100 ; eff orts of politicians during campaign to

smother agitation of slavequestion, 102 ; Harrison electe103 ; see : THE POLITICAL CAMPAION OF 1840 , etc. , Chap . VI . ,85

1 844 : generally, 1071 848 : generally, 1481 852 : generally, 1 89 ; Democratic party at zenith of itspower, 189 ; marks downfall ofWhig party, 1 89 ; CompromiseMeasures of 1 850 endorsedby both Democrats and Whi gs,1 89 ; overwhelming Democraticvictory

,190

1 856: generally, 296 ; new political leaders

,297 ; campaign Char

acteristics, 299 ; marked diff erence between campaign of 1 856and that of 1 840 , 301 ; elementsof Democratic strength, 30 1 ;Buchanan elected

, 302 ; Southern threats of secession duringthe campaign, 302 ; Fremont’sdefeat not a national calamity,303 ; views of John Sherman andAndrew D . White, 304 ; author'spersonal recollections of the

campai gn, 3 10,note

See : BIa OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

, etc. , Chap. XIV. ,

p . 278 .

1 860: preparing for the cam

pai gn , 379 ; sources of Republican gains, 395 ; the Germanvote,

396 ; Western vote, 401 ; periodof intense political excitement,406 ; Southern contempt for

people of North, 407 ; Democratic National Convention at

Charleston, 8 . C. . 4 10 ; American National Convention, 42 1 ;Republican National Convention in Chi cago, 423 ; Demo

640 Index

Poli tical Campai gns— Continuedcratic National Convention at

Baltimore, 432 ; the BaltimoreSeceders’ Convention

, 436 ; the

Richmond Seceders ’ Convemtion, 437 ; all political interestcenters on slavery question, 440 ;American party and its candidates

, 44 1 ; the Garri sonianAbolitioni sts, 44 1 ; pro ress ofthe campai gn, 44 1 ; ward ’sspeaking tour, 442 ; Carl Schurz ,

2 ; great influence of Nework Tri bune, 443 ; Opposition

of Buchanan’s Administrationand Southern pro

-slaveryleaders to ! Douglas , 443 ;Douglas ’s Southern speakingtour

,

444 the October election

favora le to Republicans, 445 ;Douglas cancels Northernspeaking engagements and goesSouth to try to stem secessiontide, 446 ; Lincoln elected by aplurali ty but not a majority of

popular votes, 446 ; an evermemorable campaign, 446SeezPREPARING FOR PRES IDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1 860 ,

Chap . XVII I . , p . 379 ; THE

POLITICAL CAMPAIGN or 1860 ,

Chap . XIX., p . 406 ; THE

POLITICAL CAMPAIGN or 1860 ,

(continued) , Chap . XX . , p . 423 .

Poli tical conventions: see specialtitlesPolitical machines : power of , 458P olitical parties : disintegration of

old parties prior to . 1 829 , 86 ;af ter repeal of M issouri Compromise, 280 ; slow growth of

political parties, 280Polk, James K . : nominated andelected President in 1 844 ,

107 ;speech in Congress in,

1 828 ,against organizin territorialgovernment for regou,

1 16 ;hi s Oregon policy, 1 17 ; howchange of policy was carriedthrough Congress, 138SeezTHE OREGON BOUNDARY

QUESTION , Chap . VII . , p . 1 1 1

Pomeroy, Samuel C. : 606

Popular soverei gnty: a makeshiftpolicy, 44 ; Senator Calhoun

Op osad to, 44 ; efiorts of Trumbu l and others to get Douglasto define, 259 ; seeming endorsement Of

,in Democratic platform

Of 1 856, 293 ; eff ect on , of DredScott decision

, 327 ; Lincoln on,

367 ; doctrine repudiated inSouth in 1 860

, 445See : POPULAR SOVEREIGNTYIN PRACTICE , Chap . XII . , p .

243 .

POPULAR SOVERE IGNITY IN PRAGTICE, Chap . XI I . , p . 243

P orter, Albert G. : 3 1 1P ottawatomie massacre: 253P otter, John W. : his quarrel withPryor, 388 ; mentioned , 423

P owell, Lazarus W. : 459, 475P ratt

,Daniel: 3 1 1 , 425

PREPAR ING FOR THE POL ITICALCAMPAI GN OF 1860 ; SOURCESOF REPUBLICAN GAINS : Chap .

XVIII . , p . 379PREPARING PEACE PANACEASChap . XXI I . , p . 4

f59

P rigg case: decision 0 U. S .

Supreme Court in, 2 17Pryor, Roger A. : his quarrel with

Potter, 388 ; speech in 36thCongress, 507 ; Speech at

Charleston, S . C. , 609 ; men

tioned, 423

P u h, George E . : at Charlestonemocratic Convention in I 860,submits report Of minoritycommittee on resolutions, 412 ;his speech in the conventi on

,

4 15 ; mentioned , 392 , 4 1 1P uri tans : in New England , I ;

few in Southern colonies, 2 ;

characteristics Of New EnglandPuritans, 5

Quakers : of Indiana ; silence t'

wo

preachers in 1 842 for Opemngtheir meeting houses to Abolition speakers, 77

Quincy, Josi ah: hi s speech againstacqui sition of Louisiana, I 3

Racine, Wi s excitement there

over capture Of Joshua Glover,230

Randall, B . : 285Randall

,C. : 285

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642 Index

Robinson, John L.: 3 I IRogers, R.: 286Roman

,AndreB .: one of Confed

erate commissioners to treatwith the United States, 584

Rousseau Jean Jacques: socialcorn t theory

,20

Russ,

orati o G.: 28

21Russell, Wi lliam award: hisimpressions of Southern feelingin I 86 I , 408

Russia : bounda line betweenRussia and reat Britain inNorth America, I I I

Rynders , Isai ah: 4 I I

Sackett, Wi lliamA. : 285Samuels , E .M. : submits report ofminority of resolutions committee in Charleston DemocraticConvention in I 860 , 416

Sandford, John F. A. : 3 16

Schurz, Carl: supports Seward forpresidential nomination in Republican National ConventionIn 1860, 423 ; speeches havegreat weight with Germanvoters, 442 ;mentioned , 370, 425

Scott, Winfield : nominated byWhigs for President in I 852 ,

I 89 ; hi s swingingItour, 190 ;

cooperates wit olt, Secretary of War, to prevent captureof Washington by Confederates, 5 16 ; incensed at beini nored by Floyd , Secretary 0

at , 527 ; Scott's subsequentadvice and cooperation, 540 ;hi s Opinion of feasibility ofattempting to aid MajorAnderson, 588 ; mentioned , 587

SECESSION,BEGINNINGS OF : Chap .

p . I 5SECESSION IN BLOOM : Chap . XXL ,

P4 49Secessi on and Secessi oni sts : beg innings of secession, I6 ;

‘how

doctrine was understood in

to 30 ; right of , generallybelievedin South, 36 ; threa ts of , duringdiscussions of the Missouri bill ,57 ; threats of , in campaign of

1856, 302 ; contemplated beforeLincoln's election, 450 ; Unionsentiment in the South

, 455 ;how secession feeling promoted ,

457 ; s eeches of secessionmembers o Congressonwithdrawing ,

512 ; original plans, 5 I 5 ; errorsIn original

plans, 542 ; change

of lens a ter reorganizationof uchanan

'

s Cabinet, 544revolutionary council organi zedatWashington, 5 why seces

sion members of ngress d idnot all go out at once

, 547 ;ordinances of secession passedbyseceding States, 548 ; seizure

0 U. S. forts and arsenals in theSouth, 548 ; organize Conf ederate overnment, 548 ; defiantattitu e of secessionists between election and inaugurationof Lincoln makes profoundimpression on the North, 562 ;feeling in border slave States ,sfigee : THE BEGINNINGS OF SE

CESS ION, Chap . p . I SECES

SION IN BLOOM, Chap . V. , 449Seddon , James A.: speech of , In

Peace Convention of 1 861 , 467Senate Commi ttee of Thirteen: in

36th Congress ; appointment,results of its deliberations , 459

S eward , Dudley: 286Seward , Wi lliam H early political career, 108 ; estimate of ,108 ; hi s speeches in campaignof 1844 , 109 ; takes active partin presidential campaign of1848 , 15 1 ; hi s higher-lawspeechin 3 I st Congress on the Com

promise Measures oi I 850, I 74Speech on Kansas-Nebraskabill, 2OI ; second speech on the

bill, 202 ; introduces bill for

admission of Kansas uncleTopeka Constitution, 25 hisspeech in reply to Dou on

bill for admission of sas,256 ; change in public estimation of him and Douglas , 263 ;why he was not nominated inPhiladelphia Republican Con

vention,292 ; a prominent

Republican leader in campaign

Index 643

S ewa rd , Wi lli am 11 .

- Continuedof 1856 , 299 : hi s charges In

relation to the Dred Scott ca se,

332 ; his irrepressible conflict5 h , 360 ; his speech in 36thongress , 393 ; candidate for

presidential nomination at Re

publican National Conventionin 1860 , 423 ; objections urgedagainst him, 429 ; his triumphalspeaking tour, 44 I ; Republi canmasses shout for Lincoln buttrust to Seward , 442 ; memberof Senate Committee of Thirteen in 36th Congress, 459 ; hisspeech on cond ition of the

country, 495 ; conflict of Opinionas to eff ects of his speech, 496 ;Secretary of State in Lincoln’sCabinet

, 570 ; hi s assumptionof authori ty, 583 ; hi s peaceviews, 583 ; deceived by JusticeCampbell and the Confederatecommissioners, 586 ; hi s extraordinary “suggestions ” to

President Lincoln, 59 1 ; Lincoln's answer, 593 ; Seward 'sembarrassing attitude towardConfederate commissioners,593 ; further negotiations be

tween Seward and the commissioners , 593 ; explanation of

Seward ’s course in dealing withthe Confederate commissioners,595, 60 1 ; Seward ’s bung lingInterference with expeditionsfor relief of Fort Sumter andFort Pickens, 600 ; his action inrelation to James E . Harvey,OO I subsequent efforts ofRepublican senators to haveLincoln remove Seward fromhis Cabinet

,605 ; mentioned ,

House of Representatives , 298 '

his entrance into Senate , 298his speech on Pierce’s last annualmessage, 308 ; a pointed in 1856one of House mrnittee to investigate Kansas troubles , 348 ;Republicancandi date forspeakerof theHouse in 1859, 386 ; withdraws from contest, 387 ; mentioned , 605

Sherman,W. P . : 285

S immons , James P.: 140S imonton, John W. : 271S incla ir

, 286

Slade, Wi lliam: resolutions in I 838for abolition of slavery In

District of Columbia, 7 IS laughter, James L. : I 83S lave-catchers: 227Slavery: entrance of , intoAmericanpolitics , I ; early introductioninto Southern colonies, 2 ; ef

fects on social life and character of slave-holding communities

, 3 ; concessions to slaveryin United States Constitution,and in cessions of Virginia and

North Carolina, 9 ; effect on

Slavery of introduction of cot

ton gin , I I ; events prior to

President Monroe’sAdministration diverting attention fromslavery, I2 ; question whether itwould have died out in South ifleft alone by Abolitionists, I 2 ;

failure of slavery to Obtain foothold in Northwest Territory,I 3 ; as a factor in the annexationof Texas, 105 ; also in theOregonboundary question, I I I ; importance of settling slavery questionin new Territories, I67 ; debateson slavery question in 3oth

166 .292. 335. 366. 582. 590 . 595. Congress, 168

603 Seezs NTRANCE or SLAVERYSeymour, Horatio: on coercion of INTO AMERICAN POLITICS , Chap .

seceding States, 560 I . , p . I .Shadrach rescue case: 222 SLAVERY IN THE TERR ITORIES ,Shannon

,Governor Wi lliam: suc Chap . I I I . , p . 37 .

ceed s Reeder as Governor of FROM 1820 to I 84o , GROWTHKansas

,248 ; mentioned , 348 OF ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENT

S hawnee M i ssi on (Kansas ) : terri IN THE NORTH , Chap . V. , p .

torial legi slature meets there, 62 .

246 Slavery i n the Territori es : Chap .

Sherman,John: hi s servi ces in p . 37 ; question early

644 Index

S lavery in the Terri tori es— Cont ’d .

becomes prominent, 37 ; de

mands of South for preservationof the

“equi librium ,

”

p . 38 ; of

uality of rights,"40 , makeshi t policies, ‘‘

popular sover

eignty,

”-non interference,"

45 ; doctrine of constitutionalprotection, 48

Slaves: in the South refuse to a id

John Brown, 384 ; their attach

ment to masters and theirfamilies during the Civi l War,

38

Sli de 1, John: 4 12Smi th

, Aaron D . : 23 1

Smith, Caleb B : Secretary of theInterior in Lincoln’s Cabinet,570 ; mentioned , 3 1 1 , 425

Smith,Gerritt: nominated for

President in 1 860 by the Libertyparty, 44 1

S outh, the: diff erence betweenSouthern and Northern colo

nies, I ; effect on,of Northern

anti-slavery societies, Io ; gainof North over, in commercialprosperity, I 5 ; political doctrines peculiar to South, 19 ;stringent slave laws in South,66 ; d isappointment over proposition to admit California as a

free State, 160 ; a solid South,against a solid North in 1 860

,

406; special causes of Southerni rri tation in 1 860 , 407 ; inSouth all Northerners classed as“Yankees"and Republicans asAbolitionists, 407 ; contemptin South for laboring men of

North, 408 ; Southern opinionof Northern people in general,408 ; war spirit in South fullyaroused before firing on PortSumter

, 6 1 1

S outh Carolina : in colonial times ,4 ; first slave code of , 5 ; neverdesired extinction of slavery

, 9 ;

principles o f Virginia a n d

Kentucky resolutions of 1798adopted by South Carolinapolitical leaders, 27 ; nullifica

tion there in 1 832 , 28 ; legislatureof , passes resolutions askingNorthern governors to suppress

Abolition societies, 67 ; convention in 1850 votes againstsecession, 1 8 1 ; leads off insecession in 1860

, 449 ; secessionsentiment strong in, since 1832 ,

54 ; South Carolina militaryorces occupy Fort Moultrieand Castle Pinckney and U. S .

custom-house and arsenal atCharleston

, 524 ; difficul t to

restrain from precipitate bombardment of Fort Sumter, 575

S outh Carolina commi ssionersappointed by State after secession to treatwithUnited States,449 ; their arrival inWashington,525 ; interviews and correspon

dence between them and President Buchanan

, 526, 538Southern Colonies : see SouthSouthern League: organization in

Spalding , Rufus P . : 285 , 290Spain: claims and treaties Wi th,

concerning Oregon country, 1 12Spink, C. : 286

Spooner, Wyman, 286

Spratt, D . H.: 286Squatter Soverei gnty: see Popularsovereignty.

S tanton, Edwi n M . : recommends

pardon Of Sherman M . Booth,238 ; appointed by PresidentBuchanan Attorney-General tosucceed Jeremiah S . Black, 517 ;objects to withdrawing garn sonfrom Charleston harbor, 529 ;aids Blackin preparing amendments to Buchanan’s answer toSouth Carolina commissioners,532 ; name inseparabl con

nected with hi story Of t e CivilWar, 540 ; his opinion of Lincolnat beginning of his administration. 574 ; mentioned . 533. 542 .574.603

Star 0 the West: sent to the reli efof ort Sumter, 54 1 ; fired on byConfederates, 54 1

Steadman,R . : 286

Stephens, AlexanderH prominentDemocratic leader in 1 856, 297hi s prediction of result of secession of Southern delegates fromCharleston DemocraticConven

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646 Index

Taylor, General Z achary— Cont’d .

a free-state constitution, 160 ;hi s death, 176

Tennessee: Union sentiment inEastern part, 456 ; for a time

refuses to secede, 456

Texas: efforts of President Tylerfor annexation, 104 ; argumentsin favor Of , 105 ; passage Of

joint resolution for annexation,I 10 ; controversy between Texasand New Mexico, 147 ; peopleOf , Opposed to cutting up Stateinto smaller ones, 193 ; passesordinance of secession, 548

Thomas,P hi lip, E . : appointed by

President Buchanan SecretaryOf Treasury to succeed HowellCobb

, 5 1 7Thomas , Wi lliam R . : 285Thompson,

Jacob: appointed byPresident Buchanan, SecretaryOf the Interior, 5 16 ; resigns,5 17 ; mentioned , 165 , 5 17, 5 19

Thompson , Richard W. : 3 1 1 , 42 1

Thumm, Charles: 285Ti lden

, D . R .: 285Tilden, Samuel J . : on coercingthe seced ing States, 560

Titus , Colonel H. T. : 250

Toombs , Robert: hi s speech inBoston in 1856 , 278 ; prominentDemocra tic leader in 1 856 , 297 ;member of Senate CommitteeOf Thirteen in 36th Congress ,459 ; hi s Speech on cond ition Of

country, 483 ; Secreta

ayof

State in Cabinet Of Je erson

Davis, 549 ; his letter to Confederate commissioners, 587mentioned , 455 , 457

Topeka (Kansas) constitutionadopted there, 247

Toucey, I saac : appointed by President Buchanan, Secretary of

the Navy, 5 16 ; mentioned , 4 19 ,5 17, 5 19

Trescott, Wi lli am H . : Assi stantSecretary of State during Euchanan

’

s Administration, 5 I 7 ;eff orts to ai d South Carolinain purchase Of arms from UnitedStates War Department, 520

Trimble, Allen: 42 1Tri st

,Nicholas : sent to Mexico to

receive peace proposihis answer to requestfor provi sion in treaty prohibiting slavery in ceded Terri tory

,

144Trumbull

, Lyman: hi s attempt tocommit Douglas on interpretation of Kansas-Nebraska Act,259 ; his entrance into Congress,298 ; speech on compromisepropositions in 36th Congress ,499 ; mentioned , 297, 5 12 , 605 ,

Turner, Nat: starts slave insur

rection in Virginia ,66

Turpie, David : tribute to, 3 1 2

mentioned, 3 1 I

Twiggs , General : 598Tyler, John : nominated by Whigsfor Vice-President, 87 ; hi s political antecedents, 87 ; his courseafter death Of President Harrison, 104 ; his efforts for annexation of Texas, 104 ; his messageon the Oregon question, «1 17 ;

presides over Peace ConventionOf 1 86 1 , 466 ; letters to GovemOr Pickens

, 549 ; mentioned ,46 !

Uncle Tom’

s Cabin : influence inthe North, 1 87 ; angers the

South, 407Underground rai lroad : method s ofoperation, 1 84 ; increases irritation Of South, 1 84 ; increasedactivity after 1 854 , 239

Underwood , John C. : 290

Union-saving meetings i n 1 850

224Univers ity of Vi rgi nia : studentsvote cane to Preston Brooks,275

Upham, Wi lliam: 140Upshur, Abel P . : succeeds Legareas Secretary Of State in President Tyler’s Cabinet, 104

Utah: efforts to provide territorial government for, 148 , 167

Vallandigham,Clement L. : his

peace propositions, 462Van Buren ,

John nicknamed“Prince John ”

by the Whigsin 1 840 , 93

Index

Van Buren, Martin: elected President, 63 ; estimate of , 85changes in politica l partiesprior to end of his term , 85Democratic nominee for President i n 1 840, 86 ; his record on

the slavery question, 89 ; campaign charges against him, 9 1

nominated by Free-soil partyfor President in 1848 150 ;receives enough votes i n NewYorkto defeat General Cass andelect General Taylor, 15 1

Vandyke, 285Van S lyke, L . G. : 285Vaughan, John C. : 286

Vermont: response to Virginia andKentucky resolutions of 1798 ,24 ; personal liberty laws of , 2 18 ,24 1

Vi rginia : in colonial times, 2 ; concessions to slavery in cessionsby, to United States, 10 ; Presidents from, prior to 1820 ,

62 ;

eff ect upon, of John Brown'srai d , 384 ; Union sentiment inWestern part of State, 456 ; for

a time refuses to secede, 456 ;General Assembly passes resolutions inviting other States toattend a Peace Conference in186 1 , 460 ; recommends convention to adopt peace resolutionsof Senator Crittenden Ofi

'

ered

in 36th Congress, 46 1 ; alsoappoints Judge John Robertsona peace commissioner, 46 1 ; whythe invitation was not morefavorably considered in the

North, 465Virginia Resolutions of 1 798

passage of , 23Voorhies , Daniel W.: 3 1 1 , 3 12

Wade,Benjamin: entrance into

U. S . Senate, 298 ; candidatefor presidential nomination inRepublican National Convention in 1860 , 423 ; member ofSenate Committee Of Thirteenin 36th Congress, 459 ; speech oncondition of country in 36th

Congress, 494 ; mentioned , 405

573 , 60 606

Wad swort Frederi ck: 286

WA ITING FOR THE SOUND OF 1113

CANNON ; Chap . XXX . p . 608

Walker, I saac Pp; 1555 , 199

Walker, Robert J .: one of governorsof Kansas, 348Walworth, Reuben . on coercing theseced ing States , 559

WAR WITH MEXICO, DIVIDING THESPOILS OF VICTORY : Chap . VIII .

,

1) I43Warren, Doctor. 225Washington Ci ty: plans of seces

sioni sts to capture, 5 16

Wayne, James M . : hi s activitiesin the Dred Scott case, 3 19 : hisOpinion, 320 ; mentioned

, 3 16 ,

320 339 , S4 I 342

Webb, James Watson : 290 , 428

Websler, Daniel: great debatebetween him and ColonelRobert Hayne, Of South Carolina, on nullifica tion

,28 ; reply

to Senator Calhoun’s speechon the Force bill , 30 ; resentscharge of being an aristocrat"in campai gn Of 1840 , 94 ; hi s

speeches in that campaign, 96 ;resigns from Tyler's Cabinetas Secretary of State , 104 ; his

speech on the CompromiseMeasures of 1850 , 170 ; speechesin support of Fugitive SlaveLawOf 1850 ,

226 ; hi s death, 296 ;mentioned

, 140 , 155 , 326

Weed,Thurlow: influence on for

mation of political characterOf William H . Seward , 108

Lincoln 's visit to, 365 ; Seward

'smanager a t Republican National Convention in 1 860 , 423mentioned , 290 , 393 ,Welles , Gi deon: Secretary of Navyin Lincoln's Cabinet

, 570 ; his

hostility to Seward , Stanton ,and others Of hi s contemporaries , 603 ; comments on

his Diary, 603 ; mentioned ,290

Wentworth,John: 165

West, the: Webster’s prediction,as to , 39 ; growth of , in politicalpower, 40 1 ; the new Statesformed out of Territory ac

qui red by Louisiana Purchaseand from War with Mexico ,

40 1 ; electoralvotes in 1860 , 403

648 Index

Weston, George W. : 285Weyand , J . 285Wharton,

I . L. : 286

Whig National Conventions1 830: ruled by a few men , 86 ;fails to adopt any platform Of

principles, 87 : nominates GeneralWilliam Henry Harrison forPresident and John Tyler forVice-President, 871 844 : nominates Henry Clay forPresident, 1071 848 : nominates General Z achary Taylor for President and

Millard Fillmore for VicePresident

,149 ; convention

skulks on slavery question, 1491 8 2 : 170minates General Winhe d Scott for President, 189 ;i ts platform,

1 89 ; strong opposition to , on part of NorthernWhigs, 190Whig pa rty: rise of

, 86 ; skulks onslavery question in 1 848 , 149 ;i ts downfall in 1852 , 1 89 ; WhigsOf New York and Massachu

setts cling to part name, 282 ;ultimately most 0 Whigs wentto the Democratic party in theSouth and to the Republicanparty in the North, 396White

,D . H : 285

Whi te,O. : 28

Whitefield , eorge: favors slaveryin Georgia, 6Whi tfield , John W. : contestedelection for terri torial delegatebetween him and Andrew J .

Reed er, 348Whi ton, Edward V. : chief justice

Of Wisconsin Supreme Court ;hi s Opinion in the Booth case,23 1

Whi ttier, John G. : lament for

Webster, 173Wide-Awake Clubs : in presidentialcampai gn of 1 860 , 44 1

Wigfall, Loui s : denounces Stephen A. Douglas in Senate , 438 ;his speech in 36th Congresson peace propositions, 475 ;speeches on cond ition Of

country, 48 489, 490 ; remai ns

in Senate a ter secession movement has begun, 548 ; his d is

patch to Bonham , commanderof South Carolina militaryforces at Charleston

, 539 ; turnsup at bombardment of FortSumter as “

Colonel Wigfal l,aide to General Beauregard ,

"

6 10 ; mentioned , 576Wi lkinson , I 286

Wi lkinson,Martin S . : 605

Wi lkes , Colonel: 250Wi llard , Ashbel P . : 3 1 1 , 3 12Williamson

, P assmore: proseoution Of , before Judge Kane, 228mentioned , 285Wi llington , F. G. : 286

Wi lmot, Davi d : Off ers proviso in3 I st Congress prohibitingslavery in the Territories, 144 ;entrance into Congress, 297 ;elected temporary chairman OfRepublican National Convemtion in 1 860

, 425 ; mentioned ,

165. 285. 287. 290. 297. 423.

Wi lmot P rovi so: seeWilmotWi lson

,Henry: protest in Whig

National Convention Of 1 848against skulking on the slavery

guestion , 1 50 ; speech in Senateenouncing Brooks's assault onSumner, 272 ; challenged byBrooks, 272 ; mentioned , 256 ,

454 , 605Wi nthrop, Robert C. : 165Wi rt, Wi lliam: 59Wi sconsin : indignation Of peopleover Booth cases, 234 ; Stateelection in 1858 turns on

question of“States ’ Rights,"

235 ; nullifica tion resolutionsadopted by General Assemblyand approved by Governor236

Wi se, HenryA. : favors secession inevent Of Fremont’s election, 303 ;his Opinion as to eii ect of JohnBrown raid in Virginia, 384 ;mentioned

,295

Wi se, W. W. : 285

Wood , Fernando: suggests seces

sion O f N ew Y o rk City,559Wood

, S . N. : 286

Woodbridge, Wi lliam: 140Wright, Joseph A. : 3 1 1

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