The Project Gutenberg EBook of Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2), by
James Gillespie Blaine
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Title: Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2)
From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which
Led to the Political Revolution of 1860
Author: James Gillespie Blaine
Release Date: April 17, 2007 [EBook #21128]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWENTY YEARS OF CONGRESS ***
Produced by Ed Ferris
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Four notes from the Errata to Vol. I (in Vol. II) have been added, and
the other corrections indicated there made.
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2nd proof completed Apr. 11th, 2007.
Errata corrected Apr. 13th.
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[Frontispiece: v1.jpg]
[Signature] James G. Blaine
TWENTY YEARS OF CONGRESS:
FROM
LINCOLN TO GARFIELD.
WITH A REVIEW OF
THE EVENTS WHICH LED TO THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1860.
BY
JAMES G. BLAINE.
VOLUME I.
NORWICH, CONN.:
THE HENRY BILL PUBLISHING COMPANY.
1884.
COPYRIGHT, 1884,
BY JAMES G. BLAINE.
_All rights reserved._
ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED
BY RAND, AVERY, AND COMPANY,
BOSTON, MASS.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.
CHAPTER I.
A REVIEW OF THE EVENTS WHICH LED TO THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF
1860.
Original Compromises between the North and the South embodied in
the Constitution.--Early Dissatisfaction with National Boundaries.
--Acquisition of Louisiana from France by President Jefferson.--
Bonaparte's Action and Motive in ceding Louisiana.--State of
Louisiana admitted to the Union against Opposition in the North.--
Agitation of the Slavery Question in Connection with the Admission
of Missouri to the Union.--The Two Missouri Compromises of 1820
and 1821.--Origin and Development of the Abolition Party.--Struggle
over the Right of Petition.
CHAPTER II.
Review of events before 1860 (_continued_).--Early Efforts to
acquire Texas.--Course of President Tyler.--Mr. Calhoun appointed
Secretary of State.--His Successful Management of the Texas Question.
--His Hostility to Mr. Van Buren.--Letters of Mr. Clay and Mr. Van
Buren opposing the Annexation of Texas.--Mr. Clay nominated as the
Whig Candidate for the President in 1844.--Van Buren's Nomination
defeated.--Mr. Polk selected as the Democratic Candidate.--Disquietude
of Mr. Clay.--His Change of Ground.--His Defeat.--Prolonged Rivalry
between Mr. Clay and General Jackson.--Texas formally annexed to
the Union.
CHAPTER III.
Review (_continued_).--Triumph of the Democratic Party.--Impending
Troubles with Mexico.--Position of Parties.--Struggle for the
Equality of Free and Slave States.--Character of the Southern
Leaders.--Their Efforts to control the Government.--Conservative
Course of Secretaries Buchanan and Marcy.--Reluctant to engage in
War with Mexico.--The Oregon Question, 54° 40´, or 49°.--Critical
Relations with the British Government.--Treaty of 1846.--Character
of the Adjustment.--Our Probable Loss by Unwise Policy of the
Democratic Party.
CHAPTER IV.
Review (_continued_).--Relations with Mexico.--General Taylor
marches his Army to the Rio Grande.--First Encounter with the
Mexican Army.--Excitement in the United States.--Congress declares
War against Mexico.--Ill Temper of the Whigs.--Defeat of the
Democrats in the Congressional Elections of 1846.--Policy of Mr.
Polk in Regard to Acquisition of Territory from Mexico.--Three-
Million Bill.--The Famous Anti-slavery Proviso moved by David
Wilmot.--John Quincy Adams.--His Public Service.--Robert C. Winthrop
chosen Speaker.--Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.--Presidential Election
of 1848.--Effort of the Administration to make a Democratic Hero
out of the Mexican War.--Thomas H. Benton for Lieutenant-General.
--Bill defeated.--Nomination of General Taylor for the Presidency
by the Whigs.--Nomination of General Cass by the Democratic Party.
--Van Buren refuses to support him.--Democratic Bolt in New York.
--Buffalo Convention and the Organization of the Free-soil Party.
--Nomination of Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams.--Mr. Clay's
Discontent.--Mr. Webster's Speech at Marshfield.--General Taylor
elected.--The Barnburners of New York.--Character and Public Services
of Mr. Van Buren.
CHAPTER V.
Review (_continued_).--Contrast between General Taylor and General
Cass.--The Cabinet of President Taylor.--Political Condition of
the Country.--Effect produced by the Discovery of Gold in California.
--Convening of Thirty-first Congress.--Election of Howell Cobb as
Speaker.--President Taylor's Message.--His Recommendations Distasteful
to the South.--Illustrious Membership of the Senate.--Mr. Clay and
the Taylor Administration.--Mr. Calhoun's Last Speech in the Senate.
--His Death.--His Character and Public Services.--Mr. Webster's
7th of March Speech.--Its Effect upon the Public and upon Mr.
Webster.--Mr. Clay's Committee of Thirteen.--The Omnibus Bill.--
Conflict with General Taylor's Administration.--Death of the
President.--Mr. Fillmore reverses Taylor's Policy and supports the
Compromise Measures.--Defeat of Compromise Bill.--Passage of the
Measures separately.--Memorable Session of Congress.--Whig and
Democratic Parties sustain the Compromise Measures.--National
Conventions.--Whigs nominate Winfield Scott over Fillmore.--Mr.
Clay supports Fillmore.--Mr. Webster's Friends.--Democrats nominate
Franklin Pierce.--Character of the Campaign.--Overwhelming Defeat
of Scott.--Destruction of the Whig Party.--Death of Mr. Clay.--
Death of Mr. Webster.--Their Public Characters and Services
compared.
CHAPTER VI.
Review (_continued_).--The Strength of the Democratic Party in
1853.--Popular Strength not so great as Electoral Strength.--The
New President's Pledge not to re-open the Slavery Question.--How
he failed to maintain that Pledge.--The North-west Territory.--Anti-
slavery Restriction of the Missouri Compromise.--Movement to repeal
it by Mr. Clay's Successor in the Senate.--Mr. Douglas adopts the
policy of repealing the Restriction.--It is made an Administration
Measure and carried through Congress.--Colonel Benton's Position.
--Anti-slavery Excitement developed in the Country.--Destruction
of the Whig Party.--New Political Alliances.--American Party.--Know-
Nothings.--Origin and Growth of the Republican Party.--Pro-slavery
Development in the South.--Contest for the Possession of Kansas.--
Prolonged Struggle.--Disunion Tendencies developing in the South.
--Election of N. P. Banks to the Speakership of the House.--The
Presidential Election of 1856.--Buchanan.--Frémont.--Fillmore.--
The Slavery Question the Absorbing Issue.--Triumph of Buchanan.--
Dred Scott Decision.--Mr. Lincoln's Version of it.--Chief Justice
Taney.
CHAPTER VII.
Review (_continued_).--Continuance of the Struggle for Kansas.--
List of Governors.--Robert J. Walker appointed Governor by President
Buchanan.--His Failure.--The Lecompton Constitution fraudulently
adopted.--Its Character.--Is transmitted to Congress by President
Buchanan.--He recommends the Admission of Kansas under its Provisions.
--Pronounces Kansas a Slave State.--Gives Full Scope and Effect to
the Dred Scott Decision.--Senator Douglas refuses to sustain the
Lecompton Iniquity.--His Political Embarrassment.--Breaks with the
Administration.--Value of his Influence against Slavery in Kansas.
--Lecompton Bill passes the Senate.--Could not be forced through
the House.--The English Bill substituted and passed.--Kansas spurns
the Bribe.--Douglas regains his Popularity with Northern Democrats.
--Illinois Republicans bitterly hostile to him.--Abraham Lincoln
nominated to contest the Re-election of Douglas to the Senate.--
Lincoln challenges Douglas to a Public Discussion.--Character of
Each as a Debater.--They meet Seven Times in Debate.--Douglas re-
elected.--Southern Senators arraign Douglas.--His Defiant Answer.
--Danger of Sectional Division in the Democratic Party.
CHAPTER VIII.
Excited Condition of the South.--The John Brown Raid at Harper's
Ferry.--Character of Brown.--Governor Wise.--Hot Temper.--Course
of Republicans in Regard to John Brown.--Misunderstanding of the
Two Sections.--Assembling of the Charleston Convention.--Position
of Douglas and his Friends.--Imperious Demands of Southern Democrats.
--Caleb Cushing selected for Chairman of the Convention.--The South
has Control of the Committee on Resolutions.--Resistance of the
Douglas Delegates.--They defeat the Report of the Committee.--
Delegates from Seven Southern States withdraw.--Convention unable
to make a Nomination.--Adjourns to Baltimore.--Convention divides.
--Nomination of both Douglas and Breckinridge.--Constitutional
Union Convention.--Nomination of Bell and Everett.--The Chicago
Convention.--Its Membership and Character.--Mr. Seward's Position.
--His Disabilities.--Work of his Friends, Thurlow Weed and William
M. Evarts.--Opposition of Horace Greeley.--Objections from Doubtful
States.--Various Candidates.--Nomination of Lincoln and Hamlin.--
Four Presidential Tickets in the Field.--Animated Canvass.--The
Long Struggle over.--The South defeated.--Election of Lincoln.--
Political Revolution of 1860 complete.
CHAPTER IX.
The Tariff Question in its Relation to the Political Revolution of
1860.--A Century's Experience as to Best Mode of levying Duties.--
Original Course of Federal Government in Regard to Revenue.--First
Tariff Act.--The Objects defined in a Preamble.--Constitutional
Power to adopt Protective Measure.--Character of Early Discussions.
--The Illustrious Men who participated.--Mr. Madison the Leader.--
The War Tariff of 1812.--Its High Duties.--The Tariff of 1816.--
Interesting Debate upon its Provisions.--Clay, Webster, and Calhoun
take part.--Business Depression throughout the Country.--Continues
until the Enactment of the Tariff of 1824.--Protective Character
of that Tariff.--Still Higher Duties levied by the Tariff of 1828.
--Southern Resistance to the Protective Principle.--Mr. Calhoun
leads the Nullification Movement in South Carolina.--Compromise
effected on the Tariff Question.--Financial Depression follows.--
Panic of 1837.--Protective Tariff passed in 1842.--Free-trade
Principles triumph with the Election of President Polk.--Tariff of
1846.--Prosperous Condition of the Country.--Differences of Opinion
as to the Causes.--Surplus Revenue.--Plethoric Condition of the
Treasury.--Enactment of the Tariff of 1857.--Both Parties support
it in Congress.--Duties lower than at Any Time since the War of
1812.--Panic of 1857.--Dispute as to its causes.--Protective and
Free-trade Theories as presented by their Advocates.--Connection
of the Tariff with the Election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency.
--General Review.
CHAPTER X.
Presidential Election of 1860.--The Electoral and Popular Vote.--
Wide Divergence between the Two.--Mr. Lincoln has a Large Majority
of Electors.--In a Minority of 1,000,000 on Popular Vote.--Beginning
of Secession.--Rash Course of South Carolina.--Reluctance on the
Part of Many Southern States.--Unfortunate Meeting of South-Carolina
Legislature.--Hasty Action of South-Carolina Convention.--The Word
"Ordinance."--Meeting of Southern Senators in Washington to promote
Secession.--Unwillingness in the South to submit the Question to
Popular Vote.--Georgia not eager to Secede.--Action of Other States.
--Meeting of Congress in December, 1860.--Position of Mr. Buchanan.
--His Attachment to the Union as a Pennsylvanian.--Sinister Influences
in his Cabinet.--His Evil Message to Congress.--Analysis of the
Message.--Its Position destructive to the Union.--The President's
Position Illogical and Untenable.--Full of Contradictions.--Extremists
of the South approve the Message.--Demoralizing Effect of the
Message in the North and in the South.--General Cass resigns from
State Department.--Judge Black succeeds him.--Character of Judge
Black.--Secretaries Cobb, Floyd, and Thompson.--Their Censurable
Conduct in the Cabinet.--Their Resignation.--Re-organization of
Cabinet.--Dix, Holt, Stanton.--Close of Mr. Buchanan's Administration.
--Change in the President's Course.--The New Influences.--Analysis
of the President's Course.--There were two Mr. Buchanans.--Personal
and Public Character of Mr. Buchanan.
CHAPTER XI.
Congress during the Winter of 1860-61.--Leave-taking of Senators
and Representatives.--South Carolina the First to secede.--Her
Delegation in the House publish a Card withdrawing.--Other States
follow.--Mr. Lamar of Mississippi.--Speeches of Seceding Senators.
--Mr. Yulee and Mr. Mallory of Florida.--Mr. Clay and Mr. Fitzpatrick
of Alabama.--Jefferson Davis.--His Distinction between Secession
and Nullification.--Important Speech by Mr. Toombs.--He defines
Conditions on which the Union might be allowed to survive.--Mr.
Iverson's Speech.--Georgia Senators withdraw.--Insolent Speech of
Mr. Slidell of Louisiana.--Mr. Judah P. Benjamin's Special Plea
for his State.--His Doctrine of "A Sovereignty held in Trust."--
Same Argument of Mr. Yulee for his State.--Principle of State
Sovereignty.--Disproved by the Treaty of 1783.--Notable Omission
by Secession Senators.--Grievances not stated.--Secession Conventions
in States.--Failure to state Justifying Grounds of Action.--
Confederate Government fail likewise to do it.--Contrast with the
Course of the Colonies.--Congress had given no Cause.--Had not
disturbed Slavery by Adverse Legislation.--List of Measures Favorable
to Slavery.--Policy of Federal Government steadily in that Direction.
--Mr. Davis quoted Menaces, not Acts.--Governing Class in the South.
--Division of Society there.--Republic ruled by an Oligarchy.--
Overthrown by Election of Lincoln.--South refuses to acquiesce.
CHAPTER XII.
Congress in the Winter of 1860-61.--The North offers Many Concessions
to the South.--Spirit of Conciliation.--Committee of Thirteen in
the Senate.--Committee of Thirty-three in the House.--Disagreement
of Senate Committee.--Propositions submitted to House Committee.--
Thomas Corwin's Measure.--Henry Winter Davis.--Justin S. Morrill--
Mr. Houston of Alabama.--Constitutional Amendment proposed by
Charles Francis Adams.--Report of the Committee of Thirty-three.--
Objectionable Measures proposed.--Minority Report by Southern
Members.--The Crittenden Compromise proposed.--Details of that
Compromise.--Mr. Adams's Double Change of Ground.--An Old Resolution
of the Massachusetts Legislature.--Mr. Webster's Criticism Pertinent.
--Various Minority Reports.--The California Members.--Washburn and
Tappan.--Amendment to the Constitution passed by the House.--By
the Senate also.--New Mexico.--The Fugitive-slave Law.--Mr. Clark
of New Hampshire.--Peace Congress.--Invited by Virginia.--Assembles
in Washington.--Peace Measures proposed.--They meet no Favor in
Congress.--Territories of Colorado, Dakota, and Nevada originated.
--Prohibition of Slavery abandoned.--Republicans in Congress do
not ask it.--Explanation required.--James S. Green of Missouri.--
His Character as a Debater.--Northern Republicans frightened at
their own Success.--Anxious for a Compromise.--Dread of Disunion.
--Northern Democrats.--Dangerous Course pursued by them.--General
Demoralization of Northern Sentiment.
CHAPTER XIII.
Mr. Lincoln's Journey from Springfield to Washington.--Speeches on
the Way.--Reaches Washington.--His Secret Journey.--Afterwards
regretted.--Precautions for his Safety.--President Buchanan.--
Secretary Holt.--Troops for the Protection of Washington.--Inauguration
of Mr. Lincoln.--Relief to the Public Anxiety.--Inaugural Address.
--Hopefulness and Security in the North.--Mr. Lincoln's Appeal to
the South.--Fails to appease Southern Wrath.--Dilemma of the South.
--The New Cabinet.--The "Easy Accession" of Former Times.--Seward
Secretary of State.--Chase at the Head of the Treasury.--Radical
Republicans dissatisfied.--Influence of the Blairs.--Comment of
Thaddeus Stevens.--The National Flag in the Confederacy.--Flying
at only Three Points.--Defenseless Condition of the Government.--
Confidence of Disunion Leaders.--Extra Session of the Senate.--
Douglas and Breckinridge.--Their Notable Debate.--Douglas's Reply
to Wigfall.--His Answer to Mason.--Condition of the Territories.--
Slavery not excluded by Law.--Public Opinion in Maine, 1861.--Mr.
Lincoln's Difficult Task.--His Wise Policy.--His Careful Preparation.
--Statesmanship of his Administration.
CHAPTER XIV.
President Lincoln and the Confederate Commissioners.--Misleading
Assurance given by Judge Campbell.--Mr. Seward's Answer to Messrs.
Forsythe and Crawford.--An Interview with the President is desired
by the Commissioners.--Rage in the South.--Condition of the Montgomery
Government.--Roger A. Pryor's Speech.--President determines to send
Provisions to Fort Sumter.--Advises Governor Pickens.--Conflict
precipitated.--The Fort surrenders.--Effect of the Conflict on the
North.--President's Proclamation and Call for Troops.--Responses
of Loyal States.--Popular Uprising.--Democratic Party.--Patriotism
of Senator Douglas.--His Relations with Mr. Lincoln.--His Death.--
Public Service and Character.--Effect of the President's Call on
Southern States.--North Carolina.--Tennessee.--Virginia.--Senator
Mason's Letter.--Responses of Southern Governors to the President's
Call for Troops.--All decline to comply.--Some of them with Insolent
Defiance.--Governors of the Free States.--John A. Andrew, E. D.
Morgan, Andrew G. Curtin, Oliver P. Morton.--Energetic and Patriotic
Action of all Northern Governors.--Exceptional Preparation in
Pennsylvania for the Conflict.--Governors of Free States all
Republicans except in California and Oregon.--Critical Situation
on Pacific Coast.--Loyalty of its People.--President's Reasons for
postponing Session of Congress.--Election in Kentucky.--Union
Victory.--John J. Crittenden and Garrett Davis.--John Bell.--
Disappoints Expectation of Union Men.--Responsibility of Southern
Whigs.--Their Power to arrest the Madness.--Audacity overcomes
Numbers.--Whig Party of the South.--Its Brilliant Array of Leaders.
--Its Destruction.
CHAPTER XV.
Thirty-Seventh Congress assembles.--Military Situation.--List of
Senators: Fessenden, Sumner, Collamer, Wade, Chandler, Hale,
Trumbull, Breckinridge, Baker of Oregon.--List of Members of the
House of Representatives: Thaddeus Stevens, Crittenden, Lovejoy,
Washburne, Bingham, Conkling, Shellabarger.--Mr. Grow elected
Speaker.--Message of President Lincoln.--Its Leading Recommendations.
--His Account of the Outbreak of the Rebellion.--Effect of the
Message on the Northern People.--Battle of Bull Run.--Its Effect
on Congress and the Country.--The Crittenden Resolution adopted.--
Its Significance.--Interesting Debate upon it in the Senate.--First
Action by Congress Adverse to Slavery.--Confiscation of Certain
Slaves.--Large Amount of Business dispatched by Congress.--Striking
and Important Debate between Baker and Breckinridge.--Expulsion of
Mr. Breckinridge from the Senate.--His Character.--Credit due to
Union Men of Kentucky.--Effect produced in the South of Confederate
Success at Bull Run.--Rigorous Policy adopted by the Confederate
Government.--Law respecting "Alien Enemies."--Law sequestrating
their Estates.--Rigidly enforced by Attorney-General Benjamin.--An
Injudicious Policy.
CHAPTER XVI.
Second Session of Thirty-seventh Congress.--The Military Situation.
--Disaster at Ball's Bluff.--Death of Colonel E. D. Baker.--The
President's Message.--Capital and Labor.--Their Relation discussed
by the President.--Agitation of the Slavery Question.--The House
refuses to re-affirm the Crittenden Resolution.--Secretary Cameron
resigns.--Sent on Russian Mission.--Succeeded by Edwin M. Stanton.
--His Vigorous War Measures.--Victories in the Field.--Battle of
Mill Spring.--General Order of the President for a Forward Movement.
--Capture of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson.--Prestige and Popularity
of General Grant.--Illinois Troops.--General Burnside's Victory in
North Carolina.--Effect of the Victories upon the Country.--Continued
Success for the Union in the South-West.--Proposed Celebration.--
The Monitor and the Merrimac.--Ericsson.--Worden.--Capture of New
Orleans by Farragut.--The Navy.--Its Sudden and Great Popularity.
--Legislation in its Favor.--Battle of Shiloh.--Anxiety in the
North.--Death of Albert Sidney Johnston.--General Halleck takes
the Field.--Military Situation in the East.--The President and
General McClellan.--The Peninsular Campaign.--Stonewall Jackson's
Raid.--Its Disastrous Effect.--Fear for Safety of Washington.--Anti-
Slavery Legislation.--District of Columbia.--Compensated Emancipation.
--Colonization.--Confiscation.--Punishment of Treason.
CHAPTER XVII.
Ball's Bluff Disaster.--Mr. Conkling's Resolution of Inquiry.--
Unsatisfactory Reply of Secretary Cameron.--Second Resolution.--
Second Reply.--Incidental Debate on Slavery.--Arrest of General
Charles P. Stone.--His History.--His Response to Criticisms made
upon him.--Responsibility of Colonel Baker.--General Stone before
the Committee on the Conduct of the War.--His Examination.--Testimony
of Officers.--General Stone appears before the Committee a Second
Time.--His Arrest by Order of the War Department.--No Cause assigned.
--Imprisoned in Fort Lafayette.--Solitary Confinement.--Sees Nobody.
--His Wife denied Access to him.--Subject brought into Congress.--
A Search for the Responsibility of the Arrest.--Groundless Assumption
of Mr. Sumner's Connection with it.--Mr. Lincoln's Message in Regard
to the Case.--General Stone's Final Release by an Act of Congress.
--Imprisoned for One Hundred and Eighty-nine Days.--Never told the
Cause.--Never allowed a Trial.--Appears a Third Time before the
Committee.--The True Responsibility for the Arrest.--His Restoration
to Service.--His Resignation.--Joins the Khedive's Service.
CHAPTER XVIII.
The National Finances.--Debt when the Civil War began.--Deadly Blow
to Public Credit.--Treasury Notes due in 1861.--$10,000,000 required.
--An Empty Treasury.--Recommendation by Secretary Dix.--Secretary
Thomas recommends a Pledge of the Public Lands.--Strange Suggestions.
--Heavy Burdens upon the Treasury.--Embarrassment of Legislators.
--First Receipts in the Treasury in 1861.--Chief Dependence had
always been on Customs.--Morrill Tariff goes into Effect.--It meets
Financial Exigencies.--Mr. Vallandigham puts our Revenue at
$50,000,000, our Expenditures at $500,000,000.--Annual Deficiency
under Mr. Buchanan.--Extra Session in July, 1861.--Secretary Chase
recommends $80,000,000 by Taxation, and $240,000,000 by Loans.--
Loan Bill of July 17, 1861.--Its Provisions.--Demand Notes.--Seven-
thirties.--Secretary Chase's Report, December, 1861.--Situation
Serious.--Sales of Public Lands.--Suspension of Specie Payment.--
The Loss of our Coin.--Its Steady Export to Europe.
CHAPTER XIX.
The Legal-tender Bill.--National Finances at the Opening of the
Year 1862.--A Threefold Contest.--The Country thrown upon its own
Resources.--A Good Currency demanded.--Government takes Control of
the Question.--Authorizes the Issue of $150,000,000 of Legal-tender
Notes.--Mr. Spaulding the Author of the Measure.--His Speech.--
Opposed by Mr. Pendleton.--Position of Secretary Chase.--Urges the
Measure upon Congress.--Speeches by Thaddeus Stevens, Mr. Vallandigham,
Mr. V. B. Horton, Mr. Lovejoy, Mr. Conkling, Mr. Hooper, Mr. Morrill,
Mr. Bingham, Mr. Shellabarger, Mr. Pike and Others.--Spirited and
Able Debate.--Bill passes the House.--Its Consideration by the
Senate.--Speeches by Mr. Fessenden, Mr. Sherman, Mr. Sumner, Mr.
Bayard, Mr. Collamer and Others.--Bill passes the Senate.--Its
Weighty Provisions.--Secretary Chase on State Banks.--Policy of
the Legal-tender Bill.--Its Effect upon the Business and Prosperity
of the Country.--Internal Revenue Act.--Necessity of Large Sums
from Taxation.--Public Credit dependent on it.--Constitutional
Provisions.--Financial Policy of Alexander Hamilton.--Excises
Unpopular.--Whiskey Insurrection.--Resistance by Law.--Supreme
Court Decision.--Case of Hylton.--Provisions of New Act.--Searching
Character.--Great Revenue desired.--Credit due to Secretary Chase.
CHAPTER XX.
Elections of 1862.--Mr. Lincoln advances to Aggressive Position on
Slavery.--Second Session of Thirty-seventh Congress adjourns.--
Democratic Hostility to Administration.--Democratic State Conventions.
--Platforms in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.--Nomination
of Horatio Seymour for Governor of New York.--The President prepares
for a Serious Political Contest.--The Issue shall be the Union or
Slavery.--Conversation with Mr. Boutwell.--Proclamation of
Emancipation.--Meeting of Governors at Altoona.--Compensated
Emancipation proposed for Border States.--Declined by their Senators
and Representatives.--Anti-slavery Policy apparently Disastrous
for a Time.--October Elections Discouraging.--General James S.
Wadsworth nominated against Mr. Seymour.--Illinois votes against
the President.--Five Leading States against the President.--
Administration saved in Part by Border States.--Last Session of
Thirty-seventh Congress.--President urges Compensated Emancipation
again.--Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863.--Long Controversy
over Question of Compensation for Slaves.--Test Case of Missouri.
--Fourteen Million Dollars offered her.--General Pope's Campaign.
--Army of the Potomac.--Battle of Antietam.--McClellan removed.--
Burnside succeeds him.--Defeat at Fredericksburg.--Hooker succeeds
Burnside.--General Situation.--Arming of Slaves.--Habeas Corpus.--
Conscription Law.--Depressed and Depressing Period.
CHAPTER XXI.
The President's Border-State Policy.--Loyal Government erected in
Virginia.--Recognized by Congress and Senators admitted.--Desire
for a New State.--The Long Dissatisfaction of the People of Western
Virginia.--The Character of the People and of their Section.--Their
Opportunity had come.--Organization of the Pierpont Government.--
State Convention and Constitution.--Application to Congress for
Admission.--Anti-slavery Amendment.--Senate Debate: Sumner, Wade,
Powell, Willey, and Others.--House Debate: Stevens, Conway, Bingham,
Segar.--Passage of Bill in Both Branches.--Heavy Blow to the Old
State.--Her Claims deserve Consideration.--Should be treated as
generously at least as Mexico.
CHAPTER XXII.
National Currency and State Bank Currency.--In Competition.--Legal-
tender Bill tended to expand State Bank Circulation.--Secretary
Chase's Recommendation.--Favorably received.--State Bank Circulation,
$150,000,000.--Preliminary Bill to establish National Banks.--
Fessenden.--Sherman.--Hooper.--National Bank System in 1862.--
Discussed among the People.--Recommended by the President.--Mr.
Chase urges it.--Bill introduced and discussed in Senate.--Discussion
in the House.--Bill passed.--Hugh McCulloch of Indiana appointed
Comptroller of the Currency.--Amended Bank Act.--To remedy Defects,
Circulation limited to $500,000,000.--National Power.--State Rights.
--Taxation.--Renewed Debate in Senate and House.--Bill passed.--
Merits of the System.--Former Systems.--First Bank of the United
States.--Charters of United-States Banks, 1791-1816.--National
Banks compared with United-States Banks.--One Defective Element.--
Founded on National Debt.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Depression among the People in 1863.--Military Situation.--Hostility
to the Administration.--Determination to break it down.--Vallandigham's
Disloyal Speech.--Two Rebellions threatened.--General Burnside
takes Command of the Department of the Ohio.--Arrests Vallandigham.
--Tries him by Military Commission.--His Sentence commuted by Mr.
Lincoln.--Habeas Corpus refused.--Democratic Party protests.--
Meeting in Albany.--Letter of Governor Seymour.--Ohio Democrats
send a Committee to Washington.--Mr. Lincoln's Replies to Albany
Meeting and to the Ohio Committee.--Effect of his Words upon the
Country.--Army of the Potomac.--General Hooker's Defeat at
Chancellorsville.--Gloom in the Country.--The President's Letters
to General Hooker.--General Meade succeeds Hooker in Command of
the Army.--Battle of Gettysburg.--Important Victory for the Union.
--Relief to the Country.--General Grant's Victory at Vicksburg.--
Fourth of July.--Notable Coincidence.--State Elections favorable
to the Administration.--Meeting of Thirty-eighth Congress.--Schuyler
Colfax elected Speaker.--Prominent New Members in Each Branch.--E.
D. Morgan, Alexander Ramsey, John Conness, Reverdy Johnson, Thomas
A. Hendricks, Henry Winter Davis, Robert C. Schenck, James A.
Garfield, William B. Allison.--President's Message.--Thirteenth
Amendment to the Constitution.--First proposed by James M. Ashley.
--John B. Henderson proposes Amendment which passes the Senate.--
Debate in Both Branches.--Aid to the Pacific Railroads.--Lieutenant-
General Grant.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Presidential Election of 1864.--Preliminary Movements.--General
Sentiment favors Mr. Lincoln.--Some Opposition to his Renomination.
--Secretary Chase a Candidate.--The "Pomeroy Circular."--Mr. Chase
withdraws.--Republican National Convention.--Baltimore, June 7.--
Frémont and Cochrane nominated.--Speech of Dr. Robert J. Breckinridge.
--Mr. Lincoln renominated.--Candidates for Vice-President.--Andrew
Johnson of Tennessee nominated.--Democratic National Convention.--
Chicago, August 29.--Military Situation discouraging.--Character
of the Convention.--Peace Party prevails.--Speeches of Belmont,
Bigler, Hunt, Long, Seymour.--Nomination of General McClellan for
President.--George H. Pendleton for Vice-President.--Platform.--
Suits Vallandigham.--General McClellan accepts, but evades the
Platform.--General Frémont withdraws.--Success of the Union Army.
--Mr. Lincoln's Popularity.--General McClellan steadily loses
Ground.--Sheridan's Brilliant Victories.--General McClellan receives
the Votes of only Three States.--Governor Seymour defeated in New
York.
CHAPTER XXV.
President's Message, December, 1864.--General Sherman's March.--
Compensated Emancipation abandoned.--Thirteenth Amendment.--Earnestly
recommended by the President.--He appeals to the Democratic Members.
--Mr. Ashley's Energetic Work.--Democratic Opportunity.--Unwisely
neglected.--Mr. Pendleton's Argument.--Final Vote.--Amendment
adopted.--Cases arising under it.--Supreme Court.--Change of Judges
at Different Periods.--Peace Conference at Fortress Monroe.--
Secretary Chase resigns.--Mr. Fessenden succeeds him.--Mr. Fessenden's
Report.--Surrender of Lee.--General Grant's Military Character.--
Assassination of President Lincoln.--His Characteristics.--Cost of
the War.--Compared with Wars of Other Nations.--Our Navy.--Created
during the War.--Effective Blockade.--Its Effect upon the South.--
Its Influence upon the Struggle.--Relative Numbers in Loyal and
Disloyal States.--Comparison of Union and Confederate Armies.--
Confederate Army at the Close of the War.--Union Armies compared
with Armies of Foreign Countries.--Area of the War.--Its Effect
upon the Cost.--Character of Edwin M. Stanton.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Relations with Great Britain.--Close of the Year 1860.--Prince of
Wales's Visit to the United States.--Exchange of Congratulatory
Notes.--Dawn of the Rebellion.--Lord Lyons' Dispatch.--Mr. Seward's
Views.--Lord John Russell's Threats.--Condition of Affairs at Mr.
Lincoln's Inauguration.--Unfriendly Manifestations by Great Britain.
--Recognizes Belligerency of Southern States.--Discourtesy to
American Minister.--England and France make Propositions to the
Confederate States.--Unfriendly in their Character to the United
States.--Full Details given.--Motives inquired into.--Trent Affair.
--Lord John Russell.--Lord Lyons.--Mr. Seward.--Mason and Slidell
released.--Doubtful Grounds assigned.--Greater Wrongs against us
by Great Britain.--Queen Victoria's Friendship.--Isolation of United
States.--Foreign Aid to Confederates on the Sea.--Details given.--
So-called Neutrality.--French Attempt to establish an Empire in
Mexico.--Lord Palmerston in 1848, in 1859, in 1861.--Conclusive
Observations.
ADDENDUM
ERRATUM
APPENDICES
LIST OF STEEL PORTRAITS.
THE AUTHOR
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
CHARLES SUMNER
STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS
WILLIAM PITT FESSENDEN
JOHN C. BRECKINRIDGE
HENRY WINTER DAVIS
THADDEUS STEVENS
BENJAMIN F. WADE
ELIHU B. WASHBURNE
ROBERT C. SCHENCK
WILLIAM D. KELLEY
SAMUEL SHELLABARGER
JUSTIN S. MORRILL
GEORGE S. BOUTWELL
REUBEN E. FENTON
OLIVER P. MORTON
ZACHARIAH CHANDLER
HENRY B. ANTHONY
THOMAS A. HENDRICKS
SIMON CAMERON
JAMES W. GRIMES
JOHN P. HALE
JOHN SHERMAN
WILLIAM WINDOM
JOHN B. HENDERSON
JOHN J. INGALLS
FREDERICK T. FRELINGHUYSEN
CARL SCHURZ
JOHN A. LOGAN
MAP SHOWING THE TERRITORIAL GROWTH OF THE UNITED STATES
TWENTY YEARS OF CONGRESS.
CHAPTER I.
Original Compromises between the North and the South embodied in
the Constitution.--Early Dissatisfaction with National Boundaries.
--Acquisition of Louisiana from France by President Jefferson.--
Bonaparte's Action and Motive in ceding Louisiana.--State of
Louisiana admitted to the Union against Opposition in the North.--
Agitation of the Slavery Question in Connection with the Admission
of Missouri to the Union.--The Two Missouri Compromises of 1820
and 1821.--Origin and Development of the Abolition Party.--Struggle
over the Right of Petition.
The compromises on the Slavery question, inserted in the Constitution,
were among the essential conditions upon which the Federal Government
was organized. If the African slave-trade had not been permitted
to continue for twenty years, if it had not been conceded that
three-fifths of the slaves should be counted in the apportionment
of representatives in Congress, if it had not been agreed that
fugitives from service should be returned to their owners, the
Thirteen States would not have been able in 1787 "to form a more
perfect union." These adjustments in the Constitution were effected
after the Congress of the old Confederation had dedicated the entire
North-west Territory to freedom. The ancient commonwealth of
Virginia had, for the good of all, generously and patriotically
surrendered her title to the great country north of the Ohio and
east of the Mississippi, which to-day constitutes five prosperous
and powerful States and a not inconsiderable portion of a sixth.
This was the first territory of which the General Government had
exclusive control, and the prompt prohibition of slavery therein
by the Ordinance of 1787 is an important and significant fact.
The anti-slavery restriction would doubtless have been applied to
the territory south of the Ohio had the power existed to impose
it. The founders of the government not only looked to the speedy
extinction of slavery, but they especially abhorred the idea of a
geographical line, with freedom decreed on one side, and slavery
established on the other. But the territory south of the Ohio
belonged to the Southern States of the Union,--Kentucky to Virginia;
Tennessee to North Carolina; Alabama and Mississippi to Georgia,
with certain co-extensive claims put forth by South Carolina. When
cessions of this Southern territory were made to the General
Government, the States owning it exacted in every case a stipulation
that slavery should not be prohibited. It thus came to pass that
the Ohio River was the dividing-line. North of it freedom was
forever decreed. South of it slavery was firmly established.
Within the limits of the Union as originally formed the slavery
question had therefore been compromised, the common territory
partitioned, and the Republic, half slave, half free, organized
and sent forth upon its mission.
The Thirteen States whose independence had been acknowledged by
George III., occupied with their outlying territories a vast area,
exceeding in the aggregate eight hundred thousand square miles.
Extended as was this domain, the early statesmen of the Union
discovered that its boundaries were unsatisfactory,--hostile to
our commercial interests in time of peace, and menacing our safety
in time of war. The Mississippi River was our western limit. On
its farther shore, from the Lake of the Woods to the Balize, we
met the flag of Spain. Our southern border was the 31st parallel
of latitude; and the Spanish Floridas, stretching across to the
Mississippi, lay between us and the Gulf of Mexico. We acquired
from Spain the right of deposit for exports and imports at New
Orleans, but the citizens of the Union who lived west of the
Alleganies were discontented and irritated to find a foreign power
practically controlling their trade by intercepting their access
to the sea. One of the great problems imposed upon the founders
of the Union was to remove the burdens and embarrassments which
obstructed the development of the Western States, and thus to render
their inhabitants as loyal by reason of material prosperity as they
already were in patriotic sympathy. The opportunity for relief
came from remote and foreign causes, without our own agency; but
the courageous statesmanship which discerned and grasped the
opportunity, deserved, as it has received, the commemoration of
three generations. The boundaries of the Union were vastly enlarged,
but the geographical change was not greater than the effect produced
upon the political and social condition of the people. The ambitions
developed by the acquisition of new territory led to serious
conflicts of opinion between North and South,--conflicts which
steadily grew in intensity until, by the convulsion of war, slavery
was finally extinguished.
TERRITORIAL CESSIONS IN AMERICA.
A great European struggle, which ended twelve years before our
Revolution began, had wrought important changes in the political
control of North America. The Seven Years' War, identical in time
with the French and Indian War in America, was closed in 1763 by
numerous treaties to which every great power in Europe was in some
sense a party. One of the most striking results of these treaties
on this side of the Atlantic was the cession of Florida to Great
Britain by Spain in exchange for the release of Cuba, which the
English and colonial forces under Lord Albemarle had wrested from
Spanish authority the preceding year. England held Florida for
twenty years, when among the disasters brought upon her by our
Revolution was its retrocession to Spain in 1783,--a result which
was accounted by our forefathers a great gain to the new Republic.
Still more striking were the losses of France. Fifty years before,
by the Treaty of Utrecht, France had surrendered to England the
island of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia (then including New Brunswick),
and the Hudson-bay Territory. She now gave up Canada and Cape
Breton, acknowledged the sovereignty of Great Britain in the original
thirteen Colonies as extending to the Mississippi, and, by a separate
treaty, surrendered Louisiana on the west side of the Mississippi,
with New Orleans on the east side, to Spain. Thus, in 1763, French
power disappeared from North American. The last square mile of
the most valuable colonial territory ever possessed by a European
sovereign was lost under the weak and effeminate rule of Louis XV.,
a reign not fitted for successful war, but distinguished only, as
one of its historians says, for "easy-mannered joyance, and the
brilliant charm of fashionable and philosophical society."
The country which France surrendered to Spain was of vast but
indefinite extent. Added to her other North-American colonies, it
gave to Spain control of more than half the continent. She continued
in possession of Louisiana until the year 1800, when, during some
European negotiations, Bonaparte concluded a treaty at San Ildefonso
with Charles IV., by which the entire territory was retroceded to
France. When the First Consul acquired Louisiana, he appeared to
look forward to a career of peace,--an impression greatly strengthened
by the conclusion of the treaty of Amiens the ensuing year. He
added to his prestige as a ruler when he regained from Spain the
American empire which the Bourbons had weakly surrendered thirty-
seven years before, and he expected a large and valuable addition
to the trade and resources of France from the vast colonial
possession. The formal transfer of so great a territory on a
distant continent was necessarily delayed; and, before the Captain-
general of France reached New Orleans in 1803, the Spanish authorities,
still in possession, had become so odious to the inhabitants of
the western section of the Union by their suspension of the right
of deposit at New Orleans, that there was constant danger of an
armed collision. Mr. Ross of Pennsylvania, an able and conservative
statesman, moved in the Senate of the United States that the
government be instructed to seize New Orleans. Gouverneur Morris,
a statesman of the Revolutionary period, then a senator from New
York, seconded Mr. Ross. So intense was the feeling among the
people that a large army of volunteers could have been easily raised
in the Mississippi valley to march against New Orleans; but the
prudence of Mr. Jefferson restrained every movement that might
involve us in a war with Spain, from which nothing was to be gained,
and by which every thing would be risked.
THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA.
Meanwhile Mr. Robert R. Livingston, our minister at Paris, was
pressing the French Government for concessions touching the free
navigation of the Mississippi and the right of deposit at New
Orleans, and was speaking to the First Consul, as a French historian
observes, in a tone which "arrested his attention, and aroused him
to a sense of the new power that was growing beyond the sea." Mr.
Livingston was re-enforced by Mr. Monroe, sent out by President
Jefferson as a special envoy in the spring of 1803, in order to
effect some adjustment of the irritating questions which were
seriously endangering the relations between France and the United
States. The instructions of Mr. Madison, then secretary of State,
to Mr. Monroe, show that the utmost he expected was to acquire from
France the city of New Orleans and the Floridas, of which he believed
France either then was, or was about to become, the actual owner.
Indeed, the treaty by which France had acquired Louisiana was but
imperfectly understood; and, in the slowness and difficulty of
communication, Mr. Madison could not accurately know the full extent
of the cession made at San Ildefonso. But Mr. Jefferson did not
wait to learn the exact provisions of that treaty. He knew
instinctively that they deeply concerned the United States. He
saw with clear vision that by the commercial disability upon the
western section of the Union its progress would be obstructed, its
already attained prosperity checked; and that possibly its population,
drawn first into discontent with the existing order of things,
might be seduced into new and dangerous alliances. He determined,
therefore, to acquire the control of the left bank of the Mississippi
to its mouth, and by the purchase of the Floridas to give to Georgia
and the Mississippi territory (now constituting the States of
Alabama and Mississippi) unobstructed access to the Gulf.
But events beyond the ocean were working more rapidly for the
interest of the United States than any influence which the government
itself could exert. Before Mr. Monroe reached France in the spring
of 1803, another war-cloud of portentous magnitude was hanging over
Europe. The treaty of Amiens had proved only a truce. Awkwardly
constructed, misconstrued and violated by both parties, it was
about to be formally broken. Neither of the plenipotentiaries who
signed the treaty was skilled in diplomacy. Joseph Bonaparte acted
for his brother; England was represented by Lord Cornwallis, who
twenty years before had surrendered the British army at Yorktown.
The wits of London described him afterwards as a general who could
neither conduct a war nor conclude a peace.
Fearing that, in the threatened conflict, England, by her superior
naval force, would deprive him of his newly acquired colonial
empire, and greatly enhance her own prestige by securing all the
American possessions which France had owned prior to 1763, Bonaparte,
by a dash in diplomacy as quick and as brilliant as his tactics on
the field of battle, placed Louisiana beyond the reach of British
power. After returning to St. Cloud from the religious services
of Easter Sunday, April 10, 1803, he called two of his most trusted
advisers, and, in a tone of vehemence and passion, said,--
"I know the full value of Louisiana, and have been desirous of
repairing the fault of the French negotiators who lost it in 1763.
A few lines of a treaty have restored it to me, and now I must
expect to lose it. . . . The English wish to take possession of
it, and it is thus they will begin the war. . . . They have already
twenty ships of the line in the Gulf of Mexico. . . . The conquest
of Louisiana would be easy. I have not a moment to lose in putting
it out of their reach. . . . The English have successively taken
from France the Canadas, Cape Breton, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia,
and the richest portions of Asia. But they shall not have the
Mississippi, which they covet."
The discussion went far into the night. The two ministers differed
widely in the advice which they gave the First Consul; one was in
favor of holding Louisiana at all hazards; the other urged its
prudent cession rather than its inevitable loss by war. They both
remained at St. Cloud for the night. At daybreak the minister who
had advised the cession was summoned by Bonaparte to read dispatches
from London, that moment received, which certainly foreshadowed
war, as the English were making military and naval preparations
with extraordinary rapidity. After reading the dispatches, the
First Consul said,
"Irresolution and deliberation are no longer in season. I renounce
Louisiana. It is not only New Orleans that I will cede, it is the
whole colony without any reservation. I know the value of what I
abandon. It renounce it with the gravest regret. To attempt
obstinately to retain it would be folly. I direct you to negotiate
this affair with the envoy of the United States. Do not even wait
the arrival of Mr. Monroe. Have an interview this very day with
Mr. Livingston. . . . But I require a great deal of money for this
war. I will be moderate. I want fifty millions for Louisiana."
The minister, who was opposed to the sale, interposed, in a subsequent
interview, some observations "upon what the Germans call the _souls_,
as to whether they could be the subject of a contract or sale."
Bonaparte replied with undisguised sarcasm,--
"You are giving me the ideology of the law of nature. But I require
money to make war on the richest nation in the world. Send your
maxims to London. I am sure they will be greatly admired there."
The First Consul afterwards added, "Perhaps it will be objected
that the Americans will be found too powerful for Europe in two or
three centuries; but my foresight does not embrace such remote
fears. Besides, we may hereafter expect rivalries among the members
of the Union. The confederations, which are called perpetual, only
last till one of the contracting parties finds it in his interest
to break them."
SUCCESS OF JEFFERSON'S DIPLOMACY.
Two days after this conversation Mr. Monroe opportunely arrived,
and on the 30th of April the treaty ceding Louisiana to the United
States was formally concluded. Mr. Monroe and Mr. Livingston had
no authority to negotiate for so vast an extent of territory; but
the former was fully possessed of President Jefferson's views, and
felt assured that his instructions would have been ample if the
condition of France had been foreseen when he sailed from America.
Communication with Washington was impossible. Under the most
favorable circumstances, an answer could not be expected in less
then three months. By that time British ships would probably hold
the mouths of the Mississippi, and the flag of St. George be waving
over New Orleans. Monroe and Livingston both realized that hesitation
would be fatal; and they boldly took the responsibility of purchasing
a territory of unknown but prodigious extent, and of pledging the
credit of the government for a sum which, rated by the ability to
pay, was larger than a similar pledge to-day for five hundred
millions of dollars.
The price agreed upon was eleven million two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars in six per cent United States bonds, the interest
of which was made payable in London, Amsterdam, and Paris, and the
principal at the treasury in Washington in sums of three millions
per annum, beginning fifteen years after the bonds were issued.
In a separate treaty made the same day, the United States agreed
to pay twenty million francs additional, to be applied by France
to the satisfaction of certain claims owed to American citizens.
Thus the total cost of Louisiana was eighty millions of francs,
or, in round numbers, fifteen millions of dollars.
No difficulty was experienced in putting the United States in
possession of the territory and of its chief emporium, New Orleans.
The French Government had regarded the possession of so much
consequence, that Bernadotte, afterwards King of Sweden, was at
one time gazetted as Captain-general; and, some obstacles supervening,
the eminent General Victor, afterwards Marshal of France and Duke
of Belluno, was named in his stead. But all these plans were
brushed aside by one stroke of Bonaparte's pen; and the United
States, in consequence of favoring circumstances growing out of
European complications, and the bold and competent statesmanship
of Jefferson, obtained a territory larger in area than that which
was wrested from the British crown by the Revolutionary war.
It seems scarcely credible that the acquisition of Louisiana by
Jefferson was denounced with a bitterness surpassing the partisan
rancor with which later generations have been familiar. No abuse
was too malignant, no epithet too coarse, no imprecation too savage,
to be employed by the assailants of the great philosophic statesman
who laid so broad and deep the foundations of his country's growth
and grandeur. President of a feeble republic, contending for a
prize which was held by the greatest military power of Europe, and
whose possession was coveted by the greatest naval power of the
world, Mr. Jefferson, through his chosen and trusted agents, so
conducted his important negotiation that the ambition of the United
States was successfully interposed between the necessities of the
one and the aggressive designs of the other. Willing to side with
either of these great powers, for the advantage of his own country,
not underrating the dangers of war, yet ready to engage in it for
the control of the great water-way to the Gulf, the President made
the largest conquest ever peacefully achieved, and at a cost so
small that the total sum expended for the entire territory does
not equal the revenue which has since been collected on its soil
in a single month in time of great public peril. The country thus
acquired forms to-day the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri,
Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota west of the Mississippi, Colorado
north of the Arkansas, besides the Indian Territory and the
Territories of Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Texas was also included
in the transfer, but the Oregon country was not. The Louisiana
purchase did not extend beyond the main range of the Rocky Mountains,
and our title to that large area which is included in the State of
Oregon and in the Territories of Washington and Idaho rests upon
a different foundation, or, rather, upon a series of claims, each
of which was strong under the law of nations. We claimed it first
by right of original discovery of the Columbia River by an American
navigator in 1792; second, by original exploration in 1805; third,
by original settlement in 1810, by the enterprising company of
which John Jacob Astor was the head; and, lastly and principally,
by the transfer of the Spanish title in 1819, many years after the
Louisiana purchase was accomplished. It is not, however, probable
that we should have been able to maintain our title to Oregon if
we had not secured the intervening country. It was certainly our
purchase of Louisiana that enabled us to secure the Spanish title
to the shores of the Pacific, and without that title we could hardly
have maintained our claim. As against England our title seemed to
us to be perfect, but as against Spain our case was not so strong.
The purchase of Louisiana may therefore be fairly said to have
carried with it and secured to us our possession of Oregon.
The acquisition of Louisiana brought incalculable wealth, power,
and prestige to the Union, and must always be regarded as the master-
stroke of policy which advanced the United States from a comparatively
feeble nation, lying between the Atlantic and the Mississippi, to
a continental power of assured strength and boundless promise.
The _coup d'état_ of the First Consul was an overwhelming surprise
and disappointment to the English Government. Bonaparte was right
in assuming that prompt action on his part was necessary to save
Louisiana from the hands of the English. Twelve days after the
treaty ceding Louisiana to the United States was signed, the British
ambassador at Paris, Lord Whitworth, demanded his passports. At
Dover he met the French ambassador to England, General Andreossy,
who had likewise demanded his passports. Lord Whitworth loaded
General Andreossy with tokens of esteem, and conducted him to the
ship which was to bear him back to France. According to an eminent
historian, "the two ambassadors parted in the presence of a great
concourse of people, agitated, uneasy, sorrowful. On the eve of
so important a determination, the warlike passion subsided; and
men were seized with a dread of the consequences of a desperate
conflict. At this solemn moment the two nations seemed to bid each
other adieu, not to meet again till after a tremendous war and the
convulsion of the world."
THE DESIGNS OF ENGLAND FOILED.
England's acquisition of Louisiana would have proved in the highest
degree embarrassing, if not disastrous, to the Union. At that time
the forts of Spain, transferred to France, and thence to the United
States, were on the east side of the Mississippi, hundreds of miles
from its mouth. If England had seized Louisiana, as Bonaparte
feared, the Floridas, cut off from the other colonies of Spain,
would certainly have fallen into her hands by easy and prompt
negotiation, as they did, a few years later, into the hands of the
United States. England would thus have had her colonies planted
on the three land-sides of the Union, while on the ocean-side her
formidable navy confronted the young republic. No colonial
acquisition ever made by her on any continent has been so profitable
to her commerce, and so strengthening her military position, as
that of Louisiana would have proved. This fact was clearly seen
by Bonaparte when he hastily made the treaty ceding it to the United
States. That England did not at once attempt to seize it, in
disregard of Bonaparte's cession, has been a source of surprise to
many historians. The obvious reason is that she dreaded the
complication of a war in America when she was about to assume so
heavy a burden in the impending European conflict. The inhabitants
of the Union in 1803 were six millions in number, of great energy
and confidence. A large proportion of them were accustomed to the
sea and could send swarms of privateers to prey on British commerce.
Independent citizens would be even more formidable than were the
rebellious colonists in the earlier struggle with the mother country,
and, acting in conjunction with France, could effectively maintain
a contest. Considerations of this nature doubtless induced the
Addington ministry to acquiesce quietly in a treaty whose origin
and whose assured results were in every way distasteful, and even
offensive, to the British Government.
The extent and boundaries of the territory thus ceded by France
were ill-defined, and, in fact, unknown. The French negotiator
who conferred with Monroe and Livingston, declared a large portion
of the country transferred to be no better known at the time "than
when Columbus landed at the Bahamas." There was no way by which
accurate metes and bounds could be described. This fact disturbed
the upright and conscientious Marbois, who thought that "treaties
of territorial cession should contain a guaranty from the grantor."
He was especially anxious, moreover, that no ambiguous clauses
should be introduced in the treaty. He communicated his troubles
on this point to the First Consul, advising him that it seemed
impossible to construct the treaty so as to free it from obscurity
on the important matter of boundaries. Far from exhibiting any
sympathy with his faithful minister's solicitude on this point,
Bonaparte quietly informed him that, "if an obscurity did not
already exist, it would perhaps be good policy to put one in the
treaty." In the possibilities of the First Consul's future, the
acquisition of Spanish America may have been expected, or at least
dreamed of, by him; and an ill-defined, uncertain boundary for
Louisiana might possibly, in a few years, be turned greatly to his
advantage.
EXPANSION OF OUR BOUNDARIES.
There was certainly obscurity enough in the transfer to satisfy
the fullest desire of Bonaparte. France ceded Louisiana to the
United States "with all its rights and appurtenances," as acquired
by the retrocession from Spain under the treaty of San Ildefonso,
Oct. 1, 1800; and by that treaty Spain had "transferred it to France
with the same extent it then had in the hands of Spain, and that
it had when France previously possessed it, and such as it should
be with the treaties subsequently entered into between Spain and
other States." This was simply giving to us what Spain had given
to France, and that was only what France had before given to Spain,
--complicated with such treaties as Spain might have made during
the thirty-seven years of her ownership. It was evident, therefore,
from the very hour of the acquisition, that we should have abundant
trouble with our only remaining neighbors in North America, Spain
and Great Britain, in adjusting the boundaries of the vast country
which we had so successfully acquired from France.
Fortunately for the United States, the patriotic and far-seeing
administration of Mr. Jefferson was as energetic in confirming as
it had been in acquiring our title to the invaluable domain. As
soon as the treaty was received the President called an extra
session of Congress, which assembled on the 17th of October, 1803.
Before the month had expired the treaty was confirmed, and the
President was authorized to take possession of the territory of
Louisiana, and to maintain therein the authority of the United
States. This was not a mere paper warrant for exhibiting a nominal
supremacy by floating our flag, but it gave to the President the
full power to employ the army and navy of the United States and
the militia of the several States to the number of eighty thousand.
It was a wise and energetic measure for the defense of our newly
acquired territory, which in the disturbed condition of Europe,
with all the Great Powers arming from Gibraltar to the Baltic,
might at any moment be invaded or imperiled. The conflict of arms
did not occur until nine years after; and it is a curious and not
unimportant fact, that the most notable defeat of the British troops
in the second war of Independence, as the struggle of 1812 has been
well named, occurred on the soil of the territory for whose protection
the original precaution had been taken by Jefferson.
With all these preparations for defense, Mr. Jefferson did not wait
to have our title to Louisiana questioned or limited. He set to
work at once to proclaim it throughout the length and breadth of
the territory which had been ceded, and to the treaty of cession
he gave the most liberal construction. According to the President,
Louisiana stretched as far to the northward as the Lake of the
Woods; towards the west as far as the Rio Grande in the lower part,
and, in the upper part, to the main chain of mountains dividing
the waters of the Pacific from the waters of the Atlantic. To
establish our sovereignty to the shores of the Pacific became a
matter of instant solicitude with the watchful and patriotic
President. In the previous session he had obtained from Congress
an appropriation of two millions of dollars "for the purpose of
defraying any extraordinary expenses which may be incurred in the
intercourse between the United States and foreign nations." In
the confidential message which so promptly secured the money, the
President suggested that the object to be accomplished was a better
understanding with the Indian tribes, and the fitting out of an
exploring and scientific expedition across the continent, though
our own domain at the time was terminated on the west by the
Mississippi. It was believed, that, between the lines of the
message, Congress could read that our negotiations with France and
Spain touching the free navigation of the Mississippi might soon
reach a crisis. Hence the prompt appropriation of a sum of money
which for the national treasury of that day was very large.
LEWIS AND CLARKE EXPEDITION.
The two men selected to conduct the expedition across the continent,
Meriwether Lewis and William Clarke, were especially fitted for
their arduous task. Both were officers in the army, holding the
rank of captain. Lewis had been private secretary to the President,
and Clarke was brother to the heroic George Rogers Clarke, whose
services were of peculiar value in the Revolutionary struggle.
Before they could complete the preparations for their long and
dangerous journey, the territory to be traversed had been transferred
to the United States, and the expedition at once assumed a significance
and importance little dreamed of when Jefferson first conceived
it. The original design had been a favorite one with Mr. Jefferson
for many years. When he resided at Paris as our minister, before
the Federal Government was organized, he encouraged a similar
expedition, to be fitted out in Kamtchatka, to sail to our western
coast, and thence to come eastward across the continent. This
design was to be executed by the somewhat noted John Ledyard, a
roving and adventurous man from Connecticut, who had accompanied
Captain Cook on his famous voyage to the Pacific, and whom Jefferson
afterwards met in Paris. The necessary authority was obtained from
the Russian Government; but, after Ledyard had reached the borders
of Kamtchatka, he was suddenly recalled, driven with speed day and
night in a closed carriage, on a return journey of several thousand
miles, and set down in Poland, penniless, and utterly broken in
health. This strange action was the offspring of jealousy on the
part of the Empress Catharine, who feared that the energy of the
young and vigorous government of the United States would absorb
the north-west coast of America, upon which the Russian Government
had already set its ambition.
The success of the Lewis and Clarke expedition aided greatly in
sustaining our title to the Oregon country. The joint leaders of
it became celebrated by their arduous achievement, and were rewarded
accordingly. Lewis was appointed governor of Louisiana territory
in 1807, and held the position until his death in 1809; while Clarke
was for a long period governor of the territory of Missouri, serving
in that capacity when the State was admitted to the Union. But
while the Lewis and Clarke expedition largely increased our knowledge
of the country, and added to the strength of our title, it did not
definitely settle any disputed question. With Spain we had constant
trouble in regard to the boundaries of Louisiana, both on the west
in the direction of Texas, and on the east along the confines of
Florida. She had always been dissatisfied with Bonaparte's transfer
of Louisiana to the United States. If that result could have been
foreseen, the treaty of San Ildefonso would never have been made.
The government of the United States believed that Louisiana, as
held by France, had bordered on the Rio Grande, and that, by the
treaty with Bonaparte, we were entitled to territory in the direction
of Florida as far as the Perdido. In the vexatious war with the
Seminoles, General Jackson did not hesitate to march across the
line, capture Pensacola, and seize the Barancas. The comments,
official and personal, which were made on that rash exploit, led
to controversies and estrangements which affected political parties
for many years after. Jackson's hostility to John Quincy Adams,
his exasperating quarrel with Clay, his implacable hatred for
Calhoun, all had their origin in events connected with the Florida
campaign of 1818.
To compose the boundary troubles with Spain, a treaty was negotiated
in 1819, which, with many gains, entailed some signal losses upon
the United States. The whole of Florida was ceded by Spain, an
acquisition which proved of great value to us in every point of
view. As Florida had become separated from the other Spanish
colonies by the cession of Louisiana, the government at Madrid
found difficulty in satisfactorily administering its affairs and
guarding its safety. South of the United States, to the Straits
of Magellan, the Spanish flag floated over every foot of the
continent except the Empire of Brazil and some small colonies in
Guiana. The cession of Louisiana to Bonaparte involved the loss
of Florida which was now formally transferred to the United States.
But Spain received more than an equivalent. The whole of Texas
was fairly included in the Louisiana purchase,--if the well-studied
opinion of such eminent statesmen as Clay, John Quincy Adams, Van
Buren, and Benton may be accepted,--and we paid dearly for Florida
by agreeing to retreat from the Rio Grande to the Sabine as our
south-western frontier, thus surrendering Texas to Mexico. The
western boundary of the Louisiana territory was defined as beginning
at the mouth of the Sabine (which is the boundary of the State of
Louisiana to-day), continuing along its western bank to the 32° of
north latitude, thence by a line due north to the Red River, thence
up the Red River to the 100th meridian west from Greenwich, or the
23d west from Washington, thence due north to the Arkansas, thence
following the Arkansas to its source in latitude 42°, and thence
by that parallel to the Pacific Ocean. Should the Arkansas fall
short of the 42°, a due north line to that parallel was to be taken.
The United States solemnly renounced all claim to territories west
or south of the line just mentioned, and Spain renounced all claim
to territory east or north of it. Thus all boundary disputes with
Spain were ended, and peace was secured, though at a great cost;
as events in after years so fully proved.
LOUISIANA ADMITTED AS A STATE.
Meanwhile territorial government had been established over a large
section of the country acquired from France; and it was rapidly
peopled by an enterprising emigration, almost wholly from the
Southern States. Louisiana sought to enter the Union in 1811, and
then for the first time occurred an agitation in Congress over the
admission of a slave State. Opposition to it was not, however,
grounded so much upon the existence of slavery as upon the alleged
violation of the Constitution in forming a State from territory
not included in the original government of the Union. Josiah Quincy
of Massachusetts made a violent speech against it, declaring that
if Louisiana were admitted, "the bonds of this Union are virtually
dissolved; that the States which compose it are free from their
moral obligations; and that, as it will be right of all, so it will
be the duty of some, to prepare definitely for a separation, amicably
if they can, violently if they must." Mr. Quincy was disquieted
at the mere thought of extending the Union beyond its original
limits. He had "heard with alarm that six States might grow up
beyond the Mississippi, and that the mouth of the Ohio might be
east of the centre of a contemplated empire." He declared that
"it was not for these men that our fathers fought, not for them
that the Constitution was adopted. Our fathers were not madmen:
they had not taken degrees at the hospital of idiocy." He maintained
with great vehemence that there was "no authority to throw the
rights and liberties of this people into 'hotchpot' with the wild
men of the Missouri, nor with the mixed, though more respectable,
race of Anglo-Hispano-Gallo-Americans who bask on the sands in the
mouth of the Mississippi." Mr. Quincy's sentiments were far more
radical than those held by the mass of Northern or New-England
people, yet there was undoubtedly a strong opposition to the
admission of Louisiana. Many Northern men had opposed the purchase
of the territory from France, believing it to be unconstitutional;
and they dreaded the introduction of senators and representatives
from territory which they considered foreign. Nevertheless the
bill admitting the State passed the House by a vote of two-thirds
of the members. The opposition was wholly from the North, and
largely from New England. The contest was confined to Congress--
the issue failing to excite popular interest. A majority of the
people, both North and South, were convinced that the ownership of
the mouth of the Mississippi was of inestimable value to the Union,
and that it could not be permanently secured except by admitting
as a State the territory which included and controlled it. This
conclusion was strengthened by the near approach of war with Great
Britain, soon after formally declared. The advantage of a loyal
and devoted population at New Orleans, identified in interest and
in sympathy with the government, was too evident to need argument.
If the weight of reason had not already been on the side of admitting
Louisiana, the necessities of war would have enforced it.
Six years after Louisiana entered the Union, Missouri applied for
admission as a slave State. A violent agitation at once arose,
continued for two years, and was finally allayed by the famous
compromise of 1820. The outbreak was so sudden, its course so
turbulent, and its subsidence so complete, that for many years it
was regarded as phenomenal in our politics, and its repetition in
the highest degree improbable if not impossible. The "Missouri
question," as it was popularly termed, formally appeared in Congress
in the month of December, 1818; though during the preceding session
petitions for a State government had been received from the
inhabitants of that territory. When the bill proposing to admit
the State came before the House, Mr. James Tallmadege, jun., of
New York, moved to amend it by providing that "the further introduction
of slavery be prohibited in said State of Missouri, and that all
children born in that State after its admission to the Union shall
be free at the age of twenty-five years." The discussion which
followed was able, excited, and even acrimonious. Mr. Clay took
an active part against the amendment, but his great influence was
unavailing in the face of the strong anti-slavery sentiment which
was so suddenly developed in the North. Both branches of Mr.
Tallmadge's amendment were adopted and the bill was passed. In
the Senate the anti-slavery amendment encountered a furious opposition
and was rejected by a large majority. The House refused to recede;
and, amid great excitement in the country and no little temper in
Congress, each branch voted to adhere to its position. Thus for
the time Missouri was kept out of the Union.
On the second day after the opening of the next Congress, December,
1819, Mr. John Holmes presented a memorial in the House of
Representatives from a convention which had been lately held in
the District of Maine, praying for the admission of said district
into the Union "as a separate and independent State, on an equal
footing with the original States." On the same day, and immediately
after Mr. Holmes had taken his seat, Mr. John Scott, territorial
delegate, brought before the House the memorial presented in the
previous Congress for the admission of Missouri on the same terms
of independence and equality with the old States as prayed for by
Maine. From that hour it was found impossible to consider the
admission of Maine and Missouri separately. Geographically remote,
differing in soil, climate, and products, incapable of competing
with each other in any pursuit, they were thrown into rivalry by
the influence of the one absorbing question of negro slavery.
Southern men were unwilling that Maine should be admitted unless
the enabling Act for Missouri should be passed at the same time,
and Northern men were unwilling that any enabling Act should be
passed for Missouri which did not contain an anti-slavery restriction.
Mr. Clay, then an accepted leader of Southern sentiment,--which in
his later life he ceased to be,--made an earnest, almost fiery,
speech on the question. He declared that before the Maine bill
should be finally acted on, he wanted to know "whether certain
doctrines of an alarming character, with respect to a restriction
on the admission of new States west of the Mississippi, were to be
sustained on this floor." He wanted to know "what conditions
Congress could annex to the admission of a new State; whether,
indeed, there could be a partition of its sovereignty."
THE FIRST MISSOURI COMPROMISE.
Despite the eloquence and the great influence of the Speaker, the
Southern representatives were overborne and the House adopted the
anti-slavery restriction. The Senate refused to concur, united
Maine and Missouri in one bill, and passed it with an entirely new
feature, which was proposed by Mr. Jesse B. Thomas, a senator from
Illinois. That feature was simply the provision, since so widely
known as the Missouri Compromise, which forever prohibited slavery
north of 36° 30´ in all the territory acquired from France by the
Louisiana purchase. The House would not consent to admit the two
States in the same bill, but finally agreed to the compromise; and
in the early part of March, 1820, Maine became a member of the
Union without condition. A separate bill was passed, permitting
Missouri to form a constitution preparatory to her admission,
subject to the compromise, which, indeed, formed one section of
the enabling Act. Missouri was thus granted permission to enter
the Union as a slave State. But she was discontented with the
prospect of having free States on three sides,--east, north, and
west.
Although the Missouri Compromise was thus nominally perfected, and
the agitation apparently ended, the most exciting, and in some
respects the most dangerous, phase of the question was yet to be
reached. After the enabling Act was passed, the Missouri Convention
assembled to frame a constitution for the new State. The inhabitants
of the Territory had become angered by the long delay imposed upon
them, caused, as they believed, by the introduction of a question
which concerned only themselves, and which Congress had no right
to control. In this resentful mood they were led by the extremists
of the convention to insert a provision in the constitution,
declaring that "it shall be the duty of the General Assembly, as
soon as may be, to pass such laws as may be necessary to prevent
free negroes or mulattoes from coming to or settling in this State
under any pretext whatever." As soon as the constitution with this
obnoxious clause was transmitted to Congress by the President, the
excitement broke forth with increased intensity and the lines of
the old controversy were at once re-formed.
The parliamentary struggle which ensued was bitter beyond precedent;
threats of dissolving the Union were frequent, and apprehension of
an impending calamity was felt throughout the country. The discussion
continued with unabated vigor and ardor until the middle of February,
and the Congress was to terminate on the ensuing fourth of March.
The House had twice refused to pass the bill admitting Missouri,
declaring that the objectionable clause in her organic law was not
only an insult to every State in which colored men were citizens,
but was in flat contradiction of that provision in the Federal
Constitution which declares that "the citizens of each State shall
be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in
the several States."
THE SECOND MISSOURI COMPROMISE.
The defeat, apparently final, of the admission of Missouri, created
intense indignation. Southern senators and representatives charged
that they were treated unjustly by the North, and dealt with unfairly
in Congress. In pursuance of the compromise of the year before,
Maine had been admitted and her senators were in their seats. The
organs of Southern opinion accused the North of overreaching the
South in securing, under the name of a compromise, the admission
of Maine, while still retaining the power to exclude Missouri. A
feeling that bad faith had been practiced is sure to create
bitterness, and the accusation of it produces increased bitterness
in return. The North could easily justify itself by argument, but
the statement without argument apparently showed that the South
had been deceived. The course pursued by the senators from Maine,
--John Holmes and John Chandler,--in voting steadily for the
admission of Missouri, tended greatly to check recrimination and
relieve asperity of feeling. Mr. Holmes was a man of ability, of
experience in public affairs, and of eminent distinction at home.
With a rare gift of humor, and with conversational talent almost
unrivaled, he exerted an influence over men in private and social
intercourse which gave him singular power in shaping public questions.
He was an intimate friend and political supporter of Mr. Clay, and
their cordial co-operation at this crisis evoked harmony from chaos,
and brought a happy solution to a question that was troubling every
patriotic heart. They united in a final effort, and through the
instrumentality of a joint committee of seven senators and twenty-
three representatives,--of which Mr. Holmes was chairman on the
part of the Senate, and Mr. Clay on the part of the House,--a second
and final compromise was effected, and the admission of Missouri
secured. This compromise declared that Missouri should be admitted
to the Union upon the fundamental condition that no law should ever
be passed by her Legislature enforcing the objectionable provision
in her constitution, and that by a solemn public act the State
should declare and record her assent to this condition, and transmit
to the President of the United States an authentic copy of the Act.
Missouri accepted the condition promptly but not cheerfully, feeling
that she entered the Union under a severe discipline, and with hard
and humiliating conditions. It was in this compromise, not in the
one of the preceding session, that Mr. Clay was the leading spirit.
Though the first was the more important, and dealt with larger
questions of a more enduring nature, it did not at the time create
so great an impression on the public mind as the second, nor did
its discussion produce so much antagonism between the North and
the South. Thirty years after these events Mr. Clay called attention
to the fact that he had received undeserved credit for the Missouri
Compromise of 1820, which he had supported but not originated. On
the other hand, he had received only the slightest mention for his
agency in the second compromise, which he had really originated
and carried through Congress. The second compromise had passed
out of general recollection before Mr. Clay's death, though it had
made him a Presidential candidate at forty-three years of age.
The most remarkable fact connected with the excitement over the
Missouri question, which engrossed the country for more than two
years, was the absence of any premonition of its coming. There
had been no severe political struggle in the nation since the
contest between Madison and De Witt Clinton in 1812. Monroe had
been chosen almost without opposition in 1816, and, even while the
Missouri controversy was at its height, he was re-elected in 1820
by a practically unanimous vote, the North and the South being
equally cordial in supporting him. In the House of Representatives,
where the battle was so fierce, and the combatants were so evenly
divided, Mr. Clay had been chosen speaker with only eight adverse
votes, and these were given by men who acted from personal prejudice,
and not from political difference. But the outbreak indicated,
and indeed heralded, the re-forming of old party lines. The apparent
unanimity only concealed a division that was already fatally
developed. The party of Jefferson by its very success involved
itself in ruin. Its ancient foe, the eminent and honorable party
of Federalists, made but a feeble struggle in 1816, and completely
disappeared from the national political field four years later,
and even from State contests after the notable defeat of Harrison
Gray Otis by William Eustis for governor of Massachusetts in 1823.
But no political organization can live without opposition. The
disappearance of the Federalists was the signal for factional
divisions among their opponents; and the old Republican party,
which had overthrown the administration of John Adams in 1800,
which had laid the embargo, and forced a war with England, was now
nearing its end. It divided into four parts in the Presidential
election of 1824, and with its ancient creed and organization never
re-appeared in a national contest. Jefferson had combined and
indeed largely created its elements. He beheld it everywhere
victorious for a quarter of a century, and he lived to see it
shattered into fragments by the jealousy of its new leaders. The
Democratic and Whig parties were constructed upon the ruins of the
old organizations. In each were to be found representatives of
the Republicanism of Jefferson and the Federalism of Hamilton.
The ambition of both to trace their lineage to the former was a
striking proof of its popular strength.
The Missouri question marked a distinct era in the political thought
of the country, and made a profound impression on the minds of
patriotic men. Suddenly, without warning, the North and the South,
the free States and the slave States, found themselves arrayed
against each other in violent and absorbing conflict. During the
interval between the adoption of the Federal Constitution and the
admission of Missouri, there had been a great change in the Southern
mind, both as to the moral and the economic aspects of slavery.
This revolution of opinion had been wrought in large degree by the
cotton-plant. When the National Government was organized in 1789,
the annual export of cotton did not exceed three hundred bales.
It was reckoned only among our experimental products. But, stimulated
by the invention of the gin, production increased so rapidly, that,
at the time of Missouri's application for admission to the Union,
cotton-planting was the most remunerative industry in the country.
The export alone exceeded three hundred thousand bales annually.
But this highly profitable culture was in regions so warm that
outdoor labor was unwelcome to the white race. The immediate
consequence was a large advance in the value of slave-labor, and
in the price of slaves. This fact had its quick and decisive
influence, even in those slave-holding States which could not raise
cotton. The inevitable and speedy result was a consolidation of
the political power necessary to protect an interest at once so
vast and so liable to assault.
It was not unnatural that this condition should lead to a violent
outburst on the slavery question, but it was nevertheless wholly
unexpected. The causes which let to it had not been understood
and analyzed. The older class of statesmen, who had come down from
the period of the Revolution, from the great work of cementing the
Union and framing the Constitution, deplored the agitation, and
viewed the results with the gravest apprehension. The compromise
by a geographical line, dividing the slave States from the free,
was regarded by this class of patriots as full of danger,--a constant
menace to the peace and perpetuity of the Union. To Mr. Jefferson,
still living in vigorous old age, the trouble sounded like an alarm-
bell rung at midnight. While the measure was pending in Congress,
he wrote to a member of the House of Representatives, that "the
Missouri question is the most portentous one which has ever threatened
the Union. In the gloomiest hour of the Revolutionary war I never
had any apprehensions equal to those which I feel from this source."
Men on both sides of the controversy began to realize its significance
and to dread its probable results. They likened the partition of
the country by a geographical line unto the ancient agreement
between Abraham and Lot, where one should go to the right, and the
other to the left, with the certainty of becoming aliens, and the
possibility of becoming enemies.
THE MISSOURI ADJUSTMENT SATISFACTORY.
With the settlement of the Missouri question, the anti-slavery
agitation subsided as rapidly as it had arisen. This was a second
surprise to thinking men. The results can, however, be readily
explained. The Northern States felt that they had absolutely
secured to freedom a large territory west and north of Missouri.
The Southern States believed that they had an implied and honorable
understanding,--outside and beyond the explicit letter of the law,
--that new States south of the Missouri line could be admitted with
slavery if they desired. The great political parties then dividing
the country accepted the result and for the next twenty years no
agitation of the slavery question appeared in any political
convention, or affected any considerable body of the people.
Within that period, however, there grew up a school of anti-slavery
men far more radical and progressive than those who had resisted
the admission of Missouri as a slave State. They formed what was
known as the Abolition party, and they devoted themselves to the
utter destruction of slavery by every instrumentality which they
could lawfully employ. Acutely trained in the political as well
as the ethical principles of the great controversy, they clearly
distinguished between the powers which Congress might and might
not exercise under the limitations of the Constitution. They began,
therefore, by demanding the abolition of slavery in the District
of Columbia, and in all the national forts, arsenals, and dock-
yards, where, without question or cavil, the exclusive jurisdiction
belonged to Congress; they asked that Congress, under its constitutional
authority to regulate commerce between the States, would prohibit
the inter-State slave-trade; and they prayed that our ships sailing
on the high-seas should not be permitted by the government to carry
slaves as part of their cargo, under the free flag of the United
States, and outside the local jurisdiction that held them in bondage.
They denied that a man should aid in executing any law whose
enforcement did violence to his conscience and trampled under foot
the Divine commands. Hence they would not assist in the surrender
and return of fugitive slaves, holding it rather to be their duty
to resist such violation of the natural rights of man by every
peaceful method, and justifying their resistance by the truths
embodied in the Declaration of Independence, and, still more
impressively, by the precepts taught in the New Testament.
While encountering, on these issues, the active hostility of the
great mass of the people in all sections of the Union, the
Abolitionists challenged the respect of thinking men, and even
compelled the admiration of some of their most pronounced opponents.
The party was small in number, but its membership was distinguished
for intellectual ability, for high character, for pure philanthropy,
for unquailing courage both moral and physical, and for a controversial
talent which has never been excelled in the history of moral reforms.
It would not be practicable to give the names of all who were
conspicuous in this great struggle, but the mention of James G.
Birney, of Benjamin Lundy, of Arthur Tappan, of the brothers Lovejoy,
of Gerrit Smith, of John G. Whittier, of William Lloyd Garrison,
of Wendell Phillips, and of Gamaliel Bailey, will indicate the
class who are entitled to be held in remembrance so long as the
possession of great mental and moral attributes gives enduring and
honorable fame. Nor would the list of bold and powerful agitators
be complete or just if confined to the white race. Among the
colored men--often denied the simplest rights of citizenship in
the States where they resided--were found many who had received
the gift of tongues, orators by nature, who bravely presented the
wrongs and upheld the rights of the oppressed. Among these Frederick
Douglass was especially and richly endowed not only with the strength
but with the graces of speech; and for many years, from the stump
and from the platform, he exerted a wide and beneficent influence
upon popular opinion.
THE ABOLITION PARTY ORGANIZED.
In the early days of this agitation, the Abolitionists were a
proscribed and persecuted class, denounced with unsparing severity
by both the great political parties, condemned by many of the
leading churches, libeled in the public press, and maltreated by
furious mobs. In no part of the country did they constitute more
than a handful of the population, but they worked against every
discouragement with a zeal and firmness which bespoke intensity of
moral conviction. They were in large degree recruited from the
society of Friends, who brought to the support of the organization
the same calm and consistent courage which had always distinguished
them in upholding before the world their peculiar tenets of religious
faith. Caring nothing for prejudice, meeting opprobrium with
silence, shaming the authors of violence by meek non-resistance,
relying on moral agencies alone, appealing simply to the reason
and the conscience of men, they arrested the attention of the nation
by arraigning it before the public opinion of the world, and
proclaiming its responsibility to the judgment of God.
These apostles of universal liberty besieged Congress with memorials
praying for such legislative measures as would carry out their
designs. Failure after failure only served to inspire them with
fresh courage and more vigorous determination. They were met with
the most resolute resistance by representative from the slave-
holding States, who sought to deny them a hearing, and declared
that the mere consideration of their propositions by Congress would
not only justify, but would inevitably precipitate, a dissolution
of the Union. Undaunted by any form of opposition, the Abolitionists
stubbornly maintained their ground, and finally succeeded in creating
a great popular excitement by insisting on the simple right of
petition as inseparable from free government and free citizenship.
On this issue John Quincy Adams, who had entered the House of
Representatives in 1831, two years after his retirement from the
Presidency, waged a memorable warfare. Not fully sympathizing with
the Abolitionists in their measures or their methods, Mr. Adams
maintained that they had the right to be heard. On this incidental
issue he forced the controversy until it enlisted the attention
of the entire country. He finally drove the opponents of free
discussion to seek shelter under the adoption of an odious rule in
the House of Representatives, popularly named the "Atherton gag,"
from Mr. Charles G. Atherton, a Democratic representative from New
Hampshire, who reported it to the House in December, 1838. The
rule was originally devised, however, in a caucus of Southern
Democratic members. In the light of the present day, when slavery
no longer exists in the land, when speech is absolutely free, in
and out of Congress, it is hard to believe that during the Presidency
of Mr. Van Buren, and under the speakership of Mr. Polk, the House
of Representatives voted that "every petition, memorial, resolution,
proposition, or paper, touching or relating in any way or to any
extent whatever to slavery or the abolition thereof, shall on
presentation, without any further action thereon, be laid upon the
table, without being debated, printed, or referred."
The Southern representatives, both Democrats and Whigs, and the
Northern Democrats, sustained this extraordinary resolution, which
became widely known as the 21st Rule of the House. The Northern
Whigs, to their honor be it said, were steadily against it. The
real design of the measure was to take from Mr. Adams the power of
precipitating a discussion on the slavery question, but the most
unskilled should have seen that in this it would fail. It resembled
in its character the re-actionary and tyrannical edicts so frequently
employed in absolute governments, and was unsuited to the temper,
ran counter to the judgment, and proved offensive to the conscience,
of the American people.
Profoundly opposed as were many citizens to a denial of the right
of petition, very few wished to become identified with the cause
of the Abolitionists. In truth it required no small degree of
moral courage to take position in the ranks of that despised
political sect forty-five years ago. Persecutions of a petty and
social character were almost sure to follow, and not infrequently
grievous wrongs were inflicted, for which, in the absence of a
disposition among the people to see justice done, the law afforded
no redress. Indeed, by an apparent contradiction not difficult to
reconcile, many of those who fought bravely for the right of the
Abolitionists to be heard in Congress by petition, were yet enraged
with them for continually and, as they thought, causelessly, raising
and pressing the issue. They were willing to fight for the right
of the Abolitionists to do a certain thing, and then willing to
fight the Abolitionists for aimlessly and uselessly doing it. The
men who were governed by these complex motives were chiefly Whigs.
They felt that an increase of popular strength to the Abolitionists
must be at the expense of the party which, continuing to make Clay
its idol, was about to make Harrison its candidate. The announcement,
therefore, on the eve of the national contest of 1840, that the
Abolitionists had nominated James G. Birney of Michigan for President,
and Francis J. Le Moyne of Pennsylvania for Vice-President, was
angrily received by the Whigs, and denunciations of the movement
were loud and frequent. The support received by these candidates
was unexpectedly small, and showed little ground, in the judgment
of the Whigs, for the course taken by the Abolitionists. Their
strength was almost wholly confined to New England, Western New
York, and the Western Reserve of Ohio. It was plainly seen, that,
in a large majority of the free States, the Abolitionists had as
yet made no impression on public opinion.
THE COLONIZATION SOCIETY.
Any less earnest body of men would have been discouraged, but the
Abolition party was composed of devotees possessing the true martyr
spirit, and, instead of being appalled by defeat, they were inspired
with fresh zeal, and incited to new effort. They had not failed
to observe, that, while few were disposed to unite in extreme anti-
slavery measures, there was a growing number whose conscience was
aroused on the general subject of human bondage. The emancipation
of negroes with a view to their settlement in Africa, as advocated
by the Colonization Society, received the support of conservative
opponents of slavery, the sympathy of the Churches, and the patronage
of leading men among the slave-holders of the Border States. The
National Government was repeatedly urged to give its aid to the
scheme; and, during the excitement on the Missouri question, Congress
appropriated $100,000, nominally for the return of Africans who
had been unlawfully landed in the United States after the slave
trade was prohibited, but really as an indirect mode of promoting
the project of colonization. As a scheme for the destruction of
domestic slavery it was ridiculed by the Abolitionists, who in the
end violently opposed it as tending to deaden the public conscience
to the more imperative duty of universal emancipation. The
philanthropic efforts of the Society were abundantly rewarded,
however, by the establishment of the Republic of Liberia, whose
career has been eminently creditable and advantageous to the African
race.
CHAPTER II.
Review of events before 1860 (_continued_).--Early Efforts to
acquire Texas.--Course of President Tyler.--Mr. Calhoun appointed
Secretary of State.--His Successful Management of the Texas Question.
--His Hostility to Mr. Van Buren.--Letters of Mr. Clay and Mr. Van
Buren opposing the Annexation of Texas.--Mr. Clay nominated as the
Whig Candidate for the President in 1844.--Van Buren's Nomination
defeated.--Mr. Polk selected as the Democratic Candidate.--Disquietude
of Mr. Clay.--His Change of Ground.--His Defeat.--Prolonged Rivalry
between Mr. Clay and General Jackson.--Texas formally annexed to
the Union.
Soon after the failure of the Abolitionists to exhibit popular
strength, the slavery question was forced upon public attention
independently of their efforts, and by causes whose operation and
effect were not distinctly forseen by those who set them in motion.
The Americans who, in a spirit of adventure, migrated to Texas
after that province had revolted from Mexico, became the controlling
power in the young republic, and under the lead of General Sam
Houston, in the month of April, 1836, won a memorable victory over
the Mexican army at San Jacinto. Thenceforward, in differing
degrees of earnestness, the annexation of Texas became a subject
of consideration in the United States, but it was never incorporated
in the creed of either of the great parties until the Presidential
canvass of 1844. Not long after the death of President Harrison
in April, 1841, his successor, John Tyler, had serious disagreements
with the leading Whigs, both in his cabinet and in Congress,
respecting the establishment of a national bank. Mr. Clay led the
attack upon him openly and almost savagely, arraigning him as a
traitor to the principles upon which he had been elected, and
pursuing the quarrel so violently, that in September, five months
after Tyler's accession, every member of his cabinet resigned except
Mr. Webster. He lingered, unwelcome if not distrusted, until July,
1843, for the purpose of conducting the negotiations in regard to
the North-eastern boundary, which he brought to a termination by
the Ashburton Treaty. The new secretary of State, Abel P. Upshur
of Virginia,--who had been at the head of the Navy Department for
a few months,--was a man of strong parts and brilliant attainments,
but not well known outside of his own commonwealth, and subject
therefore to disparagement as the successor of a man so illustrious
as Mr. Webster. He grasped his new duties, however, with the hand
of a master, and actively and avowedly pursued the policy of
acquiring Texas. His efforts were warmly seconded by the President,
whose friends believed with all confidence that this question could
be so presented as to make Mr. Tyler the Democratic candidate in
the approaching Presidential election. What Mr. Upshur's success
might have been in the difficult field of negotiation upon which
he had entered, must be left to conjecture, for his life was suddenly
destroyed by the terrible accident on board the United-States
steamer "Princeton," in February, 1844, but little more than seven
months after he had entered upon his important and engrossing
duties.
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT TYLER.
Mr. Tyler's administration being now fully committed to the scheme
of Texas annexation, the selection of a new secretary of State was
a matter of extreme importance. The President had been finally
separated from all sympathy with the party that elected him, when
Mr. Webster left the cabinet the preceding summer. But he had not
secured the confidence or the support of the Democracy. The members
of that party were willing to fill his offices throughout the
country, and to absorb the honors and emoluments of his administration;
but the leaders of positive influence, men of the grade of Van
Buren, Buchanan, Cass, Dallas, and Silas Wright, held aloof, and
left the government to be guided by Democrats who had less to risk,
and by Whigs of the type of Henry A. Wise of Virginia and Caleb
Cushing of Massachusetts, who had revolted from the rule of Mr.
Clay. It was the sagacity of Wise, rather than the judgment of
Tyler, which indicated the immense advantage of securing Mr. Calhoun
for the head of the cabinet. The great Southern leader was then
in retirement, having resigned from the Senate the preceding year.
By a coincidence worth nothing, Webster, Clay, and Calhoun were
all at that moment absent from the Senate, each having voluntarily
retired. In later life, chastened by political adversity, they
returned to the chamber where, before their advent and since their
departure, there have been no rivals to their fame.
Naturally, Mr. Calhoun would have been reluctant to take office
under Tyler at any time, and especially for the brief remainder of
an administration which had been continually under the ban of public
opinion, and which had not the slightest prospect of renewal. With
quick observation and keen insight, however, he perceived a great
opportunity to serve the South, and to serve the South was with
him not only a principle, but a passion. He realized, moreover,
that the hour was at hand for an historic revenge which the noblest
of minds might indulge. He saw intuitively that the Texas question
was one of vast importance, with untold possibilities. He saw with
equal clearness that it had never been presented in such manner as
to appeal to the popular judgment, and become an active, aggressive
issue in the struggle for the Presidency. A large section of the
Democratic party had looked favorably upon annexation ever since
1836, but the leaders had dared not to include the scheme in the
avowed designs of party policy. They had omitted it purposely in
making up the issues for the Van Buren campaign of 1840, and, up
to the hour when Mr. Calhoun entered the State Department, the
intention of the managers was to omit it in the contest of 1844
against Mr. Clay. Mr. Tyler's advocacy of Texas annexation had
injured rather than promoted it in the estimation of the Democratic
party; but when Mr. Calhoun, with his astute management, and his
large influence in the slave-holding States, espoused it, the whole
tenor of Southern opinion was changed, and the Democracy of that
section received a new inspiration.
Mr. Van Buren, aspiring again to the Presidency, desired to avoid
the Texas issue. Mr. Calhoun determined that he should meet it.
He had every motive for distrusting, opposing, even hating, Van
Buren. The contest between them had been long and unrelenting.
When Van Buren, as secretary of State, was seized with the ambition
to succeed Jackson, he saw Calhoun in the Vice-Presidency, strongly
intrenched as heir-apparent; and he set to work to destroy the
friendship and confidence that existed between him and the President.
The rash course of Jackson in the Seminole campaign of 1818 had
been severely criticised in the cabinet of Monroe, and Mr. Calhoun,
as secretary of War, had talked of a court of inquiry. Nothing,
however, was done and the mere suggestion had been ten years
forgotten, when Jackson entered upon the Presidency, entertaining
the strongest friendship, both personal and political, for Calhoun.
But the damaging fact was unearthed and the jealousy of Jackson
was aroused. Calhoun was driven into a deadly quarrel, resigned
the Vice-Presidency, and went back to South Carolina to engage in
the nullification contest. Van Buren quickly usurped his place in
the regard and confidence of Jackson, and succeeded to the Presidency.
Calhoun, denounced in every paper under the control of the
administration, was threatened with prosecution, and robbed for a
time of the confidence of the Democratic party. By the strangely
and rapidly changing fortunes of politics, it was now in his power
to inflict a just retribution upon Van Bren. He did not neglect
the opportunity.
SECRETARY CALHOUN'S DIPLOMACY.
Mr. Calhoun urged the scheme of annexation with intense earnestness.
Taking up the subject where Mr. Upshur had left it, he conducted
the negotiation with zeal and skill. His diplomatic correspondence
was able and exhaustive. It was practically a frank avowal that
Texas must be incorporated in the Union. He feared that European
influence might become dominant in the new republic, and, as a
consequence, that anti-slavery ideas might take root, and thence
injuriously affect the interests, and to some extent the safety,
of the Southern States. In an instruction to William R. King, our
minister at Paris, Mr. Calhoun called his attention to the fact
that England regarded the defeat of annexation "as indispensable
to the abolition of slavery in Texas." He believed that England
was "too sagacious not to see what a fatal blow abolition in Texas
would give to slavery in the United States." Then, contemplating
the effect of the general abolition of slavery, he declared that
"to this continent it would be calamitous beyond description." It
would "destroy in a great measure the cultivation and production
of the great tropical staples, amounting annually in value to nearly
$300,000,000." It is a suggestive commentary on Mr. Calhoun's evil
foreboding, that the great tropical staple of the South has steadily
increased in growth under free labor, and that the development of
Texas never fairly began until slavery was banished from her soil.
Discussing the right of Texas to independence, in an instruction
to Wilson Shannon, our minister to Mexico, Mr. Calhoun averred that
"Texas had never stood in relation to Mexico as a rebellious province
struggling to obtain independence. The true relation between them
is that of independent members of a federal government, the weaker
of which has successfully resisted the attempts of the stronger to
conquer and subject her to its power." This was applying to the
constitution of Mexico the same construction which he had so long
and so ably demanded for our own. It was, indeed, but a paraphrase
of the State-sovereignty and State-rights theory, with which he
had persistently indoctrinated the Southern mind. Ten years after
Mr. Calhoun was in his grave, the same doctrine, in almost the same
form of expression, became familiar to the country as the Southern
justification for resorting to civil war.
The prompt result of Mr. Calhoun's efforts was a treaty of annexation
which had been discussed but not concluded under Mr. Upshur. It
was communicated to the Senate by the President on the 12th of
April, 1844. The effect which this treaty produced on the political
fortunes of two leading statesmen, one in each party, was extraordinary.
Prior to its negotiation, the Democrats throughout the Union were
apparently well united in support of Mr. Van Buren as their
Presidential candidate. Mr. Clay was universally accepted by the
Whigs,--his nomination by a national convention being indeed but
a matter of form. Relations of personal courtesy and confidence,
if not of intimate friendship, had always subsisted between Mr.
Clay and Mr. Van Buren during their prolonged public service. It
was now believed that they had come to an understanding, through
the negotiation of friends, to eliminate the Texas question from
the campaign of 1844 by defeating the Tyler-Calhoun treaty, and
agreeing to a general postponement of the subject, on the ground
that immediate annexation would plunge the country into war. Very
soon after the treaty was sent to the Senate by the President, Mr.
Clay published in the "National Intelligencer" his famous Raleigh
letter against annexation. The "Globe" of the same day contained
a more guarded communication from Mr. Van Buren, practically taking
the same ground. Considering the widely different characteristics
of the two men, the letters were singularly alike in argument and
inference. This fact, in connection with the identical time of
publication, strengthened the suspicion, if not the conclusion,
that there was a pre-arranged understanding between the eminent
authors.
The letter of Mr. Van Buren was fatal to his prospects. He was
caught in the toils prepared by Mr. Calhoun's diplomacy. His
disastrous defeat four years before by General Harrison had not
injured him within the lines of his own party, or shorn him of his
prestige in the nation. He still retained the undiminished confidence
of his old adherents in the North, and a large support from the
Southern Democracy outside of the States in which Mr. Calhoun's
influence was dominant. But the leading Democrats of the South,
now inflamed with the fever of annexation, determined upon Van
Buren's defeat as soon as his letter opposing the acquisition of
Texas appeared. They went to work industriously and skillfully to
compass that end. It was not a light task. The force of New York,
as has been so frequently and so signally demonstrated, is difficult
to overcome in a Democratic National Convention; and New York was
not only unanimously, but enthusiastically, for Mr. Van Buren.
Hitherto New York and the South had been in alliance, and their
joint decrees were the rule of action inside the Democratic party.
They were now separated and hostile, and the trial of strength that
ensued was one of the most interesting political contests ever
witnessed in the country. The Democratic masses had so long followed
Southern lead that they were bewildered by this new and unexpected
development. From the organization of the Federal Government to
that hour, a period of fifty-six years, Mr. Van Buren was the only
Northern man whom the Democracy had supported for the Presidency;
and Mr. Van Buren had been forced upon the party by General Jackson.
His title to his political estate, therefore, came from the South.
It remained strong because his supporters believed that Jackson
was still behind him. One word from the great chief at the Hermitage
would have compelled Mr. Van Buren to retire from the field. But
the name of Jackson was powerful with the Democratic masses.
Against all the deep plots laid for Van Buren's overthrow, he was
still able, when the national convention assembled at Baltimore in
May, 1844, to count a majority of the delegates in favor of his
nomination.
VAN BUREN AND THE TWO-THIRDS RULE.
The Texas treaty of annexation was still pending in the Senate with
a decided majority committed against its confirmation, both upon
public and partisan grounds. The Whig senators and the friends of
Van Buren had coalesced for its defeat after their respective chiefs
had pronounced against it. Mr. Crittenden of Kentucky and Colonel
Benton were the leaders under whose joint efforts the work of
Calhoun was to be set at naught. But, in fact, the work of Calhoun
had already been effectually done and he could afford to disregard
the fate of the treaty. He had consolidated the Democratic delegates
from the slave-holding States against Mr. Van Buren, and the decree
had gone forth for his political destruction. Mr. Van Buren, with
the aid of the more populous North, had indeed secured a majority
of the convention, but an instrumentality was at hand to overcome
this apparent advantage. In the two preceding national conventions
of the Democratic party, the rule requiring a two-thirds vote of
all the delegates to make a nomination had been adopted at the
instance of Mr. Van Buren's friends in order to insure his victory.
It was now to be used for his defeat. Forseeing the result, the
same zealous and devoted friends of Mr. Van Buren resisted its
adoption. Romulus M. Sanders of North Carolina introduced the
rule, and was sustained with great vigor by Robert J. Walker of
Mississippi, and George W. Hopkins of Virginia. The leading
opponents of the rule were Marcus Morton of Massachusetts, Nathan
Clifford of Maine, and Daniel S. Dickinson of New York. The
discussion was conducted by Southern men on one side and by Northern
men on the other,--the first division of the kind in the Democratic
party. Slavery was the ominous cause! The South triumphed and
the rule was fastened upon the convention.
Immediately after this action Mr. Van Buren received a majority of
the votes on the first ballot, and it was not unnaturally charged
that many of those supporting him must have been insincere, inasmuch
as they had the full right, until self-restrained by the two-thirds
rule, to declare him the nominee. But this conclusion does not
necessarily follow. Mr. Van Buren had been nominated in the National
Democratic Conventions of 1835 and 1839 with the two-thirds rule
in operation; and now to force his nomination for a third time by
a mere slender majority was, in the judgment of wise and considerate
party leaders among his own friends, a dangerous experiment. They
instinctively feared to disregard a powerful and aggressive minority
stubbornly demanding that Mr. Van Buren should be subjected to the
same test which his friends had enforced in previous conventions.
Their argument was not satisfactorily answered, the rule was adopted,
and Mr. Van Buren's fate was sealed.
CALHOUN DEFEATS VAN BUREN.
The Southern men who insisted upon the rule had the courage to use
it. They had absolute control of more than one-third of the
convention; and, whatever might come, they were determined that
Mr. Van Buren should not be nominated. As the most effective mode
of assailing his strength, they supported a Northern candidate
against him, and gave a large vote for General Cass. This wrought
the intended result. It demoralized the friends of Mr. Van Buren
and prepared the way for a final concentration upon Mr. Polk, which
from the first had been the secret design of the Southern managers.
It was skillfully done, and was the direct result of the Texas
policy which Mr. Calhoun had forced the Democratic party to adopt.
To Mr. Van Buren it was a great blow, and some of his friends were
indisposed to submit to a result which they considered unfair.
For the first time in history of any convention, of either party,
a candidate supported by a majority of the delegates failed to be
nominated. The two-thirds rule, as Colonel Benton declared, had
been originally framed, "not to thwart a majority, but to strengthen
it." But it was remorselessly used to defeat the majority by men
who intended, not only to force a Southern policy on the government,
but to intrust that policy to the hands of a Southern President.
The support of Cass was not sincere, but it served for the moment
to embarrass the friends of Van Buren, to make the triumph of what
Benton called the Texas conspiracy more easy and more sure, and in
the end to lay up wrath against the day of wrath for General Cass
himself. Calhoun's triumph was complete. Politically he had gained
a great victory for the South. Personally he had inflicted upon
Mr. Van Buren a most humiliating defeat, literally destroying him
as a factor in the Democratic party, of which he had so long and
so successfully been the leader.
The details of Mr. Van Buren's defeat are presented because of its
large influence on the subsequent development of anti-slavery
strength in the North. He was sacrificed because he was opposed
to the immediate annexation of Texas. Had he taken ground in favor
of annexation, he would in all probability have been nominated with
a fair prospect of election; though the general judgment at that
time was that Mr. Clay would have defeated him. The overthrow of
Mr. Van Buren was a crisis in the history of the Democratic party,
and implanted dissensions which rapidly ripened into disaster.
The one leading feature, the forerunner of important political
changes, was the division of delegates on the geographical line of
North and South. Though receiving a clear majority of the entire
convention on the first ballot, Mr. Van Buren had but nine votes
from the slave States; and these votes, singularly enough, came
from the northern side of the line of the Missouri Compromise.
This division in a Democratic National Convention was, in many of
its relations and aspects, more significant than a similar division
in the two Houses of Congress.
Though cruelly wronged by the convention, as many of his supporters
thought, Mr. Van Buren did not himself show resentment, but
effectively sustained his successful competitor. His confidential
friend, Silas Wright, had refused to go on the ticket with Mr.
Polk, and George M. Dallas was substituted by the quick and competent
management of Mr. Robert J. Walker. The refusal of Mr. Wright led
the Whigs to hope for distraction in the ranks of the New-York
Democracy; but that delusion was soon dispelled by Wright's acceptance
of the nomination for governor, and his entrance into the canvass
with unusual energy and spirit. It was widely believed that
Jackson's great influence with Van Buren was actively exerted in
aid of Polk's election. It would have cruelly embittered the few
remaining days of the venerable ex-president to witness Clay's
triumph, and Van Buren owed so much to Jackson that he could not
be indifferent to Polk's success without showing ingratitude to
the great benefactor who had made him his successor in the Executive
chair. Motives of this kind evidently influenced Mr. Van Buren;
for his course in after years showed how keenly he felt his defeat,
and how unreconciled he was to the men chiefly engaged in compassing
it. The cooler temperament which he inherited from his Dutch
ancestry enabled him to bide his time more patiently than men of
Scotch-Irish blood, like Calhoun; but subsequent events plainly
showed that he was capable of nursing his anger, and of inflicting
a revenge as significant and as fatal as that of which he had been
made the victim,--a revenge which would have been perfect in its
gratification had it included Mr. Calhoun personally, as it did
politically, with General Cass.
Mr. Clay's letter opposing the annexation of Texas, unlike the
letter of Mr. Van Buren, brought its author strength and prestige
in the section upon which he chiefly relied for support in the
election. He was nominated with unbounded manifestations of
enthusiasm at Baltimore, on the first of May, with no platform
except a brief extract from one of his own letters embraced in a
single resolution, and containing no reference whatever to the
Texas question. His prospects were considered most brilliant, and
his supporters throughout the Union were absolutely confident of
his election. But the nomination of Mr. Polk, four weeks later,
surprised and disquieted Mr. Clay. More quickly than his ardent
and blinded advocates, he perceived the danger to himself which
the candidacy of Mr. Polk inevitably involved; and he at once became
restless and dissatisfied with the drift and tendency of the
campaign. The convention which nominated Mr. Polk took bold ground
for the immediate re-annexation of Texas and re-occupation of
Oregon. This peculiar form of expression was used to indicate that
Texas had already belonged to us under the Louisiana purchase, and
that Oregon had been wholly ours prior to the treaty of joint
occupancy with Great Britain. It further declared, that our title
to the whole of Oregon, up to 54° 40´ north latitude, was "clear
and indisputable"; thus carrying our claim to the borders of the
Russian possessions, and utterly denying and defying the pretension
of Great Britain to the ownership of any territory bordering on
the Pacific.
FATAL CHANGE IN MR. CLAY'S POSITION.
By this aggressive policy the Democratic party called forth the
enthusiasm of the people, both North and South, in favor of
territorial acquisition,--always popular with men of Anglo-Saxon
blood, and appealing in an especial manner to the young, the brave,
and the adventurous, in all sections of the country. Mr. Clay, a
man of most generous and daring nature, suddenly discovered that
he was on the timid side of all the prominent questions before the
people,--a position occupied by him for the first time. He had
led public sentiment in urging the war of 1812 against Great Britain;
had served with distinction in negotiating the Treaty of Peace at
Ghent; had forced the country into an early recognition of the
South-American republics at the risk of war with Spain; had fiercely
attacked the Florida Treaty of 1819, for surrendering our rightful
claim to Texas as part of the Louisiana purchase; and had, when
secretary of State, held high ground on the Oregon question in his
correspondence with the British Government. With this splendid
record of fearless policy throughout his long public career, a
defensive position, suddenly thrust upon him by circumstances which
he had not foreseen, betrayed him into anger, and thence naturally
into imprudence. All his expectations had been based upon a contest
with Mr. Van Buren. The issues he anticipated were those of national
bank, of protective tariff, of internal improvements, and the
distribution of the proceeds from the sale of the public lands,--
on all of which he believed he would have the advantage before the
people. The substitution of Mr. Polk changed the entire character
of the contest, as the sagacious leaders of the Southern Democracy
had foreseen. To extricate himself from the embarrassment into
which he was thrown, Mr. Clay resorted to the dangerous experiment
of modifying the position which he had so recently taken on the
Texas question. Apparently underrating the hostility of the Northern
Whigs to the scheme of annexation, he saw only the disadvantage in
which the Southern Whigs were placed, especially in the Gulf region,
and, in a less degree, in the northern tier of slave-holding States.
Even in Kentucky--which had for years followed Mr. Clay with immense
popular majorities--the contest grew animated and exciting as the
Texas question was pressed. The State was to vote in August; and
the gubernatorial canvass between Judge Owsley, the Whig candidate,
and General William O. Butler, the nominee of the Democrats, was
attracting the attention of the whole nation. This local contest
not only enlisted Mr. Clay's interest, but aroused his deep personal
feeling. In a private letter, since made public, he urged the
editors of the Whig press "to lash Butler" for some political
shortcoming which he pointed out. In a tone of unrestrained anger,
he declared that "we should have a pretty time of it with one of
Jackson's lieutenants at Washington, and another at Frankfort, and
the old man in his dotage at the Hermitage dictating to both." To
lose Kentucky was, for the Whigs, to lose every thing. To reduce
the Whig majority in Mr. Clay's own State would be a great victory
for the Democracy, and to that end the leaders of the party were
straining every nerve.
Mr. Clay realized that it was his position on the Texas question,
as defined in the Raleigh letter, which was endangering his prestige
in Kentucky. This fact, added to the pressure upon him from every
other slave-holding State, precipitated him into the blunder which
probably cost him his election. A few weeks after the nomination
of Mr. Polk, on the first day of July, 1844, Mr. Clay, while resting
quietly at Ashland, wrote to Stephen Miller of Tuscaloosa what has
since been known as his Alabama letter. It was written to relieve
the Southern Whigs, without anticipation of its effect upon the
fortunes of Northern Whigs. Mr. Clay was surrounded by men of the
South only, breathed their atmosphere, heard their arguments; and,
unmindful of the unrepresented Northern sentiment, he took the
fatal step. He declared, that, "far from having any personal
objection to the annexation of Texas," he "would be glad to see it
annexed, without dishonor, without war, with the common consent of
the Union, and upon just and fair terms." This letter received
the popular designation of Mr. Clay's political "death-warrant,"
from the disastrous effect it produced on his prospects in certain
free States where before its appearance he had been considered
irresistibly strong.
TRIUMPH OF POLK OVER CLAY.
The immediate and palpable effect of the Alabama letter in the
North was an increase of power and numbers to the Abolitionists.
To Mr. Clay this was its most destructive result. Prior to 1840
the Abolitionists had been so few and so scattered that they had
not attempted a national organization, or taken any part in the
political contests of the country. In that year, however, they
named James G. Birney as their candidate for the Presidency, and
cast for him only 6,745 votes out of a total of 2,410,778. In 1844
the Abolitionists again named Mr. Birney as their Presidential
candidate; and, until the appearance of the Alabama letter, the
general impression was that their vote would not be larger than in
1840. Indeed, so long as Mr. Clay held firmly to his opposition
to Texas annexation, the tendency of the Abolitionists was to prefer
him to Mr. Polk. But the moment the letter of surrender appeared
thousands of anti-slavery Whigs who had loyally supported Mr. Clay
went over at once to the Abolitionists. To the popular apprehension,
Mr. Clay had changed his ground, and his new position really left
little difference between himself and his opponent on the absorbing
question of Texas annexation, but it still gave to Mr. Polk all
the advantage of boldness. The latter was outspoken for the
annexation of Texas, and the former, with a few timid qualifications,
declared that he would be glad to see Texas annexed. Besides this,
Mr. Polk's position on the Oregon question afforded some compensation
by proposing to add a large area of free territory to offset the
increase of slave territory in Texas. Under such arguments the
Abolition party grew rapidly and steadily until, at the election,
they polled for Mr. Birney 58,879 votes. This vast increase over
the vote of 1840 was very largely at the expense of the Whig party,
and its specific injury to Mr. Clay is almost a matter of mathematical
demonstration. In New York the vote stood for Polk 237,588, for
Clay 232,482, for Birney, 15,812. The plurality for Mr. Polk was
only 5,106. In 1840 the vote for Mr. Birney in New York was
2,798.* But for the Alabama letter it has always been believed
that Mr. Clay would have received a sufficient number of the Birney
votes to give him a plurality. The election hinged on the result
in New York. One hundred and thirty-eight electoral votes were
necessary to a choice. With New York, Mr. Clay would have had a
total of one hundred and forty-one. Mr. Polk, with New York added
to his vote, received a total of one hundred and seventy, and was
elected President of the United States.
No contest for the Presidency, either before or since, has been
conducted with such intense energy and such deep feeling. Mr.
Clay's followers were not ordinary political supporters. They had
the profound personal attachment which is looked for only in
hereditary governments, where loyalty becomes a passion, and is
blind and unreasoning in its adherence and its devotion. The
logical complement of such ardent fidelity is an opposition marked
by unscrupulous rancor. This case proved no exception. The love
of Mr. Clay's friends was equaled by the hatred of his foes. The
zeal of his supporters did not surpass the zeal of his opponents.
All the enmities and exasperations which began in the memorable
contest for the Presidency when John Quincy Adams was chosen, and
had grown into great proportions during the long intervening period,
were fought out on the angry field of 1844. Mr. Polk, a moderate
and amiable man, did not represent the acrimonious character of
the controversy. He stood only as the passive representative of
its principles. Behind him was Jackson, aged and infirm in body,
but strong in mind, and unbroken in spirit. With him the struggle
was not only one of principle, but of pride; not merely of judgment,
but of temper; and he communicated to the legions throughout the
country, who regarded him with reverence and gratitude, a full
measure of his own animosity against Clay. In its progress the
struggle absorbed the thought, the action, the passion, of the
whole people. When its result was known, the Whigs regarded the
defeat of Mr. Clay, not only as a calamity of untold magnitude to
the country, but as a personal and profound grief, which touched
the heart as deeply as the understanding. It was Jackson's final
triumph over Clay. The iron-nerved old hero died in seven months
after this crowning gratification of his life.
GENERAL JACKSON AND MR. CLAY.
For twenty years these two great, brave men headed the opposing
political forces of the Union. Whoever might be candidates, they
were the actual leaders. John Quincy Adams was more learned than
either; Mr. Webster was stronger in logic and in speech; Calhoun
more acute, refined, and philosophic; Van Buren better skilled in
combining and directing political forces; but to no one of these
was given the sublime attribute of leadership, the faculty of
drawing men unto him. That is natural, not acquired. There was
not in the whole country, during the long period of their rivalry,
a single citizen of intelligence who was indifferent to Clay or to
Jackson. For the one without qualification, against the other
without reservation, was the rule of division from the northernmost
township of New England to the mouths of the Mississippi. Both
leaders had the highest courage; physical and moral, in equal
degree. Clay held the advantage of a rare eloquence; but Jackson
had a splendid military record, which spoke to the hearts of the
people more effectively than words. Members for twenty years of
the same party, they differed slightly, if at all, in political
principles when the contest began; but Jackson enjoyed the prestige
of a more lineal heirship to the creed of Jefferson, Madison, and
Monroe; while Clay, by his imprudence in becoming secretary of
State, incurred not only the odium of the "bargain and sale," but
a share of the general unpopularity which at that time attached to
the name of Adams. It is not in retrospect difficult to measure
the advantages which Jackson possessed in the long contest, and to
see clearly the reasons of his final triumph over the boldest of
leaders, the noblest of foes. Still less is it difficult to see
how largely the personality of the two men entered into the struggle,
and how in the end the effect upon the politics and prosperity of
the country would have been nearly the same had the winner and the
loser exchanged places. In each of them patriotism was a passion.
There never was a moment in their prolonged enmity and their
rancorous contests when a real danger to the country would not have
united them as heartily as in 1812, when Clay in the House and
Jackson on the field co-operated in defending the national honor
against the aggressions of Great Britain.
The election of Mr. Polk was an unquestionable verdict from the
people in favor of the annexation of Texas. Mr. Clay and Mr. Van
Buren had been able to defeat the treaty negotiated by Mr. Calhoun;
but the popular vote overruled them, and pronounced in favor of
the Democratic position after full and fair hearing. Mr. Tyler
was anxious that the scheme so energetically initiated by him should
be fully accomplished during his term. The short method of joint
resolution was therefore devised by the ever fertile brain of Mr.
Calhoun, and its passage through Congress intrusted to the skilful
management of Robert J. Walker, then a senator from Mississippi,
and already indicated for the portfolio of the Treasury in the new
administration. Mr. Polk was in consultation with Mr. Tyler during
the closing weeks of the latter's administration, and the annexation
by joint resolution had his full concurrence. It was passed in
season to receive the approval of President Tyler on the first day
of March, three days before the eventful administration of Mr. Polk
was installed in power. Its terms were promptly accepted by Texas,
and at the next session of Congress, beginning December, 1845, the
constitution of the new State was approved. Historic interest
attached to the appearance of Sam Houston and Thomas J. Rusk as
the first senators from the great State which they had torn from
Mexico and added to the Union.
The lapse of forty years and the important events of intervening
history give the opportunity for impartial judgment concerning the
policy of acquiring Texas. We were not guiltless towards Mexico
in originally permitting if not encouraging our citizens to join
in the revolt of one of the States of that Republic. But Texas
had passed definitely and finally beyond the control of Mexico,
and the practical issue was, whether we should incorporate her in
the Union or leave her to drift in uncertain currents--possibly to
form European alliances which we should afterwards be compelled,
in self-defense, to destroy. An astute statesman of that period
summed up the whole case when he declared that it was wiser policy
to annex Texas, and accept the issue of immediate war with Mexico,
than to leave Texas in nominal independence to involve us probably
in ultimate war with England. The entire history of subsequent
events has vindicated the wisdom, the courage, and the statesmanship
with which the Democratic party dealt with this question in 1844.
[* Total vote cast for James G. Birney, Abolition candidate for
President, in 1840 and in 1844:--
1840. 1844. 1840. 1844.
Connecticut . . . . 179 1,943 New York . . . . 2,798 15,812
Illinois . . . . . -- 149 Ohio . . . . . . 903 8,050
Indiana . . . . . . -- 2,106 Pennsylvania . . 343 3,138
Maine . . . . . . . 194 4,836 Rhode Island . . 42 107
Massachusetts . . . 1,621 10,860 Vermont . . . . 319 3,954
Michigan . . . . . 321 3,632
New Hampshire . . . 126 4,161 6,745 58,879
New Jersey . . . . 69 131 ]
CHAPTER III.
Review (_continued_).--Triumph of the Democratic Party.--Impending
Troubles with Mexico.--Position of Parties.--Struggle for the
Equality of Free and Slave States.--Character of the Southern
Leaders.--Their Efforts to control the Government.--Conservative
Course of Secretaries Buchanan and Marcy.--Reluctant to engage in
War with Mexico.--The Oregon Question, 54°, 40´, or 49°.--Critical
Relations with the British Government.--Treaty of 1846.--Character
of the Adjustment.--Our Probable Loss by Unwise Policy of the
Democratic Party.
The annexation of Texas being accomplished, the next step was looked
for with absorbing interest. In the spring of 1845 the Democratic
party stood victor. Its policy had been approved by the people,
its administration was in power. But success had brought heavy
responsibilities, and imposed upon the statesmanship of Mr. Polk
the severest of tasks. Texas came to us with undefined boundaries,
and with a state of war at that moment existing between herself
and Mexico. We had annexed a province that had indeed maintained
a revolt for years against the central government of a neighboring
republic; but its independence had never been conceded, the hope
of its subjugation had never been abandoned. When Congress passed
the joint resolution of annexation, the Mexican minister entered
a formal protest against the proceeding, demanded his passports,
and left the United States. By this course, Mexico placed herself
in an unfriendly, though not necessarily hostile, attitude. The
general apprehension however was that we should drift into war,
and the first message of Mr. Polk aroused the country to the
impending danger. He devoted a large space to the Texas question,
informing Congress that "Mexico had been marshaling and organizing
armies, issuing proclamations, and avowing the intention to make
war on the United States, either by open declaration, or by invading
Texas." He had therefore "deemed it proper, as a precautionary
measure, to order a strong squadron to the coast of Mexico, and to
concentrate an efficient military force on the western frontier of
Texas." Every one could see what this condition of affairs portended,
and there was at once great excitement throughout the country. In
the North, the belief of a large majority of the people was that
the administration intended to precipitate war, not merely to coerce
Mexico into the acknowledgment of the Rio Grande as the boundary
of Texas, but also to acquire further territory for the purpose of
creating additional slave States. As soon as this impression, or
suspicion, got abroad, the effect was an anti-slavery revival which
enlisted the feelings and influenced the political action of many
who had never sympathized with the Abolitionists, and of many who
had steadily opposed them.
These men came from both the old political parties, but the larger
number from the Whigs. Indeed, during almost the entire period of
the anti-slavery agitation by the Abolitionists, there had existed
a body of men in the Whig ranks who were profoundly impressed with
the evils of slavery, and who yet thought they could be more
influential in checking its progress by remaining in their old
party, and, in many sections of the country, maintaining their
control of it. Of these men, John Quincy Adams stood undeniably
at the head; and with him were associated, in and out of Congress,
Mr. Seward, Mr. Benjamin F. Wade, Mr. Fessenden, Mr. Giddings, Mr.
Thaddeus Stevens, besides a large number of able and resolute men
of less public distinction, but of equal earnestness, in all parts
of the North. Subsequent events have led men to forget that Millard
Fillmore, then a representative from New York, was one of Mr.
Adams's early co-laborers in the anti-slavery cause, and that in
the important debate on the admission of Arkansas, with a constitution
making slavery perpetual, Caleb Cushing of Massachusetts led the
radical free sentiment of New England. A large number of distinguished
Democrats in the North also entertained the strongest anti-slavery
convictions, and were determined, at the risk of separating from
their party associates, to resist the spread of slavery into free
territory. Among the most conspicuous of these were Salmon P.
Chase, John P. Hale, Hannibal Hamlin, Preston King, John M. Niles,
David Wilmot, David K. Cartter, and John Wentworth. They had many
co-laborers and a band of determined and courageous followers.
They were especially strong in the State of New York, and, under
the name of Barnburners, wrought changes which affected the political
history of the entire country.
The two great parties on the eve of the Mexican war were thus
somewhat similarly situated. In the South all the members of both
were, by the supposed necessity of their situation, upholders of
slavery, though the Democrats were on this question more aggressive,
more truculent, and more menacing, than the Whigs. The Southern
Whigs, under the lead of Mr. Clay, had been taught that slavery
was an evil, to be removed in some practicable way at some distant
period, but not to be interfered with, in the States where it
existed, by outside influence or force. The Democrats, under the
head of Mr. Calhoun, defended the institution of slavery as right
in itself, as scripturally authorized, as essential in the economy
of labor, and as a blessing to both races. In the North both
parties were divided on the question; each had its anti-slavery
wing and its pro-slavery wing, with many local names to distinguish
them. Between the two a relentless controversy began,--a controversy
marked as much by epithet as by argument, and conducted with such
exasperation of feeling as clearly foreshadowed a break of existing
party lines, and the formation of new associations, through which,
in the phrase of that day, "men who thought alike could act
together."
THE ACQUISITION OF TERRITORY.
This being the condition of the two great parties which divided
the country, it was evident that the acquisition of territory from
Mexico must lead to an agitation of the slavery question, of which
no man could measure the extent, or foresee the consequences. It
was the old Missouri struggle renewed, with more numerous combatants,
a stronger influence of the press, a mightier enginery of public
opinion. It arose as suddenly as the agitation of 1820, but gave
indications of deeper feeling and more prolonged controversy. The
able and ambitious men who had come into power at the South were
wielding the whole force of the national administration, and they
wielded it with commanding ability and unflinching energy. The
Free-soil sentiment which so largely pervaded the ranks of the
Northern Democracy had no representative in the cabinet, and a man
of pronounced anti-slavery views was as severely proscribed in
Washington as a Roundhead was in London after the coronation of
Charles II.
The policy of maintaining an equality of slave States with free
States was to be pursued, as it had already been from the foundation
of the government, with unceasing vigilance and untiring energy.
The balancing of forces between the new States added to the Union
had been so skillfully arranged, that for a long period two States
were admitted at nearly the same time,--one from the South, and
one from the North. Thus Kentucky and Vermont, Tennessee and Ohio,
Mississippi and Indiana, Alabama and Illinois, Missouri and Maine,
Arkansas and Michigan, Florida and Iowa, came into the Union in
pairs, not indeed at precisely the same moment in every case, but
always with reference each to the other in the order named. On
the admission of Florida and Iowa, Colonel Benton remarked that
"it seemed strange that two territories so different in age, so
distant from each other, so antagonistic in natural features and
political institutions, should ripen into States at the same time,
and come into the Union by a single Act; but these very antagonisms
--that is, the antagonistic provisions on the subject of slavery--
made the conjunction, and gave to the two young States an inseparable
admission." During the entire period from the formation of the
Federal Government to the inauguration of Mr. Polk, the only
variation from this twin birth of States--the one free, the other
slave--was in the case of Louisiana, which was admitted in 1812,
with no corresponding State from the North. Of the original Thirteen
States, seven had become free, and six maintained slavery. Of the
fifteen that were added to the Union, prior to the annexation of
Texas, eight were slave, and seven were free; so that, when Mr.
Polk took the oath of office, the Union consisted of twenty-eight
States, equally divided between slave-holding and free. So nice
an adjustment had certainly required constant watchfulness and the
closest calculation of political forces. It was in pursuit of this
adjustment that the admission of Louisiana was secured, as an
evident compensation for the loss which had accrued to the slave-
holding interest in the unequal though voluntary partition of the
Old Thirteen between North and South.
The more rapid growth of the free States in population made the
contest for the House of Representatives, or for a majority in the
Electoral college, utterly hopeless to the South; but the constitutional
equality of all the States in the Senate enabled the slave interest
to defeat any hostile legislation, and to defeat also any nominations
by the President of men who were offensive to the South by reason
of their anti-slavery character. The courts of the United States,
both supreme and district, throughout the Union, including the
clerks and the marshals who summoned the juries and served the
processes, were therefore filled with men acceptable to the South.
Cabinets were constituted in the same way. Representatives of the
government in foreign countries were necessarily taken from the
class approved by the same power. Mr. Webster, speaking in his
most conservative tone in the famous speech of March 7, 1850,
declared that, from the formation of the Union to that hour, the
South had monopolized three-fourths of the places of honor and
emolument under the Federal Government. It was an accepted fact
that the class interest of slavery, by holding a tie in the Senate,
could defeat any measure or any nomination to which its leaders
might be opposed; and thus, banded together by an absolutely cohesive
political force, they could and did dictate terms. A tie-vote
cannot carry measures, but it can always defeat them; and any
combination of votes that possesses the negative power will in the
end, if it can be firmly held, direct and control the positive
action of the body to which it belongs. A strong minority, so
disciplined that it cannot be divided, will, in the hands of
competent leaders, annoy, distract, and often defeat, the majority
of a parliamentary body. Much more can one absolute half of a
legislative assembly, compactly united, succeed in dividing and
controlling the other half, which has no class interest to consolidate
it, and no tyrannical public opinion behind it, decreeing political
death to any member who doubts or halts in his devotion to one
supreme idea.
THE POLITICAL LEADERS OF THE SOUTH.
With one-half of the Senate under the control of the slave-holding
States, and with the Constitution declaring that no amendment to
it should ever destroy the equality of the States in the Senate,
the Southern leaders occupied a commanding position. Those leaders
constituted a remarkable body of men. Having before them the
example of Jefferson, of Madison, and of George Mason in Virginia,
of Nathaniel Macon in North Carolina, and of the Pinckneys and
Rutledges in South Carolina, they gave deep study to the science
of government. They were admirably trained as debaters, and they
became highly skilled in the management of parliamentary bodies.
As a rule, they were liberally educated, many of them graduates of
Northern colleges, a still larger number taking their degrees at
Transylvania in Kentucky, at Chapel Hill in North Carolina, and at
Mr. Jefferson's peculiar but admirable institution in Virginia.
Their secluded life on the plantation gave them leisure for reading
and reflection. They took pride in their libraries, pursued the
law so far as it increased their equipment for a public career,
and devoted themselves to political affairs with an absorbing
ambition. Their domestic relations imparted manners that were
haughty and sometimes offensive; they were quick to take affront,
and they not infrequently brought needless personal disputation
into the discussion of public questions; but they were, almost
without exception, men of high integrity, and they were especially
and jealously careful of the public money. Too often ruinously
lavish in their personal expenditures, they believed in an economical
government, and, throughout the long period of their domination,
they guarded the Treasury with rigid and unceasing vigilance against
every attempt at extravagance, and against every form of corruption.
Looking into the future, the Southern men took alarm lest the
equality of their section should be lost in the Senate, and their
long control of the Federal Government ended. Even with Texas
added to the Union, this equality was barely maintained, for
Wisconsin was already seeking admission; and the clause in the
articles of annexation providing that four new States might be
carved out of the territory of Texas whenever she asked it, gave
no promise of speedy help to the South. Its operation would, in
any event, be distant, and subject to contingencies which could
not be accurately measured. There was not another foot of territory
south of 36° 30´, save that which was devoted to the Indians by
solemn compact, from which another slave State could be formed.
North of 36° 30´ the Missouri Compromise had dedicated the entire
country to freedom. In extent it was, to the Southern view,
alarmingly great, including at least a million square miles of
territory. Except along its river boundaries it was little known.
Its value was underrated, and a large portion of it was designated
on our maps as the Great American Desert. At the time Texas was
annexed, and for several years afterwards, not a single foot of
that vast area was organized under any form of civil government.
Had the Southern statesmen foreseen the immense wealth, population,
and value of this imperial domain in the five great States and four
Territories into which it is to-day divided, they would have
abandoned the struggle for equality. But the most that was hoped,
even in the North, within any near period, was one State north of
Iowa, one west of Missouri, and one from the Oregon country. The
remainder, in the popular judgment, was divided among mountain
gorges, the arid plains of the middle, and the uninviting region
in the north, which the French _voyaguers_ had classed under the
comprehensive and significant title of _mauvaises terres_. With
only three States anticipated from the great area of the north-west,
it was the evident expectation of the Southern men who then had
control of the government, that, if war with Mexico should ensue,
the result would inevitably be the acquisition of sufficient
territory to form slave States south of the line of the Missouri
Compromise as rapidly as free States could be formed north of it;
and that in this way the ancient equality between North and South
could be maintained.
OUR RELATIONS WITH MEXICO.
But the scheme of war did not develop as rapidly as was desired by
the hot advocates of territorial expansion. A show of negotiation
for peace was kept up by dispatching Mr. John Slidell as minister
to Mexico upon the hint that that government might be willing to
renew diplomatic relations. When Mr. Slidell reached the city of
Mexico he found a violent contest raging over the Presidency of
the republic, the principal issue being between the war and anti-
war parties. Mr. Slidell was not received. The Mexican Government
declared, with somewhat of reason and consistency, that they had
been willing to listen to a special envoy who would treat singly
and promptly of the grave questions between the two republics, but
they would not accept a minister plenipotentiary who would sit down
near their government in a leisurely manner, as if friendly relations
existed, and select his own time for negotiation,--urging or
postponing, threatening or temporizing, as the pressure of political
interests in the United States might suggest. Mr. Slidell returned
home; but still the conflict of arms, though so imminent, was not
immediately precipitated. Mr. Polk's cautious and somewhat timid
course represented the resultant between the aggressive Democrat
of the South who was for war regardless of consequences, and the
Free-soil Democrat of the North who was for peace regardless of
consequences; the one feeling sure that war would strengthen the
institution of slavery, the other confident that peace would favor
the growth of freedom. As not infrequently happens in the evolution
of human events, each was mistaken in the final issue. The war,
undertaken for the extension of slavery, led in the end to its
destruction.
The leading influence in Mr. Polk's cabinet was divided between
Mr. Buchanan, secretary of State, and Mr. Marcy, secretary of War.
Both were men of conservative minds, of acute judgment in political
affairs of long experience in public life; and each was ambitious
for the succession to the Presidency. Neither could afford to
disregard the dominant opinion of the Southern Democracy; still
less could either countenance a reckless policy, which might
seriously embarrass our foreign affairs, and precipitate a dangerous
crisis in our relations with England. These eminent statesmen
quickly perceived that the long-standing issue touching our north-
western boundary, commonly known as the Oregon question, was
surrounded with embarrassments which, by mismanagement, might
rapidly develop into perils of great magnitude in connection with
the impending war with Mexico.
The Oregon question, which now became associated, if not complicated,
with the Texas question, originated many years before. By our
treaty with Spain in 1819, the southern boundary of our possessions
on the Pacific had been accurately defined. Our northern boundary
was still unadjusted, and had been matter of dispute with Great
Britain ever since we acquired the country. By the treaty of Oct.
20, 1818, the 49th parallel of north latitude was established as
the boundary between the United States and British America, from
the Lake of the Woods to the Stony Mountains, as the Rocky Mountains
were then termed. In the same treaty it was agreed that any country
claimed by either the United States or Great Britain westward of
the Stony Mountains should, with its harbors, bays, and rivers, be
open for the term of ten years to the vessels, citizens, and subjects
of either power. This agreement was entered into solely for the
purpose of preventing disputes pending final settlement, and was
not to be construed to the prejudice of either party. This was
the beginning of the joint occupancy of the Oregon country, England
having with prompt and characteristic enterprise forced her way
across the continent after she had acquired Canada in 1763.
Stimulated by certain alleged discoveries of her navigators on the
north-west coast, Great Britain urged and maintained her title to
a frontage on the Pacific, and made a bold claim to sovereignty,
as far south as the mouth of the Columbia River, nearly, indeed,
to the northern border of California.
OUR CLAIM TO THE OREGON COUNTRY.
Nothing had been done towards an adjustment during the ten years
of joint occupancy, and when the term was about to expire, the
arrangement was renewed by special convention in 1827, for an
indefinite period,--each power reserving the right to terminate
the convention by giving twelve-months' notice to the other. The
President, John Quincy Adams, made the briefest possible reference
to the subject in his message to Congress, December, 1827; speaking
of it as a temporary compromise of the respective rights and claims
of Great Britain and the United States to territory westward of
the Rocky Mountains. For many years thereafter, the subject, though
languidly pursued in our diplomatic correspondence, was not alluded
to in a President's message, or discussed in Congress. The
contracting parties rested content with the power to join issue
and try titles at any time by simply giving the required notice.
The subject was also overshadowed by more urgent disputes between
Great Britain and the United States, especially that relating to
the North-eastern boundary, and that touching the suppression of
the African slave-trade. The latter involved the old question of
the right of search. The two governments came to an agreement on
these differences in 1842 by the negotiation of the convention
known as the Ashburton Treaty. In transmitting the treaty to
Congress, President Tyler made, for the first time since the
agreement for a joint occupancy was renewed in 1827, a specific
reference to the Oregon question. He informed Congress, that the
territory of the United States commonly called the Oregon country
was beginning to attract the attention of our fellow-citizens, and
that "the tide of our population, having reclaimed from the wilderness
the more contiguous regions, was preparing to flow over those vast
districts which stretch from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific
Ocean;" that Great Britain "laid claim to a portion of the country
and that the question could not be well included in the recent
treaty without postponing other more pressing matters." He
significantly added, that though the difficulty might not for
several years involve the peace of the two countries, yet he should
urge upon Great Britain the importance of its early settlement.
As this paragraph was undoubtedly suggested and probably written
by Mr. Webster, it attracted wide attention on both sides of the
Atlantic; and from that moment, in varying degrees of interest and
urgency, the Oregon question became an active political issue.
Before the next annual meeting of Congress, Mr. Upshur had succeeded
Mr. Webster in the State department; and the message of the President
took still more advanced ground respecting Oregon. For political
reasons, there was an obvious desire to keep the action of the
government on this issue well abreast of its aggressive movements
in the matter of acquiring Texas. Emboldened by Mr. Webster's
position of the preceding year, Mr. Upshur, with younger blood,
and with more reason for a demonstrative course, was evidently
disposed to force the discussion of the question with the British
Government. Under his influence and advice, President Tyler
declared, in his message of December, 1843, that "after the most
rigid, and, as far as practicable, unbiased, examination of the
subject, the United States have always contended that their rights
appertain to the entire region of country lying on the Pacific,
and embraced between latitude 42° and 54° 40´." Mr. Edward Everett,
at that time our minister in London, was instructed to present
these views to the British Government.
Before the President could send another annual message to Congress,
Mr. Calhoun had been for several months at the head of the State
Department, engaged in promoting, with singular skill and ability,
his scheme for the annexation of Texas. With his quick perception,
he discerned that if the policy apparently indicated by Mr. Webster
and aggressively pursued by Mr. Upshur, on the Oregon question,
should be followed, and that issue sharply pressed upon Great
Britain, complications of a most embarrassing nature might arise,
involving in their sweep the plans, already well matured, for
acquiring Texas. In order to avert all danger of that kind, Mr.
Calhoun opened a negotiation with the British minister in Washington,
conducting it himself, for the settlement of the Oregon question;
and at the very moment when the Democratic National Convention
which nominated Mr. Polk was declaring our title to the whole of
Oregon as far as 54° 40´ to be "clear and unquestionable," the
Democratic secretary of State was proposing to Her Majesty's
representative to settle the entire controversy by the adoption of
the 49th parallel as the boundary!
The negotiation was very nearly completed, and was suspended only
by some dispute in regard to the right of navigating the Columbia
River. It is not improbable that Mr. Calhoun, after disclosing to
the British Government his willingness to accept the 49th parallel
as our northern boundary, was anxious to have the negotiation
temporarily postponed. If the treaty had been concluded at that
time, it would have seriously interfered with the success of Mr.
Polk's candidacy by destroying the prestige of the "Fifty-four
forties," as Colonel Benton termed them. In Mr. Polk's election,
Mr. Calhoun was deeply and indeed doubly interested; first, because
of his earnest desire to defeat Mr. Clay, with whom he was at swords'
points on all public issues; and again, because, having assumed
the responsibility of defeating the nomination of Mr. Van Buren,
he was naturally desirous that his judgment should be vindicated
by the election of the candidate whom his Southern friends had put
forward. Urgently solicitous for the annexation of Texas, those
friends were indifferent to the fate of the Oregon question, though
willing that it should be made a leading issue in the North, where
it was presented with popular effect. The patriotic spirit of the
country was appealed to, and to a considerable extent aroused and
inflamed by the ardent and energetic declaration of our title to
the whole of Oregon. "Fifty-four forty or fight" became a Democratic
watchword; and the Whigs who attempted to argue against the
extravagance or inexpediency of the claim continually lost ground,
and were branded as cowards who were awed into silence by the fear
of British power. All the prejudice against the British Government
which had descended from the Revolution and from the war of 1812
was successfully evoked by the Democratic party, and they gained
immeasurably by keeping an issue before the people which many of
their leaders knew would be abandoned when the pressure of actual
negotiation should be felt by our government.
PRESIDENT POLK ON THE OREGON QUESTION.
Mr. Polk, however, in his Inaugural address, carefully re-examined
the position respecting Oregon which his party had taken in the
national canvass, and quoted part of the phrase used in the platform
put forth by the convention which nominated him. The issue had
been made so broadly, that it must be squarely met, and finally
adjusted. The Democrats in their eagerness had left no road for
honorable retreat, and had cut themselves off from the resources
and convenient postponements of diplomacy. Dangerous as it was to
the new administration to confront the issue, it would have been
still more dangerous to attempt to avoid it. The decisive step,
in the policy to which the administration was committed, was to
give formal notice to Great Britain that the joint occupancy of
the Oregon country under the treaty of 1827 must cease. A certain
degree of moral strength was unexpectedly imparted to the Democratic
position by the fact that the venerable John Quincy Adams was
decidedly in favor of the notice, and ably supported, in a unique
and powerful speech in the House of Representatives, our title to
the country up to 54° 40´. The first convention for joint occupancy
had been negotiated while Mr. Adams was secretary of State, and
the second while he was President; so that, in addition to the
weight of authority with which he always spoke, his words seemed
entitled to special confidence on a question with which he was
necessarily so familiar. His great influence brought many Whigs
to the support of the resolution; and on the 9th of February, 1846,
the House, by the large vote of 163 to 54, declared in favor of
giving the treaty notice to Great Britain.
The country at once became alarmed by the growing rumors that the
resolution of the House was a direct challenge to Great Britain
for a trial of strength as to the superior title to the Oregon
country, and it was soon apparent that the Senate would proceed
with more circumspection and conservatism. Events were rapidly
tending toward hostilities with Mexico, and the aggrandizement of
territory likely to result from a war with that country was not
viewed with a friendly eye, either by Great Britain or France.
Indeed, the annexation of Texas, which had been accomplished the
preceding year, was known to be distasteful to those governments.
They desired that Texas might remain an independent republic, under
more liberal trade relations than could be secured from the United
States with its steady policy of fostering and advancing its own
manufacturing interests. The directors of the administration saw
therefore more and more clearly that, if a war with Mexico were
impeding, it would be sheer madness to open a quarrel with Great
Britain, and force her into an alliance against us. Mr. Adams and
those who voted with him did not believe that the notice to the
British Government would provoke a war, but that firmness on our
part, in the negotiation which should ensue, would induce England
to yield her pretensions to any part of Oregon; to which Mr. Adams
maintained, with elaboration of argument and demonstration, she
had no shadow of right.
Mr. Adams was opposed to war with Mexico, and therefore did not
draw his conclusions from the premises laid down by those who were
charged with the policy of the administration. They naturally
argued that a war with Great Britain might end in our losing the
whole of Oregon, without acquiring any territory on our south-
western border. The bare possibility of such a result would defeat
the policy which they were seeking to uphold, and would at the same
time destroy their party. In short, it became apparent that what
might be termed the Texas policy of the administration, and what
might be termed the Oregon policy, could not both be carried out.
It required no prophet to foresee which would be maintained and
which would be abandoned. "Fifty-four forty or fight" had been a
good cry for the political campaign; but, when the fight was to be
with Great Britain, the issue became too serious to be settled by
such international law as is dispensed on the stump.
COMPROMISE ON THE OREGON QUESTION.
A very bitter controversy over the question began in the Senate as
soon as the House resolution was received. But from the outset it
was apparent that those who adhered to the 54° 40´ policy, on which
Mr. Polk had been elected, were in a small minority. That minority
was led by General Cass; but its most brilliant advocate in debate
was Edward A. Hannegan, Democratic senator from Indiana, who angrily
reproached his party for playing false to the pledges on which it
had won a victory over the greatest political leader of the country.
He measured the situation accurately, read with discrimination the
motives which underlay the change of policy on the part of the
administration and its Southern supporters, and stated the whole
case in a quick and curt reply to an interruption from a pro-slavery
senator,--"If Oregon were good for the production of sugar and
cotton, it would not have encountered this opposition. Its possession
would have been at once secured." The change in the Democratic
position was greatly aided by the attitude of the Whig senators,
who almost unanimously opposed the resolution of notice to Great
Britain, as passed by the House. Mr. Webster, for the first if
not the only time in his senatorial career, read a carefully prepared
speech, in which he did not argue the question of rightful boundary,
but urged that a settlement on the line of the 49th parallel would
be honorable to both countries, would avert hostile feeling, and
restore amity and harmony. Mr. Berrien of Georgia made an exhaustive
speech, inquiring into the rightfulness of title, and urged the
line of 49°. Mr. Crittenden followed in the same vein, and in a
reply to Senator William Allen of Ohio, chairman of Foreign Affairs,
made a speech abounding in sarcasm and ridicule. The Whigs having
in the campaign taken no part in the boastful demand for 54° 40´,
were not subjected to the humiliation of retracing imprudent steps
and retracting unwise declarations.
Under the influences at work in the Senate, events developed rapidly.
The House resolution of notice was defeated; and the Senate passed
a substitute of a less aggressive type, in which the House, through
the instrumentality of a conference committee, substantially
concurred. The resolution as finally adopted authorized the
President "at his discretion" to give notice for the termination
of the treaty to Great Britain. The preamble further softened the
action of Congress by declaring that the notice was given in order
that "the attention of the governments of both countries may be
the more earnestly directed to the adoption of all proper measures
for a speedy and amicable adjustment of the differences and disputes
in regard to said territory."
The Southern Democrats in the House receded from their action, and
the modified resolution was carried by nearly as large a vote as
had been the previous one for decided and peremptory notice. In
short, the great mass of the Southern Democrats in both Houses
precipitately threw the Oregon issue aside. They had not failed
to perceive that the hesitation of the administration in forcing
an issue with Mexico was due to the apprehension of trouble with
Great Britain, and they made haste to promote schemes of territorial
acquisition in the South-West by withdrawing the pretensions so
imprudently put forth in regard to our claims in the North-West.
Only forty-six votes were given in the House against what was termed
a disgraceful surrender. These were almost entirely from Northern
Democrats, though a few Southern Democrats refused to recede.
Among those who thus remained firm were Andrew Johnson, Stephen A.
Douglas, Howell Cobb, Preston King, and Allen G. Thurman.
The passage of the modified and friendly resolution of notice
dispelled all danger of trouble with Great Britain, and restored
a sense of security in the United States. Immediately after its
adoption, Mr. Buchanan, Secretary of State, under direction of the
President, concluded a treaty with the British minister on the
basis discussed by Mr. Calhoun two years before. The 49th parallel
was agreed upon as the boundary between the two countries, with
certain concessions for a defined period, touching the rights of
the Hudson-bay Company, and the navigation of the Columbia River
by the British. This treaty was promptly confirmed by the Senate,
and the long controversy over the Oregon question was at rest. It
had created a deep and wide-spread excitement in the country, and
came very near precipitating hostilities with Great Britain. There
is no doubt whatever that the English Government would have gone
to war rather than surrender the territory north of the 49th
parallel. This fact had made the winter and early spring of 1846
one of profound anxiety to all the people of the United States,
and more especially to those who were interested in the large
mercantile marine which then sailed under the American flag.
UNWISE AGITATION OF THE QUESTION.
In simple truth, the country was not prepared to go to war with
Great Britain in support of "our clear and unquestionable title"
to the whole of Oregon. With her strong naval force on the Pacific,
and her military force in Australasia, Great Britain could more
readily and more easily take possession of the country in dispute
than could the United States. We had no way of reaching Oregon
except by doubling Cape Horn, and making a dangerous sea-voyage of
many thousand miles. We could communicate across the continent
only by the emigrant trail over rugged mountains and almost trackless
plains. Our railway system was in its infancy in 1846. New-York
City did not have a continuous road to Buffalo. Philadelphia was
not connected with Pittsburg. Baltimore's projected line to the
Ohio had only reached Cumberland, among the eastern foot-hills of
the Alleghanies. The entire Union had but five thousand miles of
railway. There was scarcely a spot on the globe, outside of the
United Kingdom, where we could not have fought England with greater
advantage than on the north-west coast of America at that time.
The war-cry of the Presidential campaign of 1844 was, therefore,
in any event, absurd; and it proved to be mischievous. It is not
improbable, that, if the Oregon question had been allowed to rest
for the time under the provisions of the treaty of 1827, the whole
country would ultimately have fallen into our hands, and the American
flag might to-day be waving over British Columbia. The course of
events and the lapse of time were working steadily to our advantage.
In 1826 Great Britain declined to accept the 49th parallel, but
demanded the Columbia River as the boundary. Twenty years afterwards
she accepted the line previously rejected. American settlers had
forced her back. With the sweep of our emigration and civilization
to the Pacific coast two years after the treaty of 1846, when gold
was discovered in California, the tendency would have been still
more strongly in our favor. Time, as Mr. Calhoun said, "would have
effected every thing for us" if we could only have been patient
and peaceful.
Taking the question, however, as it stood in 1846, the settlement
must, upon full consideration and review, be adjudged honorable to
both countries. Wise statesmen of that day felt, as wise statesmen
of subsequent years have more and more realized, that a war between
Great Britain and the United States would not only be a terrible
calamity to both nations, but that it would stay the progress of
civilization throughout the world. Future generations would hold
the governing power in both countries guilty of a crime if war
should ever be permitted except upon the failure of every other
arbitrament. The harmless laugh of one political party at the
expense of the other forty years ago, the somewhat awkward receding
from pretensions which could not be maintained by the Executive of
the nation, have passed into oblivion. But a striking and useful
lesson would be lost if it should be forgotten that the country
was brought to the verge of war by the proclamation of a policy
which could not be, and was not intended to be, enforced. It was
originated as a cry to catch votes; and except with the ignorant,
and the few whose judgment was carried away by enthusiasm, it was
from the first thoroughly insincere. If the punishment could have
fallen only upon those who raised the cry, perfect justice would
have been done. But the entire country suffered, and probably
endured a serious and permanent loss, from the false step taken by
men who claimed what they could not defend and did not mean to
defend.
The Secretary of State, Mr. Buchanan, gained much credit for his
conduct of the Oregon question, both diplomatically and politically.
His correspondence with Mr. Pakenham, the British minister at
Washington, was conspicuously able. It strengthened Mr. Buchanan
at home, and gave him an enviable reputation in Europe. His
political management of the question was especially adroit. His
party was in sore trouble over the issue, and naturally looked to
him for relief and escape. To extricate the Administration from
the embarrassment caused by its ill-timed and boastful pretensions
to the line of 54° 40´ was a difficult and delicate task. To
accomplish it, Mr. Buchanan had recourse to the original and long
disused habit of asking the Senate's advice in advance of negotiating
the treaty, instead of taking the ordinary but at that time perilous
responsibility of first negotiating the treaty, and then submitting
it to the Senate for approval. As a leading Northern Democrat,
with an established reputation and a promising future, Mr. Buchanan
was instinctively reluctant to take the lead in surrendering the
position which his party had so defiantly maintained during the
canvass for the Presidency in 1844, and which he had, as Secretary
of State, re-affirmed in a diplomatic paper of marked ability.
When the necessity came to retreat, Mr. Buchanan was anxious that
the duty of publicly lowering the colors should not be left to him.
His device, therefore, shifted the burden from his own shoulders,
and placed it on the broader ones of the Senate.
Political management could not have been more clever. It saved
Mr. Buchanan in large degree from the opprobrium visited on so many
leading Democrats for their precipitate retreat on the Oregon
question, and commended him at the same time to a class of Democrats
who had never before been his supporters. General Cass, in order
to save himself as a senator from the responsibility of surrendering
our claim to 54° 40´, assumed a very warlike attitude, erroneously
supposing that popularity might be gained by the advocacy of a
rupture with England. Mr. Buchanan was wiser. He held the middle
course. He had ably sustained our claim to the whole of Oregon,
and now, in the interest of peace, gracefully yielded to a compromise
which the Senate, after mature deliberation, had advised. His
course saved the administration, not indeed from a mortifying
position, but from a continually increasing embarrassment which
seemed to force upon the country the cruel alternatives of war or
dishonor.
THE PRESIDENT AND MR. BUCHANAN.
Mr. Polk was, from some cause, incapable of judging Mr. Buchanan
generously. He seems to have regarded his Secretary of State as
always willing to save himself at the expense of others. He did
not fail to perceive that Mr. Buchanan had come out of the Oregon
trouble with more credit, at least with less loss, than any other
man prominently identified with its agitation and settlement. This
was not pleasing to the President. He had evidently not concealed
his distrust from the outset, and had cumbered his offer of a
cabinet position with conditions which seemed derogatory to the
dignity of Mr. Buchanan,--conditions which a man of spirit might
well have resented. He informed Mr. Buchanan that, as he should
"take no part himself between gentlemen of the Democratic party
who might become aspirants to the Presidency," he desired that "no
member of the cabinet should do so." He indeed expressed himself
to Mr. Buchanan in a manner so peremptory as to be offensive:
"Should any member of my cabinet become a candidate for the Presidency
or Vice-Presidency of the United States, it will be expected on
the happening of such an event that he will retire from the cabinet."
Remembering that Madison, Monroe and John Quincy Adams had each
been nominated for the Presidency while holding the position of
Secretary of State in the cabinet of his predecessor, Mr. Polk was
attaching a new and degrading condition to the incumbency of that
office.
Mr. Polk did not stop with one exaction. Addressing Mr. Buchanan
as if he were about to become a department clerk, he informed him
that he disapproved "the practice which has sometimes prevailed of
cabinet officers absenting themselves for long periods from the
seat of government," and practically demanded a pledge that Mr.
Buchanan would remain at his post, and be punctual in the discharge
of his official duties. In reading Mr. Polk's letter, the inference
seems natural that he felt under some pressing obligation to tender
to Mr. Buchanan the appointment of secretary of State, but desired
to accompany it with conditions which would subordinate him in the
general conduct of the administration. With a spirit of docility,
if not humility, altogether incomprehensible, Mr. Buchanan "accepted
the position cheerfully and cordially _on the terms on which the
offer was made._"
It is not surprising that, after agreeing to enter Mr. Polk's
cabinet on these conditions, Mr. Buchanan had abundant reason to
complain afterwards that the President did not treat him with
"delicacy and confidence." On several occasions he was on the
point of resigning his position. He was especially aggrieved that
the President refused to nominate him to the Supreme Bench in 1846
as the successor of Henry Baldwin. In view of Mr. Buchanan's
career, both before and after that time, it seems strange that he
should have desired the position. It seems stranger still that
Mr. Polk, after refusing to appoint him, should have nominated
George W. Woodward, a Pennsylvania Democrat, who was unacceptable
to Mr. Buchanan. Mr. Polk, however, appreciated the temperament
of Mr. Buchanan, and apparently knew how much he would endure
without resentment. While his presence in the cabinet was evidently
not a source of pleasure to the President, he realized that it
brought character, strength, and power to the administration. Mr.
Buchanan was an older man than Mr. Polk, was superior to him
intellectually, had seen a longer and more varied public service,
and enjoyed a higher personal standing throughout the country.
The timidity of Mr. Buchanan's nature made him the servant of the
administration when, with boldness, he might have been its master.
Had he chosen to tender his resignation in resentment of his
treatment by Mr. Polk, the administration would have been seriously
embarrassed. There was, at the time, no Northern Democrat of the
same rank to succeed him, except General Cass, and he was ineligible
by reason of his uncompromising attitude on the Oregon question.
Mr. Polk could not call a Southern man to the State Department so
long as Robert J. Walker was at the head of the Treasury. He could
not promote Mr. Marcy from the War Department without increasing
the discontent already dangerously developed in the ranks of the
New-York Democracy. Mr. Buchanan, therefore, held absolute control
of the situation had he chosen to assert himself. This he failed
to do, and continued to lend his aid to an administration whose
policy was destroying him in his own State, and whose patronage
was persistently used to promote the fortunes of his rivals and
his enemies.
Mr. Polk was by singular fortune placed at the head of one of the
most vigorous and important administrations in the history of the
government. He had not been trained in the higher duties of
statesmanship, and was not personally equal to the weighty
responsibilities which devolved upon him. He was overshadowed by
the ability of at least three members of his cabinet, and was keenly
sensible of their superiority. He had, however, a certain aptitude
for affairs, was industrious, and in personal character above
reproach. Mr. Webster described him with accuracy when he spoke
of him as "respectable but never eminent."
EARLY CAREER OF JAMES K. POLK.
When first elected to the House of Representatives in 1824, Mr.
Polk was but twenty-nine years of age. He was re-elected continuously
for fourteen years. He was one of the most pronounced adherents
of Jackson, and joined in the extreme and unreasonable opposition
to the administration of John Quincy Adams. The period of his
service in the House was distinguished by partisanship of a more
bigoted and vindictive type than prevailed at any other time in
the history of that body. He was Speaker during the last Congress
of Jackson's Presidency and during the first under the administration
of Van Buren. When the Whig members forced an inquiry in to the
conduct of Samuel Swartwout, the defaulting collector of customs
for the port of New York,--a case which figured prominently in the
exciting Presidential canvass of 1840,--they would not trust Mr.
Polk with the duty of naming the committee of investigation. The
House itself exercised the power of appointment, to the great
disparagement of the Speaker.
When Mr. Polk closed his service in the Chair, at the end of the
Twenty-fifth Congress, no Whig member could be found who was willing
to move the customary resolution of thanks,--an act of courtesy
which derives its chief grace by coming from a political opponent.
When the resolution was presented by a Democratic Representative
from the South, it was opposed in debate by prominent Whig members.
Henry A. Wise, who five years later supported Mr. Polk for the
Presidency, desired to have the resolution peremptorily ruled out
on a point of order. Sergeant S. Prentiss, the incomparably
brilliant member from Mississippi, attacked it most violently.
His impassioned invective did not stop short of personal indignity
and insult to Mr. Polk. He denied with emphatic iteration that
the Speaker had been "impartial." On the contrary he had been "the
tool of the Executive, the tool of his party." He analyzed Mr.
Polk's course in the appointment of committees, and with much detail
labored to prove his narrowness, his unfairness, his injustice as
a presiding officer. For one, he said, he was "not wiling to give
to Mr. Polk a certificate of good behaviour, to aid him in his
canvass for the governorship of Tennessee, for which he is known
to be a candidate." He believed "this vote of thanks was to be
used as so much capital, on which to do political business," and
he declared with much vehemence that he "was not disposed to furnish
it."
The opprobrious language of Prentiss did not wound Mr. Polk so
seriously as did the vote of the House on the resolution of thanks.
The Whigs, as a party, resisted its adoption. The Democrats could
not even bring the House to a vote upon the resolution without the
use of the _previous question_, and this, as a witty observer
remarked, was about as humiliating as to be compelled to call the
_previous question_ on resolutions of respect for a deceased member.
When the demand was made for "the main question to be put," the
Whigs, apparently eager to force the issue to the bitter end, called
for the _ayes_ and _noes_. John Quincy Adams, who headed the roll,
led off in the negative, and was sustained by such able and
conservative members as John Bell from Mr. Polk's own State, McKennan
of Pennsylvania, Evans of Maine, Corwin of Ohio, Menifee from the
Ashland district in Kentucky, and William Cost Johnson of Maryland.
The vote stood 92 to 75. Mr. Polk had been chosen Speaker by a
majority of thirteen. The Whigs had thus practically consolidated
their party against a vote of courtesy to the presiding officer of
the House.
Mr. Polk's situation was in the highest degree embarrassing, but
he behaved with admirable coolness and self-possession. He returned
his thanks to the "majority of the House," which had adopted the
resolution, significantly emphasizing the word "majority." He said
he regarded the vote just given "as of infinitely more value than
the common, matter-of-course, customary resolution which, in the
courtesy usually prevailing in parliamentary bodies, is passed at
the close of their deliberations." His reference "to the courtesy
usually prevailing in parliamentary bodies" was made, as an eye-
witness relates, with "telling accent, and with a manner that was
very disconcerting to the Whigs." His address was scrupulously
confined to "the majority of the House," and to the end Mr. Polk
exhibited, as was said at the time, "a magnificent contempt for
the insulting discourtesy of the Whigs."
EARLY CAREER OF JAMES K. POLK.
The incident was made very prominent in the ensuing canvass in
Tennessee, where Mr. Polk won a signal victory, and was installed
as governor. The Democrats treated the action of the House as a
deliberate insult, not merely to the Speaker, but to his State,
and not only to his State, but to the venerable ex-president, whose
residence at the Hermitage, in the judgment of his devoted followers,
made Tennessee illustrious and almost sacred ground. Jackson
himself was roused to intense indignation, and, though beyond
threescore and ten, was active and unceasing in his efforts to
insure a victory to Mr. Polk. The contest, though local in its
essential character, attracted observation and interest far beyond
the borders of the State.
The political importance of Mr. Polk was enhanced by the proscriptive
course of his opponents in the House of Representatives. The
refusal to join in the resolution of thanks operated in a manner
quite contrary to the expectations of the Whigs, and was indeed
effectively turned against them. The generous instincts of the
people condemned an attempt to destroy the honorable fame of a
public man by what they considered to be an act of spiteful
persecution. It was the opinion of John Bell, who of all men had
the best opportunity for impartial judgment in the premises, that
the vote of himself and his fellow Whigs on the resolution was an
indirect but potential cause of Mr. Polk's nomination and election
to the Presidency. It gave him prominence as a friend of Jackson,
and made him available as a candidate against Van Buren for the
Democratic nomination. The opponents of the latter instinctively
knew that it would be dangerous to defeat him with any one who did
not stand well with Van Buren's powerful patron. The events of
1839 and 1844 in the life of Mr. Polk have therefore an interesting
relation to each other.
CHAPTER IV.
Review (_continued_).--Relations with Mexico.--General Taylor
marches his Army to the Rio Grande.--First Encounter with the
Mexican Army.--Excitement in the United States.--Congress declares
War against Mexico.--Ill Temper of the Whigs.--Defeat of the
Democrats in the Congressional Elections of 1846.--Policy of Mr.
Polk in Regard to Acquisition of Territory from Mexico.--Three-
Million Bill.--The Famous Anti-slavery Proviso moved by David
Wilmot.--John Quincy Adams.--His Public Service.--Robert C. Winthrop
chosen Speaker.--Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.--Presidential Election
of 1848.--Effort of the Administration to make a Democratic Hero
out of the Mexican War.--Thomas H. Benton for Lieutenant-General.
--Bill defeated.--Nomination of General Taylor for the Presidency
by the Whigs.--Nomination of General Cass by the Democratic Party.
--Van Buren refuses to support him.--Democratic Bolt in New York.
--Buffalo Convention and the Organization of the Free-soil Party.
--Nomination of Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams.--Mr. Clay's
Discontent.--Mr. Webster's Speech at Marshfield.--General Taylor
elected.--The Barnburners of New York.--Character and Public Services
of Mr. Van Buren.
By a suggestive coincidence, the practical abandonment of the line
of 54° 40´ by the administration was contemporaneous with the
outbreak of the Mexican war. The modified resolution of notice to
Great Britain was finally passed in both branches of Congress on
the 23d of April, and on the succeeding day the first blood was
shed in that contest between the two Republics which was destined
to work such important results in the future and fortunes of both.
The army of occupation in Texas, commanded by General Zachary
Taylor, had, during the preceding winter, been moving westward with
the view of encamping in the valley of the Rio Grande. On the 28th
of March General Tyler took up his position on the banks of the
river, opposite Matamoros, and strengthened himself by the erection
field-works. General Ampudia, in command of the Mexican army
stationed at Matamoros, was highly excited by the arrival of the
American army, and on the 12th of April notified General Taylor to
break up his camp within twenty-four hours, and to retire beyond
the Nueces River. In the event of his failure to comply with these
demands, Ampudia announced that "arms, and arms alone, must decide
the question." According to the persistent claim of the Mexican
Government, the Nueces River was the western boundary of Texas;
and the territory between that river and the Rio Grande--a breadth
of one hundred and fifty miles on the coast--was held by Mexico to
be a part of her domain, and General Taylor consequently an invader
of her soil. No reply was made to Ampudia; and on the 24th of
April General Arista, who had succeeded to the command of the
Mexican army, advised General Taylor that "he considered hostilities
commenced, and should prosecute them."
BEGINNING OF MEXICAN WAR.
Directly after this notification was received, General Taylor
dispatched a party of dragoons, sixty-three in number, officers
and men, up the valley of the Rio Grande, to ascertain whether the
Mexicans had crossed the river. They encountered a force much
larger than their own, and after a short engagement, in which some
seventeen were killed and wounded, the Americans were surrounded,
and compelled to surrender. When intelligence of this affair
reached the United States, the war-spirit rose high among the
people. "Our country has been invaded," and "American blood spilled
on American soil," were the cries heard on every side. In the very
height of this first excitement, without waiting to know whether
the Mexican Government would avow or disavow the hostile act,
President Polk, on the 11th of May, sent a most aggressive message
to Congress, "invoking its prompt action to recognize the existence
of war, and to place at the disposition of the Executive the means
of prosecuting the contest with vigor, and thus hastening the
restoration of peace." As soon as the message was read in the
House, a bill was introduced authorizing the President to call out
a force of fifty thousand men, and giving him all the requisite
power to organize, arm, and equip them. The preamble declared that
"war existed by the act of Mexico," and this gave rise to an animated
and somewhat angry discussion. The Whigs felt that they were placed
in an embarrassing attitude. They must either vote for what they
did not believe, or, by voting against the bill, incur the odium
which always attaches to the party that fails by a hair's-breadth
to come to the defense of the country when war is imminent.
Prominent Whigs believed, that, as an historical and geographical
fact, the river Nueces was the western boundary of Texas, and that
the President, by assuming the responsibility of sending an army
of occupation into the country west of that river, pending negotiations
with Mexico, had taken a hostile and indefensible step. But all
agreed that it was too late to consider any thing except the honor
of the country, now that actual hostilities had begun. The position
of the Whigs was as clearly defined by their speakers as was
practicable in the brief space allowed for discussion of the war
bill. Against the protest of many, it was forced to a vote, after
a two hours' debate. The administration expected the declaration
to be unanimous; but there were fourteen members of the House who
accepted the responsibility of defying the war feeling of the
country by voting "no"--an act which required no small degree of
moral courage and personal independence. John Quincy Adams headed
the list. The other gentlemen were all Northern Whigs, or pronounced
Free-Soilers.
The Senate considered the bill on the ensuing day, and passed it
after a very able debate, in which Mr. Calhoun bore a leading part.
He earnestly deprecated the necessity of the war, though accused
by Benton of plotting to bring it on. Forty senators voted for
it, and but two against it,--Thomas Clayton of Delaware and John
Davis of Massachusetts. Mr. Crittenden of Kentucky and Mr. Upham
of Vermont, when their names were called, responded, "Ay, except
the preamble." The bill was promptly approved by the President,
and on the 13th of May, 1846, the two Republics were declared to
be at war. In the South and West, from the beginning, the war was
popular. In the North and East it was unpopular. The gallant
bearing of our army, however, changed in large degree the feeling
in sections where the war had been opposed. No finer body of men
ever enlisted in an heroic enterprise than those who volunteered
to bear the flag in Mexico. They were young, ardent, enthusiastic,
brave almost to recklessness, with a fervor of devotion to their
country's honor. The march of Taylor from the Rio Grande, ending
with the unexpected victory against superior numbers at Buena Vista,
kept the country in a state of excitement and elation, and in the
succeeding year elevated him to the Presidency. Not less splendid
in its succession of victories was the march of Scott from Vera
Cruz to the city of Mexico, where he closed his triumphal journey
by taking possession of the capital, and enabling his government
to dictate terms of peace.
DEMOCRATIC DEFEAT IN 1846.
For the first and only time in our political history, an administration
conducting a war victorious at every step, steadily lost ground in
the country. The House of Representatives which declared war on
the 11th of May, 1846, was Democratic by a large majority. The
House, elected in the ensuing autumn, amid the resounding acclamations
of Taylor's memorable victory at Monterey, had a decided Whig
majority. This political reverse was due to three causes,--the
enactment of the tariff of 1846, which offended the manufacturing
interest of the country; the receding of the administration on the
Oregon question, which embarrassed the position and wounded the
pride of the Northern Democrats; and the wide-spread apprehension
that the war was undertaken for the purpose of extending and
perpetuating slavery. The almost unanimous Southern vote for the
hasty surrender of the line of 54° 40´, on which so much had been
staked in the Presidential campaign, gave the Whigs an advantage
in the popular canvass. The contrast between the boldness with
which the Polk administration had marched our army upon the territory
claimed by Mexico, and the prudence with which it had retreated
from a contest with Great Britain, after all our antecedent boasting,
exposed the Democrats to merciless ridicule. Clever speakers who
were numerous in the Whig party at that day did not fail to see
and seize their advantage.
The Mexican war had scarcely begun when the President justified
the popular suspicion by making known to Congress that one of its
objects was to be the acquisition of territory beyond the Rio
Grande. Perhaps it would be fairer to say that he expected such
acquisition to be one of its results. He ably vindicated the policy
of marching a military force into the territory between the Nueces
and the Rio Grande, by the fact that he was memorialized to do so
by the still existing Congress of Texas, on the urgent plea that
Mexico was preparing to move upon the territory with a view to its
recapture. In this Congress of Texas, the same body that completed
the annexation, there were representatives from the territory in
dispute beyond the Nueces; and the President felt that they were
in an eminent degree entitled to the protection of our government.
Events were so hurried that in three months from the formal
declaration of war, and before any victory of decisive significance
had been achieved, the President sent a special message to Congress,
in which he suggested that "the chief obstacle to be surmounted in
securing peace would be the adjustment of a boundary that would
prove satisfactory and convenient to both republics." He admitted
that we ought to pay a fair equivalent for any concessions which
might be made by Mexico, and asked that a sum of money should be
placed in his hands to be paid to Mexico immediately upon the
ratification of a treaty of peace. As a precedent for this unusual
request, the President cited the example of Mr. Jefferson in asking
and receiving from Congress, in 1803, a special appropriation of
money, to be expended at his discretion. As soon as the reading
of the message was concluded, Mr. McKay of North Carolina, chairman
of the committee of ways and means, introduced a bill, without
preamble or explanation, directing that two millions of dollars be
appropriated, to be "applied under the direction of the President
to any extraordinary expenses which may be incurred in our foreign
intercourse." The war was not referred to, Mexico was not named,
and the simple phraseology of the Jefferson Act of 1803 was repeated
word for word.
A very animated debate followed, in which Northern men took the
lead. Mr. Robert C. Winthrop spoke of the administration with
unwonted harshness, declaring that "it and its friends had thought
fit, during the present session, to frame more than one of these
important measures, so as to leave their opponents in a false
position whichever way they voted." . . . He "could not and would
not vote for this bill as it now stood. . . . It was a vote of
unlimited confidence in an administration in which, he was sorry
to say, there was very little confidence to be placed." Mr. John
Quincy Adams differed from Mr. Winthrop, and could not refrain from
a pardonable thrust at that gentleman for his previous vote that
"war existed by act of Mexico." He differed from his colleague,
Mr. Adams demurely affirmed, with a regret equal to that with which
he had differed from him on the bill by which war was declared.
He should not vote for this bill in any form, but suggested that
it be so amended as to specify expressly that the money is granted
for the purpose of negotiating peace with Mexico.
THE WILMOT PROVISO.
The bill was promptly modified in accordance with the desires of
Mr. Adams, and at the moment when its passage seemed secure it was
arrested by an amendment of momentous character, submitted by a
young member from Pennsylvania. David Wilmot represented a district
which had always given Democratic majorities, and was himself an
intense partisan of that political school. He was a man of strong
_physique_ and strong common sense; of phlegmatic temperament,
without any pretension to genius; a sensible speaker, with no claim
to eloquence or oratory. But he had courage, determination, and
honesty. He believed the time had come to arrest the progress and
extension of slavery. He knew that the two-million bill was urged
by the President because he wished to use the money to promote the
acquisition of territory, and he determined then and there to make
a stand in favor of free soil. He thereupon, on the 8th of August,
1846, moved a _proviso_ to the two-million bill, declaring it to
be "an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any
territory from Mexico, that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude
shall ever exist therein."
Mr. Wilmot was in the first session of his first Congress, was but
thirty-three years of age, and up to that moment had not been known
beyond his district. His amendment made his name familiar at once
throughout the length and breadth of the Republic. No question
had arisen since the slavery agitation of 1820 that was so elaborately
debated. The Wilmot Proviso absorbed the attention of Congress
for a longer time than the Missouri Compromise: it produced a wider
and deeper excitement in the country, and it threatened a more
serious danger to the peace and integrity of the Union. The
consecration of the territory of the United States to freedom became
from that day a rallying cry for every shade of anti-slavery
sentiment. If it did not go as far as the Abolitionists in their
extreme and uncompromising faith might demand, it yet took a long
step forward, and afforded the ground on which the battle of the
giants was to be waged, and possibly decided. The feeling in all
sections became intense on the issue thus presented, and it proved
a sword which cleft asunder political associations that had been
close and intimate for a lifetime. Both the old parties were
largely represented on each side of the question. The Northern
Whigs, at the outset, generally sustained the proviso, and the
Northern Democrats divided, with the majority against it. In the
slave States both parties were against it, only two men south of
Mason and Dixon's line voting for free soil,--John M. Clayton of
Delaware in the Senate, and Henry Grider of Kentucky in the House.
Mr. Grider re-entered Congress as a Republican after the war.
Among the conspicuous Whigs who voted for the proviso were Joseph
R. Ingersoll and James Pollock of Pennsylvania, Washington Hunt of
New York, Robert C. Winthrop of Massachusetts, Robert C. Schenck
of Ohio, and Truman Smith of Connecticut. Among the Democrats were
Hannibal Hamlin, and all his colleagues from Maine, Simon Cameron
of Pennsylvania, Preston King of New York, John Wentworth of
Illinois, Allen G. Thurman of Ohio, and Robert McClelland of
Michigan, afterwards Secretary of the Interior under President
Pierce.
Mr. Webster voted for the proviso, but with gloomy apprehensions.
He could "see little of the future, and that little gave him no
satisfaction." He spoke with portentous gravity, and arrested the
attention of the country by the solemnity of his closing words:
"All I can scan is contention, strife, and agitation. The future
is full of difficulties and full of dangers. We appear to be
rushing on perils headlong, and with our eyes all open." There
was a singular disagreement between the speech and the vote of Mr.
Webster. The speech indicated his real position. His vote was in
deference to the opinion of Massachusetts. The most conspicuous
Northern Whigs who voted against the proviso were Alexander Ramsey
of Pennsylvania, since the distinguished Republican senator from
Minnesota, and Secretary of War under President Hayes; and Samuel
F. Vinton of Ohio, one of the oldest and ablest representatives in
Congress.
The House attached the proviso to the two-million bill, and thus
defeated it for the session. The Democratic Senate took it up on
the day fixed for final adjournment. The majority were not willing
to accept the appropriation with the anti-slavery condition upon
it, and John Davis of Massachusetts, fearing if the bill went back
to the House the proviso might on reconsideration be defeated,
deliberately held the floor until the session expired. In the next
session the two-million bill, increased to three millions, was
passed without the proviso, the administration being strong enough,
with the persuasions of its patronage, to defeat the anti-slavery
amendment in both branches.
During the proceedings on the three-million bill, an interesting
and instructive incident occurred. The venerable John Quincy Adams
appeared in the House for the first time during the session, on
the 13th of February (1847), having been detained by a very severe
illness. As he passed inside the door the entire House voluntarily
rose, business was suspended, and Mr. Andrew Johnson of Tennessee
(afterwards President of the United States), addressing the Chair,
said, that in compliance with the understanding with which he
selected a seat at the beginning of the session, he now tendered
it to the venerable member from Massachusetts, and congratulated
him on being spared to return to the House. Mr. Adams, enfeebled
by disease, tremulous with age, returned his thanks, regretting
that he had not "voice to respond to the congratulations of his
friends for the honor which had been done him." Among those who
paid this unusual, indeed unprecedented, mark of respect to a fellow-
member, were many from the South, who within a few years had voted
to censure Mr. Adams, and had endeavored in every way to heap
obloquy upon him for his persistent course in presenting anti-
slavery petitions. Spontaneous in impulse, momentary in duration,
simple in form, it was yet one of the most striking tributes ever
paid to moral dignity and lofty character.
PUBLIC LIFE OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.
Mr. Adams was nearing the end of his illustrious life, and a year
later was stricken down in the seat which had been so graciously
tendered him. His career was in many respects remarkable. He had
been minister to five different European courts, senator of the
United States, appointed to the Supreme Bench, had been eight years
Secretary of State, and four years President. His opportunities
were great, his advantages rare, his natural abilities strong. To
those he added a high standard of morality, and a love and endurance
of labor possessed by few. But it may fairly be doubted whether,
if his Presidency had closed his public life, his fame would have
attracted special observation. He would scarcely have ranked above
Monroe, and would have borne no comparison with Madison. In the
Senate he had made no impression. His service abroad was one of
industrious routine. His career as Secretary of State was not
specially distinguished. The only two treaties of marked importance
that were negotiated during his incumbency, were carried, on test
questions, by the Cabinet against his judgment. His dispatches
have been little quoted as precedents. His diplomatic discussions
were not triumphs. Indeed, he was not felicitous with his pen,
and suffers by contrast with some who preceded him and many who
followed him in that office. But in his sixty-fifth year, when
the public life of the most favored draws to a close, the noble
and shining career of Mr. Adams began. He entered the House of
Representatives in 1831, and for the remainder of his life, a period
of seventeen years, he was the one grand figure in that assembly.
His warfare against those who would suppress free speech, his heroic
contest in favor of the right of the humblest to petition for
redress of grievances, are among the memorable events in the
parliamentary history of the United States. The amplitude of his
knowledge, his industry, his unflagging zeal, his biting sarcasm,
his power to sting and destroy without himself showing passion,
made a combination of qualities as rare as it was formidable. His
previous career had been one of eminent respectability, to be coldly
admired and forgotten. His service in the House gave him a name
as enduring as the Republic whose history he adorned.
In breadth and thoroughness of learning, Mr. Adams surpassed all
his contemporaries in public life. His essays, orations, and
addresses were surprisingly numerous, and upon a great variety of
subjects. It cannot be said, however, that he contributed any
thing to the permanent literature of the country. Nor, in a true
estimate of his extraordinary career in Congress, can it be asserted
that he attained the first rank as a parliamentary debater. It
must be borne in mind that much of his fame in the House of
Representatives was derived from the nature of the one question
with which he became so conspicuously identified. It was in large
degree the moral courage of his position which first fixed the
attention of the country and then attracted its admiration. The
men with whom he had exciting scenes in regard to the "right of
petition" and its cognate issues were in no case the leading
statesmen of the day. Wise, Bynum, Dromgoole, Pinckney, Lewis,
Thomas F. Marshall, and the other Southern representatives with
whom Mr. Adams came in conflict, were ready and brilliant men, but
were far below the first rank of debaters. Indeed, with few
exceptions, the really eminent debaters were in the Senate during
the period of Mr. Adams's service in the House. Mr. Clay, Mr.
Webster, Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Benton, Mr. Hayne, Mr. Silas Wright, Mr.
Crittenden, Mr. Ewing, Mr. Watkins Leigh, Mr. Rives, Mr. Choate,
Mr. John M. Clayton, Mr. Berrien, were an altogether higher and
abler class of men than those with whom Mr. Adams had his frequent
wrangles in the House. The weapons which he so successfully employed
against the young "fire-eaters" would have proved pointless and
valueless in a contest with any one of the eminent men who in that
long period gave character to the Senate.
The only time Mr. Adams ever crossed swords in the House with a
man of commanding power was in the famous discussion of January,
1836, with George Evans of Maine. Mr. Adams had made a covert but
angry attack on Mr. Webster for his opposition to the Fortification
Bill in the preceding Congress, when President Jackson was making
such energetic demonstrations of his readiness to go to war with
France. To the surprise of his best friends, Mr. Adams warmly
sustained Jackson in his belligerent correspondence with the
government of Louis Philippe. His position probably cost him a
seat in the United States Senate for which he was then a candidate.
Mr. Webster preferred John Davis, who had the preceding year beaten
Mr. Adams in the contest for governor of Massachusetts. These
circumstances were believed at the time to be the inciting cause
for the assault on Mr. Webster. The duty of replying devolved on
Mr. Evans. The debate attracted general attention, and the victory
of Mr. Evans was everywhere recognized. The _Globe_ for the Twenty-
fourth Congress contains a full report of both speeches. The
stirring events of forty years have not destroyed their interest
or their freshness. The superior strength, the higher order of
eloquence, the greater mastery of the art of debate, will be found
in the speech of Mr. Evans.
GEORGE EVANS AS A DEBATER.
As a parliamentary debater, using that term in its true signification
and with its proper limitations, George Evans is entitled to high
rank. He entered the House in 1829, at thirty-two years of age,
and served until 1841, when he was transferred to the Senate. He
retired from that body in 1847. Upon entering the Senate, he was
complimented with a distinction never before or since conferred on
a new member. He was placed at the head of the Committee on Finance,
taking rank above the long list of prominent Whigs, who then composed
the majority in the chamber. The tenacity with which the rights
of seniority are usually maintained by senators enhances the value
of the compliment to Mr. Evans. Mr. Clay, who had been serving as
chairman of the committee, declined in his favor with the remark
that "Mr. Evans knew more about the finances than any other public
man in the United States." The ability and skill displayed by Mr.
Evans in carrying the tariff bill of 1842 through the Senate, fully
justified the high encomiums bestowed by Mr. Clay. The opposition
which he led four years after to the tariff bill of 1846 gave Mr.
Evans still higher reputation, though the measure was unexpectedly
carried by the casting vote of the Vice-President.
When Mr. Evans's term of service drew near to its close, Mr. Webster
paid him the extraordinary commendation of saying in the Senate
that "his retirement would be a serious loss to the government and
the country." He pronounced the speech just then delivered by Mr.
Evans, on the finances, to be "incomparable." The "senator from
Maine," continued Mr. Webster, "has devoted himself especially to
studying and comprehending the revenue and finances of the country,
and he understand that subject as well as any gentleman connected
with the government since the days of Gallatin and Crawford,--nay,
as well as either of those gentlemen understood it." This was the
highest praise from the highest source! Of all who have represented
New England in the Senate, Mr. Evans, as a debater, is entitled to
rank next to Mr. Webster!
The next Congress met in December, 1847. Besides the venerable ex-
president, there were two future Presidents among its members--
Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. Mr. Robert C. Winthrop was
chosen Speaker. He was nominated in the Whig caucus over Samuel
F. Vinton of Ohio, because he had voted for the Wilmot Proviso,
and Mr. Vinton against it.* Mr. Vinton was senior in age and long
senior in service to Mr. Winthrop. Mr. Vinton had entered the
House in 1823 and Mr. Winthrop in 1840. Mr. Vinton had moreover
been selected as the Whig candidate for Speaker in the preceding
Congress, when that party was in minority. The decision against
him now created no little feeling in Whig circles, especially in
the West where he was widely known and highly esteemed. But, while
Mr. Winthrop was rewarded by this nomination for his vote in favor
of the Wilmot Proviso, the more pronounced anti-slavery men were
hostile to him. In the end he owed his election to timely aid from
Southern Whigs. This fact, no doubt, had its effect on Mr. Winthrop's
mind, and with other influences tended to separate him rapidly and
conclusively from the anti-slavery wing of the Whig party.
It would, however, be unjust to Mr. Winthrop not to recognize that
the chief reason for his selection as Speaker was his pre-eminent
fitness for the important post. He was a young man, and, other
conditions being equal, young men have been uniformly preferred
for the arduous duties of the Chair. From the organization of the
government the speakers, at the time of their first election, have
been under forty-five years of age,--many, indeed, under forty.
In only four instances have men been selected beyond the age of
fifty. Mr. Clay when first chosen was but thirty-four, Mr. Polk
thirty-nine, Mr. John Bell thirty-seven, Mr. Howell Cobb thirty-
three, and Mr. Robert M. T. Hunter, the youngest man ever elected
Speaker, was but thirty. Mr. Winthrop was thirty-eight. He was
bred to the law in the office of Mr. Webster, but at twenty-five
years of age entered political life as a member of the Massachusetts
House of Representatives. He was soon after promoted to the
speakership of that body, where he earned so valuable a reputation
as a presiding officer that some of his decisions have been quoted
as precedents in the National House, and have been incorporated in
permanent works on Parliamentary Law. He was chosen in Congress
when he was but thirty, and was in his fifth term in the House when
he was advanced to the Speakership. As an orator he was always
graceful and effective, but never took high rank in the House as
a debater. His early life gave promise of a long public career in
Massachusetts as the successor of the older Whig leaders who were
passing off the stage. He followed Mr. Webster in the Senate for
a brief period, when the latter became Secretary of State under
Mr. Fillmore. His conservative tendencies on the Slavery question,
however, were not in harmony with the demands of public opinion in
Massachusetts, and in 1851 he was defeated for the governorship by
George S. Boutwell, and for the senatorship by Charles Sumner.
Mr. Winthrop's political career closed when he was forty-two years
of age.
WHIGS ABANDON THE WILMOT PROVISO.
The events of the year 1847 had persuaded the Whig leaders that,
if they persisted in the policy embodied in the Wilmot Proviso,
they would surrender all power to control the ensuing Presidential
election. By clever management and the avoidance of issues which
involved the slavery question, they felt reasonably sure of the
votes of Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee,
with a probability of securing Georgia, Louisiana, and Florida.
To throw these States away by an anti-slavery crusade was to accept
inevitable defeat, and disband the Whig party. Mr. Winthrop was
therefore representing the prevailing wishes of Northern Whigs when
he used his influence to restrain rather than promote the development
of the anti-slavery policy which had been initiated with such vigor.
The result of this change was soon visible. In the preceding House,
with a large Democratic majority, the Wilmot Proviso had been
adopted. In the Whig House, over which Mr. Winthrop presided, it
was found impossible to repeat the vote during the preparations
for the national contest then impending. The treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo, by which we acquired a vast territory from Mexico, was
ratified by the Senate, and the House voted the fifteen millions
demanded by it without adding a restriction of any kind on the
subject of slavery. Every acre of the nine hundred thousand square
miles was free territory while under the rule of Mexico, and the
Commissioners of that government were extremely anxious that the
United States should give a guaranty that its character in this
respect should not be changed. They urged that to see slavery
recognized upon soil once owned by Mexico would be so abhorrent to
that government as it would be to the United States to see the
Spanish Inquisition established upon it. Mr. Nicholas F. Trist,
the American commissioner, gave a reply which a free Republic reads
with increasing amazement. He declared that if the territory
proposed to be ceded "were increased tenfold in value, and, in
addition to that, covered a foot thick with pure gold, on the single
condition that slavery should be forever excluded," he would not
"entertain the offer for a moment, nor even think of sending it to
his government. No American President would dare to submit such
a treaty to the Senate."
With this suppression, if not indeed re-action, of the popular
feeling in the North, on the subject of slavery, the two great
parties approached the Presidential election of 1848. Each was
under peculiar embarrassment in the selection of a candidate, and
the presentation of the principles on which support was to be asked.
The anomaly presented in the Congressional election of 1846, where
an administration conducting a successful war was defeated before
the people, promised to be repeated. The Democratic party had
precipitated the war, had organized the military force that prosecuted
it, had controlled its immense patronage, and had brought it to a
victorious conclusion, yet had gained no political strength in the
country. The two gallant soldiers who had so largely shared, if
indeed they had not absorbed, its glory, were Whigs, and both were
in ill-humor with the administration. After the battle of Buena
Vista, Taylor's victorious progress had been checked and his army
crippled by orders from Washington, which reduced his force, and
turned the Regulars over to Scott. Scott ended his brilliant
campaign in a flagrant quarrel with the Secretary of War, and was
summoned home peremptorily with the prospect of a court-martial.
He was ordered to leave General William O. Butler, a Democratic
general, in command of the army in the city of Mexico after resistance
had ceased.
DEMOCRATIC OFFICERS IN MEXICAN WAR.
The administration had obviously endeavored from the first to create
a Democratic hero out of the war. Authorized to appoint a large
number of officers in the increased military force, raised directly
by the United States, an unjust discrimination was made in favor
of Democrats. Thus William O. Butler, John A. Quitman, and Gideon
J. Pillow, prominent Democratic leaders in their respective States,
were appointed Major-generals directly from civil life. Joseph
Lane, James Shields, Franklin Pierce, George Cadwalader, Caleb
Cushing, Enos D. Hopping, and Sterling Price, were selected for
the high rank of Brigadier-general. Not one Whig was included,
and not one of the Democratic appointees had seen service in the
field, or possessed the slightest pretension to military education.
Such able graduates of West Point as Henry Clay, jun., and William
R. McKee, were compelled to seek service through State appointments
in volunteer regiments, while Albert Sidney Johnston, subsequently
proved to be one of the ablest commanders ever sent from the Military
Academy, could not obtain a commission from the General Government.
In the war between Mexico and Texas, by which the latter had secured
its independence, Johnston had held high command, and was perhaps
the best equipped soldier, both by education and service, to be
found in the entire country outside the regular army at the time
of the Mexican war. General Taylor urged the President to give
Johnston command of one of the ten new regiments. Johnston took
no part in politics; but his eminent brother, Josiah Stoddard
Johnston, long a senator from Louisiana, was Mr. Clay's most intimate
friend in public life, and General Taylor's letter was not even
answered. The places were wanted for adherents of the administration,
and Tibbatts of Kentucky, Jere Clemens of Alabama, Milledge L.
Bonham of South Carolina, Seymour of Connecticut, and men of that
grade,--eminent in civil life, active partisans, but with no military
training,--were preferred to the most experienced soldiers. This
fact disfigures the energetic record of Mr. Marcy as secretary of
War, and was eminently discreditable to the President and all his
advisers.
Perhaps the most inexcusable blunder of the administration was the
attempt to take Thomas H. Benton from the Senate, where he was
honored, eminent, and useful, make him Lieutenant-general, and send
him out to Mexico to supersede both Scott and Taylor in command of
the army. The bill to enable this to be done actually passed the
House. When under discussion in that branch, a prominent Democratic
member from Ohio declared, as one reason for passing the bill, that
two of the generals are opposed politically to the Democratic party,
and "by their own acts or those of their friends are candidates
for the Presidency." The evident basis of this argument was, that
the Mexican war being a Democratic venture, no Whig had the right
to profit by it. The bill was fortunately stopped in the Senate,
though that body at the time had a Democratic majority. The measure
was killed by one convincing speech from Mr. Badger of North
Carolina. The senators knew Colonel Benton's temper and temperament,
and understood how completely unfitted he was for military command,
and how his appointment would demoralize and practically destroy
the army. To the end of his life, however, Colonel Benton himself
believed a serious mistake had been made. He had been commissioned
colonel in the war of 1812, but though of unquestioned bravery,
and deeply read in military science, it had never been his fortune
to engage in battle, or to see the face of an enemy. Yet in the
autobiographical sketch which precedes his "Thirty Years' View,"
he complacently assured himself that his appointment as Lieutenant-
general over Scott and Taylor "could not have wounded professional
honor," as at the time of his retiring from the army he "ranked
all those who have since reached its head."
WHIG OPPOSITION TO GENERAL TAYLOR.
But all the efforts to make a Democratic hero out of the war failed.
The line-officers appointed from civil life behaved gallantly.
The volunteers under their command were exceptionally excellent,--
almost competent themselves to the conduct of a campaign. The
political generals who vaulted from law-offices into the command
of brigades and divisions were furnished by the War Department with
staff-officers carefully chosen from the best educated and most
skillful of the regular army. All would not suffice, however, to
displace Taylor and Scott from the post of chief heroes. "Old
Rough and Ready," as Taylor was called by his troops, became a
popular favorite of irresistible strength, and in the Whig convention
of 1848 was chosen over Mr. Clay as the standard-bearer of his
party. He was placed before the people on his record as a soldier,
unhampered by the political declarations which make up the modern
platform. Mr. Clay had expected the nomination, and General Scott
had offered to run on the same ticket as Vice-President; but against
the constantly rising tide of Taylor's popularity both ordinary
and extraordinary political combinations gave way. Even the Kentucky
delegation divided,--in accordance with Mr. Crittenden's judgment,
though not by his advice. To the overwhelming chagrin and
mortification of Mr. Clay, a man unknown in political circles was
preferred as the candidate of the party of which he felt himself
to have been the creator. Mr. Clay was enraged by the result, and
never became reconciled to it. Though he gave in the end a quiet
vote at the polls for Taylor, he stubbornly refused during the
campaign to open his lips or write a word in favor of his election.
Mr. Webster, though without the keen personal disappointment of
Mr. Clay, was equally discontented with the nomination. He had
spoken in a semi-public way for several months previous to the
convention, of the folly of nominating "a swearing, swaggering,
frontier colonel" for the Presidency,--an allusion to General
Taylor, which was scandalously unjust, and which was contradicted
by his whole life. When Taylor was finally nominated, Mr. Webster
resented the selection as an indignity to the statesmen of the Whig
party. His only ray of comfort was the defeat of Abbott Lawrence
for the Vice-Presidency by Millard Fillmore. Mr. Lawrence was a
man of wealth, the most prominent manufacturer at the time in the
country, of high personal character, and of wide political influence.
He was the leading Taylor-Whig in New England, and his course had
given offense to Mr. Webster to such an extent indeed, that on a
public occasion, after the Presidential election, he referred to
Mr. Lawrence in an unfriendly and discourteous manner.
The situation became still further complicated. The Whigs believed
they had avoided the responsibility of positive declaration on
either side of the issue embodied in the Wilmot Proviso, by selecting
a military hero as their candidate. In the phrase of the day, he
could make a "Star and Stripe" canvass, with fair chance of success,
on both sides of Mason and Dixon's line. There was loss to be
incurred by either course. The Whig managers saw plainly that an
anti-slavery policy would give almost the entire South to the
Democrats, and a pro-slavery policy would rend the Whig party
throughout the North. They wisely concluded, if the canvass were
merely a game to win votes, that the non-committal plan was the
safe one. But this evasive course was not wholly successful.
There was a considerable body of men in New England, and especially
in Massachusetts, known as "Conscience Whigs," who had deep
convictions on the subject of slavery, and refused to support
General Taylor. Conspicuous among these were Henry Wilson, E.
Rockwood Hoar, and Charles Francis Adams. A defection of the same
kind among the Whigs of New York was prevented by the active
influence of Mr. Seward, but it developed rapidly in the northern
section of Ohio. Throughout the country the Whigs began to fear
that a mistake had been made, and that the old leaders had been
thrown overboard without due thought of the consequences. Mr.
Clay's private correspondence exhibited unmistakable gratification
at this aspect of affairs, for he felt assured that the influential
Whigs who were now organizing against Taylor would have supported
him as cordially as they had done in 1844.
These troubles in the Whig ranks tended, of course, to encourage
the Democrats, and to give them for a time great promise of success.
The selection of their own candidate, however, had not been unattended
with difficulty and dissension. Mr. Polk was from the first out
of the question,--verifying the Scripture that those who draw the
sword shall perish by the sword. The war inaugurated by him had
been completely successful; "a glorious peace," as it was termed,
had been conquered; a vast addition to our territory had been
accomplished. Yet by common consent, in which Mr. Polk had gracefully
concurred in advance, it was admitted that he was not available
for re-election. He had sown the dragon's teeth, and the armed
men who sprang forth wrested his sceptre from him. But it would
not be candid to ascribe his disability solely to events connected
with the war. He had pursued the most unwise course in dealing
with the New-York Democracy, and had for himself hopelessly divided
the party. He made the great blunder of not recognizing the strength
and leadership of Van Buren and Silas Wright. He had been led to
distrust them, had always felt aggrieved that Wright refused to
run on his ticket as Vice-President, and was annoyed by the fact
that, as candidate for governor, Wright received several thousand
votes more than the electoral ticket which represented his own
fortunes. This fact came to him in a manner which deeply impressed
it upon his memory. At that time, before railroad or telegraph
had hastened the transmission of news beyond the Alleghanies, Mr.
Polk in his Tennessee home was in an agony of doubt as to the result
in New York. The first intelligence that reached him announced
the certain victory of Wright, but left the electoral ticket
undecided, with very unpleasant rumors of his own defeat. When at
last the returns showed that he had a plurality of five thousand
in New York, and was chosen President, it did not suffice to remove
the deep impressions of those few days in which, either in the
gloom of defeat or in the torture of suspense, he feared that he
had been betrayed by the Barnburners of New York as a revenge for
Van Buren's overthrow at Baltimore. As matter of fact the suspicion
was absolutely groundless. The contest for governor between Silas
Wright and Millard Fillmore called out intense feeling, and the
former had the advantage of personal popularity over the latter
just as Mr. Clay had over Mr. Polk. Mr. Wright's plurality was
but five thousand greater than Mr. Polk's, and this only proved
that among half a million voters there may have been twenty-five
hundred who preferred Mr. Clay for President and Mr. Wright for
governor.
PRESIDENT POLK AND MR. VAN BUREN.
But there was no manifestation of feeling or apparent withholding
of confidence on the part of Mr. Polk when the result was finally
proclaimed. On the contrary he offered the Treasury Department to
Mr. Wright, feeling assured in advance, as the uncharitable thought,
that Wright could not leave the governorship to accept it. When
the office was declined, Mr. Polk again wrote Mr. Wright, asking
his advice as to the New-York member of the cabinet. Mr. Wright
submitted the names of three men from whom wise choice could be
made,--Benjamin F. Butler, who had been attorney-general under
President Jackson; John A. Dix, then recently chosen to the United-
States Senate; and Azariah C. Flagg, eminent in the party, and
especially distinguished for his administration of financial trust.
Mr. Polk, under other and adverse influence, saw fit to disregard
Mr. Wright's counsel, and selected William L. Marcy, who was hostile
to Wright, and distrusted by Van Buren, for Secretary of War. From
that moment the fate of Mr. Polk as candidate for re-election was
sealed. The cause might seem inadequate, but the effect was
undeniable. The Democratic party at the outbreak of the civil war,
sixteen years afterwards, had not wholly recovered from the divisions
and strifes which sprung from the disregard of Mr. Van Buren's
wishes at that crisis. No appointment to Mr. Polk's cabinet could
have been more distasteful than that of Mr. Marcy. He had lost
the State during Mr. Van Buren's Presidency in the contest for the
governorship against Mr. Seward in 1838, and thus laid the foundation,
as Mr. Van Buren believed, for his own disastrous defeat in 1840.
The disputes which arose from Marcy's appointment in the cabinet
led to Wright's defeat for re-election in 1846, when John Young,
the Whig candidate, was chosen governor of New York. To three men
in the cabinet the friends of Mr. Wright ascribed the Democratic
overthrow,--Mr. Buchanan, Mr. Robert J. Walker, and Mr. Marcy,--
each anxious for the Presidency, and each feeling that Mr. Wright
was in his way. Mr. Wright died suddenly the year after his defeat,
and it was supposed for a time that harmony in the New-York Democracy
might be restored over his grave. But his friends survived, and
their grief was the measure of their resentment.
The course of events which disabled Mr. Polk as a candidate proved
equally decisive against all the members of his cabinet; and by
the process of exclusion rather than by an enthusiastic desire
among the people, and still less among the leaders, General Cass
was selected by the Democratic Convention as candidate for the
Presidency, and William O. Butler of Kentucky for the Vice-Presidency.
The Democracy of New York, in consequence of the divisions arising
under the governorship of Mr. Wright, sent two full delegations to
the convention, bearing credentials from separate organizations.
The friends of Mr. Marcy bore the name of Hunkers; the followers
of Mr. Wright ranged themselves under the title of Barnburners,--
distinctions which had prevailed for some years in New York. It
was in fact the old division on the annexation of Texas, and now
represented the pro-slavery and the anti-slavery wing of the
Democratic party. The National Convention sought in vain to bridge
the difficulty by admitting both delegations, giving to them united
the right to cast the vote of the State. But the Barnburners
declined thus to compromise a principle. On a question of bread,
the half-loaf is preferable to starvation, but when political honor
and deep personal feeling are involved, so material an adjustment
is not practicable. The Barnburners retired from the convention,
disclaimed all responsibility for its conclusions, and proceeded
in due time to organize against the ticket of Cass and Butler.
The Hunkers, left in the convention as the sole representatives of
the New-York Democracy, were startled at the situation and declined
to vote. They were anxious that the nomination of Cass should not
appear to be forced on the Barnburners by the rival faction. It
thus happened that New York, which for twenty years under the
skillful leadership of Mr. Van Buren had dictated the course of
the Democracy, was now so shorn of influence through the factions
engendered by his defeat, that a Presidential nomination was made,
not only without her lead, but without her aid or participation.
CASS BOLTED BY VAN BUREN'S FRIENDS.
The Democratic candidate was a man of high character. He had served
creditably in the early part of the war of 1812, had been governor
of Michigan Territory from 1813 to 1831, had been five years
Secretary of War under General Jackson, and had gone to France as
minister in 1836. He remained at the court of Louis Philippe,
where he received eminent consideration, for six years. When he
returned to this country in 1842, at sixty years of age, he
undoubtedly intended to re-enter political life. He landed at
Boston, and was received with enthusiasm by the New-England Democrats,
especially of that class who had not been in special favor during
the long rule of Jackson and his successor. Popular ovations were
arranged for him as he journeyed westward, and, by the time he
reached his home in Detroit, General Cass was publicly recognized
as a candidate for the Presidency. These facts did not escape the
jealous and watchful eye of Mr. Van Buren. He was aggrieved by
the course of General Cass, feeling assured that its direct effect
would be to injure himself, and not to promote the political fortunes
of the General. But the rivalry continued to develop. Cass remained
in the field, a persistent candidate for nomination, and in the
end proved to be, perhaps, the most powerful factor in the combination
which secured the triumph of Polk. He had deeply wounded Mr. Van
Buren, and, as the latter thought, causelessly and cruelly. He
had disregarded a personal and political friendship of thirty years'
duration, and had sundered ties which life was too short to re-
unite. Cass had gained no victory. He had only defeated old
friends, and the hour of retribution was at hand.
When the delegation of Barnburners withdrew from the Baltimore
Convention of 1848, they were obviously acting in harmony with Mr.
Van Buren's wishes. Had they been admitted, according to their
peremptory demand, as the sole delegation from New York, they could
have defeated Cass in the convention, and forced the nomination of
some new man unconnected with the grievances and enmities of 1844.
But when the demand of the Barnburners was denied, and they were
asked to make common cause with the assassins of Wright, as James
S. Wadsworth had denominated the Hunkers, the indignantly shook
the dust of the city from off their feet, returned to New York,
and forthwith called a Democratic convention to meet at Utica on
the 22d of June.
Before the time arrived for the Utica Convention to assemble, the
anti-slavery revolt was widely extended, and was, apparently, no
less against Taylor than against Cass. There was agitation in many
States, and the Barnburners found that by uniting with the opposition
against both the old parties, a most effective combination could
be made. It was certain to profit them in New York, and it promised
the special revenge which they desired in the defeat of Cass. The
various local and State movements were merged in one great convention,
which met at Buffalo on the 9th of August, with imposing demonstrations.
Many of those composing it had held high rank in the old parties.
Salmon P. Chase of Ohio was selected as president. The convention
represented a genuine anti-slavery sentiment, and amid excitement
and enthusiasm Martin Van Buren was nominated for President, and
Charles Francis Adams for Vice-President. The Barnburners, the
anti-slavery Whigs, and the old Abolitionists, co-operated with
apparent harmony under the general name of the Free-soil party;
and the impression with many when the convention adjourned was,
that Mr. Van Buren would have a plurality over both Cass and Taylor
in the State of New York. The management of the popular canvass
was intrusted to Democratic partisans of the Silas Wright school,
and this fact had a significant and unexpected influence upon the
minds of anti-slavery Whigs.
In the first flush of the excitement, the supporters of the regular
Democratic nominee were not alarmed. They argued, not illogically,
that the Free-soil ticket would draw more largely from the Whigs
than from the Democrats, and thus very probably injure Taylor more
than Cass. But in a few weeks this hope was dispelled. The Whigs
of the country had been engaged for a long period in an earnest
political warfare against Mr. Van Buren. In New York the contest
had been personal and acrimonious to the last degree, and ordinary
human nature could hardly be expected the bury at once the grievances
and resentments of a generation. Nor did the Whigs confide in the
sincerity of Mr. Van Buren's anti-slavery conversion. His repentance
was late, and even the most charitable suspected that his desire
to punish Cass had entered largely into the motives which suddenly
aroused him to the evils of slavery after forty years of quiet
acquiescence in all the demands of the South. Mr. Seward, who
possessed the unbounded confidence of the anti-slavery men of New
York, led a most earnest canvass in favor of General Taylor, and
was especially successful in influencing Whigs against Van Buren.
In this he was aided by the organizing skill of Thurlow Weed, and
by the editorial power of Horace Greeley. Perhaps in no other
National election did three men so completely control the result.
They gave the vote of New York to General Taylor, and made him
President of the United States.
MR. WEBSTER'S MARSHFIELD SPEECH.
At an opportune moment for the success of the Whigs, Mr. Webster
decided to support General Taylor. He thoroughly distrusted Cass,
--not in point of integrity, but of discretion and sound judgment
as a statesman. He had rebuked Cass severely in a diplomatic
correspondence touching the Treaty of Washington, when he was
Secretary of State and Cass minister to France. The impression
then derived had convinced him that the Democratic candidate was
not the man whom a Whig could desire to see in the Presidential
chair. In Mr. Van Buren's anti-slavery professions, Mr. Webster
had no confidence. He said pleasantly, but significantly, that
"if he and Mr. Van Buren should meet under the Free-soil flag, the
latter with his accustomed good-nature would laugh." He added,
with a touch of characteristic humor, "that the leader of the Free-
spoil party suddenly becoming the leader of the Free-soil party is
a joke to shake his sides and mine." Distrusting him sincerely on
the anti-slavery issue, Mr. Webster showed that on every other
question Mr. Van Buren was throughly objectionable to the Whigs.
The Marshfield speech, as this effort was popularly known at the
time, had great influence with the Northern Whigs. Mr. Webster
did not conceal his belief that General Taylor's nomination was
"one not fit to be made," but by the clearest of logic he demonstrated
that he was infinitely to be preferred to either of his competitors.
Mr. Webster at that time had the confidence of the anti-slavery
Whigs in a large degree; he had voted for the Wilmot Proviso, and
his public course had been that of a just and conservative expositor
of their advanced opinion. From the day of the Marshfield speech,
the belief was general that Van Buren would draw far more largely
from the Democrats than from the Whigs; that his candidacy would
give the State of New York to Taylor, and thus elect him President.
The loss of Whig votes was not distasteful to Mr. Van Buren after
the prospect of his securing the electors of New York had vanished.
Had he drawn in equal proportion from the two parties, his candidacy
would have had no effect. It would have neutralized itself, and
left the contest between Cass and Taylor as though he had not
entered the race. By a rule of influence, whose working is obvious,
the tenacity of the Democratic adherents of Van Buren increased as
the Whigs withdrew. The contest between Cass and Van Buren finally
became in New York, in very large degree, a struggle between
Democratic factions, in which the anti-slavery profession was an
instrumentality to be temporarily used, and not a principle to be
permanently upheld. As the Whigs left Van Buren, the Democrats
left Cass, and the end of the canvass gave a full measure of
satisfaction, not only to the supporters of Taylor, but to the
followers of Van Buren, who polled a larger vote for him than was
given to Cass. New York, as in 1844, decided the contest. The
friends of Van Buren had not simply beaten Cass at the polls, they
had discredited him as a party leader. In the pithy phrase of John
Van Buren, they had exposed him to the country as the candidate
"powerful for mischief, powerless for good."
The total vote of New York was, for Taylor, 218,603; for Cass,
114,318; for Van Buren, 120,510. The canvass for the governorship
was scarcely less exciting than that for the Presidency. Hamilton
Fish was the Whig candidate; John A. Dix, then a senator of the
United States, ran as the representative of Mr. Van Buren's Free-
soil party; while the eminent Chancellor Walworth, who had recently
lost his judicial position, was nominated as a supporter of Cass
by the Regular Democracy. Mr. Fish had been candidate for Lieutenant-
governor two years before on the Whig ticket with John Young, and
was defeated because of his outspoken views against the Anti-Renters.
Those radical agitators instinctively knew that the descendant of
Stuyvesant would support the inherited rights of the Van Rensselaers,
and therefore defeated Mr. Fish while they elected the Whig candidates
for other offices. Mr. Fish now had his abundant reward in receiving
as large a vote as General Taylor, and securing nearly one hundred
thousand plurality over the Van Buren candidate, while he in turn
received a small plurality over the representative of General Cass.
The result of the two contests left the Van Buren wing, or the
Barnburners, in majority over the Hunkers, and gave them an advantage
in future contests for supremacy, inside the party. Truthful
history will hold this to have been the chief object of the struggle
with many who vowed allegiance at Buffalo to an anti-slavery creed
strong enough to satisfy Joshua R. Giddings and Charles Sumner.
With Cass defeated, and the Marcy wing of the party severely
disciplined, the great mass of the Van Buren host of 1848 were
ready to disavow their political escapade at Buffalo. Dean Richmond,
Samuel J. Tilden, John Van Buren, C. C. Cambreleng, and Sanford E.
Church, forgot their anti-slavery professions, reunited with the
old party, and vowed afresh their fidelity to every principle
against which they had so earnestly protested. Mr. Van Buren
himself went with them, and to the end of his life maintained a
consistent pro-slavery record, which, throughout a long public
career was varied only by the insincere professions which he found
it necessary to make in order to be revenged on Cass. But it would
be unjust to include in this condemnation all the New-York Democrats
who went into the Buffalo movement. Many were honest and earnest,
and in after life followed the principles which they had then
professed. Chief among these may be reckoned Preston King, who
exerted a powerful influence in the anti-slavery advances of after
years, and James S. Wadsworth, who gave his name, and generously
of his wealth, to the cause, and finally sealed his devotion with
his blood on the battle-field of the Wilderness.
CHARACTER OF MR. VAN BUREN.
Mr. Van Buren spent the remainder of his life in dignified retirement
--surviving until his eightieth year, in 1862. In point of mere
intellectual force, he must rank below the really eminent men with
whom he was so long associated in public life. But he was able,
industrious, and, in political management, clever beyond any man
who has thus far appeared in American politics. He had extraordinary
tact in commending himself to the favor and confidence of the
people. Succeeding to political primacy in New York on the death
of De Witt Clinton in 1828, he held absolute control of his party
for twenty years, and was finally overthrown by causes whose origin
was beyond the limits of his personal influence. He stood on the
dividing-line between the mere politician and the statesman,--
perfect in the arts of the one, possessing largely the comprehensive
power of the other. His active career began in 1812, and ended in
1848. During the intervening period he had served in the Legislature
of New York, had been a member of the Constitutional Convention of
1820, had been attorney-general of the State, and had been chosen
its governor. In the national field he had been senator of the
United States, Secretary of State, minister to England, Vice-
President, and President. No other man in the country has held so
many great places. He filled them all with competency and with
power, but marred his illustrious record by the political episode
of 1848, in which, though he may have had some justification for
revenge on unfaithful associates in his old party, he had none for
his lack of fidelity to new friends, and for his abandonment of a
sacred principle which he had pledged himself to uphold.
[* NOTE.--An error of statement occurs on page 72, Volume I, in
regard to the action of the Whig caucus for Speaker in December,
1847. Mr. Winthrop was chosen after Mr. Vinton had declined, and
was warmly supported by Mr. Vinton. The error came from an
incorrect account of the caucus in a newspaper of that time.]
CHAPTER V.
Review (_continued_).--Contrast between General Taylor and General
Cass.--The Cabinet of President Taylor.--Political Condition of
the Country.--Effect produced by the Discovery of Gold in California.
--Convening of Thirty-first Congress.--Election of Howell Cobb as
Speaker.--President Taylor's Message.--His Recommendations Distasteful
to the South.--Illustrious Membership of the Senate.--Mr. Clay and
the Taylor Administration.--Mr. Calhoun's Last Speech in the Senate.
--His Death.--His Character and Public Services.--Mr. Webster's
7th of March Speech.--Its Effect upon the Public and upon Mr.
Webster.--Mr. Clay's Committee of Thirteen.--The Omnibus Bill.--
Conflict with General Taylor's Administration.--Death of the
President.--Mr. Fillmore reverses Taylor's Policy and supports the
Compromise Measures.--Defeat of Compromise Bill.--Passage of the
Measures separately.--Memorable Session of Congress.--Whig and
Democratic Parties sustain the Compromise Measures.--National
Conventions.--Whigs nominate Winfield Scott over Fillmore.--Mr.
Clay supports Fillmore.--Mr. Webster's Friends.--Democrats nominate
Franklin Pierce.--Character of the Campaign.--Overwhelming Defeat
of Scott.--Destruction of the Whig Party.--Death of Mr. Clay.--
Death of Mr. Webster.--Their Public Characters and Services
compared.
With the election of General Taylor, the various issues of the
slavery question were left undecided and unchanged. Indeed, the
progress of the canvass had presented a political anomaly. General
Cass was born in New England of Puritan stock. All his mature life
had been spent in the free North-West. He was a lawyer, a statesman,
always a civilian, except for a single year in the volunteer service
of 1812. General Taylor was born in Virginia, was reared in
Kentucky, was a soldier by profession from his earliest years of
manhood, had passed all his life in the South, was a resident of
Louisiana, engaged in planting, and was the owner of a large number
of slaves. Yet in the face of these facts General Cass ran as the
distinctively pro-slavery candidate, and General Taylor received
three-fourths of the votes of New England, and was supported
throughout the North by the anti-slavery Whigs, who accepted William
H. Seward as a leader and Horace Greeley as an exponent. But his
contradiction was apparent, not real. It was soon found that the
confidence of the Northern men who voted for Taylor had not been
misplaced.
CABINET OF PRESIDENT TAYLOR.
As his inauguration approached, the anxiety in regard to his public
policy grew almost painfully intense throughout the country. There
had never been a cabinet organized in which so deep an interest
was felt,--an interest which did not attach so much to the persons
who might compose it as to the side--pro-slavery or anti-slavery--
to which the balance might incline. When the names were announced,
it was found that four were from the south side of Mason and Dixon's
line, and three from the north side. But a review of the political
character of the members showed that the decided weight of influence
was with the North. John M. Clayton of Delaware, Secretary of
State, nominally from the South, had voted for the Wilmot Proviso,
and had defended his action with commanding ability. William M.
Meredith of Pennsylvania was one of the ablest lawyers of the
country, a scholar, a wit, an orator; his training had not, however,
fitted him for the Treasury Department to which he was called.
Thomas Ewing of Ohio, selected to organize the Department of the
Interior, just then authorized by law, was a man of intellectual
power, a lawyer of the first rank, possessing a stainless character,
great moral courage, unbending will, an incisive style, both with
tongue and pen, and a breadth of reading and wealth of information
never surpassed by any public man in America. Jacob Collamer of
Vermont, Postmaster-general, was an able, wise, just, and firm man,
stern in principle, conservative in action. The Attorney-general
was Reverdy Johnson of Maryland, an ardent Whig partisan, distinguished
in his profession, born and living in a slave State, but firmly
devoted to the Union, as in later life he abundantly proved. The
pronounced Southern sentiment, as represented by Toombs and Stephens,
had but two representatives in the cabinet,--George W. Crawford of
Georgia (nephew of the eminent William H. Crawford), Secretary of
War; and William Ballard Preston of Virginia, Secretary of the
Navy,--able and upright men, but less distinguished than their
associates.
The country was in an expectant and restless condition. The pro-
slavery leaders, who had counted upon large political gain to their
section by the acquisition of territory from Mexico, were somewhat
discouraged, and began to fear that the South had sown, and that
the North would reap. They had hoped to establish their right by
positive legislation to enter all the territories with slave
property. If they should fail in this, they believed with all
confidence, and had good reason at the time for their faith, that
they would be able to carry the line of 36° 30´ to the Pacific by
an extension of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and that in this
way the political strength of their section would be vastly enhanced.
But not long after the signing of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,
an event happened which put to naught the anticipations of Southern
statesmen. Gold was discovered in California late in the autumn
of 1848, and by one of those marvels of emigration which the Anglo-
Saxon race have more than once achieved, the Pacific slope was
immediately filled with a hardy, resolute, intelligent population.
In less than a year they organized a State government, adopted a
constitution in which slavery was forever prohibited, and were
ready by the close of 1849 to apply for admission to the Union.
The inhabitants had no powers of civil government conferred by
Congress; the only authority exercised by the United States being
that of Colonel Bennett Riley of the regular army, who had been
placed in command immediately after the Treaty of Peace by President
Polk, and who was left undisturbed by President Taylor.
Congress convened on the first Monday of December, 1849, amid deep
feeling, rapidly growing into excitement throughout the country.
For three weeks the House was unable to organize by the choice of
a speaker. The Democratic candidate was Howell Cobb; the Whig
candidate, Robert C. Winthrop. The contest was finally settled on
the sixty-third ballot, in accordance with a previous agreement
that a plurality should elect. Mr. Cobb received one hundred and
two votes; Mr. Winthrop ninety-nine, with twenty votes scattering,
principally anti-slavery Whigs and Free-Soilers. It was the first
time that such a step had been taken; and its constitutionality
was so doubtful, that after the ballot, a resolution declaring Mr.
Cobb to be speaker was adopted by general concurrence on a yea and
nay vote.
The message of the President was immediately transmitted, and proved
a tower of strength to the friends of the Union, and a heavy blow
to the secession element, which was rampant in Congress. The
President recommended that California, with her constitution,
already known to be anti-slavery, be promptly admitted to the Union.
He also suggested that New Mexico, already better protected in
property, life, liberty, and religion than she had ever been before,
be quietly left under her existing military government until she
should form a State constitution, and apply for admission,--an
event deemed probable in the very near future. That accomplished,
as he added in a special message a few days later, the claims of
Texas to a portion of New Mexico could be judicially determined,
which could not be done while New Mexico remained a territory,
organized or unorganized. These recommendations were intensely
distasteful to the South, and grew to be correspondingly popular
in the North. The sectional feeling rapidly developed and the
agitation in Congress communicated itself to the entire country.
THE UNITED STATES SENATE IN 1850.
The character and eminence of the men who took part in the discussion
gave it an intense, almost dramatic interest. Mr. Clay in his
seventy-third year was again in the Senate by the unanimous vote
of the Kentucky Legislature, in the belief that his patriotic
influence was needed in the impending crisis. Webster and Cass,
natives of the same New-England State, Benton and Calhoun, natives
of the Carolinas, all born the same year and now approaching
threescore and ten, represented in their own persons almost every
phase of the impending contest. Stephen A. Douglas had entered
the preceding Congress at the early age of thirty-four, and the
ardent young Irish soldier, James Shields, was now his colleague.
Jefferson Davis had come from Mississippi with the brilliant record
of his achievements in the Mexican war, already ambitious to succeed
Mr. Calhoun as the leader of the extreme South, but foiled in his
Disunion schemes by his eloquent but erratic colleague, Henry S.
Foote. William H. Seward of New York was for the first time taking
position under the National Government, at the age of forty-nine,
and Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, five years younger, was beginning his
political career as the colleague of Thomas Corwin. John Bell was
still honorably serving Tennessee, and John McPherson Berrien was
still honoring Georgia by his service. The amiable and excellent
William R. King, who had entered the Senate when Alabama was admitted
in 1819, and who was Colonel Benton's senior in service by two
years when he resigned in 1844 to accept the French mission, now
returned, and remained until he was chosen Vice-President in 1852.
Hannibal Hamlin had entered the preceding year, and was still
leading a bitter fight on the slavery question against a formidable
element in his own party headed at home by Nathan Clifford and
represented in the Senate by his colleague, James W. Bradbury.
John P. Hale, a New-Hampshire Democrat whom Franklin Pierce had
attempted to discipline because as representative in Congress he
had opposed the annexation of Texas, had beaten Pierce before the
people, defied the Democratic party, and was promoted to the Senate
an outspoken Free-Soiler. Willie P. Mangum and George E. Badger,
able, graceful, experienced statesmen, represented the steadfast
Union sentiment of the "Old North State" Whigs; while Andrew P.
Butler, impulsive and generous, learned and able, embodied all the
heresies of the South-Carolina Nullifiers. James M. Mason, who
seemed to court the hatred of the North, and Robert M. T. Hunter,
who had the cordial respect of all sections, spoke for Virginia.
Pierre Soulé came from Louisiana, eloquent even in a language he
could not pronounce, but better fitted by temperament for the
turbulence of a revolutionary assembly in his native land than for
the decorous conservatism of the American Senate. Sam Houston was
present from Texas, with a history full of adventure and singular
fortune, while his colleague, Thomas J. Rusk, was daily increasing
a reputation which had already marked him in the judgment of Mr.
Webster as first among the younger statesmen of the South. Dodge
of Wisconsin and Dodge of Iowa, father and son, represented the
Democracy of the remotest outposts in the North-West, and, most
striking of all, William M. Gwin and John C. Frémont, men of Southern
birth and pro-slavery training, stood at the door of the Senate
with the constitution of California in their hands to demand her
admission to the Union as a free State. At no time before or since
in the history of the Senate has its membership been so illustrious,
its weight of character and ability so great. The period marked
the meeting and dividing line between two generations of statesmen.
The eminent men who had succeeded the leaders of the Revolutionary
era were passing away, but the most brilliant of their number were
still lingering, unabated in natural force, resplendent in personal
fame. Their successors in public responsibility, if not their
equals in public regard and confidence, were already upon the stage
preparing for, and destined to act in, the bloodiest and most
memorable of civil struggles.
Mr. Clay had re-entered the Senate with no cordial feelings toward
President Taylor's administration. The events of the preceding
year were too fresh, the wounds too deep, to be readily forgotten
or quickly healed. But he desired no quarrel and was incapable of
showing petty resentment. His mind was intent on harmonizing the
serious differences between North and South, and he believed the
President's plan would fall short and fail. He desired, in the
same spirit of compromise which had been so distinguishing a mark
of his statesmanship in former crises, to secure "an amicable
arrangement of _all_ questions in controversy between the free and
slave States growing out of the subject of slavery." He was so
accustomed to lead, that the senators involuntarily waited for him
to open the discussion and point the way. He as naturally accepted
the responsibility, and in January (1850) began by submitting a
series of resolutions reciting the measures which were necessary
for the pacification of all strife in the country. These resolutions
embraced the admission of California; governments for the territory
acquired from Mexico without prohibition or permission of slavery;
adjustment of the disputed boundary of Texas and the allowance of
ten millions of dollars to that State for the payment of her debt;
the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia; more
effectual provision for the restitution of fugitive slaves.
DEATH OF JOHN C. CALHOUN.
It was on these resolutions that Mr. Calhoun prepared his last
formal speech. He attempted to deliver it in the Senate on the
4th of March, but was so weak that he requested Mr. Mason of Virginia
to read it for him. On two or three subsequent occasions Mr.
Calhoun made brief extempore remarks showing each time a gradual
decay of strength. He died on the last day of March. Most touching
and appreciative eulogies were delivered by Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster,
after his death had been announced by his colleague, Judge Butler.
Mr. Clay spoke of his "transcendent talents," of his "clear, concise,
compact logic," of his "felicity in generalization surpassed by no
one." He intimated that he would have been glad to see Mr. Calhoun
succeed Mr. Monroe in the Presidency in 1820. Mr. Webster, who
always measured his words, spoke of him as "a man of undoubted
genius and commanding talent, of unspotted integrity, of unimpeached
honor." Mr. Calhoun had been driven by his controversies with
Jackson into a position where he was deprived of popular strength
in the free States. But this very fact enhanced his power with
the South, and increased his hold upon his own people. To the
majority of the people in the slave-holding States he was as an
inspired leader for more than twenty years. He taught the philosophy
and supplied the arguments to the ambitious generation of public
men who came after him, and who were prepared, as he was not, to
force the issue to the arbitrament of arms. Deplorable as was the
end to which his teachings led, he could not have acquired the
influence he wielded over millions of men unless he had been gifted
with acute intellect, distinguished by moral excellence, and inspired
by the sincerest belief in the righteousness of his cause. History
will adjudge him to have been single-hearted and honest in his
political creed. It will equally adjudge him to have been wrong
in his theory of the Federal Government, and dead to the awakened
sentiment of Christendom in his views concerning the enslavement
of man.
Mr. Calhoun's published works show the extent of his participation
in the national councils. They exhibit his zeal, the intensity of
his convictions, and at the same time the clearness and strength
of his logic. His premises once admitted, it is difficult to resist
the force of his conclusions. Mr. Webster assailed his premises,
and in their debate of February 16, 1833, defeated him, as another
senator remarked, "by the acuteness of his definitions,"--thus
meeting Mr. Calhoun on his own ground. The war and its results
have in large degree remanded the theories of Mr. Calhoun to the
past, but no intelligent student of the institutions of the United
States can afford to neglect his elaborate, conscientious, able
discussions. Taken with Mr. Webster's works they exhibit the most
complete examination, the most comprehensive analysis of the often
tortuous and ill-defined line which separates the powers of the
National Government from the functions which properly belong to
the States. Mr. Calhoun's public service may be regarded as
continuous from 1810, when he was elected to Congress at twenty-
eight years of age, till his death,--a period of forty years. He
took his seat in the House in December, 1811, and was placed by
the speaker, Mr. Clay (with whom he was then in accord), on the
Committee of Foreign Affairs. He was earnest and influential in
supporting the war policy of the Madison administration, and gained
so rapidly in public estimation that six years later he was appointed
secretary of War by President Monroe. Thenceforward his career
was illustrious. As Vice-President, as secretary of State, above
all as senator from South Carolina, he gained lasting renown. His
life was eminently pure, his career exceptional, his fame established
beyond the reach of calumny, beyond the power of detraction.
MR. WEBSTER'S 7TH OF MARCH SPEECH.
Continuing the discussion invited by Mr. Clay's resolutions, Mr.
Webster delivered, on the 7th of March, the memorable speech which
cost him the loss of so many of his staunch and lifelong friends.
The anti-slavery Whigs of the North, who, as the discussion went
on, had waited to be vindicated by the commanding argument of Mr.
Webster, were dismayed and cast down by his unexpected utterance.
Instead of arraigning the propagandists of slavery, he arraigned
its opponents. Instead of indicting the Disunionists of the South,
the poured out his wrath upon the Abolitionists of the North. He
maintained that the North had unduly exaggerated the dangers of
slavery extension at this crisis. California was coming in as a
free State. Texas, north of 36° 30´, if her boundary should extend
so far, had been declared free in the articles of annexation. In
the mountainous and sterile character of New Mexico and Utah he
found a stronger prohibition of slavery than in any possible
ordinance, enactment, or proviso placed on the statute-book by
Congress. He would not, therefore, "re-enact the Law of God." He
would not force a quarrel with the South when nothing was to be
gained. He would not irritate or causelessly wound the feelings
of those who were just beginning to realize that they had lost in
the issue put at stake in the Mexican war. The speech undoubtedly
had great influence in the North, and caused many anti-slavery men
to turn back. But on the other hand, it embittered thousands who
pressed forward with sturdy principle and with a quickened zeal,
not unmixed with resentment and a sense of betrayal. In many parts
of the country, and especially in the Middle and Southern States,
the speech was received with enthusiastic approval. But in New
England, the loss of whose good opinion could not be compensated
to Mr. Webster by the applause of a world outside, he never regained
his hold upon the popular affection. New friends came to him, but
they did not supply the place of the old friends, who for a lifetime
had stood by him with unswerving principle and with ever-increasing
pride.
Excitement and passion do not, however, always issue decrees and
pronounce judgments of absolute right. In the zeal of that hour,
Northern anti-slavery opinion failed to appreciate the influence
which wrought so powerfully on the mind of Mr. Webster. He belonged
with those who could remember the first President, who personally
knew much of the hardships and sorrows of the Revolutionary period,
who were born to poverty and reared in privation. To these, the
formation of the Federal Government had come as a gift from Heaven,
and they had heard from the lips of the living Washington in his
farewell words, that "the Union is the edifice of our real
independence, the support of our tranquillity at home, our peace
abroad, our prosperity, our safety, and of the very liberty which
we so highly prize, that for this Union we should cherish a cordial,
habitual, immovable attachment, and should discountenance whatever
may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned."
Mr. Webster had in his own lifetime seen the thirteen colonies grow
into thirty powerful States. He had seen three millions of people,
enfeebled and impoverished by a long struggle, increased eightfold
in number, surrounded by all the comforts, charms, and securities
of life. All this spoke to him of the Union and of its priceless
blessings. He now heard its advantages discussed, its perpetuity
doubted, its existence threatened. A convention of slave-holding
States had been called, to meet at Nashville, for the purpose of
considering the possible separation of the sections. Mr. Webster
felt that a generation had been born who were undervaluing their
inheritance, and who might, by temerity, destroy it. Under motives
inspired by these surroundings, he spoke for the preservation of
the Union. He believed it to be seriously endangered. His
apprehensions were ridiculed by many who, ten years after Mr.
Webster was in his grave, saw for the first time how real and how
terrible were the perils upon which those apprehensions were
founded.
When the hour of actual conflict came, every patriot realized that
a great magazine of strength for the Union was stored in the
teachings of Mr. Webster. For thirty years preceding the Nullification
troubles in South Carolina, the government had been administered
on the States'-rights theory, in which the power of the nation was
subordinated, and its capacity to subdue the revolt of seceding
States was dangerously weakened. His speech in reply to Hayne in
1830 was like an amendment to the Constitution. It corrected
traditions, changed convictions, revolutionized conclusions. It
gave to the friends of the Union the abundant logic which established
the right and the power of the government to preserve itself. A
fame so lofty, a work so grand, cannot be marred by one mistake,
if mistake it be conceded. The thoughtful reconsideration of his
severest critics must allow that Mr. Webster saw before him a
divided duty, and that he chose the part which in his patriotic
judgment was demanded by the supreme danger of the hour.
Mr. Clay's resolutions were referred to a special committee of
thirteen, of which he was made chairman. They reported a bill
embracing the principal objects contemplated in his original speech.
The discussion on this composite measure was earnest and prolonged,
and between certain senators became exasperating. The Administration,
through its newspapers, through the declarations of its Cabinet
minsters, through the unreserved expressions of President Taylor
himself, showed persistent hostility to Mr. Clay's Omnibus Bill,
as it was derisively and offensively called. Mr. Clay, in turn,
did not conceal his hostility to the mode of adjustment proposed
in the messages of the President, and defended his own with vigor
and eloquence. Reciting the measures demanded for a fair and
lasting settlement, he said there were five wounds, bleeding and
threatening the body politic, all needing to be healed, while the
President proposed to heal but one. He described the wounds,
numbering them carefully on his fingers as he spoke. Colonel
Benton, who was vindictively opposed to the Omnibus Bill, made
sport of the five gaping wounds, and believed that Mr. Clay would
have found more wounds if he had had more fingers. This strife
naturally grew more and more severe, making for a time a somewhat
serious division among the Democrats, and rending the Whig party
asunder, one section following Mr. Clay with great zeal, the other
adhering with tenacity to the administration.
DEATH OF PRESIDENT TAYLOR.
The quarrel was growing fiercer day by day, and involving all shades
of political opinion, when it was suddenly arrested by the death
of General Taylor on the 9th of July (1850). This sad event gave
the opportunity for the success of the Compromise measures. Had
General Taylor lived, their defeat was assured. As a Southern man,
coming from a Gulf State, personally interested in the institution
of slavery, he had a vantage-ground in the struggle which a Northern
President could never attain. He had, moreover, the courage and
the intelligence to uphold his principles, even in a controversy
with Mr. Clay. His ignorance of political and civil affairs has
been grossly exaggerated. Without taking part in politics, he had
been a close observer of events, and his prolonged services at
frontier posts had afforded the leisure and enforced the taste for
reading. He knew not only the public measures, but the public men
of his time closely and appreciatively. He surprised a member of
his cabinet on a certain occasion, by objecting to a proposed
appointment on the ground that the man designated had voted for
Benton's expunging resolution at the close of Jackson's administration,
--an offense which the President would not condone. The seven
members of his cabinet, actively engaged in politics all their
lives, had forgotten an important fact which the President
instinctively remembered.
Long before General Taylor's death it was known that Mr. Fillmore
did not sympathize with the policy of the administration. He had
been among the most advanced of anti-slavery Whigs during his
service in the House of Representatives, and was placed on the
Taylor ticket as a conciliatory candidate, to hold to their allegiance
that large class of Whigs who resented the nomination of a Louisiana
slave-holder. But from the day he was sworn in as Vice-President
his antipathy to Mr. Seward began to develop. With the conceded
ability of the latter, and with his constant opportunity on the
floor of the Senate, where he won laurels from the day of his
entrance, Mr. Fillmore felt that he would himself be subordinated
and lost in the crowd of followers if he coincided with Seward.
Older in years, long senior to Mr. Seward in the national service,
he apparently could not endure to see himself displaced by a more
brilliant and more capable leader. The two men, therefore, gradually
separated; Mr. Fillmore using what influence he possessed as Vice-
President in favor of Mr. Clay's plan of compromise, while Mr.
Seward became the Northern leader of the Administration Whigs,--a
remarkable if not unprecedented advance for a senator in the first
session of his service.
In succeeding to the Presidency, Mr. Fillmore naturally gave the
full influence of his administration to the Compromise. To signalize
his position, he appointed Mr. Webster secretary of State, and
placed Mr. Corwin of Ohio at the head of the Treasury. Mr. Corwin,
with a strong anti-slavery record, had been recently drifting in
the opposite direction, and his appointment was significant. It
was too late, however, to save the Omnibus Bill as a whole. The
Taylor administration had damaged it too seriously to permit an
effectual revival in its favor. It was finally destroyed the last
week in July by striking out in detail every provision except the
bill for the organization of the Territory of Utah. After the Utah
bill had been enacted, separate bills followed;--for the admission
of California; for the organization of New Mexico, with the same
condition respecting slavery which had been applied to Utah; for
the adjustment of the Texas boundary, and the payment to that State
of ten millions indemnity; for the more effectual recovery of
fugitive slaves; for the abolition of the slave trade in the District
of Columbia. Congress thus enacted separately the bills which it
refused to enact together, and the policy outlined by Mr. Clay at
the beginning of the session had triumphed. Several Southern
senators joined Jefferson Davis in strenuous resistance to the
admission of California with the boundaries prescribed. After
seeking ineffectually to make the line of 36° 30´ the southern
limit of the State, they attempted with equal lack of success
to enter a solemn protest on the journal of the Senate against
the wrong done to the slave-holding States in giving the
entire Pacific coast to freedom. It was a last and hopeless movement
of the Southern Hotspurs. The protest, at first discredited, was
speedily forgotten, and California entered the Union after ten
months of angry controversy, with slavery forever excluded from
her imperial domain.
THE FINALITY OF THE COMPROMISE.
The session had been in all respects important and memorable. In
the judgment of many it had been critical, and the dangers attending
its action were increased by the death of General Taylor. The
South would endure from him what they would resent and possibly
resist if imposed by an anti-slavery Whig from the North. This
fact had, doubtless, great influence in shaping the policy of Mr.
Fillmore, both as Vice-President and President. The events of the
session marred and made the reputation of many. Four senators
especially, of the younger class, had laid the foundation of their
prominence in the struggles of after years,--Mr. Seward as an anti-
slavery Whig, Mr. Chase as a Free-Soiler, previously of Democratic
affiliations, Mr. Jefferson Davis as a Southern Democrat, and Mr.
Douglas as a Northern Democrat. Calhoun was dead. Clay and Webster
and Cass and Benton were near the end of their illustrious careers.
New men were thenceforth to guide the policy of the Republic, and
among the new men in a Senate of exceptional ability these four
attained the largest fame, secured the strongest constituencies,
and exerted the widest influence.
Both political parties began at once to take ground in favor of
the Compromise measures as a final and complete adjustment of the
slavery question. The Southern Whigs under Mr. Clay's lead eagerly
assumed that conclusion. Mr. Fillmore, having approved all the
bills separately which taken together formed the Compromise, was
of course strongly in favor of regarding these measures as a
finality. Mr. Webster took the same view, though from a bill he
had prepared before he left the Senate for the rendition of fugitive
slaves, guaranteeing jury-trial to the fugitive, it is hardly
conceivable that he would have voted for the harsh measure that
was enacted. Mr. Corwin to the surprise of his friends had passed
over from the most radical to the ultra-conservative side on the
slavery question, and it was his change, in addition to that of
Mr. Webster, which had given so brilliant an opportunity to Mr.
Seward as the leader of the Northern Whigs. Mr. Corwin was
irretrievably injured by a course so flatly in contradiction of
his previous action. He lost the support and largely forfeited
the confidence of the Ohio Whigs, who in 1848 had looked upon him
as a possible if not probable candidate for the Presidency.
But against this surrender to the Compromise measures of 1850, the
Whigs who followed Seward and Wade and Thaddeus Stevens and Fessenden
were earnest and active. Stevens was then a member of the House
and had waged bitter war against the measures. Wade and Fessenden
had not yet entered the Senate, but were powerful leaders in their
respective States. These men had not given up the creed which
demanded an anti-slavery restriction on every inch of soil owned
by the United States. They viewed with abhorrence the legislation
which had placed freedom and slavery on the same plane in the
Territories of Utah and New Mexico. They believed that Texas had
been paid for a baseless claim ten millions of dollars, one-half
of which, as a sharp critic declared, was hush-money, the other
half blood-money. They regarded the cruel law for the return of
fugitive slaves as an abomination in the sight of God and man. In
their judgment it violated every principle of right. It allowed
the personal liberty of a man to be peremptorily decided by a United-
States commissioner, acting with absolute power and without appeal.
For a claim exceeding twenty dollars in value, every citizen has
the right to a trial by jury; but by this law the body, the life,
the very soul of a man, possibly a free-born citizen, might be
consigned to perpetual enslavement on the fallible judgment of a
single official. An apparently slight, yet especially odious
feature of the law which served in large degree to render it
inoperative was that the United-States commissioner, in the event
of his remanding the alleged fugitive to slavery, received a fee
of ten dollars, and, if he adjudged him to be free, received only
five dollars.
It soon became evident that with the Whigs divided and the Democrats
compactly united upon the finality of the Compromise, the latter
would have the advantage in the ensuing Presidential election.
The tendency would naturally be to consolidate the slave-holding
States in support of the Democratic candidates, because that party
had a large, well-organized force throughout the North cherishing
the same principles, co-operating for the same candidates, and
controlling many, if not a majority, of the free States. The
Southern Whigs, equally earnest with the Democrats for the Compromise,
were constantly injured at home by the outspoken anti-slavery
principles of leading Northern Whigs. Just at that point of time
and from the cause indicated began the formation of parties divided
on the geographical line between North and South. But this result
was as yet only foreshadowed, not developed. Both the old parties
held their national conventions as usual, in 1852, with every State
represented in both by full delegations. There were peculiar
troubles in each. In the Democratic convention the dissensions
had been in large part inherited, and had reference more to persons
than to principles, more to the candidate than to the platform.
While something of the same trouble was visible in the Whig ranks,
the chief source of contention and of party weakness was found in
the irreconcilable difference of principle between all the Southern
Whigs and a large number of the Northern Whigs. In the South they
were unanimous in support of the Compromise. In the North they
were divided.
DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION.
The Democratic National Convention met in Baltimore on the first
day of June, 1852. General Cass, though he had reached his seventieth
year, was again in the field. Mr. Buchanan, then sixty-one years
of age, was the candidate next in strength, and Stephen A. Douglas
was third. Douglas was but thirty-nine years old, the youngest
man ever formally presented for the Presidency by a State delegation
in a National convention. Governor Marcy was fourth in the order
of strength. There were scattering votes for other candidates,
but these four were seriously and hopefully urged by their respective
supporters. Marcy was in many respects the fittest man to be
nominated, but the fear was that the old dissensions of the New-
York Democracy, now seemingly healed, would open afresh if the
chief of one of the clans should be imposed on the other. Douglas
was injured by his partial committal to what was known as the
doctrine of "manifest destiny,"--the indefinite acquisition of
territory southward, especially in the direction of the West Indies.
Cass was too old. Buchanan lacked personal popularity; and, while
he had the Pennsylvania delegation in his favor, a host of enemies
from that State, outside the convention, warred against him most
bitterly. No one of these eminent men could secure two-thirds of
the delegates as required by the iron rule, and on the forty-ninth
ballot Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire, who had been among the
"scattering" on several preceding votes, was unanimously nominated.
The suggestion of Pierce's name was not so spontaneous and sudden
as it was made to appear. The precise condition of affairs was
discerned before the convention met, and some sagacious and far-
seeing men, among whom the late Caleb Cushing was one, and General
Benjamin F. Butler another, had canvassed the merits of Pierce
before the convention met. They saw that from his record in Congress
he would be entirely acceptable to the South, and at the opportune
moment their plans were perfected and Pierce was nominated with a
great show of enthusiasm. William R. King of Alabama was selected
to run as Vice-President.
General Pierce had many qualities that rendered him a strong
candidate. He had served with credit if not distinction both in
the House and the Senate. He was elected to the House in 1832,
when he was but twenty-eight years of age, and resigned his seat
in the Senate in 1842. In the ten years which intervened before
his nomination for the Presidency, he had devoted himself to the
law with brilliant success, leaving it only for his short service
in the Mexican war. He was still a young man when he was preferred
to all the prominent statesmen of his party as a Presidential
candidate. He was remarkably attractive in personal appearance,
prepossessing in manner, ready and even eloquent as a public speaker,
fluent and graceful in conversation. He presented thus a rare
combination of the qualities which attach friends and win popular
support.
The platform of principles enunciated by the convention was just
what the South desired and demanded. The entire interest centred
in the slavery question. Indeed, the declarations upon other issues
were not listened to by the delegates, and were scarcely read by
the public. Without a dissenting voice the convention resolved
that "all efforts of the Abolitionists or others to induce Congress
to interfere with questions of slavery or to take incipient steps
in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming
and dangerous consequences." The Compromise measures, including
the fugitive-slave law, which was specially named, were most heartily
indorsed, and were regarded as an adjustment of the whole controversy.
By way of indicting how full, complete, and final the settlement
was, the convention with unrestrained enthusiasm declared that "the
Democratic party will resist all attempts at renewing, in Congress
or out of it, the agitation of the slavery question, under whatever
shape or color the attempts may be made." Among the men who joined
in these declarations were not a few who had supported Van Buren
and Adams in the canvass of 1848. One of the prominent officers
of the convention was the author of many of the most extreme anti-
slavery declarations put forth at Buffalo.
WHIG NATIONAL CONVENTION.
The Whigs met at Baltimore a fortnight after the Democratic convention
had adjourned. The slavery question, upon which the Democrats of
all shades had so cordially coalesced, was to the Whigs a dividing
sword. Mr. Fillmore was a candidate, supported with almost entire
unanimity by the Southern Whigs. Mr. Webster was a candidate, and
though in his fear for the Union he had sacrificed more than any
other man for the South, he could secure no Southern support.
General Scott was a candidate, and though born and reared in
Virginia, he was supported by anti-slavery Whigs of every shade in
the North, against the two men of Northern birth and Northern
associations. On the first ballot, Fillmore received 133 votes,
Scott 131, Webster 23. Fillmore received every Southern vote,
except one from Virginia given to Scott by John Minor Botts. Scott
received every Northern vote except twenty-nine given to Webster,
and sixteen given to Fillmore. The friends of Mr. Webster, and
Mr. Webster himself, were pained and mortified by the result.
Rufus Choate was at the head of the Massachusetts delegation, and
eloquently, even passionately, pleaded with the Southern men to
support Mr. Webster on a single ballot. But the Southern men
stubbornly adhered to Fillmore, and were in turn enraged because
the twenty-nine votes thrown away, as they said, on Mr. Webster,
would at once renominate the President in whose cabinet Mr. Webster
was at that moment serving as Premier. This threefold contest had
been well developed before the convention assembled, and one feature
of special bitterness had been added to it by a letter from Mr.
Clay, who was on his death-bed in Washington. He urged his friends
to support Mr. Fillmore. This was regarded by many as a lack of
generosity on Mr. Clay's part, after the warm support which Mr.
Webster had given him in his contest with Mr. Polk in 1844. But
there had been for years an absence of cordiality between these
Whig leaders, and many who were familiar with both declared that
Mr. Clay had never forgiven Mr. Webster for remaining in Tyler's
cabinet after the resignation of the other Whig members. Mr.
Webster's association with Tyler had undoubtedly given to the
President a measure of protection against the hot wrath of Mr. Clay
in the memorable contest of 1841-2, and by natural reaction had
impaired the force of Mr. Clay's attack. And now ten years after
the event its memory rose to influence the Presidential nomination
of 1852.
Another explanation is more in consonance with Mr. Clay's magnanimity
of character. He was extremely anxious that an outspoken friend
of the Compromise should be nominated. He knew when he wrote his
letter that the Democrats would pledge themselves to the finality
of the Compromise, and he knew the Southern Whigs would be overwhelmed
if there should be halting or hesitation on this issue either in
their candidate or in their platform. He felt, as the responsible
author of the Compromise, that he was himself on trial, and it
would be a peculiar mortification if the party which he had led so
long should fail to sustain him in this final crisis of his public
life. He had been sufficiently humiliated by Taylor's triumph over
him in the convention of 1848. It would be an absolutely intolerable
rebuke if in 1852 Taylor's policy should be preferred to his own
by a Whig national convention. Taylor, indeed, was in his grave,
but his old military compatriot, Scott, was a candidate for the
Presidency, and the anti-Compromise Whigs under Seward's lead were
rallying to his support. Mr. Clay believed that Fillmore, with
the force of the national administration in his hands, could defeat
General Scott, and that Mr. Webster's candidacy was a needless
division of friends. Hence he sustained Fillmore, not from hostility
to Webster, but as the sure and only means of securing an indorsement
of the Compromise measures, and of doing justice to a Northern
President who had risked every thing in support of Mr. Clay's
policy.
The contest was long and earnest. Mr. Webster's friends, offended
by what they considered the ingratitude of Southern Whigs, persistently
refused to go over to Fillmore, though by so doing they could at
any moment secure his nomination. They cared nothing for Fillmore's
lead in votes, obtained as they thought in large degree from the
use of patronage. They scouted it as an argument not fit to be
addressed to the friends of Mr. Webster. Such considerations
belonged only to men of the lower grades, struggling in the dirty
pools of political strife, and were not to be applied to a statesman
of Mr. Webster's rank and character. They felt, moreover, that
all the popularity which Fillmore had secured in the South, and to
a certain degree with the conservative and commercial classes of
the whole country, had come from Mr. Webster's presence and pre-
eminent service in his cabinet. In short, Mr. Webster's supporters
felt that Mr. Fillmore, so far from earning their respect and
deserving their applause, was merely strutting in borrowed plumage,
and deriving all his strength from their own illustrious chief.
This jealousy was of course stimulated with consummate art and tact
by the supporters of Scott. They expressed, as they really
entertained, the highest admiration for Webster, and no less frankly
made known their dislike, if not their contempt, for Fillmore.
Webster, as they pointed out, was supported by the voice of his
own great State. Massachusetts had sent a delegation composed of
her best men, with the most brilliant orator of the nation, to
plead their cause at the bar of the convention. In contrast with
this, Fillmore had no support from New York. The Whigs of that
State had sent a delegation to impeach him before the nation for
faithlessness to principle, and to demand that votes of other States
should not impose on New York a recreant son to confound and destroy
the party.
NOMINATION OF GENERAL SCOTT.
From this attrition and conflict the natural result was Scott's
triumph. It was not reached, however, until the fifty-third ballot
and until the fifth day of the convention. It was brought about
by the votes of some Fillmore delegates, both in the North and the
South, who felt that the long contest should be ended. The gossip
of the day--with perhaps a shadow of foundation--was, that in the
councils of an inner and governing circle of delegates it was
finally agreed that the North might have the candidate, and the
South should have the platform, and that thus a bold fight could
be made in both sections. William A. Graham of North Carolina,
formerly a senator in Congress from that State, subsequently its
governor, and at the time secretary of the Navy in Mr. Fillmore's
cabinet, was nominated for Vice-President, as a wise concession to
the defeated party. The platform adopted was strongly Southern,
and this fact served to confirm in the minds of many the existence
of the suspected agreement for the division of honors between North
and South. The convention resolved that the Compromise measures,
including the fugitive-slave law (specially designated after the
example of the Democratic convention), "are received and acquiesced
in by the Whig party of the United States as a settlement in
principle and in substance of the dangerous and exciting questions
which they embrace." They further declared that this position was
"essential to the nationality of the Whig party and the integrity
of the Union." Alexander H. Stephens has stated that this resolution
was shown to him by Mr. Webster before the convention assembled,
and while Mr. Choate was his guest. The inference apparently
intended was that Mr. Choate carried it to the convention as the
expression of the Northern Whigs, who believed in the Compromise
measures. The agreement--if one existed--that this resolution
should be adopted, did not involve all the Northern Whigs. Sturdy
resistance was made by many, and the final vote disclosed a powerful
minority opposed to the resolution.
For the first few weeks of the canvass the Whigs had strong hope
of success. The name of General Scott evoked much enthusiasm, and
his splendid military reputation, acquired in two wars, was favorably
contrasted with that of General Pierce, who was one of President
Polk's political brigadiers. But these indications were the bubbles
and froth that floated on the surface. The personal characteristics
of the candidates were lost sight of in the face of the great issues
involved. The people soon perceived that if there was indeed merit
in the Compromise measures, it would be wise to intrust them to
the keeping of the party that was unreservedly--North and South--
in favor of upholding and enforcing them. On this point there was
absolutely no division in the Democratic ranks. In New York the
friends of Marcy and the political heirs of Wright cordially
harmonized in favor of the Compromise. Mr. Van Buren returned to
Tammany Hall as fresh and buoyant as if his allegiance had never
been broken; and in a great convocation of the Democracy, the
prodigal was welcomed, Pierce's nomination applauded, the platform
cheered, the anti-slavery creed forsworn, the Whig party roundly
abused, and word sent forth to the uttermost parts of the Union
that the Empire State had resumed her place at the head of the
Democratic line.
The Whigs soon found to their dismay that the platform and the
candidate were inseparable. They could not make a canvass upon
the one in the South and upon the other in the North. General
Scott had indeed heartily assented to all the principles proclaimed
at the convention, but so long as Horace Greeley was eulogizing
him in the "Tribune," and Seward supporting him on the stump, it
was idle to present him as an acceptable candidate to slave-holding
Whigs in the South. Supporting the candidate and spitting on the
platform became the expressive if inelegant watchword of many
Northern Whigs, but for every Whig vote which this phrase kept to
his party allegiance in the free States, it drove two over to the
Democracy in the slave States. Moreover, spitting on the platform,
however effective as an indication of contempt, would not satisfy
the conscience or the prejudices of large numbers of Whigs who
voted directly for the candidates of the Free-soil party, John P.
Hale of New Hampshire for President, and George W. Julian of Indiana
for Vice-President.
DEFEAT OF THE WHIG PARTY.
Weakened by personal strife, hopelessly divided on questions of
principle, the Whig party was led to the slaughter. Carrying in
1840 every State but seven for Harrison, failing to elect Mr. Clay
in 1844 only by the loss of New York, triumphantly installing Taylor
in 1848, the Whigs were astounded to find that their candidate had
been successful in but four States of the Union, and that twenty-
seven States had by large majorities pronounced for General Pierce.
Massachusetts and Vermont in the North, Kentucky and Tennessee in
the South, had alone remained true to the Whig standard. All the
other Whig States that had stood staunch and strong in the fierce
contests of the past now gave way. Connecticut and Rhode Island,
which never but once failed either Federalist or Whig from the
foundation of the government, now voted for a pro-slavery States'-
rights Democrat. Delaware, which never in a single instance voted
for the Democratic candidate except when Monroe had no opposition
in 1820; which had fought against Jefferson and Madison; which had
stood firmly against Jackson and Van Buren and Polk and Cass when
the Bayards were Whigs and co-operated with the Claytons, now
swelled the general acclaim for Pierce. Of 296 electors Pierce
received 254 and General Scott only 42. The wide sweep of the
Democratic victory was a surprise to both sides, though for several
weeks before the election the defeat of Scott was anticipated. He
received no support from Mr. Fillmore's administration, was indeed
secretly betrayed by it everywhere, and quite openly by its officials
in the Southern States. He did not receive the strength of his
party, and the strength of his party would have been insufficient
to elect him. But overwhelming as was the defeat, it did not
necessarily involve destruction. The Whigs had been beaten almost
as badly when Clay ran against Jackson in 1832, and yet the party
had rallied to four earnest contests and to two signal victories.
The Democracy, now so triumphant, had been disastrously beaten in
the contest of 1840, but in the next election had regained strength
enough to defeat Mr. Clay. The precedents, therefore, permitted
the Whigs to be of good cheer and bade them wait the issues of the
future. They were not, however, consoled by the philosophy of
defeat, and were disposed to gloomy anticipations.
MR. CLAY AND MR. WEBSTER COMPARED.
As if to emphasize the disaster to the Whigs, Mr. Clay and Mr.
Webster both died during the canvass; Mr. Clay in June, a few days
after Scott's nomination, Mr. Webster in October, a few days before
his defeat. They had both lived long enough to see the work of
their political life imperiled if not destroyed. They had held
the same relation to the Whigs that the elder Adams and Hamilton
had held to the Federalists, that Jefferson and Madison had held
to the Republicans. Comparison between them could not be fairly
made, their inherent qualities and personal characteristics differed
so widely. Each was superior to the other in certain traits, and
in our public annals thus far each stands unequaled in his sphere.
Their points of contrast were salient and numerous. Mr. Clay was
born in Virginia. Mr. Webster was born in New England. Mr. Clay
was a devoted follower of Jefferson. Mr. Webster was bred in the
school of Hamilton. Mr. Clay was an earnest advocate of the second
war with Great Britain. Mr. Webster was its steady opponent. Mr.
Clay supported Madison in 1812 with great energy. Mr. Webster
threw all his strength for De Witt Clinton. Mr. Clay was from the
first deeply imbued with the doctrine of protection. Mr. Webster
entered public life as a pronounced free-trader. They were not
members of the same political organization until after the destruction
of the old Federal party to which Mr. Webster belonged, and the
hopeless divisions of the old Republican party to which Mr. Clay
belonged. They gradually harmonized towards the close of Monroe's
second term, and became firmly united under the administration of
John Quincy Adams. Modern political designations had their origin
in the Presidential election of 1824. The candidates all belonged
to the party of Jefferson, which had been called Democratic-
Republican. In the new divisions, the followers of Jackson took
the name of Democrats: the supporters of Adams called themselves
National Republicans. They had thus divided the old name, each
claiming the inheritance. The unpopularity of Mr. Adams's
administration had destroyed the prospects of the National-Republican
party, and the name was soon displaced by the new and more acceptable
title of Whig. To the joint efforts of Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster
more than to all others the formation of the Whig party was due.
It was not, however, in Mr. Webster's nature to become a partisan
chief. Mr. Clay on the other hand was naturally and inevitably a
leader. In all the discussions of the Senate in which constitutional
questions were involved, Mr. Clay instinctively deferred to Mr.
Webster. In the parliamentary debates which concerned the position
of parties and the fate of measures, which enchained the Senate
and led captive the people, Mr. Clay was _facile princeps_. Mr.
Webster argued the principle. Mr. Clay embodied it in a statute.
Mr. Webster's speeches are still read with interest and studied
with profit. Mr. Clay's speeches swayed listening senates and
moved multitudes, but reading them is a disappointment. Between
the two the difference is much the same as that between Burke and
Charles James Fox. Fox was the parliamentary debater of England,
the consummate leader of his party. His speeches, always listened
to and cheered by a crowded House of Commons, perished with their
delivery. Burke could never command a body of followers, but his
parliamentary orations form brilliant and permanent chapters in
the political literature of two continents.
While Mr. Webster's name is so honorably perpetuated by his elaborate
and masterly discussion of great principles in the Senate, he did
not connect himself with a single historic measure. While Mr.
Clay's speeches remain unread, his memory is lastingly identified
with issues that are still vital and powerful. He advanced the
doctrine of protection to the stately dignity of the American
system. Discarding theories and overthrowing the dogma of strict
construction, he committed the General Government irrevocably to
internal improvements. Condemning the worthless system of paper
money imposed upon the people by irresponsible State banks, he
stood firmly for a national currency, and he foreshadowed if he
did not reach the paper money which is based to-day on the credit
and the strength of the government.
Mr. Clay possessed extraordinary sagacity in public affairs, seeing
and foreseeing where others were blinded by ignorance or prejudice.
He was a statesman by intuition, finding a remedy before others
could discover the disease. His contemporaries appreciated his
rare endowments. On the day of his first entrance into the House
of Representatives he was chosen Speaker, though but thirty-four
years of age. This was all the more remarkable because the House
was filled with men of recognized ability, who had been long in
the public service. It was rendered still more striking by the
fact that Mr. Clay was from the far West, from one of the only two
States whose frontiers reached the Mississippi. In the entire
House there were only fifteen members from the Western side of the
Alleghanies. He was re-elected Speaker in every Congress so long
as he served as representative. He entered the Senate at thirty,
and died a member of it in his seventy-sixth year. He began his
career in that body during the Presidency of Jefferson in 1806,
and closed it under the Presidency of Fillmore in 1852. Other
senators have served a longer time than Mr. Clay, but he alone at
periods so widely separated. Other men have excelled him in specific
powers, but in the rare combination of qualities which constitute
at once the matchless leader of party and the statesman of consummate
ability and inexhaustible resource, he has never been surpassed by
any man speaking the English tongue.
[NOTE.--The Committee of Thirteen, to which reference is made on
p. 94, and which attained such extraordinary importance at the
time, was originally suggested by Senator Foote of Mississippi.
His first proposition was somewhat novel from its distinct recognition
of the sectional character of the issues involved. He proposed
that the committee be chosen by ballot, that six members of it
should be taken from the free States and six members from the slave
States, and that the twelve thus chosen should select a thirteenth
member who should be chairman of the committee. All propositions
touching any of the questions at issue between the North and the
South were to be referred to this committee with the view of securing
a general and comprehensive compromise. The subject was debated
for several weeks. Mr. Foote submitted his proposition on the 25th
of February, 1850, and it was not adopted until the 18th of April.
The committee was chosen on the 19th. Mr. Clay had objected to
the open avowal of a division of the committee on the line of North
and South, and the proposition was so modified as to simply provide
for a committee of thirteen to be chosen by ballot,--the chairman
to be first selected, and the other twelve members on a second
ballot. The change of the resolution was one of form only; for,
when the Senate came to select the members, they adhered to the
plan originally suggested by Mr. Foote. Mr. Clay was made chairman,
which had been the design from the first, and then six senators
were taken from the free States and six from the slave States,--
the first, if not the only, time this mode of appointment was
adopted. The membership of the committee was highly distinguished.
From the free States the Senate selected Mr. Webster, General Cass,
Mr. Dickinson of New York, Mr. Bright of Indiana, Mr. Phelps of
Vermont, and Mr. Cooper of Pennsylvania. From the slave States,
Mr. King of Alabama, Mr. Mason of Virginia, Mr. Downs of Louisiana,
Mr. Mangum of North Carolina, Mr. Bell of Tennessee, and Mr. Berrien
of Georgia. The twelve were equally divided between the Whigs and
the Democrats, so that, with Mr. Clay as chairman, the Whigs had
the majority in numbers as they had the overwhelming superiority
in weight and ability. The composition of the committee was
remarkable when it is remembered that the Democrats had a majority
of ten in the Senate.]
CHAPTER VI.
Review (_continued_).--The Strength of the Democratic Party in
1853.--Popular Strength not so great as Electoral Strength.--The
New President's Pledge not to re-open the Slavery Question.--How
he failed to maintain that Pledge.--The North-west Territory.--Anti-
slavery Restriction of the Missouri Compromise.--Movement to repeal
it by Mr. Clay's Successor in the Senate.--Mr. Douglas adopts the
policy of repealing the Restriction.--It is made an Administration
Measure and carried through Congress.--Colonel Benton's Position.
--Anti-slavery Excitement developed in the Country.--Destruction
of the Whig Party.--New Political Alliances.--American Party.--Know-
Nothings.--Origin and Growth of the Republican Party.--Pro-slavery
Development in the South.--Contest for the Possession of Kansas.--
Prolonged Struggle.--Disunion Tendencies developing in the South.
--Election of N. P. Banks to the Speakership of the House.--The
Presidential Election of 1856.--Buchanan.--Frémont.--Fillmore.--
The Slavery Question the Absorbing Issue.--Triumph of Buchanan.--
Dred Scott Decision.--Mr. Lincoln's Version of it.--Chief Justice
Taney.
The Democratic party, seeing their old Whig rival prostrate,
naturally concluded that a long lease of power was granted them.
The victory of Pierce was so complete that his supporters could
not with closest scrutiny descry an opponent worthy of the slightest
consideration. If the leaders of that party, however, had deigned
to look below the surface, they would have learned a fact which,
if not disquieting, was at least serious and significant. This
fact was contained in the popular vote, which told an entirely
different story from that disclosed by the Presidential electors.
From the people Pierce received a total of 1,601,274 votes, Scott
1,386,580, Hale 155,825. It will be noted that, while receiving
only one-sixth as many electoral votes as Pierce, Scott received
more than five-sixths as many votes at the polls. Adding the vote
of Hale, it will be observed that out of a total exceeding three
millions, Pierce's absolute majority was but 58,896. Thoughtful
men, wise in the administration of government, skilled in the
management of parties, would have found in these figures food for
reflection and abundant reason for hoisting cautionary signals
along the shores of the political sea. The Democratic leaders were
not, however, disturbed by facts or figures, but were rather made
stronger in the confidence of their own strength. They beheld the
country prosperous in all its material interests, and they saw the
mass of the people content in both sections with the settlement of
the slavery question. Since the Compromise measures were enacted
in 1850, and especially since the two political parties had pledged
themselves in 1852 to accept those measures as a finality, the
slavery agitation had to a very large extent subsided. Disturbance
was not indeed infrequently caused by the summary arrest of fugitive
slaves in various parts of the North, under the stringent and harsh
provisions of the new law on that subject. But though these
peculiarly odious transactions exerted a deeper influence on public
opinion than the Democratic leaders imagined, they were local and
apparently under control. There was no national disquietude on
the vexed question of slavery when Franklin Pierce was installed
as President.
In his Inaugural address General Pierce pledged himself with evident
zeal to the upholding of the Compromise measures and to the rigid
enforcement of the laws. There is no doubt that a large majority
of the people of the United States--North and South--were satisfied
with the situation and bade God-speed to the popular President
whose administration opened so auspiciously. The year 1853 was
politically as quiet as Monroe's era of good feeling, and when
Congress came together in its closing month, the President dwelt
impressively upon the dangers we had passed and upon the blessings
that were in store for us. In tones of solemnity he declared that
when "the grave shall have closed over all who are now endeavoring
to meet the obligations of duty, the year 1850 will be recurred to
as a period of anxious apprehension." With high praise of the
Compromise legislation of that year he said "it had given renewed
vigor to our institutions and restored a sense of repose and security
to the public mind." Evidently remembering the pledge given by
the convention which nominated him "to resist all attempts at
renewing the agitation of the slavery question in or out of Congress,"
the President gave emphatic assurance that this "repose" should
suffer no shock during his term if he "had the power to avert it."
These words were addressed to Congress on the fifth day of December,
1853, and it would be uncandid to deny that even in the North they
were heartily approved by a large majority of the people,--perhaps
by a majority in every State.
OMINOUS MOVEMENT IN CONGRESS.
In precisely one month from the delivery of these words by the
President an ominous movement was made in Congress. Notwithstanding
all the vows of fealty to the Compromise of 1850, the pro-slavery
leaders of the South were not contented with the aspect of affairs.
The result of the Mexican war had deeply disappointed them. Its
most striking political effect thus far was the addition to the
Union of a large and imposing free State on the Pacific,--an empire
indeed in prospective wealth and power. In the battle between free
institutions and slave institutions, California represented a strong
flank movement threatening destruction to slavery. Her vote in
the Senate gave a majority of two to the free States. The equality
of the sections had been steadily maintained in the Senate since
the admission of Louisiana in 1812. The break now was ominous;
the claim of equality had been disregarded; the superstition which
upheld it was dispelled, and the defenders of slavery could see
only a long procession of free States marching from the North-West
to re-enforce a power already irresistibly strong. From what
quarter of the Union could this anti-slavery aggression be offset?
By what process could its growth be checked? Texas might, if she
chose to ask for her own partition, re-enforce the slave-power in
the Senate by four new States, as guaranteed in the articles of
annexation. But the very majesty of her dimensions protested
against dismemberment. Texas was as large as France, and from the
Sabine to the Rio Grande there was not a cotton-planter or a cattle-
herder who did not have this fact before his eyes to inflame his
pride and guide his vote against parting with a single square mile
of her magnificent domain. New Mexico and Utah were mountainous
and arid, inviting only the miner and the grazier and offering no
inducement for the labor of the slave. The right guaranteed to
these territories in the Compromise of 1850 to come in as slave
States was, therefore, as Mr. Webster had maintained, a concession
of form and not of substance to the South. Seeing slavery thus
hemmed in on all sides by nature as well as law, and sincerely
believing that in such a position its final extinction was but a
question of time, the Southern leaders determined to break the
bonds that bound them. From their own point of reasoning they were
correct. To stand still was certain though slow destruction to
slavery. To move was indeed hazardous, but it gave them a chance
to re-establish their equality in the administration of the
government, and for this they determined to risk every thing.
To the westward and north-westward of Missouri and Iowa lay a vast
territory which in 1854 was not only unsettled but had no form of
civil government whatever. It stretched from the north line of
Arkansas to the border of British America,--twelve and a half
degrees of latitude,--and westward over great plains and across
mountain ranges till it reached the confines of Utah and Oregon.
It was the unorganized remainder of the territory of Louisiana,
acquired from France in 1803, and in extent was ten times as large
as the combined area of New York and Pennsylvania. By the Missouri
Compromise every square mile of this domain had been honorably
devoted to freedom. At the period named Indian tribes roamed at
will throughout its whole extent and lighted their camp-fires on
the very borders of Missouri and Iowa. Herds of buffalo grazed
undisturbed on lands which to-day constitute the sites of large
cities. Fort Leavenworth was a far-western outpost, Council Bluffs
was on the frontier of civilization, and Omaha had not been named.
Adventurous merchants passed over the plains to the South-West with
long caravans, engaged in the Santa-Fé trade, and towards the North-
West, hunters, trappers, and a few hardy emigrants penetrated the
"Platte country," and through mountain passes pointed out by the
trail of the Indian and the buffalo had in many instances safely
crossed to Oregon. The tide of emigration which had filled Iowa
and Wisconsin, and which by the gold excitement of California had
for a time been drawn to the Pacific slope, now set again more
strongly then ever to the Mississippi valley, demanding and needing
new lands for settlement and cultivation. To answer this requirement
a movement was made during the closing weeks of Mr. Fillmore's
administration to establish the territory of Nebraska. A bill to
that effect was passed by a two-thirds vote in the House. The
slight opposition that was made came from the South, but its
significance was not perceived. When the bill reached the Senate
Mr. Douglas, as chairman of the committee on territories, promptly
reported it, and made an apparently sincere effort to pass it. He
did not succeed. Every senator from the slave-holding States,
except those from Missouri,--which was locally interested in having
the territory organized,--voted against it;--and the measure,
antagonizing other business in which Northern senators were more
immediately interested, was laid upon the table two days before
President Pierce was inaugurated. The bill had fully recognized
the binding force of the Missouri Compromise, and if it had passed,
there could have been no pretense for the introduction of slavery
in the territory of Nebraska.
REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE.
Directly after the assurance so impressively given by the President
that the "repose" of the country on the slavery question "should
suffer no shock during his administration," the bill to organize
the Territory of Nebraska was again introduced in the Senate. The
motive for its defeat the preceding session was soon made apparent.
Mr. Archibald Dixon of Kentucky, the last Whig governor of that
State, had been chosen to succeed Mr. Clay in the Senate. But he
did not succeed to Mr. Clay's political principles. He belonged
to a class of men that had been recently and rapidly growing in
the South,--men avowedly and aggressively pro-slavery. Mr. Dixon
was the first to strike an open blow against the Missouri Compromise.
Mr. Clay had been honorably identified with the pacific work of
1820, and throughout his life believed that it had been effectual
in allaying the strife which in his judgment had endangered the
Union. It was an alarming fact that his own successor in the Senate
--less than two years after Mr. Clay's death--was the first to
assail his work and to re-open a controversy which was not to cease
till a continent was drenched in blood. Mr. Dixon made no concealment
of his motive and his purpose, declaring that he wished the
restriction removed because he was a pro-slavery man. He gave
notice early in January, 1854, that when the bill to organize the
Territory of Nebraska should come before the Senate, he would move
that "the Missouri Compromise be repealed, and that the citizens
of the several States shall be at liberty to take and hold their
slaves within any of the Territories." It was very soon found that
this was not a capricious movement by Mr. Dixon alone, but that
behind him there was a settled determination on the part of the
pro-slavery men to break down the ancient barrier and to remove
the honored landmark of 1820.
The Senate had a large Democratic majority, and there was probably
not one among them all who had not in the Presidential contest of
1852 publicly and solemnly vowed that the Compromise measures of
1850 were a final settlement of the slavery question, not in any
event, nor upon any pretext, to be disturbed. It was specially
embarrassing and perilous for Northern senators to violate pledges
so recently made, so frequently repeated. It much resembled the
breaking of a personal promise, and seemed to the mass of people
in the free State to be a gross breach of national honor. To escape
the sharp edge of condemnation, sure to follow such a transaction,
a pretense was put forth that the Compromise of 1820 was in conflict
with the Compromise of 1850, and that it was necessary to repeal
the former in order that the doctrine of non-intervention with
slavery in the Territories should become the recognized policy for
all the public domain of the United States. Mr. Douglas was the
first to adopt this construction. Indeed, to him may fairly be
ascribed the credit or the discredit of inventing it. He had a
strong hold on the South, and in his Congressional life had steadily
voted on the pro-slavery side of all public questions. But he
instinctively foresaw that his political future would be endangered
by advocating the repeal of the Missouri Compromise on the basis
and for the reason announced by Mr. Dixon. Hence the resort to
the doctrine of non-intervention under which the South should get
all they wished by having the right to carry their slaves into the
territory, and the North could be conciliated by the presentation
of another final settlement of all issues which threatened the
perpetuity of the Union.
Instead of the single Territory of Nebraska, Mr. Douglas reported
a measure to organize both Kansas and Nebraska; and in one of the
sections of the bill the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was declared
to be inoperative and void, because "inconsistent with the principle
of non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the States and
Territories as recognized by the Compromise measures of 1850."
The bill further declared that "its true intent and meaning was
not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, and not to
exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people perfectly free to
regulate their domestic institutions in their own way." The North
was fairly stunned by the proposition made by Mr. Douglas. Had he
proposed to abolish the Constitution itself the surprise could
scarcely have been greater. The acting generation had grown to
manhood with profound respect and even reverence for the Missouri
Compromise, and had come to regard it almost as sacredly as though
it were part of the organic law of the Republic. If a Southern
man talked of its repeal it was regarded as the mere bravado of an
extremist. But now a Northern senator of remarkable ability, a
party leader, a candidate for the Presidency, had reported the
measure, and made it a test of Democratic faith, of administration
fealty. The contest that followed was severe and prolonged. The
bill was before Congress for a period of four months, and was
finally forced through to the utter destruction of good faith
between the sections. More than forty Democratic representatives
from the North flatly defied party discipline and voted against
the repeal. The Democratic representatives from the slave States
were consolidated in its favor, with the exception of John Millson,
an able member from Virginia, and the venerable Thomas H. Benton
of Missouri.
REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE.
After Colonel Benton's thirty years' service in the Senate had
terminated, the city of St. Louis sent him to the House in the autumn
of 1852. He had entered the Senate when Missouri came into the
Union as the result of the Compromise of 1820. He had remained
there until after the Compromise of 1850 was adopted. He denounced
the proceeding of Douglas with unsparing severity, and gave his
best efforts, but in vain, to defeat the bill. He pointed out the
fact that the original Compromise had been forced upon the North
by the South, and that the present proposition to repeal it had
been initiated "without a memorial, without a petition, without a
request from any human being. It was simply and only a contrivance
of political leaders, who were using the institution of slavery as
a weapon, and rushing the country forward to excitements and
conflicts in which there was no profit to either section, and
possibly great harm to both." Colonel Benton belonged to a class
of Southern Democrats who were passing away,--of whom he, indeed,
was the last in conspicuous stature. He represented the Democracy
of Andrew Jackson and of Nathaniel Macon,--not the Democracy of
Mr. Calhoun. He placed the value of the Union above the value of
slavery, and was a relentless foe to all who plotted against the
integrity of the government. But his day was past, his power was
broken, his influence was gone. Even in his own State he had been
beaten, and David R. Atchison installed as leader of the Democratic
party. His efforts were vain, his protest unheard; and amid the
sorrow and gloom of thinking men, and the riotous rejoicings of
those who could not measure the evil of their work, the Douglas
Bill was passed. On the thirtieth of May, 1854, the wise and
patriotic Compromise of March 6, 1820, was declared to be at an
end, and the advocates and the opponents of slavery were invited
to a trial of strength on the public domain of the United States.
No previous anti-slavery excitement bore any comparison with that
which spread over the North as the discussion progressed, and
especially after the bill became a law. It did not merely call
forth opposition; it produced almost a frenzy of wrath on the part
of thousands and tens of thousands in both the old parties, who
had never before taken any part whatever in anti-slavery agitation.
So conservative a statesman as Edward Everett, who had succeeded
John Davis as senator from Massachusetts, pointed out the fallacy
not to say the falsehood of the plea that the Compromise measures
of 1850 required or involved this legislation. This plea was an
afterthought, a pretense, contradicted by the discussion of 1850
in its entire length and breadth. In the North, conservative men
felt that no compromise could acquire weight or sanction or
sacredness, if one that had stood for a whole generation could be
brushed aside by partisan caprice or by the demands of sectional
necessity. The popular fury was further stimulated by the fact
that from the territory included in the Louisiana purchase, three
slave States had been added to the Union, and as yet only one free
State; and that the solemn guaranty securing all the domain north
of 36° 30´ was now to be trodden under foot when its operation was
likely to prove hostile to slavery and favorable to freedom. From
the beginning of the government the slave-holding interest had
secured the advantage in the number of States formed from territory
added to the original Union. The South had Louisiana, Arkansas,
and Missouri out of the purchase from France in 1803, Florida from
the purchase from Spain in 1819, and Texas, with its possibility
of being divided into four additional States, from the annexation
of 1845. The North had only Iowa from the Louisiana purchase and
California from the territory ceded by Mexico. The North would
not stop to consider its prospective advantages in the territory
yet to be settled, while the South could see nothing else. The
South realized that although it had secured five States and the
North only two, Southern territory was exhausted, while the creation
of free States in the North-West had just begun. Stripped of all
the disguises with which it was surrounded by the specious cry of
non-intervention by Congress, the majority in the North came to
see that it was in reality nothing but a struggle between the slave
States and the free States, growing more and more intense and more
and more dangerous day by day.
REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE.
The most striking result in the political field, produced by the
repeal of the Missouri Compromise, was the utter destruction of
the Whig party. Had the Southern Whigs in Congress maintained the
sacredness of the work of 1820, the party throughout the country
would have been able to make a sturdy contest, notwithstanding the
crushing defeat of Scott two years before. Not improbably in the
peculiar state of public opinion, the Whigs, by maintaining the
Compromise, might have been able to carry the Presidential election
of 1856. But with the exception of John Bell in the Senate and
seven members of the House, the entire Whig party of the South
joined the Democrats in repealing the Compromise. Of these seven,
Emerson Etheridge of Tennessee and Theodore G. Hunt of Louisiana
deserve especial and honorable mention for the courage with which
they maintained their position. But when John M. Clayton of
Delaware, who had voted to prohibit slavery in all the Territories,
now voted to strike down the only legal barrier to its extension;
when Badger of North Carolina, who had been the very soul of
conservatism, now joined in the wild cry of the pro-slavery Democrats;
when James Alfred Pearce of Maryland and James C. Jones of Tennessee
united with Jefferson Davis, the Whig party of the South ceased to
exist. Indeed, before this final blow large numbers of Southern
Whigs had gone over to the Democracy. Toombs and Stephens and
Judah P. Benjamin had been among the foremost supporters of Pierce,
and had been specially influential in consolidating the South in
his favor. But the great body of Whigs both in the South and in
the North did not lose hope of a strong re-organization of their
old party until the destruction of the Missouri Compromise had been
effected. That was seen and felt by all to be the end.
Thenceforward new alliances were rapidly formed. In the South
those Whigs who, though still unwilling to profess an anti-slavery
creed, would not unite with the Democrats, were re-organized under
the name of the American party, with Humphrey Marshall, Henry Winter
Davis, Horace Maynard, and men of that class, for leaders. This
party was founded on proscription of foreigners, and with special
hostility to the Roman-Catholic Church. It had a fitful and feverish
success, and in 1845-5, under the name of _Know-Nothings_, enrolled
tens of thousands in secret lodges. But its creed was narrow, its
principles were illiberal, and its methods of procedure boyish and
undignified. The great body of thinking men in the North saw that
the real contest impending was against slavery and not against
naturalization laws and ecclesiastical dogmas. The Know-Nothings,
therefore, speedily disappeared, and a new party sprang into
existence composed of anti-slavery Whigs and anti-slavery Democrats.
The latter infused into the ranks of the new organization a spirit
and an energy which Whig traditions could never inspire. The same
name was not at once adopted in all the free States in 1854, but
by the ensuing year there was a general recognition throughout the
North that all who intended to make a serious fight against the
pro-slavery Democracy would unite under the flag of the Republican
party. In its very first effort, without compact organization,
without discipline, it rallied the anti-slavery sentiment so
successfully as to carry nearly all the free States and to secure
a plurality of the members of the House of Representatives. The
indignation of the people knew no bounds. Old political landmarks
disappeared, and party prejudices of three generations were swept
aside in a day. With such success in the outset, the Republicans
prepared for a vigorous struggle in the approaching Presidential
election.
The anti-slavery development of the North was not more intense than
the pro-slavery development of the South. Every other issue was
merged in the one absorbing demand by Southern slave-holders for
what they sincerely believed to be their rights in the Territories.
It was not viewed on either side as an ordinary political contest.
It was felt to be a question not of expediency but of morality,
not of policy but of honor. It did not merely enlist men. Women
took large part in the agitation. It did not end with absorbing
the laity. The clergy were as profoundly concerned. The power of
the Church on both sides of the dividing-line was used with great
effect in shaping public opinion and directing political action.
The Missouri Compromise was repealed in May. Before the end of
the year a large majority of the people of the North and a large
majority of the people of the South were distinctly arrayed against
each other on a question which touched the interest, the pride,
the conscience, and the religion of all who were concerned in the
controversy. Had either side been insincere there would have been
voluntary yielding or enforced adjustment. But each felt itself
to be altogether in the right and its opponent altogether in the
wrong. Thus they stood confronting each other at the close of the
year 1854.
It was soon perceived by all, as the sagacious had seen from the
first, that the Missouri Compromise had not been repealed merely
to exhibit unity in the scope of the United-States statutes respecting
slavery in the Territories. This was the euphuistic plea of those
Northern senators and representatives who had given dire offense
to their constituents by voting for it. It was the clever artifice
of Douglas which suggested that construction. It was a deception,
and it was contradicted and exposed by the logic of argument in
the North and by the logic of action in the South. No double-
dealing was attempted by the Southern men. They understood the
question perfectly and left the apologies and explanations to
Northern men, who were hard pressed by anti-slavery constituents.
Southern men knew that the repeal of the Missouri Compromise gave
them a privilege which they had not before enjoyed,--the privilege
of settling with their slaves on the rich plains and in the fertile
valleys that stretched westward from the Missouri River. In
maintaining this privilege, they felt sure of aid from the Executive
of the United States, and they had the fullest confidence that in
any legal controversy the Federal judiciary would be on their side.
THE SOUTHERN STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS.
Thus panoplied they made a desperate contest for the possession of
Kansas. They had found that all the crops grown in Missouri by
slave labor could be as profitably cultivated in Kansas. Securing
Kansas, they would gain more than the mere material advantage of
an enlarged field for slave labor. New Mexico at that time included
all of Arizona; Utah included all of Nevada; Kansas, as organized,
absorbed a large part of what is now Colorado, stretched along the
eastern and northern boundary of New Mexico, and, crossing the
Rocky Mountains, reached the confines of Utah. If Kansas could be
made a slave State it would control New Mexico and Utah, and the
South could again be placed in a position of political equality if
not of command. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise had shown
them for the first time that they could absolutely consolidate the
Southern vote in Congress in defense of slavery, regardless of
differences on all other issues. But this power was of no avail,
unless they could regain their equality in the Senate which had
been lost by what they considered the mishap of California's
admission. While Clay and Benton were in the Senate with their
old reverence for the Union and their desire for the ultimate
extinction of slavery, California could neither be kept out nor
divided on the line of 36° 30´. But the new South, the South of
Jefferson Davis and Alexander H. Stephens, of Robert Toombs and
Judah P. Benjamin, of James M. Mason and John C. Breckinridge, had
made new advances, was inspired by new ambitions, and was determined
upon the consolidation of sectional power. The one supreme need
was another slave State. If this could be acquired they felt
assured that so long as the Union should exist no free State could
be admitted without the corresponding admission of another slave
State. They would perhaps have been disappointed. Possibly they
did not give sufficient heed to the influences which were steadily
working against slavery in such States as Delaware and Maryland,
threatening desertion in the rear, while the defenders of slavery
were battling at the front. They argued, however, and not unnaturally,
that prejudice can hold a long contest with principle, and that in
the general uprising of the South the tendency of all their old
allies would be to remain firm. They reckoned that States with
few slaves would continue to stand for Southern institutions as
stubbornly as States with many slaves. In all the States of the
South emancipation had been made difficult, and free negroes were
tolerated, if at all, with great reluctance and with constant
protest.
The struggle for Kansas was therefore to be maintained and possession
secured at all hazards. Although, as the Southern leaders realized,
the free States had flanked them by the admission of California
with an anti-slavery constitution, the Southern acquisition of
Kansas would pierce the very centre of the army of freedom, and
would enable the South thenceforth to dictate terms to the North.
Instead of the line of 36° 30´, upon which they had so frequently
offered to compromise, as a permanent continental division, they
would have carried the northern boundary of slave territory to the
40th parallel of latitude and even beyond. They slave States in
pursuing this policy were directed by men who had other designs
than those which lay on the surface. Since the struggle of 1850
the dissolution of the Union had been in the minds of many Southern
leaders, and, as the older class of statesmen passed away, this
design grew and strengthened until it became a fixed policy. They
felt that when the time came to strike, it was of the first importance
that they should have support and popular strength beyond the
Mississippi. California, they were confident, could be carried in
their interest, if they could but plant supporting colonies between
the Missouri and the Sierras. The Democratic party was dominant
in the State, and the Democracy was of the type personated by
William M. Gwin. Both her senators voted for the repeal of the
Missouri Compromise, and stood by the extremists of the South as
steadily as if California bordered on the Gulf of Mexico. Dissolution
of the Union on the scale thus projected would, as the authors of
the scheme persuaded themselves, be certain of success. From the
Mississippi to the Missouri they would carry the new confederacy
to the southern line of Iowa. From the Missouri to the line of
Utah they would have the 40th degree of latitude; from Utah westward
they would have the 42d parallel, leaving the line of Oregon as
the southern boundary of the United States on the Pacific.
THE SOUTHERN STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS.
This policy was not absolute but alternative. If the slave-holders
could maintain their supremacy in the Union, they would prefer to
remain. If they were to be outvoted and, as they thought, outraged
by free-State majorities, then they would break up the government
and form a confederacy of their own. To make such a confederacy
effective, they must not take from the Union a relatively small
section, but must divide it from ocean to ocean. They could not
acquire a majority of the total population, but they aimed to secure
by far the larger share of the vast domain comprised in the United
States. The design was audacious, but from the stand-point of the
men who were committed to it, it was not illogical. Their entire
industrial system was founded upon an institution which was bitterly
opposed in the free States. They could see no way, and they no
longer desired to see a way, by which they might rid themselves of
the servile labor which was at once their strength and their
weakness. To abandon the institution was to sacrifice four thousand
millions of property specially protected by law. It was for the
existing generation of the governing class in the South to vote
themselves into bankruptcy and penury. Far beyond this, it was in
their judgment to blight their land with ignorance and indolence,
to be followed by crime and anarchy. Their point of view was so
radically different from that held by a large number of Northern
people that it left no common ground for action,--scarcely, indeed,
an opportunity for reasoning together. In the South they saw and
felt their danger, and they determined at all hazards to defend
themselves against policies which involved the total destruction
of their social and industrial fabric. They were not mere malcontents.
They were not pretenders. They did not aim at small things. They
had ability and they had courage. They had determined upon mastery
within the Union, or a Continental Empire outside of it.
While the South had thus resolved to acquire control of the large
Territory of Kansas, the North had equally resolved to save it to
freedom. The strife that ensued upon the fertile plains beyond
the Missouri might almost be regarded as the opening battle of the
civil war. The proximity of a slave State gave to the South an
obvious advantage at the beginning of the contest. Many of the
Northern emigrants were from New England, and the distance they
were compelled to travel exceeded two thousand miles. There were
no railroads across Iowa, none across Missouri. But despite all
impediments and all discouragements, the free-State emigrants,
stimulated by anti-slavery societies organized for the purpose,
far outnumbered those from the slave States. Had the vexed question
in the Territory been left to actual settlers it would have been
at once decided adversely to slavery. But the neighboring inhabitants
of Missouri, as the first election approached, invaded the Territory
in large numbers, and, with boisterous disturbance and threats of
violence, seized the polls, fraudulently elected a pro-slavery
Legislature, and chose one of their leaders named Whitfield as
delegate to Congress. Over six thousand votes were polled, of
which some eight hundred only were cast by actual settlers. There
were about three thousand legal voters in the Territory. The total
population was somewhat in excess of eight thousand, and there were
between two and three hundred slaves. The governor of the Territory,
Andrew H. Reeder, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, tried faithfully
and earnestly to arrest the progress of fraud and violence; but he
was removed by President Pierce, and Wilson Shannon of Ohio was
sent out in his stead. The free-State settlers, defrauded at the
regular election, organized an independent movement and chose
Governor Reeder their delegate to Congress to contest the seat of
Whitfield. These events, rapidly following each other, caused
great indignation throughout the country, in the midst of which
the Thirty-fourth Congress assembled in December, 1855. After a
prolonged struggle, Nathaniel P. Banks was chosen Speaker over
William Aiken. It was a significant circumstance, noted at the
time, that the successful candidate came from Massachusetts, and
the defeated one from South Carolina. It was a still more ominous
fact that Banks was chosen by votes wholly from the free States,
and that every vote from the slave States was given to Mr. Aiken,
except that of Mr. Cullen of Delaware, and that of Henry Winter
Davis of Maryland, who declined to vote for either candidate. It
was the first instance in the history of the government in which
a candidate for Speaker had been chosen without support from both
sections. It was a distinctive victory of the free States over
the consolidated power of the slave States. It marked an epoch.
CANVASS FOR THE PRESIDENCY.
The year 1856 opened with this critical, this unprecedented condition
of affairs. In all classes there was deep excitement. With
thoughtful men, both North and South, there was serious solicitude.
The country approached the strife of another Presidential election
with the consciences of men thoroughly aroused, with their passions
profoundly stirred. Three parties were coming into the field, and
it seemed impossible that any candidate could secure the approval
of a majority of the voters in the Union. In the Democratic ranks
there was angry contention. President Pierce, who had risked every
thing for the South, and had received unmeasured obloquy in the
North, was naturally anxious that his administration should be
approved by his own party. With all the patronage at his command,
he vigorously sought a renomination. But the party desired victory,
and they feared a contest which involved an approval of the
President's recreancy to solemn pledges voluntarily given. He had
been inaugurated with the applause and confidence of a nation. He
was sustained in the end by a helpless faction of a disorganized
party.
The distinguished secretary of State suffered with the President.
Mr. Marcy had personally disapproved the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise, but he made no opposition, and the people held him
equally if not doubly guilty. It was said at the time that New-
York friends urged him to save his high reputation by resigning
his seat in the cabinet. But he remained, in the delusive hope
that he should receive credit for the evil he might prevent. He
was pertinently reminded that the evil he might prevent would never
be known, whereas the evil to which he consented would be read of
all men. New York had hopelessly revolted from Democratic control,
and Mr. Marcy's name was not presented as a Presidential candidate,
though he was at that time the ablest statesman of the Democratic
party. Mr. Douglas was also unavailable. He had gained great
popularity in the South by his course in repealing the Missouri
Compromise, but he had been visited with signal condemnation in
the North. His own State, always Democratic, which had stood firmly
for the party even in the overthrow of 1840, had now failed to
sustain him,--had, indeed, pointedly rebuked him by choosing an
opposition Legislature and sending Lyman Trumbull, then an anti-
slavery Republican, as his colleague in the Senate. General Cass
was seventy-four years old, and he was under the same condemnation
with Pierce and Marcy and Douglas. He had voted to repeal the
Missouri Compromise, and Michigan, which had never before faltered
in his support, now turned against him and embittered his declining
years by an expression of popular disapproval, which could not have
been more emphatic.
The candidates urged for the nomination were all from the North.
By a tacit but general understanding, the South repressed the
ambition of its leaders and refused to present any one of the
prominent statesmen from that section. Southern men designed to
put the North to a test, and they wished to give Northern Democrats
every possible advantage in waging a waging a warfare in which the
fruits of victory were to be wholly enjoyed by the South. If they
had wished it, they could have nominated a Southern candidate who
was at that moment far stronger than any other man in the Democratic
party. General Sam Houston had a personal history as romantic as
that of an ancient crusader. He was a native of Virginia, a
representative in Congress from Tennessee, and Governor of that
State before he was thirty-five. He was the intimate and trusted
friend of Jackson. Having resigned his governorship on account of
domestic trouble, he fled from civilized life, joined the Indians
of the Western plains, roved with them for years, adopted their
habits, and was made chief of a tribe. Returning to association
with white men, he emigrated to Texas and led the revolt against
Mexico, fought battles and was victorious, organized a new republic
and was made its President. Then he turned to his native land,
bearing in his hand the gift of a great dominion. Once more under
the Union flag, he sat in the Capitol as a senator of the United
States from Texas. At threescore years he was still in the full
vigor of life. Always a member of the Democratic party he was a
devoted adherent of the Union, and his love for it had but increased
in exile. He stood by Mr. Clay against the Southern Democrats in
the angry contest of 1850, declaring that "if the Union must be
dismembered" he "prayed God that its ruins might be the monument
of his own grave." He "desired no epitaph to tell that he survived
it." Against the madness of repealing the Missouri Compromise he
entered a protest and a warning. He notified his Southern friends
that the dissolution of the Union might be involved in the dangerous
step. He alone, of the Southern Democrats in the Senate, voted
against the mischievous measure. When three thousand clergymen of
New England sent their remonstrance against the repeal, they were
fiercely attacked and denounced by Douglas and by senators from
the South. Houston vindicated their right to speak and did battle
for them with a warmth and zeal which specially commended him to
Northern sympathy. All these facts combined--his romantic history,
his unflinching steadiness of purpose, his unswerving devotion to
the Union--would have made him an irresistibly strong candidate
had he been presented. But the very sources of his strength were
the sources of his weakness. His nomination would have been a
rebuke to every man who had voted for the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise, and, rather than submit to that, the Southern Democrats,
and Northern Democrats like Pierce and Douglas and Cass, would
accept defeat. Victory with Houston would be their condemnation.
But in rejecting him they lost in large degree the opportunity to
recover the strength and popularity and power of the Democratic
party which had all been forfeited by the maladministration of
Pierce.
NOMINATION OF JAMES BUCHANAN.
With Houston impracticable, other Southern candidates purposely
withheld, and all the Northern candidates in Congress or of the
administration disabled, the necessity of the situation pointed to
one man. The Democratic managers in whose hands the power lay were
not long in descrying him. Mr. Buchanan had gone to England as
minister directly after the inauguration of Pierce. He had been
absent from the country during all the troubles and the blunders
of the Democracy, and never before was an _alibi_ so potential in
acquitting a man of actual or imputed guilt. He had been a candidate
for the Presidency ever since 1844, but had not shown much strength.
He was originally a Federalist. He was somewhat cold in temperament
and austere in manners, but of upright character and blameless
life. He lacked the affability of Cass, the gracious heartiness
of Pierce, the bluff cordiality of Douglas. But he was a man of
ability, and had held high rank as a senator and as secretary of
State. Above all he had never given a vote offensive to the South.
Indeed, his Virginia friend, Henry A. Wise, boasted that his record
was as spotless as that of Calhoun.
Buchanan's hour had come. He was a necessity to the South, a
necessity to his party; and against the combined force of all the
ambitious men who sought the place, he was nominated. But he had
a severe struggle. President Pierce and Senator Douglas each made
a persistent effort. On the first ballot Buchanan received 135
votes, Pierce 122, Douglas 33. Through sixteen ballots the contest
was stubbornly maintained, Buchanan gaining steadily but slowly.
Pierce was at last withdrawn, and the convention gave Buchanan 168,
Douglas 121. No further resistance was made, and, amid acclamation
and rejoicing, Buchanan was declared to be the unanimous choice of
the convention. Major John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, a young
man of popularity and promise, was nominated for the Vice-
Presidency.
Before the nomination of Buchanan and Breckinridge another Presidential
ticket had been placed in the field. The pro-slavery section of
the American party and the ghastly remnant of the Whigs had presented
Mr. Fillmore for the Presidency, and had associated with him Andrew
Jackson Donelson of Tennessee as candidate for the Vice-Presidency.
On the engrossing question of the day Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Fillmore
did not represent antagonistic ideas, and between them there could
be no contest to arouse enthusiasm or even to enlist interest in
the North. The movement for Fillmore afforded a convenient shelter
for that large class of men who had not yet made up their minds as
to the real issue of slavery extension or slavery prohibition.
The Republican party had meanwhile been organizing and consolidating.
During the years 1854 and 1855 it had acquired control of the
governments in a majority of the free States, and it promptly called
a national convention to meet in Philadelphia in June, 1856. The
Democracy saw at once that a new and dangerous opponent was in the
field,--an opponent that stood upon principle and shunned expediency,
that brought to its standard a great host of young men, and that
won to its service a very large proportion of the talent, the
courage, and the eloquence of the North. The convention met for
a purpose and it spoke boldly. It accepted the issue as presented
by the men of the South, and it offered no compromise. In its
ranks were all shades of anti-slavery opinion,--the patient
Abolitionist, the Free-Soiler of the Buffalo platform, the Democrats
who had supported the Wilmot Proviso, the Whigs who had followed
Seward.
NOMINATION OF JOHN C. FRÉMONT.
There was no strife about candidates. Mr. Seward was the recognized
head of the party, but he did not desire the nomination. He agreed
with his faithful mentor, Thurlow Weed, that his time had not come,
and that his sphere of duty was still in the Senate. Salmon P.
Chase was Governor of Ohio, waiting re-election to the Senate, and,
like Seward, not anxious for a nomination where election was regarded
as improbable if not impossible. The more conservative and timid
section of the party advocated the nomination of Judge McLean of
the Supreme Court, who for many years had enjoyed a shadowy mention
for the Presidency in Whig journals of a certain type. But Judge
McLean was old and the Republican party was young. He belonged to
the past, the party was looking to the future. It demanded a more
energetic and attractive candidate, and John C. Frémont was chosen
on the first ballot. He was forty-three years of age, with a
creditable record in the Regular Army, and wide fame as a scientific
explorer in the Western mountain ranges, then the _terra incognita_
of the continent. He was a native of South Carolina, and had
married the brilliant and accomplished daughter of Colonel Benton.
Always a member of the Democratic party, he was so closely identified
with the early settlement of California that he was elected one of
her first senators. To the tinge of romance in his history were
added the attractions of a winning address and an auspicious name.
The movement in his behalf had been quietly and effectively organized
for several months preceding the convention. It had been essentially
aided if not indeed originated by the elder Francis P. Blair, who
had the skill derived from long experience in political management.
Mr. Blair was a devoted friend of Benton, had been intimate with
Jackson, and intensely hostile to Calhoun. As editor of the _Globe_,
he had exercised wide influence during the Presidential terms of
Jackson and Van Buren, but when Polk was inaugurated he was supplanted
in administration confidence by Thomas Ritchie of the State-rights'
school, who was brought from Virginia to found another paper. Mr.
Blair was a firm Union man, and, though he had never formally
withdrawn from the Democratic party, he was now ready to leave it
because of the Disunion tendencies of its Southern leaders. He
was a valuable friend to Frémont, and gave to him the full advantage
of his experience and his sagacity.
William L. Dayton of New Jersey, who had served with distinction
in the Senate, was selected for the Vice-Presidency. His principal
competitor in the only ballot which was taken was Abraham Lincoln
of Illinois. This was the first time that Mr. Lincoln was
conspicuously named outside of his own State. He had been a member
of the Thirtieth Congress, 1847-9, but being a modest man he had
so little forced himself into notice that when his name was proposed
for Vice-President, inquiries as to who he was were heard from all
parts of the convention.
The principles enunciated by the Democratic and Republican parties
on the slavery question formed the only subject for discussion
during the canvass in the free States. From the beginning no doubt
was expressed that Mr. Buchanan would find the South practically
consolidated in his favor. Electoral tickets for Frémont were not
presented in the slave States, and Fillmore's support in that
section was weakened by his obvious inability to carry any of the
free States. The canvass, therefore, rapidly narrowed to a contest
between Buchanan and Frémont in the North. The Republican Convention
had declared it to be "both the right and imperative duty of Congress
to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism,--
polygamy and slavery." The Democratic Convention had presented a
very elaborate and exhaustive series of resolutions touching the
slavery question. They indorsed the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise, and recognized the "right of the people of all the
territories to form a constitution with or without domestic slavery."
The resolution was artfully constructed. Read in one way it gave
to the people of the Territories the right to determine the question
for themselves. It thus upheld the doctrine of "popular sovereignty"
which Mr. Douglas had announced as the very spirit of the Act
organizing Kansas and Nebraska. A closer analysis of the Democratic
declaration, however, showed that this "popular sovereignty" was
not to be exercised until the people of the Territory were sufficiently
numerous to form a State constitution and apply for admission to
the Union, and that meanwhile in all the Territories the slave-
holder had the right to settle and to be protected in the possession
of his peculiar species of property. In fine, the Republicans
declared in plain terms that slavery should by positive law of the
nation be excluded from the Territories. The Democrats flatly
opposed the doctrine of Congressional prohibition, but left a margin
for doubt as to the true construction of the Constitution, and of
the Act repealing the Missouri Compromise, thus enabling their
partisans to present one issue in the North, and another in the
South.
The Democratic candidate in his letter of acceptance did not seek
to resolve the mystery of the platform, but left the question just
as he found it in the resolutions of the convention. The result
was that Northern people supported Mr. Buchanan in the belief, so
energetically urged by Mr. Douglas, that the people of the Territories
had the right to determine the slavery question for themselves at
any time. The Southern people supported Mr. Buchanan in the full
faith that slavery was to be protected in the Territories until a
State government should be formed and admission to the Union secured.
The Democratic doctrine of the North and the Democratic doctrine
of the South were, therefore, in logic and in fact, irreconcilably
hostile. By the one, slavery could never enter a Territory unless
the inhabitants thereof desired and approved it. By the other
slavery had a foot-hold in the Territories under the Constitution
of the United States, and could not be dislodged or disturbed by
the inhabitants of a Territory even though ninety-nine out of every
hundred were opposed to it. In the Territorial Legislatures laws
might be passed to protect slavery but not to exclude it. From
such contradictory constructions in the same party, conflicts were
certain to arise.
MR. BUCHANAN ELECTED PRESIDENT.
The Democrats of the North sought, not unsuccessfully, to avoid
the slavery question altogether. They urged other considerations
upon popular attention. Mr. Buchanan was presented as a National
candidate, supported by troops of friends in every State of the
Union. Frémont was denounced as a sectional candidate, whose
election by Northern votes on an anti-slavery platform would dissolve
the Union. This incessant cry exerted a wide influence in the
North and was especially powerful in commercial circles. But in
spite of it, Frémont gained rapidly in the free States. The
condition of affairs in Kansas imparted to his supporters a desperate
energy, based on principle and roused to anger. An elaborate and
exciting speech on the "Crime against Kansas," by Senator Sumner,
was followed by an assault from Preston S. Brooks, a member of the
House from South Carolina, which seriously injured Mr. Sumner, and
sensibly increased the exasperation of the North. When a resolution
of the House to expel Brooks was under consideration, he boasted
that "a blow struck by him then would be followed by a revolution."
This but added fuel to a Northern flame already burning to white-
heat. Votes by tens of thousands declared that they did not desire
a Union which was held together by the forbearance or permission
of any man or body of men, and they welcomed a test of any character
that should determine the supremacy of the Constitution and the
strength of the government.
The canvass grew in animation and earnestness to the end, the
Republicans gaining strength before the people of the North every
day. But Buchanan's election was not a surprise. Indeed, it had
been generally expected. He received the electoral votes of every
Southern State except Maryland, which pronounced for Fillmore. In
the North, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, and California
voted for Buchanan. The other eleven free States, beginning with
Maine and ending with Iowa, declared for Frémont. The popular vote
was for Buchanan 1,838,169, Frémont 1,341,264, Fillmore 874,534.
With the people, therefore, Mr. Buchanan was in a minority, the
combined opposition outnumbering his vote by nearly four hundred
thousand.
The Republicans, far from being discouraged, felt and acted as men
who had won the battle. Indeed, the moral triumph was theirs, and
they believed that the actual victory at the polls was only postponed.
The Democrats were mortified and astounded by the large popular
vote against them. The loss of New York and Ohio, the narrow escape
from defeat in Pennsylvania, the rebuke of Michigan to their veteran
leader General Cass, intensified by the choice of Chandler as his
successor in the Senate, the absolute consolidation of New England
against them, all tended to humiliate and discourage the party.
They had lost ten States which General Pierce had carried in 1852,
and they had a watchful, determined foe in the field, eager for
another trial of strength. The issue was made, the lines of battles
were drawn. Freedom or slavery in the Territories was to be fought
to the end, without flinching, and without compromise.
Mr. Buchanan came to the Presidency under very different auspices
from those which had attended the inauguration of President Pierce.
The intervening four years had written important chapters in the
history of the slavery contest. In 1853 there was no organized
opposition that could command even a respectable minority in a
single State. In 1857 a party distinctly and unequivocally pledged
to resist the extension of slavery into free territory had control
of eleven free States and was hotly contesting the possession of
the others. The distinct and avowed marshalling of a solid North
against a solid South had begun, and the result of the Presidential
election of 1856 settled nothing except that a mightier struggle
was in the future.
DECISION IN THE CASE OF DRED SCOTT.
After Buchanan's inauguration events developed rapidly. The
Democrats had carried the House, and therefore had control of every
department of the government. The effort to force slavery upon
Kansas was resumed with increased zeal. Strafford's policy of
"thorough" was not more resolute or more absolute than that now
adopted by the Southern leaders with a new lease of power confirmed
to them by the result of the election. The Supreme Court came to
their aid, and, not long after the new administration was installed,
delivered their famous decision in the Dred Scott case. This case
involved the freedom of a single family that had been held as
slaves, but it gave occasion to the Court for an exhaustive treatment
of the political question which was engrossing public attention.
The conclusion of the best legal minds of the country was that the
opinion of the Court went far beyond the real question at issue,
and that many of its most important points were to be regarded as
_obiter dicta_. The Court declared that the Act of Congress
prohibiting slavery in the Territories north of 36° 30´ was
unconstitutional and void. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise
was therefore approved by the highest judicial tribunal. Not only
was the repeal approved, its re-enactment was forbidden. No matter
how large a majority might be returned to Congress in favor of
again setting up the old landmark which had stood in peace and in
honor for thirty-four years, with the sanction of all departments
of the government, the Supreme Court had issued an edict that it
could not be done. The Court had declared that slavery was as much
entitled to protection on the national domain as any other species
of property, and that it was unconstitutional for Congress to decree
freedom for a Territory of the United States. The pro-slavery
interest had apparently won a great triumph. They naturally claimed
that the whole question was settled in their favor. But in fact
the decision of the Court had only rendered the contest more intense
and more bitter. It was received throughout the North with scorn
and indignation. It entered at once into the political discussions
of the people, and remained there until, with all other issues on
the slavery question, it was remanded to the arbitrament of war.
Five of the judges--an absolute majority of the court--were Southern
men, and had always been partisan Democrats of the State-rights'
school. People at once remembered that every other class of lawyers
in the South had for thirty years been rigidly excluded from the
bench. John J. Crittenden had been nominated and rejected by a
Democratic Senate. George E. Badger of North Carolina had shared
the same fate. They were followers of Clay, and not to be trusted
by the new South in any exigency where the interests of slavery
and the perpetuity of the Union should come in conflict. Instead,
therefore, of strengthening the Democratic party, the whole effect
of the Dred Scott decision was to develop a more determined type
of anti-slavery agitation. This tendency was promoted by the lucid
and exhaustive opinion of Benjamin R. Curtis, one of the two
dissenting judges. Judge Curtis was not a Republican. He had been
a Whig of the most conservative type, appointed to the bench by
President Fillmore through the influence of Mr. Webster and the
advice of Rufus Choate. In legal learning, and in dignity and
purity of character, he was unsurpassed. His opinion became,
therefore, of inestimable value to the cause of freedom. It
represented the well-settled conclusion of the most learned jurists,
was in harmony with the enlightened conscience of the North, and
gave a powerful rallying-cry to the opponents of slavery. It upheld
with unanswerable arguments the absolute right of Congress to
prohibit slavery in all the Territories of the Union. Every judge
delivered his views separately, but the dissenting opinion of Judge
McLean, as well as of the six who sustained the views of the Chief
Justice, arrested but a small share of public attention. The
argument for the South had been made by the venerable and learned
Chief Justice. The argument for the North had been made by Justice
Curtis. Perhaps in the whole history of judicial decisions no two
opinions were ever so widely read by the mass of people outside
the legal profession.
DECISION IN THE CASE OF DRED SCOTT.
It was popularly believed that the whole case was made up in order
to afford an opportunity for the political opinions delivered by
the Court. This was an extreme view not justified by the facts.
But in the judgment of many conservative men there was a delay in
rendering the decision which had its origin in motives that should
not have influenced a judicial tribunal. The purport and scope of
the decision were undoubtedly known to President Pierce before the
end of his term, and Mr. Buchanan imprudently announced in his
Inaugural address that "the point of time when the people of a
Territory can decide the question of slavery for themselves" will
"be speedily and finally settled by the Supreme Court, before whom
it is now pending." How Mr. Buchanan could know, or how he was
entitled to know, that a question not directly or necessarily
involved in a case pending before the Supreme Court "would be
speedily and finally settled" became a subject of popular inquiry.
Anti-slavery speakers and anti-slavery papers indulged in severe
criticism both of Mr. Buchanan and the Court, declaring that the
independence of the co-ordinate branches of the government was
dangerously invaded when the Executive was privately advised of a
judicial decision in advance of its delivery by the Court. William
Pitt Fessenden, who always spoke with precision and never with
passion, asserted in the Senate that the Court, after hearing the
argument, had reserved its judgment until the Presidential election
was decided. He avowed his belief that Mr. Buchanan would have
been defeated if the decision had not been withheld, and that in
the event of Frémont's election "we should never have heard of a
doctrine so utterly at variance with all truth, so utterly destitute
of all legal logic, so founded on error, and so unsupported by any
thing resembling argument."
Mr. Lincoln, whose singular powers were beginning to be appreciated,
severely attacked the decision in a public speech in Illinois, not
merely for its doctrine, but for the mode in which the decision
had been brought about, and the obvious political intent of the
judges. He showed how the Kansas-Nebraska Act left the people of
the Territories perfectly free to settle the slavery question for
themselves, "subject only to the Constitution of the United States!"
That qualification he said was "the exactly fitted niche for the
Dred Scott decision to come in and declare the perfect freedom to
be no freedom at all." He then gave a humorous illustration by
asking in homely but telling phrase, "if we saw a lot of framed
timbers gotten out at different times and places by different
workmen,--Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James,--and if we saw
these timbers joined together and exactly make the frame of a house,
with tenons and mortises all fitting, what is the conclusion? We
find it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and
Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning, and
all worked upon a common plan before the first blow was struck."
This quaint mode of arraigning the two President, the Chief Justice
and Senator Douglas, was extraordinarily effective with the masses.
In a single paragraph, humorously expressed, he had framed an
indictment against four men upon which he lived to secure a conviction
before the jury of the American people.
The decision was rendered especially odious throughout the North
by the use of certain unfortunate expressions which in the heat of
the hour were somewhat distorted by the anti-slavery press, and
made to appear unwarrantably offensive. But there was no
misrepresentation and no misunderstanding of the essential position
of the Court on the political question. It was unmistakably held
that ownership in slaves was as much entitled to protection under
the Constitution in the Territories of the United States as any
other species of property, and that Congress possessed no power
over the subject except the power to legislate in aid of slavery.
The decision was at war with the practice and traditions of the
government from its foundation, and set aside the matured convictions
of two generations of conservative statesmen from the South as well
as from the North. It proved injurious to the Court, which
thenceforward was assailed most bitterly in the North and defended
with intemperate zeal in the South. Personally upright and honorable
as the judges were individually known to be, there was a conviction
in the minds of a majority of Northern people, that on all issues
affecting the institution of slavery they were unable to deliver
a just judgment; that an Abolitionist was, in their sight, the
chief of sinners, deserving to be suppressed by law; that the anti-
slavery agitation was conducted, according to their belief, by two
classes,--fanatics and knaves,--both of whom should be promptly
dealt with; the fanatics in strait-jackets and the knaves at the
cart's tail.
Chief Justice Taney, who delivered the opinion which proved so
obnoxious throughout the North, was not only a man of great
attainments, but was singularly pure and upright in his life and
conversation. Had his personal character been less exalted, or
his legal learning less eminent, there would have been less surprise
and less indignation. But the same qualities which rendered his
judgment of apparent value to the South, called out intense hostility
in the North. The lapse of years, however, cools the passions and
tempers the judgment. It has brought many anti-slavery men to see
that an unmerited share of the obloquy properly attaching to the
decision has been visited on the Chief Justice, and that it was
unfair to place him under such condemnation, while two associate
Justices in the North, Grier and Nelson, joined in the decision
without incurring special censure, and lived in honor and veneration
to the end of their judicial careers. While, therefore, time has
in no degree abated Northern hostility to the Dred Scott decision,
it has thrown a more generous light upon the character and action
of the eminent Chief Justice who pronounced it. More allowance is
made for the excitement and for what he believed to be the exigency
of the hour, for the sentiments in which he had been educated, for
the force of association, and for his genuine belief that he was
doing a valuable work towards the preservation of the Union. His
views were held by millions of people around him, and he was swept
along by a current which with so many had proved irresistible.
Coming to the Bench from Jackson's Cabinet, fresh from the angry
controversies of that partisan era, he had proved a most acceptable
and impartial judge, earning renown and escaping censure until he
dealt directly with the question of slavery. Whatever harm he may
have done in that decision was speedily overruled by war, and the
country can now contemplate a venerable jurist, in robes that were
never soiled by corruption, leading a long life of labor and
sacrifice, and achieving a fame in his profession second only to
that of Marshall.
CHIEF JUSTICE TANEY AND MR. SUMNER.
The aversion with which the extreme anti-slavery men regarded Chief
Justice Taney was strikingly exhibited during the session of Congress
following his death. The customary mark of respect in providing
a marble bust of the deceased to be placed in the Supreme Court
room was ordered by the House without comment or objection. In
the Senate the bill was regularly reported from the Judiciary
Committee by the chairman, Mr. Trumbull of Illinois, who was at
that time a recognized leader in the Republican party. The
proposition to pay respect to the memory of the judge who had
pronounced the Dred Scott decision was at once savagely attacked
by Mr. Sumner. Mr. Trumbull in reply warmly defended the character
of the Chief Justice, declaring that he "had added reputation to
the Judiciary of the United States throughout the world, and that
he was not to be hooted down by exclamations about an emancipated
country. Suppose he did make a wrong decision. No man is infallible.
He was a great, learned, able judge."
Mr. Sumner rejoined with much temper. He said that "Taney would
be hooted down the pages of history, and that an emancipated country
would fix upon his name the stigma it deserved. He had administered
justice wickedly, had degraded the Judiciary, and had degraded the
age." Mr. Wilson followed Mr. Sumner in a somewhat impassioned
speech, denouncing the Dred Scott decision "as the greatest crime
in the judicial annals of the Republic," and declaring it to be
"the abhorrence, the scoff, the jeer, of the patriotic hearts of
America." Mr. Reverdy Johnson answered Mr. Sumner with spirit,
and pronounced an eloquent eulogium upon Judge Taney. He said,
"the senator from Massachusetts will be happy if his name shall
stand as high upon the historic page as that of the learned judge
who is now no more." Mr. Johnson directed attention to the fact
that, whether wrong or right, the Dred Scott decision was one in
which a majority of the Supreme Court had concurred, and therefore
no special odium should be attached to the name of the venerable
Chief Justice. Mr. Johnson believed the decision to be right, and
felt that his opinion on a question of law was at least entitled
to as much respect as that of either of the senators from Massachusetts,
"one of whom did not pretend to be a lawyer at all, while the other
was a lawyer for only a few months." He proceeded to vindicate
the historical accuracy of the Chief Justice, and answered Mr.
Sumner with that amplitude and readiness which Mr. Johnson displayed
in every discussion involving legal questions.
Mr. Sumner's protest was vigorously seconded by Mr. Hale of New
Hampshire and Mr. Wade of Ohio. The former said that a monument
to Taney "would give the lie to all that had been said by the
friends of justice, liberty, and down-trodden humanity," respecting
the iniquity of the Dred Scott decision. Mr. Wade violently opposed
the proposition. He avowed his belief that the "Dred Scott case
was got up to give judicial sanction to the enormous iniquity that
prevailed in every branch of our government at that period." He
declared that "the greater you make Judge Taney's legal acumen the
more you dishonor his memory by showing that he sinned against
light and knowledge." He insisted that the people of Ohio, whose
opinion he professed to represent, "would pay two thousand dollars
to hang the late Chief Justice in effigy rather than one thousand
dollars for a bust to commemorate his merits."
Mr. McDougall of California spoke in favor of the bill, and commented
on the rudeness of Mr. Sumner's speech. Mr. Carlile of West Virginia
spoke very effectively in praise of the Chief Justice. If the
decision was harsh, he said, no one was justified in attributing
it to the personal feelings or desires of the Chief Justice. It
was the law he was expounding, and he did it ably and conscientiously.
Mr. Sumner concluded the debate by a reply to Reverdy Johnson. He
said that, in listening to the senator from Maryland, he was
"reminded of a character, known to the Roman Church, who always
figures at the canonization of a saint as the _Devil's advocate_."
He added that, if he could help it, "Taney should never be recognized
as a saint by any vote of Congress." The incidents of the debate
and the names of the participants are given as affording a good
illustration of the tone and temper of the times. It was made
evident that the opponents of the bill, under Mr. Sumner's lead,
would not permit it to come to a vote. It was therefore abandoned
on the 23d of February, 1865.
HONORS TO TWO CHIEF JUSTICES.
Nine years after these proceedings, in January, 1874, the name of
another Chief Justice, who had died during the recess, came before
Congress for honor and commemoration. The Senate was still controlled
by a large Republican majority, though many changes had taken place.
All the senators who had spoken in the previous debate were gone,
except Mr. Sumner, who had meanwhile been chosen for his fourth
term, and Mr. Wilson, who had been elevated to the Vice-Presidency.
Mr. Howe of Wisconsin, a more radical Republican than Mr. Trumbull,
reported from the Judiciary Committee a bill originally proposed
by Senator Stevenson of Kentucky, paying the same tribute of respect
to Roger Brooke Taney and Salmon Portland Chase. The bill was
passed without debate and with the unanimous consent of the Senate.
Mr. Taney was appointed Chief Justice in 1836, when in his sixtieth
year. He presided over the court until his death in October, 1864,
a period of twenty-eight years. The Dred Scott decision received
no respect after Mr. Lincoln became President, and, without reversal
by the court, was utterly disregarded. When Mr. Chase became Chief
Justice, colored persons were admitted to practice in the courts
of the United States. When President Lincoln, in 1861, authorized
the denial of the writ of _habeas corpus_ to persons arrested on
a charge of treason, Chief Justice Taney delivered an opinion in
the case of John Merryman, denying the President's power to suspend
the writ, declaring that Congress only was competent to do it.
The Executive Department paid no attention to the decision, and
Congress, at the ensuing session, added its sanction to the
suspension. The Chief Justice, though loyal to the Union, was not
in sympathy with the policy or the measures of Mr. Lincoln's
administration.
CHAPTER VII.
Review (_continued_).--Continuance of the Struggle for Kansas.--
List of Governors.--Robert J. Walker appointed Governor by President
Buchanan.--His Failure.--The Lecompton Constitution fraudulently
adopted.--Its Character.--Is transmitted to Congress by President
Buchanan.--He recommends the Admission of Kansas under its Provisions.
--Pronounces Kansas a Slave State.--Gives Full Scope and Effect to
the Dred Scott Decision.--Senator Douglas refuses to sustain the
Lecompton Iniquity.--His Political Embarrassment.--Breaks with the
Administration.--Value of his Influence against Slavery in Kansas.
--Lecompton Bill passes the Senate.--Could not be forced through
the House.--The English Bill substituted and passed.--Kansas spurns
the Bribe.--Douglas regains his Popularity with Northern Democrats.
--Illinois Republicans bitterly hostile to him.--Abraham Lincoln
nominated to contest the Re-election of Douglas to the Senate.--
Lincoln challenges Douglas to a Public Discussion.--Character of
Each as a Debater.--They meet Seven Times in Debate.--Douglas re-
elected.--Southern Senators arraign Douglas.--His Defiant Answer.
--Danger of Sectional Division in the Democratic Party.
The Dred Scott decision, in connection with the Democratic triumph
in the national election, had a marked effect upon the struggle
for Kansas. The pro-slavery men felt fresh courage for the work,
as they found themselves assured of support from the administration,
and upheld by the dogmas of the Supreme Court. The Territory thus
far had been one continued scene of disorder and violence. For
obvious reasons, the administration of President Pierce had selected
its governors from the North, and each, in succession, failed to
placate the men who were bent on making Kansas a slave State.
Andrew H. Reeder, Wilson Shannon, John W. Geary, had, each in turn,
tried, and each in turn failed. Mr. Buchanan now selected Robert
J. Walker for the difficult task. Mr. Walker was a Southern man
in all his relations, though by birth a Pennsylvanian. He had held
high stations, and possessed great ability. It was believed that
he, if any one, could govern the Territory in the interest of the
South, and, at the same time, retain a decent degree of respect
and confidence in the North. As an effective aid to this policy,
Frederick P. Stanton, who had acquired an honorable reputation as
representative in Congress from Tennessee, was sent out as secretary
of the Territory.
THE LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION.
Governor Walker failed. He could do much, but he could not placate
an element that was implacable. Contrary to his desires, and
against his authority, a convention, called by the fraudulent
Legislature, and meeting at Lecompton, submitted a pro-slavery
constitution to the people, preparatory to asking the admission of
Kansas as a State. The people were not permitted to vote for or
against the constitution, but were narrowed to the choice of taking
the constitution with slavery or the constitution without slavery.
If the decision should be adverse to slavery, there were still some
provisions in the constitution, not submitted to popular decision,
which would postpone the operation of the free clause. The whole
contrivance was fraudulent, wicked, and in retrospect incredible.
Naturally the Free-state men refused to have any thing to do with
the scandalous device, intended to deceive and betray them. The
constitution with slavery was, therefore, adopted by an almost
unanimous vote of those who were not citizens of Kansas. Many
thousands of votes were returned which were never cast at all,
either by citizens of Kansas or marauders from Missouri. It is
not possible, without using language that would seem immoderate,
to describe the enormity of the whole transaction. The constitution
no more represented the will or the wishes of the people of Kansas
than of the people of Ohio or Vermont.
Shameful and shameless as was the entire procedure, it was approved
by Mr. Buchanan. The Lecompton Constitution was transmitted to
Congress, accompanied by a message from the President recommending
the prompt admission of the State. He treated the anti-slavery
population of Kansas as in rebellion against lawful authority,
recognized the invaders from Missouri as rightfully entitled to
form a constitution for the State, and declared that "Kansas is at
this moment (Feb. 2, 1858) as much a slave State as Georgia or
South Carolina." The Dred Scott decision occupied a prominent
place in this extraordinary message and received the most liberal
interpretation in favor of slavery. The President declared that
"it has been solemnly adjudged by the highest judicial tribunal
known to our laws that slavery exists in Kansas by virtue of the
Constitution of the United States." This was giving the fullest
scope to the extreme and revolting doctrine put forward by the
advocates of slavery, and, had it been made effective respecting
the Territories, there are many reasons for believing that a still
more offensive step might have been taken respecting the anti-
slavery action of the States.
The attempt to admit Kansas, under the Lecompton Constitution,
proved disastrous to the Democratic party. The first decided break
was that of Senator Douglas. He refused to sustain the iniquity.
He had gone far with the pro-slavery men, but he refused to take
this step. He had borne great burdens in their interest, but this
was the additional pound that broke the back of his endurance.
When the Dred Scott decision was delivered, Mr. Douglas had applauded
it, and, as Mr. Lincoln charged, had assented to it before it was
pronounced. With his talent for political device, he had doubtless
contrived some argument or fallacy by which he could reconcile that
judicial edict with his doctrine of "popular sovereignty," and thus
maintain his standing with the Northern Democracy without losing
his hold on the South. But events traveled too rapidly for him.
The pro-slavery men were so eager for the possession of Kansas that
they could not adjust their measures to the needs of Mr. Douglas's
political situation. They looked at the question from one point,
Mr. Douglas from another. They saw that if Kansas could be forced
into the Union with the Lecompton Constitution they would gain a
slave State. Mr. Douglas saw that if he should aid in that political
crime he would lose Illinois. It was more important to the South
to secure Kansas as a slave State than to carry Illinois for Mr.
Douglas. It was more important for Mr. Douglas to hold Illinois
for himself than to give the control of Kansas to the South.
Indeed, his Northern friends had been for some time persuaded that
his only escape from the dangerous embarrassments surrounding him
was in the admission of Kansas as a free State. If the Missouri
Compromise had not been repealed, a free State was assured. If
Kansas should become a slave State in consequence of that repeal,
it would, in the excited condition of the popular mind, crush
Douglas in the North, and bring his political career to a discreditable
end.
Mr. Douglas had come, therefore, to the parting of the ways. He
realized that he was rushing on political destruction, and that,
if he supported the vulgar swindle perpetrated at Lecompton, he
would be repudiated by the great State which had exalted him and
almost idolized him as a political leader. He determined, therefore,
to take a bold stand against the administration on this issue. It
was an important event, not only to himself, but to his party; not
only to his party, but to the country. Rarely, in our history,
has the action of a single person been attended by a public interest
as universal; by applause so hearty in the North, by denunciation
so bitter in the South. In the debate which followed, Douglas
exhibited great power. He had a tortuous record to defend, but he
defended it with extraordinary ability and adroitness. From time
to time, during the progress of the contest, he was on the point
of yielding to some compromise which would have destroyed the
heroism and value of his position. But he was sustained by the
strong will of others when he himself wavered--appalled, as he
often was, by the sacrifice he was making of the Southern support,
for which he had labored so long, and endured so much.
SENATOR BRODERICK'S DEATH.
Senator Broderick of California imparted largely of his own courage
and enthusiasm to Douglas at the critical juncture, and perhaps
saved him from a surrender of his proud position. Throughout the
entire contest Broderick showed remarkable vigor and determination.
Considering the defects of his intellectual training in early life,
he displayed unusual power as a political leader and public speaker.
He was a native of Washington, born of Irish parents, and was
brought up to the trade of a stone-mason. He went to California
among the pioneers of 1849, and soon after took part in the fierce
political contests of the Pacific coast. Though a Democrat, he
instinctively took the Northern side against the arrogant domination
of the Southern wing of the party, led by William H. Gwin. Broderick
was elected to the United States Senate as Gwin's colleague in
1856, and at once joined Douglas in opposition to the Lecompton
policy of the administration. His position aroused fierce hostility
on the part of the Democratic leaders of California. The contest
grew so bitter in the autumn of 1859, when Broderick was canvassing
his State, as to lead to a duel with Judge Terry, a prominent
Democrat of Southern birth. Broderick was killed at the first
fire. The excitement was greater in the country than ever attended
a duel, except when Hamilton fell at the hands of Burr in 1804.
The Graves and Cilley duel of 1838, with its fatal ending, affected
the whole nation, but not so profoundly as did the death of Broderick.
The oration of Senator Baker, delivered in San Francisco at the
funeral, so stirred the people that violence was feared. The bloody
tragedy influenced political parties, and contributed in no small
degree to Lincoln's triumph in California the ensuing year.
In the peculiar position in which Douglas was placed, still
maintaining his membership of the Democratic party while opposing
the administration on the Lecompton question, he naturally resorted
to arguments which were not always of a character to enlist the
approval of men conscientiously opposed to slavery. The effect of
the arguments, however, was invaluable to those who were resisting
the imposition of slavery upon Kansas against the wish of a majority
of her people, and Republicans could be content with the end without
justifying the means. Douglas frankly avowed that he did not care
whether slavery was voted up or voted down, but he demanded that
an honest, untrammeled ballot should be secured to the citizens of
the Territory. Without the aid of Douglas, the "Crime against
Kansas," so eloquently depicted by Mr. Sumner, would have been
complete. With his aid, it was prevented.
The Lecompton Bill passed the Senate by a vote of 33 to 25. Besides
Broderick, Douglas carried with him only two Democratic senators,
--Stuart of Michigan, and Pugh of Ohio. The two remaining members
of the old Whig party from the South, who had been wandering as
political orphans since the disastrous defeat of 1852,--Bell of
Tennessee, and Crittenden of Kentucky,--honored themselves and the
ancient Whig traditions by voting against the bill. In view of
the events of the preceding four years, it was a significant
spectacle in the Senate when Douglas voted steadily with Seward
and Sumner and Fessenden and Wade against the political associations
of a lifetime. It meant, to the far-seeing, more than a temporary
estrangement, and it foretold results in the political field more
important than any which had been developed since the foundation
of the Republican party.
The resistance to the Lecompton Bill in the House was unconquerable.
The Administration could not, with all its power and patronage,
enforce its passage. Anxious to avert the mortification of an
absolute and unqualified defeat, the supporters of the scheme
changed their ground, and offered a new measure, moved by Mr.
William H. English of Indiana, submitting the entire constitution
to a vote of the people. If adopted, the constitution carried with
it a generous land grant to the new State. If rejected, the
alternative was not only the withdrawal of the land grant, but
indefinite postponement of the whole question of admission. It
was simply a bribe, cunningly and unscrupulously contrived, to
induce the people of Kansas to accept a pro-slavery constitution.
It was not so outrageous as it would have been to force the
constitution upon the people without allowing them to vote upon it
at all, and it gave a shadow of excuse to certain Democrats, who
did not wish to separate from their party, for returning to the
ranks. The bill was at last forced through the House by 112 votes
to 103. Twelve Democrats, to their honor be it said, refused to
yield. Douglas held all his political associates from Illinois,
while the President failed to consolidate the Democrats from
Pennsylvania. John Hickman and Henry Chapman honorably and
tenaciously held their ground to the last against every phase of
the outrage. In New York, John B. Haskin and Horace F. Clarke
refused to yield, though great efforts were made to induce them to
support the administration. The Senate promptly concurred in the
English proposition.
LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION REJECTED.
But Kansas would not sell her birthright for a mess of pottage.
She had fought too long for freedom to be bribed to the support of
slavery. She had at last a free vote, and rejected the Lecompton
Constitution, land grant and all, by a majority of more than ten
thousand. The struggle was over. The pro-slavery men were defeated.
The North was victorious. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise
had not brought profit or honor to those who planned it. It had
only produced strife, anger, heart-burning, hatred. It had added
many drops to the cup of bitterness between North and South, and
had filled it to overflowing. It produced evil only, and that
continually. The repeal, in the judgment of the North, was a great
conspiracy against human freedom. In the Southern States it was
viewed as an honest effort to recover rights of which they had been
unjustly deprived. Each section held with firmness to its own
belief, and the four years of agitation had separated them so widely
that a return to fraternal feeling seemed impossible. Confidence,
the plant of slowest growth, had been destroyed. Who could restore
it to life and strength?
Douglas had, in large degree, redeemed himself in the North from
the obloquy to which he had been subjected since the repeal of the
Missouri Compromise. The victory for free Kansas was perhaps to
an undue extent ascribed to him. The completeness of that victory
was everywhere recognized, and the lawless intruders who had worked
so hard to inflict slavery on the new Territory gradually withdrew.
In the South, Douglas was covered with maledictions. But for his
influence, Southern men felt that Kansas would have been admitted
with a pro-slavery constitution, and the senatorial equality of
the South firmly re-established. Northern Republicans, outside of
Illinois, were in a forgiving frame of mind toward Douglas; and he
had undoubtedly regained a very large share of his old popularity.
But Illinois Republicans were less amiable towards him. They would
not forget that he had broken down an anti-slavery barrier which
had been reared with toil and sanctified by time. He had not, as
they alleged, turned back from any test exacted by the South, until
he had reached the point where another step forward involved
political death to himself. They would not credit his hostility
to the Lecompton Constitution to any nobler motive than the instinct
of self-preservation. This was a harsh judgment, and yet a most
natural one. It inspired the Republicans of Illinois, and they
prepared to contest the return of Douglas to the Senate by formally
nominating Abraham Lincoln as an opposing candidate.
The contest that ensued was memorable. Douglas had an herculean
task before him. The Republican party was young, strong, united,
conscious of its power, popular, growing. The Democratic party
was rent with faction, and the Administration was irrevocably
opposed to the return of Douglas to the Senate. He entered the
field, therefore, with a powerful opponent in front, and with
defection and betrayal in the rear. He was everywhere known as a
debater of singular skill. His mind was fertile in resources. He
was master of logic. No man perceived more quickly than he the
strength or the weakness of an argument, and no one excelled him
in the use of sophistry and fallacy. Where he could not elucidate
a point to his own advantage, he would fatally becloud it for his
opponent. In that peculiar style of debate, which, in its intensity,
resembles a physical contest, he had no equal. He spoke with
extraordinary readiness. There was no halting in his phrase. He
used good English, terse, vigorous, pointed. He disregarded the
adornments of rhetoric,--rarely used a simile. He was utterly
destitute of humor, and had slight appreciation of wit. He never
cited historical precedents except from the domain of American
politics. Inside that field his knowledge was comprehensive,
minute, critical. Beyond it his learning was limited. He was not
a reader. His recreations were not in literature. In the whole
range of his voluminous speaking it would be difficult to find
either a line of poetry or a classical allusion. But he was by
nature an orator; and by long practice a debater. He could lead
a crowd almost irresistibly to his own conclusions. He could, if
he wished, incite a mob to desperate deeds. He was, in short, an
able, audacious, almost unconquerable opponent in public discussion.
LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS AS DEBATERS.
It would have been impossible to find any man of the same type able
to meet him before the people of Illinois. Whoever attempted it
would probably have been destroyed in the first encounter. But
the man who was chosen to meet him, who challenged him to the
combat, was radically different in every phase of character.
Scarcely could two men be more unlike, in mental and moral
constitutions, than Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas. Mr.
Lincoln was calm and philosophic. He loved the truth for the
truth's sake. He would not argue from a false premise, or be
deceived himself or deceive others by a false conclusion. He had
pondered deeply on the issues which aroused him to action. He had
given anxious thought to the problems of free government, and to
the destiny of the Republic. He had for himself marked out a path
of duty, and he walked in it fearlessly. His mental processes were
slower but more profound than those of Douglas. He did not seek
to say merely the thing which was best for that day's debate, but
the thing which would stand the test of time and square itself with
eternal justice. He wished nothing to appear white unless it was
white. His logic was severe and faultless. He did not resort to
fallacy, and could detect it in his opponent, and expose it with
merciless directness. He had an abounding sense of humor, and
always employed it in illustration of his argument,--never for the
mere sake of provoking merriment. In this respect he had the
wonderful aptness of Franklin. He often taught a great truth with
the felicitous brevity of an AEsop fable. His words did not flow
in an impetuous torrent as did those of Douglas, but they were
always well chosen, deliberate, and conclusive.
Thus fitted for the contest, these men proceeded to a discussion
which at the time was so interesting so as to enchain the attention
of the nation,--in its immediate effect so striking as to affect
the organization of parties, in its subsequent effect so powerful
as to change the fate of millions. Mr. Lincoln had opened his own
canvass by a carefully prepared speech in which, after quoting the
maxim that a house divided against itself cannot stand, he uttered
these weighty words: "I believe this government cannot endure
permanently half slave, half free. I do not expect the Union to
be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect
it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all
the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the farther
spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the
belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its
advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful
in all the States, old as well as new, north as well as south."
Mr. Lincoln had been warned by intimate friends to whom he had
communicated the contents of his speech, in advance of its delivery,
that he was treading on dangerous ground, that he would be
misrepresented as a disunionist, and that he might fatally damage
the Republican party by making its existence synonymous with a
destruction of the government. But he was persistent. It was
borne into his mind that he was announcing a great truth, and that
he would be wronging his own conscience, and to the extent of his
influence injuring his country, by withholding it, or in any degree
qualifying its declaration. If there was a disposition to avoid
the true significance of the contest with the South, he would not
be a party to it. He believed he could discern the scope and read
the destiny of the impending sectional controversy. He was sure
he could see far beyond the present, and hear the voice of the
future. He would not close the book; he would not shut his eyes;
he would not stop his ears. He avowed his faith, and stood firmly
to his creed.
Mr. Douglas naturally, indeed inevitably, made his first and leading
speech against these averments of Mr. Lincoln. He had returned to
Illinois, after the adjournment of Congress, with a disturbed and
restless mind. He had one great ambition,--to re-instate himself
as a leader of the national Democracy, and, as incidental and
necessary to that end, to carry Illinois against Mr. Lincoln. The
issue embodied in Mr. Lincoln's speech afforded him the occasion
which he had coveted. His quick eye discerned an opportunity to
exclude from the canvass the disagreeable features in his own
political career by arraigning Mr. Lincoln as an enemy of the Union
and as an advocate of an internecine conflict in which the free
States and the slave States should wrestle in deadly encounter.
Douglas presented his indictment artfully and with singular force.
The two speeches were in all respects characteristic. Each had
made a strong presentation of his case, but the superior candor
and directness of Mr. Lincoln had made a deep impression on the
popular mind.
THE LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS DEBATE.
In the seven public debates which were held as the result of these
preliminary speeches, the questions at issue were elaborately and
exhaustively treated. The friends of each naturally claimed the
victory for their own champion. The speeches were listened to by
tens of thousands of eager auditors; but absorbing, indeed
unprecedented, as was the interest, the vast throngs behaved with
moderation and decorum. The discussion from beginning to end was
an amplification of the position which each had taken at the outset.
The arguments were held close to the subject, relating solely to
the slavery question, and not even incidentally referring to any
other political issue. Protection, free trade, internal improvements,
the sub-treasury, all the issues, in short, which had divided
parties for a long series of years, and on which both speakers
entertained very decided views, were omitted from the discussion.
The public mind saw but one issue; every thing else was irrelevant.
At the first meeting, Douglas addressed a series of questions to
Mr. Lincoln, skillfully prepared and well adapted to entrap him in
contradictions, or commit him to such extreme doctrine as would
ruin his canvass. Mr. Lincoln's answers at the second meeting,
held at Freeport, were both frank and adroit. Douglas had failed
to gain a point by his resort to the Socratic mode of argument.
He had indeed only given Mr. Lincoln an opportunity to exhibit both
his candor and his skill. After he had answered, he assumed the
offensive, and addressed a series of questions to Mr. Douglas which
were constructed with the design of forcing the latter to an
unmistakable declaration of his creed. Douglas had been a party
to the duplex construction of the Cincinnati platform of 1856, in
which the people of the South had been comforted with the doctrine
that slavery was protected in the Territories by the Constitution
against the authority of Congress and against the power of the
Territorial citizens, until the period should be reached, when,
under an enabling act to form a constitution for a State government,
the majority might decide the question of slavery. Of this doctrine
Mr. Breckinridge was the Southern representative, and he had for
that very reason been associated with Mr. Buchanan on the Presidential
ticket. On the other hand, the North was consoled, it would not
be unfair to say cajoled, with the doctrine of popular sovereignty
as defined by Mr. Douglas; and this gave to the people of the
Territories the absolute right to settle the question of slavery
for themselves at any time. The doctrine had, however, been utterly
destroyed by the Dred Scott decision, and, to the confusion of all
lines of division and distinction, Mr. Douglas had approved the
opinion of the Supreme Court.
Douglas had little trouble in making answer in an _ad captandum_
manner to all Mr. Lincoln's questions save one. The crucial test
was applied when Mr. Lincoln asked him "if the people of a Territory
can, in any lawful way, against the wishes of any citizen of the
United States, exclude slavery from their limits prior to the
formation of a State constitution?" In the first debate, when
Douglas had the opening, he had, in the popular judgment, rather
worsted Mr. Lincoln. His greater familiarity with the arts if not
the tricks of the stump had given him an advantage. But now Mr.
Lincoln had the opening, and he threw Mr. Douglas upon the defensive
by the question which reached the very marrow of the controversy.
Mr. Lincoln had measured the force of his question, and saw the
dilemma in which it would place Douglas. Before the meeting he
said, in private, that "Douglas could not answer that question in
such way as to be elected both Senator and President. He might so
answer it as to carry Illinois, but, in doing so, he would
irretrievably injure his standing with the Southern Democracy."
Douglas quickly realized his own embarrassment. He could not, in
the face of the Supreme-Court decision, declare that the people of
the Territory could exclude slavery by direct enactment. To admit,
on the other hand, that slavery was fastened upon the Territories,
--past all hope of resistance or protest on the part of a majority
of the citizens--would be to concede the victory to Mr. Lincoln
without further struggle. Between these impossible roads Douglas
sought a third. He answered that, regardless of the decision of
the Supreme Court, "the people of a Territory have the lawful means
to introduce or exclude slavery as they choose, for the reason that
slavery cannot exist unless supported by local police regulations.
Those police regulations can only be established by the local
legislature; and, if the people are opposed to slavery, they will,
by unfriendly legislation, effectually prevent the introduction."
This was a lame, illogical, evasive answer; but it was put forth
by Douglas with an air of sincerity and urged in a tone of defiant
confidence. It gave to his supporters a plausible answer. But
Mr. Lincoln's analysis of the position was thorough, his ridicule
of it effective. Douglas's invention for destroying a right under
the Constitution by a police regulation was admirably exposed, and
his new theory that a thing "may be lawfully driven away from a
place where it has a lawful right to go" was keenly reviewed by
Mr. Lincoln. The debate of that day was the important one of the
series. Mr. Lincoln had secured an advantage in the national
relations of the contest which he held to the end. At the same
time Douglas had escaped a danger which threatened his destruction
in the State canvass, and secured his return to the Senate. As to
the respective merits of the contestants, it would be idle to expect
an agreement among contemporary partisans. But a careful reading
of the discussion a quarter of a century after it was held will
convince the impartial that in principle, in candor, in the enduring
force of logic, Mr. Lincoln had the advantage. It is due to fairness
to add that probably not another man in the country, with the
disabilities surrounding his position, could have maintained himself
so ably, so fearlessly, so effectively, as Douglas.
BUCHANAN'S OPPOSITION TO DOUGLAS.
Douglas was aided in his canvass by the undisguised opposition of
the administration. The hostility of President Buchanan and his
Southern supporters was the best possible proof to the people of
Illinois that Douglas was representing a doctrine which was not
relished by the pro-slavery party. The courage with which he fought
the administration gave an air of heroism to his canvass and prestige
to his position. It secured to him thousands of votes that would
otherwise have gone to Mr. Lincoln. For every vote which the
administration was able to withhold from Douglas, it added five to
his supporters. The result of the contest was, that, while Douglas
was enabled to secure a majority of eight in the Legislature in
consequence of an apportionment that was favorable to his side,
Mr. Lincoln received a plurality of four thousand in the popular
vote. In a certain sense, therefore, each had won a victory, and
each had incurred defeat. But the victory of Douglas and the means
by which it was won proved to be his destruction in the wider field
of his ambition. Mr. Lincoln's victory and defeat combined in the
end to promote his political fortunes, and to open to him the
illustrious career which followed.
This debate was not a mere incident in American politics. It marked
an era. Its influence and effect were co-extensive with the
Republic. It introduced a new and distinct phase in the controversy
that was engrossing all minds. The position of Douglas separated
him from the Southern Democracy, and this, of itself, was a fact
of great significance. The South saw that the ablest leader of
the Northern Democracy had been compelled, in order to save himself
at home, to abjure the very doctrine on which the safety of slave
institutions depended. The propositions enunciated by Douglas in
answer to the questions of Mr. Lincoln, in the Freeport debate,
were as distasteful to the Southern mind as the position of Mr.
Lincoln himself. Lincoln advocated a positive inhibition of slavery
by the General Government. Mr. Douglas proposed to submit Southern
rights under the Constitution to the decision of the first mob or
rabble that might get possession of a Territorial legislature, and
pass a police regulation hostile to slavery. Against this construction
of the Constitution the South protested, and the protest carried
with it implacable hostility to Douglas.
The separation of the Democratic party into warring factions was,
therefore, inevitable. The line of division was the same on which
the Republican party had been founded. It was the North against
the South, the South against the North. The great mass of Northern
Democrats began to consolidate in support of Douglas as determinedly
as the mass of Northern Whigs had followed Seward. The Southern
Democrats began, at the same time, to organize their States against
Douglas. Until his break from the regular ranks in his opposition
to the Lecompton Constitution, Douglas had enjoyed boundless
popularity with his party in the South. In every slave State,
there was still a small number of his old supporters who remained
true to him. But the great host had left him. He could not be
trusted. He had failed to stand by the extreme faith; he had
refused to respond to its last requirement. Even at the risk of
permanently dissevering the Democratic party, the Southern leaders
resolved to destroy Douglas.
To this end, in the session of Congress following the debate with
Mr. Lincoln, the Democratic senators laid down, in a series of
resolutions, the true exposition of the creed of their party.
Douglas was not personally referred to, but the resolutions were
aimed so pointedly at what they regarded his heretical opinions,
that his name might as well have been incorporated. The resolutions
were adopted during the absence of Douglas from the Senate, on a
health-seeking tour, after his laborious canvass. With only the
dissenting vote of Mr. Pugh of Ohio among the Democrats, it was
declared that "neither Congress nor a territorial legislature,
whether by direct legislation, or legislation of an indirect or
unfriendly character, possesses the power to impair the right of
any citizen of the United States to take his slave property into
the common Territories, and there hold and enjoy the same while
the territorial condition exists." Not satisfied with this utter
destruction of the whole doctrine of popular sovereignty, the
Democratic senators gave one more turn to the wrench, by declaring
that if "the territorial government should fail or refuse to provide
adequate protection to the rights of the slave-holder, it will be
the duty of Congress to supply such deficiency." The doctrine thus
laid down by the Democratic senators was, in plain terms, that the
territorial legislature might protect slavery, but could not prohibit
it; and that even the Congress of the United States could only
intervene on the side of bondage, and never on the side of freedom.
DOUGLAS AND THE SOUTHERN DEMOCRACY.
Anxious as Douglas was to be re-established in full relations with
his party, he had not failed to see the obstacles in his way. He
now realized that a desperate fight was to be made against him;
that he was to be humiliated and driven from the Democratic ranks.
The creed laid down by the Southern senators was such as no man
could indorse without forfeiting his political life in free States.
Douglas did not propose to rush on self-destruction to oblige the
Democracy of the slave States; nor was he of the type of men who,
when the right cheek is smitten, will meekly turn the other for a
second blow. When his Democratic associates in the Senate proceeded
to read him out of the party, they apparently failed to see that
they were reading the Northern Democracy out with him. Jefferson
Davis and Judah P. Benjamin might construct resolutions adapted to
the latitude of the Gulf, and dragoon them through the Senate, with
aid and pressure from Buchanan's administration; but Douglas
commanded the votes of the Northern Democracy, and to the edict of
a pro-slavery caucus he defiantly opposed the solid millions who
followed his lead in the free States.
Without wrangling over the resolutions in the Senate, Douglas made
answer to the whole series in a public letter of June 22, 1859, in
which he said that "if it shall become the policy of the Democratic
party to repudiate their time-honored principles, and interpolate
such new issues as the revival of the African slave-trade, or the
doctrine that the Constitution carries slavery into the Territories
beyond the power of the people to legally control it as other
property," he would not "accept a nomination for the Presidency if
tendered him." The aggressiveness of Southern opinion on the
slavery question was thus shown by Douglas in a negative or indirect
view. It is a remarkable fact, that, in still another letter,
Douglas argued quite elaborately against the revival of the African
slave-trade, which he believed to be among the designs of the most
advanced class of pro-slavery advocates. So acute a statesman as
Douglas could not fail to see, that, at every step of his controversy
with Southern Democrats, he was justifying the philosophy of Lincoln
when he maintained that the country was to become wholly free, or
wholly under the control of the slave power.
The controversy thus precipitated between Douglas and the South
threatened the disruption of the Democratic party. That was an
event of very serious significance. It would bring the conflict
of sections still nearer by sundering a tie which had for so long
a period bound together vast numbers from the North and the South
in common sympathy and fraternal co-operation. Even those who were
most opposed to the Democratic party beheld its peril with a certain
feeling of regret not unmixed with apprehension. The Whig party
had been destroyed; and its Northern and Southern members, who,
but a few years before, had worked harmoniously for Harrison, for
Clay, for Taylor, were now enrolled in rival and hostile organizations.
A similar dissolution of the Democratic party would sweep away the
only common basis of political action still existing for men of
the free States and men of the slave States. The separation of
the Methodist church into Northern and Southern organizations, a
few years before, had been regarded by Mr. Webster as a portent of
evil for the Union. The division of the Democratic party would be
still more ominous. The possibility of such an event showed how
deeply the slavery question had affected all ranks,--social,
religious, and political. It showed, too, how the spirit of Calhoun
now inspired the party in whose councils the slightest word of
Jackson had once been law. This change, beginning with the defeat
of Van Buren in 1844, was at first slow; but it had afterwards
moved so rapidly and so far, that men in the North, who wished to
remain in the ranks of the Democracy, were compelled to trample on
the principles, and surrender the prejudices, of a lifetime.
Efforts to harmonize proved futile. In Congress the breach was
continually widening.
FACTIONS OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.
The situation was cause of solicitude, and even grief, with thousands
to whom the old party was peculiarly endeared. The traditions of
Jefferson, of Madison, of Jackson, were devoutly treasured; and
the splendid achievements of the American Democracy were recounted
with the pride which attaches to an honorable family inheritance.
The fact was recalled that the Republic had grown to its imperial
dimensions under Democratic statesmanship. It was remembered that
Louisiana had been acquired from France, Florida from Spain, the
independent Republic of Texas annexed, and California, with its
vast dependencies, and its myriad millions of treasure, ceded by
Mexico, all under Democratic administrations, and in spite of the
resistance of their opponents. That a party whose history was
inwoven with the glory of the Republic should now come to its end
in a quarrel over the status of the negro, in a region where his
labor was not wanted, was, to many of its members, as incomprehensible
as it was sorrowful and exasperating. They protested, but they
could not prevent. Anger was aroused, and men refused to listen
to reason. They were borne along, they knew not whither or by what
force. Time might have restored the party to harmony, but at the
very height of the factional contest the representatives of both
sections were hurried forward to the National Convention of 1860,
with principle subordinated to passion, with judgment displaced by
a desire for revenge.
[NOTE.--The following are the questions, referred to on p. 147,
which were propounded to Mr. Douglas by Mr. Lincoln in their debate
at Freeport. The popular interest was centred in the second
question.
_First_, If the people of Kansas shall, by means entirely
unobjectionable in all other respects, adopt a State Constitution,
and ask admission into the Union under it before they have the
requisite number of inhabitants, according to the English bill--
some ninety-three thousand--will you vote to admit them?
_Second_, Can the people of a United-States Territory, in any lawful
way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude
slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a State
Constitution?
_Third_, If the Supreme Court of the United States shall decide
that States cannot exclude slavery from their limits, are you in
favor or acquiescing in, adopting, and following such decision as
a rule of political action?
_Fourth_, Are you in favor of acquiring additional territory, in
disregard of how such acquisition may affect the nation on the
slavery question?]
CHAPTER VIII.
Excited Condition of the South.--The John Brown Raid at Harper's
Ferry.--Character of Brown.--Governor Wise.--Hot Temper.--Course
of Republicans in Regard to John Brown.--Misunderstanding of the
Two Sections.--Assembling of the Charleston Convention.--Position
of Douglas and his Friends.--Imperious Demands of Southern Democrats.
--Caleb Cushing selected for Chairman of the Convention.--The South
has Control of the Committee on Resolutions.--Resistance of the
Douglas Delegates.--They defeat the Report of the Committee.--
Delegates from Seven Southern States withdraw.--Convention unable
to make a Nomination.--Adjourns to Baltimore.--Convention divides.
--Nomination of both Douglas and Breckinridge.--Constitutional
Union Convention.--Nomination of Bell and Everett.--The Chicago
Convention.--Its Membership and Character.--Mr. Seward's Position.
--His Disabilities.--Work of his Friends, Thurlow Weed and William
M. Evarts.--Opposition of Horace Greeley.--Objections from Doubtful
States.--Various Candidates.--Nomination of Lincoln and Hamlin.--
Four Presidential Tickets in the Field.--Animated Canvass.--The
Long Struggle over.--The South defeated.--Election of Lincoln.--
Political Revolution of 1860 complete.
The South was unnaturally and unjustifiably excited. The people
of the slave States could not see the situation accurately, but,
like a man with disordered nerves, they exaggerated every thing.
Their sense of proportion seemed to be destroyed, so that they
could no longer perceive the intrinsic relation which one incident
had to another. In this condition of mind, when the most ordinary
events were misapprehended and mismeasured, they were startled and
alarmed by an occurrence of extraordinary and exceptional character.
On the quiet morning of October, 1859, with no warning whatever to
the inhabitants, the United-States arsenal, at Harper's Ferry,
Virginia, was found to be in the possession of an invading mob.
The town was besieged, many of its citizens made prisoners, telegraph
wires cut, railway-trains stopped by a force which the people, as
they were aroused from sleep, had no means of estimating. A
resisting body was soon organized, militia came in from the
surrounding country, regular troops were hurried up from Washington.
By the opening of the second day, a force of fifteen hundred men
surrounded the arsenal, and, when the insurgents surrendered, it
was found that there had been but twenty-two in all. Four were
still alive, including their leader, John Brown.
JOHN BROWN AT HARPER'S FERRY.
Brown was a man of singular courage, perseverance, and zeal, but
was entirely misguided and misinformed. He had conceived the
utterly impracticable scheme of liberating the slaves of the South
by calling on them to rise, putting arms in their hands, and aiding
them to gain their freedom. He had borne a very conspicuous and
courageous part in the Kansas struggles, and had been a terror to
the slave-holders on the Missouri border. His bravery was of a
rare type. He had no sense of fear. Governor Wise stated that
during the fight, while Brown held the arsenal, with one of his
sons lying dead beside him, another gasping with a mortal wound,
he felt the pulse of the dying boy, used his own musket, and coolly
commanded his men, all amid a shower of bullets from the attacking
force. While of sound mind on most subjects, Brown had evidently
lost his mental balance on the one topic of slavery. His scheme
miscarried the moment its execution was attempted, as any one not
blinded by fanaticism could have from the first foreseen.
The matter was taken up in hot wrath by the South, with Governor
Wise in the lead. The design was not known to or approved by any
body of men in the North; but an investigation was moved in the
Senate, by Mr. Mason of Virginia, with the evident view of fixing
the responsibility on the Northern people, or, at least, upon the
Republican party. These men affected to see in John Brown, and
his handful of followers, only the advance guard of another irruption
of Goths and Vandals from the North, bent on inciting servile
insurrection, on plunder, pillage, and devastation. Mr. Mason's
committee found no sentiment in the North justifying Brown, but
the irritating and offensive course of the Virginia senator called
forth a great deal of defiant anti-slavery expression which, in
his judgment, was tantamount to treason. Brown was tried and
executed. He would not permit the plea of unsound mind to be made
on his behalf, and to the end he behaved with that calm courage
which always attracts respect and admiration. Much was made of
the deliverance of the South, from a great peril, and every thing
indicated that the John Brown episode was to be drawn into the
political campaign as an indictment against anti-slavery men. It
was loudly charged by the South, and by their partisans throughout
the North, that such insurrections were the legitimate outgrowth
of Republican teaching, and that the national safety demanded the
defeat and dissolution of the Republican party. Thus challenged,
the Republican party did not stand on the defensive. Many of its
members openly expressed their pity for the zealot, whose rashness
had led him to indefensible deeds and thence to the scaffold. On
the day of his execution, bells were tolled in many Northern towns
--not in approval of what Brown had done, but from compassion for
the fate of an old man whose mind had become distempered by suffering,
and by morbid reflection on the suffering of others; from a feeling
that his sentence, in view of this fact, was severe; and lastly,
and more markedly, as a Northern rebuke to the attempt on the part
of the South to make a political issue from an occurrence which
was as unforeseen and exceptional as it was deplorable.
The fear and agitation in the South were not feigned but real.
Instead of injuring the Republican party, this very fact increased
its strength in the North. The terror of the South at the bare
prospect of a negro insurrection led many who had not before studied
the slavery question to give serious heed to this phase of it.
The least reflection led men to see that a domestic institution
must be very undesirable which could keep an entire community of
brave men in dread of some indefinable tragedy. Mobs and riots of
much greater magnitude than the John Brown uprising had frequently
occurred in the free States, and they were put down by the firm
authority of law, without the dread hand of a spectre behind which
might in a moment light the horizon with the conflagration of homes,
and subject wives and daughters to a fate of nameless horror.
Instead, therefore, of arresting the spread of Republican principles,
the mad scheme of John Brown tended to develop and strengthen them.
The conviction grew rapidly that if slavery could produce such
alarm and such demoralization in a strong State like Virginia,
inhabited by a race of white men whose courage was never surpassed,
it was not an institution to be encouraged, but that its growth
should be prohibited in the new communities where its weakening
and baleful influence was not yet felt.
Sentiment of this kind could not be properly comprehended in the
South. It was honestly misrepresented by some, willfully misrepresented
by others. All construed it into a belief, on the part of a large
proportion of the Northern people, that John Brown was entirely
justifiable. His wild invasion of the South, they apprehended,
would be repeated as opportunity offered on a larger scale and with
more deadly purpose. This opinion was stimulated and developed
for political ends by many whose intelligence should have led them
to more enlightened views. False charges being constantly repeated
and plied with incessant zeal, the most radical misconception became
fixed in the Southern mind. It was idle for the Republican party
to declare that their aim was only to prevent the extension of
slavery to free territory, and that they were pledged not to
interfere with its existence in the States. Such distinctions were
not accepted by the Southern people. Their leaders had taught them
that the one necessarily involved the other, and that a man who
was in favor of the Wilmot Proviso was as bitter an enemy to the
South as one who incited a servile insurrection. These views were
unceasingly pressed upon the South by the Northern Democracy, who,
in their zeal to defeat the Republicans at home, did not scruple
to misrepresent their aims in the most reckless manner. They were
constantly misleading the public opinion of the slave States, until
at last the South recognized no difference between the creed of
Seward and the creed of Gerrit Smith, and held Lincoln responsible
for all the views and expressions of William Lloyd Garrison and
Wendell Phillips. The calling of a National Republican Convention
was to their disordered imagination a threat of destruction. The
success of its candidates would, in their view, be just cause for
resistance outside the pale of the Constitution.
MEETING OF CHARLESTON CONVENTION.
It was at the height of this overwrought condition of the Southern
mind, that the National Convention of the Democratic party met at
Charleston on the 23d of April, 1860. The convention had been
assembled in South Carolina, as the most discontented and extreme
of Southern States, in order to signify that the Democracy could
harmonize on her soil, and speak peace to the nation through the
voice which had so often spoken peace before. But the Northern
Democrats failed to comprehend their Southern allies. In their
anxiety to impress the slave-holders with the depth and malignity
of Northern anti-slavery feeling, they had unwittingly implicated
themselves as accessories to the crime they charged on others. If
they were, in fact, the friends to the South which they so loudly
proclaimed themselves to be, now was the time to show their faith
by their works. The Southern delegates had come to the convention
in a truculent spirit,--as men who felt that they were enduring
wrongs which must then and there be righted. They had a grievance
for which they demanded redress, as a preliminary step to further
conference. They wanted no evasion, they would accept no delay.
The Northern delegates begged for the nomination of Douglas as the
certain method of defeating the Republicans, and asked that they
might not be borne down by a platform which they could not carry
in the North. The Southern delegates demanded a platform which
should embody the Constitutional rights of the slave-holder, and
they would not qualify or conceal their requirements. If the North
would sustain those rights, all would be well. If the North would
not sustain them, it was of infinite moment to the South to be
promptly and definitely advised of the fact. The Southern delegates
were not presenting a particular man as candidate. On that point
they would be liberal and conciliatory. But they were fighting
for a principle, and would not surrender it or compromise it.
The supporters of Douglas from the North saw that they would be
utterly destroyed at home if they consented to the extreme Southern
demand. Their destruction would be equally sure even with Douglas
as their candidate if the platform should announce principles which
he had been controverting ever since his revolt against the Lecompton
bill. For the first time in the history of national Democratic
conventions the Northern delegates refused to submit to the exactions
of the South. Hitherto platforms had been constructed just as
Southern men dictated. Candidates had been taken as their preference
directed. But now the Northern men, pressed by the rising tide of
Republicanism in every free State, demanded some ground on which
they could stand and make a contest at home.
PROCEEDINGS OF CHARLESTON CONVENTION.
Caleb Cushing of Massachusetts was chosen President of the Convention.
The political career of Mr. Cushing had not been distinguished for
steady adherence to party. He was elected to Congress in 1834, as
representative from the Essex district in Massachusetts. He was
at that time a zealous member of the Whig party, and was active on
the Northern or anti-slavery side in the discussions relating to
the "right of petition." He served in the House for eight years.
After the triumph of Harrison in 1840, Mr. Cushing evidently aspired
to be a party leader. In the quarrel which ensued between President
Tyler and Mr. Clay, he saw an opportunity to gratify his ambition
by adhering to the administration. This brought him into very
close relations with Mr. Webster, who remained in Tyler's Cabinet
after his colleagues retired, and threw him at the same time into
rank antagonism with Mr. Clay, to whose political fortunes he had
previously been devoted. In view of the retirement of Mr. Webster
from the State Department in 1843, President Tyler nominated Mr.
Cushing for Secretary of the Treasury, but the Whig senators,
appreciating his power and influence in that important position,
procured his rejection. Some Democratic votes from the South were
secured against him because of his course in the House of
Representatives. The President then nominated him as Commissioner
to China, and he was promptly confirmed. Oriental diplomatists
never encountered a minister better fitted to meet them with their
own weapons.
Upon his return home, Mr. Cushing found that Mr. Webster had resumed
his place as the leader of the Northern Whigs. Mr. Clay had
meanwhile been defeated for the Presidency, his followers were
discouraged, the administration of Mr. Polk was in power. Mr.
Cushing at once joined the Democracy, and was made a Brigadier-
General in the army raised for the war with Mexico. From that time
onward he became a partisan of the extreme State-rights school of
the Southern Democracy, and was appropriately selected for Attorney-
General by President Pierce in 1853. In conjunction with Jefferson
Davis, he was considered to be the guiding and controlling force
in the administration. His thorough education, his remarkable
attainments, his eminence in the law, his ability as an advocate,
rendered his active co-operation of great value to the pro-slavery
Democrats of the South. He was naturally selected for the important
and difficult duty of presiding over the convention whose deliberations
were to affect the interests of the Government, and possibly the
fate of the Union.
It was soon evident that the South would have every advantage in
the convention which an intelligent and skillful administration of
parliamentary law could afford. Without showing unfairness, the
presiding officer, especially in a large and boisterous assembly,
can impart confidence and strength to the side with which he may
sympathize. But, apart from any power to be derived from having
the chairman of the convention, the South had a more palpable
advantage from the mode in which the standing committees must,
according to precedent, be constituted. As one member must be
taken from each State, the Southern men obtained the control of
all the committees, from the fact that the delegates from California
and Oregon steadily voted with them. There were thirty-three States
in the Union in 1860,--eighteen free and fifteen slave-holding.
California and Oregon, uniting with the South, gave to that section
seventeen, and left to the North but sixteen on all the committees.
The Democratic delegates from the Pacific States assumed a weighty
responsibility in thus giving to the Disunionists of the South
preliminary control of the convention, by permitting them to shape
authoritatively all the business to be submitted. It left the real
majority of the convention in the attitude of a protesting minority.
The Southern majority of one on the committees was fatal to Democratic
success. In a still more important aspect its influence was in
the highest degree prejudicial to the Union of the States.
Constituted in the manner just indicated, the Committee on Resolutions
promptly and unanimously agreed on every article of the Democratic
creed, except that relating to slavery. Here they divided, stubbornly
and irreconcilably. The fifteen slave States, re-enforced by
California and Oregon, gave to the Southern interest a majority of
one vote on the committee. The other free States, sixteen in all,
were hostile to the extreme Southern demands, and reported a
resolution, which they were willing to accept. The South required
an explicit assertion of the right of citizens to settle in the
Territories with their slaves,--a right not "to be destroyed or
impaired by Congressional or Territorial legislation." They required
the further declaration that it is the duty of the Federal Government,
when necessary, to protect slavery "in the Territories, and wherever
else its constitutional authority extends." This was in substance,
and almost identically in language, the extreme creed put forth by
the Southern Democratic senators in the winter of 1858-59, after
the "popular sovereignty" campaign of Douglas against Lincoln. It
was the most advanced ground ever taken by the statesmen of the
South, and its authorship was generally ascribed to Judah F.
Benjamin, senator from Louisiana. Its introduction in the Charleston
platform was intended apparently as an insult to Douglas. The
evident purpose was to lay down doctrines and prescribe tests which
Douglas could not accept, and thus to exclude him, not only from
candidacy, but from further participation in the councils of the
party.
QUARREL OF DEMOCRATIC FACTIONS.
The courage of the Northern Democrats was more conspicuously shown
in their resistance to these demands than in the declarations which
they desired to substitute. They quietly abandoned all their
assertions in regard to popular sovereignty, refrained from any
protest against the doctrine that the Constitution carried slavery
as far as its jurisdiction extended, and contented themselves with
a resolution that "inasmuch as differences of opinion exist in the
Democratic party as to the nature and extent of the powers of a
Territorial Legislature, and as to the powers and duties of Congress
under the Constitution of the United States over the institution
of slavery within the Territories, the Democratic party will abide
by the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States upon
questions of Constitutional law." This was perhaps the best device
practicable at the time; and had it been adopted with Douglas as
the candidate, and a united Democracy supporting him, it is not
improbable that a successful campaign might have been made. But
it was a makeshift, uncandid, unfair, cunningly contrived to evade
the full responsibility of the situation. It was a temporizing
expedient, and did not frankly meet the question which was engaging
the thoughts of the people. Had it succeeded, nothing would have
been settled. Every thing would have been postponed, and the crisis
would have inevitably recurred. So far as the Supreme Court could
determine the questions at issue, it had already been done in the
Dred Scott decision; and that decision, so far from being final,
was a part of the current controversy. There was, therefore,
neither logic nor principle in the proposition of the Douglas
minority. The Southern delegates keenly realized this fact, and
refused to accept the compromise. They could not endure the thought
of being placed in a position which was not only evasive, but might
be deemed cowardly. They were brave men, and wished to meet the
question bravely. They knew that the Republicans in their forthcoming
convention would explicitly demand the prohibition of slavery in
the Territories. To hesitate or falter in making an equally explicit
assertion of their own faith would subject them to fatal assault
from their slave-holding constituencies.
The Douglas men would not yield. They were enraged by the domineering
course of the Southern Democrats. They could not comprehend why
they should higgle about the language of the platform when they
could carry the slave States on the one form of expression as well
as the other. In the North it was impossible for the Democrats to
succeed with the Southern platform, but in the South it was, in
their judgment, entirely easy to carry the Douglas platform. From
the committee the contest was transferred to the convention, and
there the Douglas men were in a majority. They did not hesitate
to use their strength, and by a vote of 165 to 138 they substituted
the minority platform for that of the majority. It was skillfully
accomplished under the lead of Henry B. Payne of Ohio and Benjamin
Samuels of Iowa. The total vote of the convention was 303,--the
number of Presidential electors; and every vote had been cast on
the test question. The South voted solidly in the negative, and
was aided by the vote of California and Oregon, and a few scattering
delegates from Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The other fourteen
States of the North voted unanimously on the side of Douglas, and
gave him a majority of twenty-seven.
The Northern victory brought with it a defeat. A large number of
the Southern delegates, though fairly and honorably outvoted,
refused to abide by the decision. Seven States--Louisiana, Alabama,
South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas--withdrew
from the convention, and organized a separate assemblage, presided
over by Senator James A. Bayard of Delaware. By this defection
the Douglas men were left in absolute control of the convention.
But the friends of Douglas fatally obstructed his program by
consenting to the two-thirds rule, so worded as to required that
proportion of a full convention to secure a nomination. The first
vote disclosed the full strength of Douglas to be 152. He required
202 to be declared the nominee. After an indefinite number of
ballots, it was found impossible to make a nomination; and on the
3d of May the convention adjourned to meet in Baltimore on the 18th
of June. In the intervening weeks it was hoped that a more harmonious
spirit would return to the party. But the expectation was vain.
The differences were more pronounced than ever when the convention
re-assembled, and, all efforts to find a common basis of action
having failed, the convention divided. The Southern delegates with
California and Oregon, and with some scattering members from other
States, among whom were Caleb Cushing and Benjamin F. Butler of
Massachusetts, nominated John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky for
President, and Joseph Lane of Oregon for Vice-President. The
Northern convention, with a few scattering votes from the South,
nominated Stephen A. Douglas for President, and Herschel V. Johnson
of Georgia for Vice-President. Of the seventeen States that made
up the Breckinridge convention, it was deemed probable that he
could carry all. Of the sixteen that voted for Douglas, it was
difficult to name one in which with a divided party he could be
sure of victory. United in support of either candidate, the party
could have made a formidable contest, stronger in the North with
Douglas, stronger in the South with Breckinridge. Had the Democracy
presented Douglas and Breckinridge as their National nominees, they
would have combined all the elements of strength in their party.
But passion and prejudice prevented. The South was implacable
toward Douglas, and deliberately resolved to accept defeat rather
than secure a victory under his lead.
DISRUPTION OF THE DEMOCRACY.
The disruption of the Democracy was undoubtedly hastened by the
political events which had occurred since the adjournment at
Charleston. An organization, styling itself the Constitutional-
Union Party, representing the successors of the Old Whigs and
Americans, had met in Baltimore, and nominated John Bell of Tennessee
for President, and Edward Everett of Massachusetts for Vice-President.
The strength of the party was in the South. In the slave States
it formed the only opposition to the Democratic party, and was as
firm in defense of the rights of the slave-holder as its rival.
Its members had not been so ready to repeal the Missouri Compromise
as the Democrats, and they were unrelenting in their hostility to
Douglas, and severe in their exposure of his dogma of popular
sovereignty. They had effectively aided in bringing both the
doctrine and its author into disrepute in the South, and, if the
Democrats had ventured to nominate Douglas, they had their weapons
ready for vigorous warfare against him.
With a Southern slave-holder like Mr. Bell at the head of the
ticket, and a Northern man of Mr. Everett's well-known conservatism
associated with him, the Constitutional-Union Party was in a position
to make a strong canvass against Douglas in the South. It was this
fact which, on the re-assembling of the Democratic convention at
Baltimore, had increased the hostility of the South to Douglas,
and made their leaders firm in their resolution not to accept him.
Had the Union party nominated a Northern man instead of Mr. Bell
for President, the case might have been different for Douglas; but
the Southern Democrats feared that their party would be endangered
in half the slave States if they should present Douglas as a
candidate against a native Southerner and slave-holder of Bell's
character and standing. If they were to be beaten in the contest
for the Presidency, they were determined to retain, if possible,
the control of their States, and not to risk their seats in the
Senate and the House in a desperate struggle for Douglas. It would
be poor recompense to them to recover certain Northern States from
the Republicans, if at the same time, and by co-ordinate causes,
an equal number of Southern States should be carried by Bell, and
the destiny of the South be committed to a conservative party,
which would abandon threats and cultivate harmony. Bell's nomination
had, therefore, proved the final argument against the acceptance
of Douglas by the Southern Democracy.
Meanwhile, between the adjournment of the Democratic convention at
Charleston, and its re-assembling at Baltimore, the Republicans
had held their national convention at Chicago. It was a representative
meeting of the active and able men of both the old parties in the
North, who had come together on the one overshadowing issue of the
hour. Differing widely on many other questions, inheriting their
creeds from antagonistic organizations of the past, they thought
alike on the one subject of putting a stop to the extension of
slavery. Those who wished to go farther were restrained, and an
absolute control of opinion and action was commanded on this one
line. In the entire history of party conventions, not one can be
found so characteristic, so earnest, so determined to do the wisest
thing, so little governed by personal consideration, so entirely
devoted to one absorbing idea. It was made up in great part of
young men, though there were gray-haired veterans in sufficient
number to temper action with discretion. A large proportion of
the delegates were afterwards prominent in public life. At least
sixty of them, till then unknown beyond their districts, were sent
to Congress. Many became governors of their States, and in other
ways received marks of popular favor. It was essentially a convention
of the free States--undisguisedly sectional in the political
nomenclature of the day. The invitation was general, but, in the
larger portion of the South, no one could be found who would risk
his life by attending as a delegate. Nevertheless, there were
delegates present from the five slave States which bordered on the
free States, besides a partial and irregular representation from
Texas.
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION.
The anti-slavery character of the assemblage was typified by the
selection of David Wilmot for temporary chairman, and its conservative
side by the choice of an old Webster Whig, in the person of George
Ashmun of Massachusetts, for permanent president. This tendency
to interweave the radical and conservative elements, and, where
practicable, those of Whig with those of Democratic antecedents,
was seen in many delegations. John A. Andrew and George S. Boutwell
came from Massachusetts, William M. Evarts and Preston King from
New York, Thaddeus Stevens and Andrew H. Reeder from Pennsylvania,
Thomas Corwin and Joshua R. Giddings from Ohio, David Davis and N.
B. Judd from Illinois. Outside of the regular delegations, there
were great crowds of earnest men in Chicago, all from the free
States. The number in attendance was reckoned by tens of thousands.
Considering the restricted facilities for travel at that time, the
multitude was surprising and significant. The whole mass was
inspired with energy, and believed, without shadow of doubt, that
they had come to witness the nomination of the next President of
the United States. Confidence of strength is as potential an
element in a political canvass as in a military campaign, and never
was a more defiant sense of power exhibited than by the Chicago
convention of 1860 and by the vast throng which surrounded its
meetings. Such a feeling is contagious, and it spread from that
centre until it enveloped the free States.
The impression in the country, for a year preceding the convention,
was that Mr. Seward would be nominated. As the time drew nigh,
however, symptoms of dissent appeared in quarters where it had not
been expected. New parties are proverbially free from faction and
jealousy. Personal antagonisms, which come with years, had not
then been developed in the Republican ranks. It was not primarily
a desire to promote the cause of other candidates which led to the
questioning of Mr. Seward's availability, nor was there any
withholding of generous recognition and appreciation of all that
he had done for Republican principles. His high character was
gladly acknowledged, his eminent ability conceded, the magnitude
and unselfishness of his work were everywhere praised. Without
his aid, the party could not have been organized. But for his wise
leadership, it would have been wrecked in the first years of its
existence. He was wholly devoted to its principles. He had staked
every thing upon its success.
Mr. Seward had, however, some weak points as a candidate. A large
proportion of the Republicans had been connected with the American
organization, and still cherished some of its principles. Mr.
Seward had been the determined foe of that party. In battling for
the rights of the negro, he deemed it unwise and inconsistent to
increase the disabilities of the foreign-born citizen. His influence,
more than that of any other man, had broken down the proscriptive
creed of the American party, and turned its members into the
Republican ranks. But many of them came reluctantly, and in a
complaining mood against Mr. Seward. This led political managers
to fear that Mr. Seward would lose votes which another candidate
might secure. Others though that the radicalism of Mr. Seward
would make him weak, where a more conservative representative of
Republican principles might be strong. He had been at the forefront
of the battle for twelve years in the Senate, and every extreme
thing he had said was remembered to his injury. He had preached
the doctrine of an "irrepressible conflict" between the forces of
slavery and the forces of freedom, and timid men dreaded such a
trial as his nomination would presage. The South had made continuous
assault on this speech, and on the particular phrase which
distinguished it, and had impressed many Northern men with the
belief that Mr. Seward had gone too far. In short, he had been
too conspicuous, and too many men had conceived predilections
against him.
When the convention assembled, notwithstanding all adverse influences,
Mr. Seward was still the leading and most formidable candidate.
His case was in strong and skillful hands. Mr. Thurlow Weed, who
had been his lifelong confidential friend, presented his claims,
before the formal assembling of the convention, with infinite tact.
Mr. Weed, though unable to make a public speech, was the most
persuasive of men in private conversation. He was quiet, gentle,
and deferential in manner. He grasped a subject with a giant's
strength, presented its strong points, and marshaled its details
with extraordinary power. Whatever Mr. Weed might lack was more
than supplied by the eloquent tongue of William M. Evarts. Seldom
if ever in the whole field of political oratory have the speeches
of Mr. Evarts at Chicago been equaled. Even those who most decidedly
differed from him followed him from one delegation to another
allured by the charm of his words. He pleaded for the Republic,
for the party that could save it, for the great statesman who had
founded the party, and knew where and how to lead it. He spoke as
one friend for another, and the great career of Mr. Seward was
never so illumined as by the brilliant painting of Mr. Evarts.
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION.
With all the potential efforts and influences in his behalf, Mr.
Seward was confronted with obstacles which were insuperable. He
was seriously injured by the open defection of Horace Greeley.
Not able, or even desirous, to appear on the New-York delegation,
Mr. Greeley sat in the convention as a representative from Oregon.
The old firm of Seward, Weed, and Greeley, according to his own
humorous expression, had been dissolved by the withdrawal of the
junior partner; and a bitter dissension had in fact existed for
six years without public knowledge. With his great influence in
the agricultural regions of the country, Mr. Greeley was enabled
to turn a strong current of popular feeling against the eminent
senator from New York. Mr. Seward sustained further injury by the
action of the States which were regarded as politically doubtful.
Pennsylvania and Indiana took part against him. Henry S. Lane had
just been nominated for governor of Indiana, with Oliver P. Morton
--not then known beyond his State--for lieutenant-governor. It
was understood that Lane would be sent to the Senate if the
Republicans should carry the State, and that Morton, whose strength
of character was known and appreciated at home, would become
governor. Both candidates, having each a personal stake in the
contest, united in declaring that the nomination of Mr. Seward
meant a Democratic victory in Indiana. Andrew G. Curtin, who had
been nominated for governor of Pennsylvania, gave the same testimony
respecting that State; and his judgment was sustained by his faithful
friend and adviser, Alexander K. McClure. Delegates from other
States, where the contest was close, sympathized with the views of
Pennsylvania and Indiana, and there was a rapid and formidable
combination against Mr. Seward. The reformer and his creed rarely
triumph at the same time, and the fate of Mr. Seward was about to
add one more illustration of this truth.
But if not Mr. Seward, who? The Blairs and Horace Greeley answered,
"Edward Bates of Missouri,"--an old Whig, a lawyer of ability, a
gentleman of character. Though still in vigorous life, he had sat
in the convention which framed the constitution of Missouri in
1820. He had revered the Compromise of that year, and had joined
the Republicans in resentment of its repeal. Ohio, in a half-
hearted manner, presented Salmon P. Chase, who, with great ability
and spotless fame, lacked the elements of personal popularity.
Pennsylvania, with an imposing delegation, named Simon Cameron;
New Jersey desired William L. Dayton; Vermont wanted Jacob Collamer;
and delegates here and there suggested Judge McLean or Benjamin
F. Wade. The popular candidate of 1856, John C. Frémont, had
forbidden the use of his name.
Illinois had a candidate. He was held back with sound discretion,
and at the opportune moment presented with great enthusiasm. Ever
since the discussion with Douglas, Mr. Lincoln had occupied a
prominent place before the public; but there had been little mention
of his name for the Presidency. His friends at home had apparently
hoped to nominate him for Vice-President on the ticket with Mr.
Seward. But as the proofs of hostility to Seward multiplied,
speculation was busy as to the man who could be taken in his stead.
At the moment when doubts of Seward's success were most prevalent,
and when excitement in regard to the nomination was deepest, the
Republicans of Illinois met in State convention. It was but a few
days in advance of the assembling of the National convention. By
a spontaneous movement they nominated Mr. Lincoln for President.
It was a surprise to the convention that did it. The man who
created the great outburst for Mr. Lincoln in that Illinois
assemblage, who interpreted the feelings of delegates to themselves,
was Richard J. Oglesby, a speaker of force and eloquence, afterward
honorably prominent and popular in military and civil life. He
was seconded with unanimity, and with boisterous demonstrations of
applause. The whole State was instantly alive and ablaze for
Lincoln. A delegation competent for its work was sent to the
convention. David Davis, O. H. Browning, Burton C. Cook, Gustavus
Koerner, and their associates, met no abler body of men in a
convention remarkable for its ability. They succeeded in the
difficult task assigned to them. They did not in their canvass
present Mr. Lincoln as a rival to Mr. Seward, but rather as an
admirer and friend. The votes which were given to Mr. Lincoln on
the first ballot were, in large part, from delegations that could
not be induced in any event to vote for Mr. Seward. The presentation
of Mr. Lincoln's name kept these delegates from going to a candidate
less acceptable to the immediate friends of Mr. Seward. No management
could have been more skillful, no tact more admirable. The result
attested the vigor and wisdom of those who had Mr. Lincoln's fortunes
in charge.
Mr. Seward's support, however, after all the assaults made upon
it, was still very formidable. On the first ballot he received
175½ votes, while Mr. Lincoln received but 102. Delegates to the
number of 190 divided their votes between Bates, Chase, Cameron,
Dayton, McLean, and Collamer. They held the balance of power, and
on the second ballot it was disclosed that the mass of them favored
Mr. Lincoln as against Mr. Seward. The latter gained but nine
votes, carrying his total up to 184½, while Mr. Lincoln received
181. On the third ballot, Mr. Lincoln was nominated by general
consent.
NOMINATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
It is one of the contradictions not infrequently exhibited in the
movement of partisan bodies, that Mr. Seward was defeated because
of his radical expressions on the slavery questions, while Mr.
Lincoln was chosen in spite of expressions far more radical than
those of Mr. Seward. The "irrepressible conflict" announced by
Mr. Seward at Rochester did not go so far as Mr. Lincoln's declaration
at Springfield, that "the Union could not exist half slave, half
free." Neither Mr. Seward nor Mr. Lincoln contemplated the
destruction of the government, and yet thousands had been made to
believe that Mr. Seward made the existence of the Union depend on
the abolition of slavery. Mr Lincoln had announced the same doctrine
in advance of Mr. Seward, with a directness and bluntness which
could not be found in the more polished phrase of the New-York
senator. Despite these facts, a large number of delegates from
doubtful States--delegates who held the control of the convention
--supported Mr. Lincoln, on the distinct ground that the anti-
slavery sentiment which they represented was not sufficiently
radical to support the author of the speech in which had been
proclaimed the doctrine of an "irrepressible conflict" between
freedom and slavery.
In a final analysis of the causes and forces which nominated Mr.
Lincoln, great weight must be given to the influence which came
from the place where the convention was held, and from the sympathy
and pressure of the surrounding crowd. Illinois Republicans, from
Cairo to the Wisconsin line, were present in uncounted thousands.
The power of the mob in controlling public opinion is immeasurable.
In monarchical governments it has dethroned kings, and in republics
it dictates candidates. Had the conditions been changed and the
National convention of the Republicans assembled in Albany, it is
scarcely to be doubted that Mr. Seward would have been nominated.
It is quite certain that Mr. Lincoln would not have been nominated.
The great achievement at Chicago was the nomination of Mr. Lincoln
without offending the supporters of Seward. This happy result
secured victory for the party in the national contest. No wounds
were inflicted, no hatreds planted, no harmonies disturbed. The
devotion to the cause was so sincere and so dominant, that the
personal ambitions of a lifetime were subordinated in an instant
upon the demand of the popular tribunal whose decision was final.
The discipline of defeat was endured with grace, and self-abnegation
was accepted as the supreme duty of the hour.
A wise selection was made for Vice-President. Hannibal Hamlin
belonged originally to the school of Democrats who supported Jackson,
and who took Silas Wright as their model. After the repeal of the
Missouri Compromise he separated himself from his old associates,
and proved to be a powerful factor in the formation of the Republican
party. His candidacy for Governor of Maine, in 1856, broke down
the Democratic party in that State, and gave a great impulse to
the Republican campaign throughout the country. In strong common
sense, in sagacity and sound judgment, in rugged integrity of
character, Mr. Hamlin has had no superior among public men. It is
generally fortunate for a political party if the nominee for Vice-
President does not prove a source of weakness in the popular canvass.
Mr. Hamlin proved a source of strength, and the imparted confidence
and courage to the great movement against the Democratic party.
In the four Presidential tickets in the field, every shade of
political opinion was represented, but only two of the candidates
embodied positive policies. Mr. Lincoln was in favor of prohibiting
the extension of slavery by law. Mr. Breckinridge was in favor of
protecting its extension by law. No issue could have been more
pronounced than the one thus presented. Mr. Douglas desired to
evade it, and advocated his doctrine of non-intervention which was
full of contradictions, and was in any event offensive to the anti-
slavery conscience. It permitted what was considered a grievous
moral wrong to be upheld, if a majority of white men would vote in
favor of upholding it. Mr. Bell desired to avoid the one question
that was in the popular mind, and to lead the people away from
every issue except the abstract one of preserving the Union. By
what means the Union could be preserved against the efforts of
Southern secessionists, Mr. Bell's party did not explain. The
popular apprehension was that Mr. Bell would concede all they asked,
and insure the preservation of the Union by yielding to the demands
of the only body of men who threatened to destroy it.
ELECTION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
As the canvass grew animated, and the questions at issue were
elaborately discussed before the people, the conviction became
general that the supporters of Breckinridge contemplated the
destruction of the government. This was not simply the belief of
the Republicans. It was quite as general among the supporters of
Douglas and the supporters of Bell. In an earlier stage of the
anti-slavery contest, this fact would have created great alarm in
the Northern States, but now the people would not yield to such a
fear. They were not only inspired by the principles they upheld,
but there was a general desire to test the question thus presented.
If a President, constitutionally elected, could not be inaugurated,
it was better then and there to ascertain the fact than to postpone
the issue by an evasion or a surrender. The Republicans were
constantly strengthened by recruits from the Douglas ranks. Many
of the friends of Douglas had become enraged by the course of the
Southern Democrats, and now joined the Republicans, in order to
force the issue upon the men who had been so domineering and
offensive in the Charleston and Baltimore conventions. Mr. Lincoln
gained steadily and derived great strength from the division of
his opponents. But their union could not have defeated him. In
New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, but one electoral ticket
was presented against Mr. Lincoln, his opponents having coalesced
in a joint effort to defeat him. In New Jersey, the "Fusion"
ticket, as the combination was termed, was made up of three Douglas,
two Bell, and two Breckinridge representatives. Owing to the fact
that some of the supporters of Douglas refused to vote for the
Breckinridge and Bell candidates, Mr. Lincoln received four electoral
votes in New Jersey, though, in the aggregate popular vote, the
majority was against him. In California and Oregon he received
pluralities. In every other free State he had an absolute majority.
Breckinridge carried every slave State except four,--Virginia,
Kentucky, and Tennessee voting for Bell, and Missouri voting for
Douglas.
The long political struggle was over. A more serious one was about
to begin. For the first time in the history of the government,
the South was defeated in a Presidential election where an issue
affecting the slavery question was involved. There had been grave
conflicts before, sometimes followed by compromise, oftener by
victory for the South. But the election of 1860 was the culmination
of a contest which was foreshadowed by the Louisiana question of
1812; which became active and angry over the admission of Missouri;
which was revived by the annexation of Texas, and still further
inflamed by the Mexican war; which was partially allayed by the
compromises of 1850; which was precipitated for final settlement
by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, by the consequent struggle
for mastery in Kansas, and by the aggressive intervention of the
Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott. These are the events
which led, often slowly, but always with directness, to the political
revolution of 1860. The contest was inevitable, and the men whose
influence developed and encouraged it may charitably be regarded
as the blind agents of fate. But if personal responsibility for
prematurely forcing the conflict belongs to any body of men, it
attaches to those who, in 1854, broke down the adjustments of 1820
and of 1850. If the compromises of those years could not be
maintained, the North believed that all compromise was impossible;
and they prepared for the struggle which this fact foreshadowed.
They had come to believe that the house divided against itself
could not stand; that the Republic half slave, half free, could
not endure. They accepted as their leader the man who proclaimed
these truths. The peaceful revolution was complete when Abraham
Lincoln was chosen President of the United States.
In the closing and more embittered period of the political struggle
over the question of Slavery, public opinion in the South grew
narrow, intolerant, and cruel. The mass of the Southern people
refused to see any thing in the anti-slavery movement except
fanaticism; they classed Abolitionists with the worst of malefactors;
they endeavored to shut out by the criminal code and by personal
violence the enlightened and progressive sentiment of the world.
Their success in arousing the prejudice and unifying the action of
the people in fifteen States against the surging opinion of
Christendom is without parallel. Philanthropic movements elsewhere
were regarded with jealousy and distrust. Southern statesmen of
the highest rank looked upon British emancipation in the West Indies
as designedly hostile to the prosperity and safety of their own
section, and as a plot for the ultimate destruction of the Republic.
Each year the hatred against the North deepened, and the boundary
between the free States and the slave States was becoming as marked
as a line of fire. The South would see no way of dealing with
Slavery except to strengthen and fortify it at every point. Its
extinction they would not contemplate. Even a suggestion for its
amelioration was regarded as dangerous to the safety of the State
and to the sacredness of the family.
BRITISH SUPPORT OF THE SLAVE-TRADE.
Southern opinion had not always been of this type. It had changed
with the increase in the number of slaves, and with the increased
profit from their labor. Before the Revolutionary war, Virginia
had earnestly petitioned George III. to prohibit the importation
of slaves from Africa, and the answer of His Majesty was a peremptory
instruction to the Royal Governor at Williamsburg, "not to assent
to any law of the Colonial Legislature by which the importation of
slaves should in any respect be prohibited or obstructed." Anti-
slavery opinion was developed in a far greater degree in the American
Colonies than in the mother country. When the Convention of 1787
inserted in the Federal Constitution a clause giving to Congress
the power to abolish the slave-trade after the year 1808, they took
a step far in advance of European opinion. A society was formed
in London, in the year 1787, for the suppression of the slave-trade.
Although it was organized under the auspices of the distinguished
philanthropists, William Clarkson and Granville Sharp, it had at
the time as little influence upon the popular opinion of England
as the early efforts of William Lloyd Garrison and the Society for
the Abolition of Domestic Slavery had upon the public opinion of
the United States. It was not until 1791 that Mr. Wilberforce
introduced in Parliament his first bill for the suppression of the
slave-trade, and though he had the enlightened sympathy of Mr.
Pitt, the eminent premier did not dare to make it a ministerial
measure. The bill was rejected by a large vote. It was not until
fifteen years later that the conscience of England won a victory
over the organized capital engaged in the infamous traffic. It
was the young and struggling Republic in America that led the way,
and she led the way under the counsel and direction of Southern
statesmen. American slave-holders were urging the abolition of
the traffic while London merchants were using every effort to
continue it, and while Bristol, the very headquarters of the trade,
was represented in Parliament by Edmund Burke. Even among the
literary men of England,--if Boswell's gossip may be trusted,--Dr.
Johnson was peculiar in his hatred of the infamy--a hatred which
is obsequious biographer mollifies to an "unfavorable notion," and
officiously ascribes to "prejudice and imperfect or false information."
The anti-slavery work of England was originally inspired from
America, and the action of the British Parliament was really so
directed as to make the prohibition of the slave-trade correspond
in time with that prescribed in the Federal Constitution. The
American wits and critics of that day did not fail to note the
significance of the date, and to appreciate the statesmanship and
philosophy which led the British Parliament to terminate the trade
at the precise moment when the American Congress closed the market.
The slaves in the United States numbered about seven hundred thousand
when Washington's administration was organized. They had increased
to four millions when Lincoln was chosen President. Their number
in 1860 was less in proportion to the white population than it was
in 1789. The immigration of whites had changed the ratio. But
the more marked and important change had been in the value of slave
labor. In 1789 the slaves produced little or no surplus, and in
many States were regarded as a burden. In 1860 they produced a
surplus of at least three hundred millions of dollars. The power
of agricultural production in the Southern States had apparently
no limit. If the institution of Slavery could be rendered secure,
the dominant minds of the South saw political power and boundless
wealth within their grasp. They saw that they could control the
product and regulate the price of a staple in constant demand among
every people on the globe. The investment of the South in slaves
represented a capital of two thousand millions of dollars, reckoned
only upon the salable value of the chattel. Estimated by its
capacity to produce wealth, the institution of Slavery represented
to the white population of the South a sum vastly in excess of two
thousand millions. Without slave-labor, the cotton, rice, and
sugar lands were, in the view of Southern men, absolutely valueless.
With the labor of the slave, they could produce three hundred
millions a year in excess of the food required for the population.
Three hundred millions a year represented a remunerative interest
on a capital of five thousand millions of dollars. In the history
of the world there has perhaps never been so vast an amount of
productive capital firmly consolidated under one power, subject to
the ultimate control and direction of so small a number of men.
THE SOUTH AND THE SLAVE-TRADE.
With such extraordinary results attained, the natural desire of
slave-holders was to strive for development and expansion. They
had in the South more land than could be cultivated by the slaves
they then owned, or by their natural increase within any calculable
period. So great was the excess of land that, at the time Texas
was annexed, Senator Ashley of Arkansas declared that his State
alone could, with the requisite labor, produce a larger cotton-crop
than had ever been grown in the whole country. In the minds of
the extreme men of the South the remedy was to be found in re-
opening the African slave-trade. So considerate and withal so
conservative a man as Alexander H. Stephens recognized the situation.
When he retired from public service, at the close of the Thirty-
sixth Congress, in 1859, he delivered an address to his constituents,
which was in effect a full review of the Slavery question. He told
them plainly that they could not keep up the race with the North
in the occupation of new territory "unless they could get more
Africans." He did not avowedly advocate the re-opening of the
slave-trade, but the logic of his speech plainly pointed to that
end.
John Forsythe of Alabama, an aggressive leader of the most radical
pro-slavery type, carried the argument beyond the point where the
prudence of Mr. Stephens permitted him to go. In recounting the
triumphs of the South, he avowed that one stronghold remained to
be carried, "the abrogation of the prohibition of the slave-trade."
So eminent a man as William L. Yancey formally proposed in a Southern
commercial convention, in 1858, that the South should demand the
repeal of the laws "declaring the slave-trade to be piracy;" and
Governor Adams of South Carolina pronounced those laws to be "a
fraud upon the slave-holders of the South." The Governor of
Mississippi went still farther, and exhibited a confidence in the
scheme which was startling. He believed that "the North would not
refuse so just a demand if the South should unitedly ask it."
Jefferson Davis did not join in the movement, but expressed a hearty
contempt for those "who prate of the inhumanity and sinfulness of
the slave-trade."
Quotations of this character might be indefinitely multiplied.
The leaders of public opinion in the Cotton States were generally
tending in the same direction, and, in the language of Jefferson
Davis, were basing their conclusion on "the interest of the South,
and not on the interest of the African." Newspapers and literary
reviews in the Gulf States were seconding and enforcing the position
of their public men, and were gradually but surely leading the mind
of the South to a formal demand for the privilege of importing
Africans. A speaker in the Democratic National Convention at
Charleston, personally engaged in the domestic slave-trade, frankly
declared that the traffic in native Africans would be far more
humane. The thirty thousand slaves annually taken from the border
States to the cotton-belt represented so great an aggregation of
misery, that the men engaged in conducting it were, even by the
better class of slave-holders, regarded with abhorrence, and spoken
of as infamous.
It is worthy of observation that the re-opening of the African
slave-trade was not proposed in the South until after the Dred
Scott decision. This affords a measure of the importance which
pro-slavery statesmen attached to the position of the Supreme Court.
In the light of these facts, the repeated protests of Senator
Douglas "against such schemes as the re-opening of the African
slave-trade" were full of significance; nor could any development
of Southern opinion have vindicated more completely the truth
proclaimed by Mr. Lincoln, that the country was destined to become
wholly anti-slavery or wholly pro-slavery. The financial interest
at stake in the fate of the institution was so vast, that Southern
men felt impelled to seek every possible safeguard against the
innumerable dangers which surrounded it. The revival of the African
slave-trade was the last suggestion for its protection, and was
the immediate precursor of its destruction.
In reckoning the wealth-producing power of the Southern States,
the field of slave labor has been confined to the cotton-belt. In
the more northern of the slave-holding States, free labor was more
profitable, and hence the interest in Slavery was not so vital or
so enduring as in the extreme South. There can be little doubt
that the slave States of the border would have abolished the
institution at an early period except for the fact that their slaves
became a steady and valuable source of labor-supply for the increased
demand which came from the constantly expanding area of cotton.
But his did not create so palpable or so pressing an interest as
was felt in the Gulf States, and the resentment caused by the
election of Lincoln was proportionately less. The border States
would perhaps have quietly accepted the result, however distasteful,
except for the influence brought upon them from the extreme South,
where the maintenance of Slavery was deemed vital to prosperity
and to safety.
In the passions aroused by the agitation over slavery, Southern
men failed to see (what in cooler moments they could readily
perceive) that the existence of the Union and the guaranties of
the Constitution were the shield and safeguard of the South. The
long contest they had been waging with the anti-slavery men of the
free States had blinded Southern zealots to the essential strength
of their position so long as their States continued to be members
of the Federal Union. But for the constant presence of national
power, and its constant exercise under the provisions of the
Constitution, the South would have had no protection against the
anti-slavery assaults of the civilized world. Abolitionists from
the very beginning of their energetic crusade against slavery had
seen the Constitution standing in their way, and with the unsparing
severity of their logic had denounced it as "a league with hell
and a covenant with death." The men who were directing public
opinion in the South were trying to persuade themselves, and had
actually persuaded many of their followers, that the election of
Lincoln was the overthrow of the Constitution, and that their safety
in the Union was at an end. They frightened the people by Lincoln's
declaration that the Republic could not exist half slave, half
free. They would not hear his own lucid and candid explanation of
his meaning, but chose rather to accept the most extreme construction
which the pro-slavery literature and the excited harangues of a
Presidential canvass had given to Mr. Lincoln's language.
SOUTHERN CONFIDENCE IN SECESSION.
The confidence of Southern men in their power to achieve whatever
end they should propose was unbounded. They apparently did not
stop to contemplate the effect upon slavery which a reckless course
on their part might produce. Having been schooled to the utmost
conservatism in affairs of government, they suddenly became rash
and adventurous. They were apparently ready to put every thing to
hazard, professing to believe that nothing could be as fatal as to
remain under what they termed the "Government of Lincoln." They
believed they could maintain themselves against physical force,
but they took no heed of a stronger power which was sure to work
against them. They disregarded the enlightened philanthropy and
the awakened conscience which had abolished slavery in every other
Republic of America, which had thrown the protection of law over
the helpless millions of India, which had moved even the Russian
Autocracy to consider the enfranchisement of the serf. They would
not realize that the contest they were rashly inviting was not
alone with the anti-slavery men of the free States, not alone with
the spirit of loyalty to the Republic, but that it carried with it
a challenge to the progress of civilization, and was a fight against
the nineteenth century.
CHAPTER IX.
The Tariff Question in its Relation to the Political Revolution of
1860.--A Century's Experience as to Best Mode of levying Duties.--
Original Course of Federal Government in Regard to Revenue.--First
Tariff Act.--The Objects defined in a Preamble.--Constitutional
Power to adopt Protective Measure.--Character of Early Discussions.
--The Illustrious Men who participated.--Mr. Madison the Leader.--
The War Tariff of 1812.--Its High Duties.--The Tariff of 1816.--
Interesting Debate upon its Provisions.--Clay, Webster, and Calhoun
take part.--Business Depression throughout the Country.--Continues
until the Enactment of the Tariff of 1824.--Protective Character
of that Tariff.--Still Higher Duties levied by the Tariff of 1828.
--Southern Resistance to the Protective Principle.--Mr. Calhoun
leads the Nullification Movement in South Carolina.--Compromise
effected on the Tariff Question.--Financial Depression follows.--
Panic of 1837.--Protective Tariff passed in 1842.--Free-trade
Principles triumph with the Election of President Polk.--Tariff of
1846.--Prosperous Condition of the Country.--Differences of Opinion
as to the Causes.--Surplus Revenue.--Plethoric Condition of the
Treasury.--Enactment of the Tariff of 1857.--Both Parties support
it in Congress.--Duties lower than at Any Time since the War of
1812.--Panic of 1857.--Dispute as to its causes.--Protective and
Free-trade Theories as presented by their Advocates.--Connection
of the Tariff with the Election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency.
--General Review.
The Slavery question was not the only one which developed into a
chronic controversy between certain elements of Northern opinion
and certain elements of Southern opinion. A review of the sectional
struggle would be incomplete if it did not embrace a narrative of
those differences on the tariff which at times led to serious
disturbance, and, on one memorable occasion, to an actual threat
of resistance to the authority of the government. The division
upon the tariff was never so accurately defined by geographical
lines as was the division upon slavery; but the aggressive elements
on each side of both questions finally coalesced in the same States,
North and South. Massachusetts and South Carolina marched in the
vanguard of both controversies; and the States which respectively
followed on the tariff issue were, in large part, the same which
followed on the slavery question, on both sides of Mason and Dixon's
line. Anti-slavery zeal and a tariff for protection went hand in
hand in New England, while pro-slavery principles became nearly
identical with free-trade in the Cotton States. If the rule had
its exception, it was in localities where the strong pressure of
special interest was operating, as in the case of the sugar-planter
of Louisiana, who was willing to concede generous protection to
the cotton-spinner of Lowell if he could thereby secure an equally
strong protection, in his own field of enterprise, against the
pressing competition of the island of Cuba.
PROTECTION AND FREE-TRADE SECTIONAL.
The general rule, after years of experimental legislation, resolved
itself into protection in the one section and free-trade in the
other. And this was not an unnatural distinction. Zeal against
slavery was necessarily accompanied by an appreciation of the
dignity of free labor; and free labor was more generously remunerated
under the stimulus of protective laws. The same considerations
produced a directly opposite conclusion in the South, where those
interest in slave labor could not afford to build up a class of
free laborers with high wages and independent opinions. The question
was indeed one of the kind not infrequently occurring in the
adjustment of public policies where the same cause is continually
producing different and apparently contradictory effects when the
field of its operation is changed.
The issues growing out of the subject of the tariff were, however,
in many respects entirely distinct from the slavery question. The
one involved the highest moral considerations, the other was governed
solely by expediency. Whether one man could hold property in
another was a question which took deep hold of the consciences of
men, and was either right or wrong in itself. But whether the rate
of duty upon a foreign import should be increased or lowered was
a question to be settled solely by business and financial
considerations. Slavery in the United States, as long experience
had proved, could be most profitably employed in the cultivation
of cotton. The cost of its production, in the judgment of those
engaged in it, was increased by the operation of a tariff, whereas
its price, being determined by the markets of the world, derived
no benefit from protective duties. The clothing of the slave, the
harness for the horses and mules, the ploughs, the rope, the bagging,
the iron ties, were all, they contended, increased in price to the
planter without any corresponding advance in the market value of
the product. In the beginning of the controversy it was expected
that the manufacture of cotton would grow up side by side with its
production, and that thus the community which produced the fibre
would share in the profit of the fabric. During this period the
representatives from the Cotton States favored high duties; but as
time wore on, and it became evident that slave-labor was not adapted
to the factory, and that it was undesirable if not impossible to
introduce free white labor with remunerative wages side by side
with unpaid slave-labor, the leading minds of the South were turned
against the manufacturing interest, and desired to legislate solely
in aid of the agricultural interest.
It was this change in the South that produced the irritating
discussions in Congress,--discussions always resulting in sectional
bitterness and sometimes threatening the public safety. The tariff
question has in fact been more frequently and more elaborately
debated than any other issue since the foundation of the Federal
Government. The present generation is more familiar with questions
relating to slavery, to war, to reconstruction; but as these
disappear by permanent adjustment the tariff returns, and is eagerly
seized upon by both sides to the controversy. More than any other
issue, it represents the enduring and persistent line of division
between the two parties which in a generic sense have always existed
in the United States;--the party of strict construction and the
party of liberal construction, the party of State Rights and the
party of National Supremacy, the party of stinted revenue and
restricted expenditure, and the party of generous income with its
wise application to public improvement; the part, in short, of
Jefferson as against the party of Hamilton, the party of Jackson
as against that of Clay, the party of Buchanan and Douglas as
against that of Lincoln and Seward. Taxes, whether direct or
indirect, always interest the mass of mankind, and the differences
of the systems by which they shall be levied and collected will
always present an absorbing political issue. Public attention may
be temporarily engrossed by some exigent subject of controversy,
but the tariff alone steadily and persistently recurs for agitation,
and for what is termed settlement. Thus far in our history,
settlement has only been the basis of new agitation, and each
successive agitation leads again to new settlement.
EXPERIENCE IN TARIFF LEGISLATION.
After the experience of nearly a century on the absorbing question
of the best mode of levying duties on imports, the divergence of
opinion is as wide and as pronounced as when the subject first
engaged the attention of the Federal Government. Theories on the
side of high duties and theories on the side of low duties are
maintained with just as great vigor as in 1789. In no question of
a material or financial character has there been so much interest
displayed as in this. On a question of sentiment and of sympathy
like that of slavery, feeling is inevitable; but it has been matter
of surprise that the adjustment of a scale of duties on importations
of foreign merchandise should be accompanied, as it often has been,
by displays of excitement often amounting to passion.
The cause is readily apprehended when it is remembered that the
tariff question is always presented as one not merely affecting
the general prosperity, but as specifically involving the question
of bread to the millions who are intrusted with the suffrage. The
industrial classes study the question closely; and, in many of the
manufacturing establishments of the country, the man who is working
for day wages will be found as keenly alive to the effect of a
change in the protective duty as the stockholder whose dividends
are to be affected. Thus capital and labor coalesce in favor of
high duties to protect the manufacturer, and, united, they form a
political force which has been engaged in an economic battle from
the foundation of the government. Sometimes they have suffered
signal defeat, and sometimes they have gained signal victories.
The landmarks which have been left in a century of discussion and
of legislative experiment deserve a brief reference for a better
understanding of the subject to-day. Our financial experience has
been practically as extended as that of the older nations of Europe.
When the Republic was organized, Political Economy as understood
in the modern sense was in its elementary stage, and indeed could
hardly be called a science. Systems of taxation were everywhere
crude and ruthless, and were in large degree fashioned after the
Oriental practice of mulcting the man who will pay the most and
resist the least. Adam Smith had published his "Enquiry into the
Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" in the year of the
Declaration of Independence. Between that time and the formation
of the Federal Government his views had exerted no perceptible
influence on the financial system of England. British industries
were protected by the most stringent enactments of Parliament, and
England was the determined enemy not only of free trade but of fair
trade. The emancipated Colonies found therefore in the mother
country the most resolute foe to their manufacturing and commercial
progress. American statesmen exhibited wisdom, moderation, and
foresight in overcoming the obstacles to the material prosperity
of the new Republic.
When the administration of Washington was organized in 1789, the
government which he represented did not command a single dollar of
revenue. They inherited a mountain of debt from the Revolutionary
struggle, they had no credit, and the only representative of value
which they controlled was the vast body of public land in the North-
west Territory. But this was unavailable as a resource for present
needs, and called for expenditure in the extensive surveys which
were a prerequisite to sale and settlement. In addition therefore
to every other form of poverty, the new government was burdened in
the manner so expressively described as _land poor_, which implies
the ownership of a large extent of real estate constantly calling
for heavy outlay, and yielding no revenue. The Federal Government
had one crying need, one imperative demand,--money!
An immediate system of taxation was therefore required, and the
newly organized Congress lost no time in proceeding to the
consideration of ways and means. As soon as a quorum of each branch
of Congress was found to be present, the House gave its attention
to the pressing demand for money. They did not even wait for the
inauguration of President Washington, but began nearly a month
before that important event to prepare a revenue bill which might,
at the earliest moment, be ready for the Executive approval. Duties
on imports obviously afforded the readiest resource, and Congress
devoted itself with assiduous industry to the consideration of that
form of revenue. With the exception of an essential law directing
the form of oath to be taken by the Federal officers, the tariff
Act was the first passed by the new government. It was enacted
indeed two months in advance of the law creating a Treasury
Department, and providing for a Secretary thereof. The need of
money was indeed so urgent that provision was made for raising it
by duties on imports before the appointment of a single officer of
the Cabinet was authorized. Even a Secretary of State, whose first
duty it was to announce the organization of the government to
foreign nations, was not nominated for a full month after the Act
imposing duties had been passed.
THE TARIFF ENACTED BY FIRST CONGRESS.
All the issues involved in the new Act were elaborately and
intelligently debated. The first Congress contained a large
proportion of the men who had just before been engaged in framing
the Federal Constitution, and who were therefore fresh from the
councils which had carefully considered and accurately measured
the force of every provision of that great charter of government.
It is therefore a fact of lasting importance that the first tariff
law enacted under the Federal Government set forth its object in
the most succinct and explicit language. It opened, after the
excellent fashion of that day, with a stately preamble beginning
with the emphatic "whereas," and declaring that "it is necessary
for the support of government, for the discharge of the debts of
the United States, _and for the encouragement and protection of
manufactures_, that duties be laid on imported goods, wares, and
merchandise." Among the men who agreed to that declaration were
some of the most eminent in our history. James Madison, then young
enough to add junior to his name, was the most conspicuous; and
associated with him were Richard Henry Lee, Theodorick Bland,
Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Rufus King, George Clymer, Oliver
Ellsworth, Elias Boudinot, Fisher Ames, Elbridge Gerry, Roger
Sherman, Jonathan Trumbull, Lambert Cadwalader, Thomas Fitzsimons,
the two Muhlenbergs, Thomas Tudor Tucker, Hugh Williamson, Abraham
Baldwin, Jeremiah Van Rensselaer, and many other leading men, both
from the North and the South.
It is a circumstance of curious interest that nearly, if not quite,
all the arguments used by the supporters and opponents of a protective
system were presented at that time and with a directness and ability
which have not been surpassed in any subsequent discussion. The
"_ad valorem_" system of levying duties was maintained against
"specific" rates in almost the same language employed in the
discussions of recent years. The "infant manufactures," the need
of the "fostering care of the government" for the protection of
"home industry," the advantages derived from "diversified pursuits,"
the competition of "cheap labor in Europe," were all rehearsed with
a familiarity and ease which implied their previous and constant
use in the legislative halls of the different States before the
power to levy imposts was remitted to the jurisdiction of Congress.
A picture of the industrial condition of the country at that day
can be inferred from the tariff bill first passed; and the manufactures
that were deemed worthy of encouragement are clearly outlined in
the debate. Mr. Clymer of Pennsylvania asked for a protective duty
on steel, stating that a furnace in Philadelphia "had produced
three hundred tons in two years, and with a little encouragement
would supply enough for the consumption of the whole Union." The
Pennsylvania members at the same time strenuously opposed a duty
on coal which they wished to import as cheaply as possible to aid
in the development of their iron ores. The manufacture of glass
had been started in Maryland, and the members from that State
secured a duty on the foreign article after considerable discussion,
and with the significant reservation, in deference to popular
habits, that "black quart-bottles" should be admitted free.
Mr. Madison opposed a tax on cordage, and "questioned the propriety
of raising the price of any article that entered materially into
the structure of vessels," making in effect the same argument on
that subject which has been repeated without improvement so frequently
in later years. Indigo and tobacco, two special products of the
South, were protected by prohibitory duties, while the raising of
cotton was encouraged by a duty of three cents per pound on the
imported article. Mr. Burke of South Carolina said the culture of
cotton was contemplated on a large scale in the South, "if good
seed could be procured." The manufacture of iron, wool, leather,
paper, already in some degree developed, was stimulated by the
bill. The fisheries were aided by a bounty on every barrel caught;
and the navigation interest received a remarkable encouragement by
providing that "a discount of ten per cent on all duties imposed
by this Act shall be allowed on such goods, wares, and merchandise
as shall be imported in vessels built in the United States, and
wholly the property of a citizen or citizens thereof." The bill
throughout was an American measure, designed to promote American
interests; and as a first step in a wide field of legislation, it
was characterized in an eminent degree by wisdom, by moderation,
and by a keen insight into the immediate and the distant future of
the country. The ability which framed the Constitution was not
greater than that displayed by the first generation of American
statesmen who were called to legislate under its generous provisions
and its wise restrictions.
These great statesmen proceeded in the light of facts which taught
them that, though politically separated from the mother country,
we were still in many ways dependent upon her, in as large a degree
as when we were Colonies, subject to her will and governed for her
advantage. The younger Pitt boasted that he had conquered the
Colonies as commercial dependencies, contributing more absolutely
and in larger degree to England's prosperity than before the
political connection was severed. He treated the States, after
the close of the peace of 1783, with a haughty assumption of
superiority, if not indeed with contempt--not even condescending
to accredit a diplomatic representative to the country, though John
Adams was in London as Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary
from the United States. English laws of protection under the Pitt
administration were steadily framed against the development of
manufactures and navigation in America, and the tendency when the
Federal Constitution was adopted had been, in the planting States
especially, towards a species of commercial dependence which was
enabling England to absorb our trade.
TARIFF ACT APPROVED BY WASHINGTON.
The first tariff Act was therefore in a certain sense a second
Declaration of Independence; and by a coincidence which could not
have been more striking or more significant, it was approved by
President Washington on the fourth day of July, 1789. Slow as were
the modes of communicating intelligence in those days, this Act of
Congress did, in a suggestive way, arouse the attention of both
continents. The words of the preamble were ominous. The duties
levied were exceedingly moderate, scarcely any of them above fifteen
per cent, the majority not higher than ten. But the beginning was
made; and the English manufacturers and carriers saw that the power
to levy ten per cent. could at any time levy a hundred per cent.
if the interest of the new government should demand it. The separate
States had indeed possessed the power to levy imposts, but they
had never exercised it in any comprehensive manner, and had usually
adapted the rate of duty to English trade rather than to the
protection of manufacturing interests at home. The action of the
Federal Government was a new departure, of portentous magnitude,
and was so recognized at home and abroad.
It was not the percentage which aroused and disturbed England. It
was the power to levy the duty at all. In his famous speech on
American taxation in the House of Commons fifteen years before,
Mr. Burke asserted that it was "not the weight of the duty, but
the weight of the preamble, which the Americans were unable and
unwilling to bear." The tax actually imposed was not oppressive,
but the preamble implied the power to levy upon the Colonies whatever
tax the British Government might deem expedient, and this led to
resistance and to revolution. The force of the preamble was now
turned against Great Britain. She saw that the extent to which
the principle of protective duties might be carried was entirely
a matter of discretion with the young Republic whose people had
lately been her subjects and might now become her rivals. The
principle of protecting the manufactures and encouraging the
navigation of America had been distinctly proclaimed in the first
law enacted by the new government, and was thus made in a suggestive
and emphatic sense the very corner-stone of the republican edifice
which the patriots of the Revolution were aiming to construct.
The opinions of Mr. Madison as thus shown in the first legislation
by Congress are the more significant from the fact that he belonged
in the Jeffersonian school, believed in the strictest construction
of granted power, was a zealous Republican in the partisan divisions
of the day, and was always opposed to the more liberal, or, as he
would regard them, the more latitudinarian views of the Federal
party. In regard to the protection and encouragement of manufactures
there seemed to be no radical difference between parties in the
early period of the government. On that issue, to quote a phrase
used on another occasion, "they were all Federalists and all
Republicans." Mr. Hamilton's celebrated report on Manufactures,
submitted in answer to a request from the House of Representatives
of December, 1790, sustained and elaborated the views on which
Congress had already acted, and brought the whole influence of the
Executive Department to the support of a Protective Tariff. Up to
that period no minister of finance among the oldest and most advanced
countries of Europe had so ably discussed the principles on which
national prosperity was based. The report has long been familiar
to students of political economy, and has had, like all Mr. Hamilton's
work, a remarkable value and a singular application in the developments
of subsequent years.
MR. HAMILTON'S PROTECTION VIEWS.
Mr. Hamilton sustained the plan of encouraging home manufactures
by protective duties, even to the point in some instances of making
those "duties equivalent to prohibition." He did not contemplate
a prohibitive duty as the means of encouraging a manufacture not
already domesticated, but declared it "only fit to be employed when
a manufacture has made such a progress, and is in so many hands,
as to insure a due competition and an adequate supply on reasonable
terms." This argument did not seem to follow the beaten path which
leads to the protection of "infant manufactures," but rather aimed
to secure the home market for the strong and well-developed
enterprises. Mr. Hamilton did not turn back from the consequences
which his argument involved. He perceived its logical conclusions
and frankly accepted them. He considered "the monopoly of the
domestic market to its own manufacturers as the reigning policy of
manufacturing nations," and declared that "a similar policy on the
part of the United States in every proper instance was dictated by
the principles of distributive justice, certainly by the duty of
endeavoring to secure to their own citizens a reciprocity of
advantages." He avowed his belief that "the internal competition
which takes place, soon does away with every thing like monopoly,
and by degrees reduces the price of the article to the _minimum_
of a reasonable profit on the capital employed. This accords with
the reason of the thing and with experience." He contended that
"a reduction has in several instances immediately succeeded the
establishment of domestic manufacture." But even if this result
should not follow, he maintained that "in a national view a temporary
enhancement of price must always be well compensated by a permanent
reduction of it." The doctrine of protection, even with the enlarged
experience of subsequent years, has never been more succinctly or
more felicitously stated.
Objections to the enforcement of the "protective" principle founded
on a lack of constitutional power were summarily dismissed by Mr.
Hamilton as "having no good foundation." He had been a member of
the convention that formed the Constitution, and had given attention
beyond any other member to the clauses relating to the collection
and appropriation of revenue. He said the "power to raise money"
as embodied in the Constitution "is plenary and indefinite," and
"the objects for which it may be appropriated are no less comprehensive
than the payment of the public debts, the providing for the common
defense and the _general welfare_." He gives the widest scope to
the phrase "general welfare," and declares that "it is of necessity
left to the discretion of the national Legislature to pronounce
upon the objects which concern the general welfare, and for which
under that description an appropriation of money is requisite and
proper." Mr. Hamilton elaborates his argument on this head with
consummate power, and declares that "the only qualification" to
the power of appropriation under the phrase "general welfare" is
that the purpose for which the money is applied shall "be _general_,
and not _local_, its operation extending in fact throughout the
Union, and not being confined to a particular spot." The limitations
and hypercritical objections to the powers conferred by the
Constitution, both in the raising and appropriating of money,
originated in large part after the authors of that great charter
had passed away, and have been uniformly stimulated by class
interests which were not developed when the organic law was enacted.
Some details of Mr. Hamilton's report are especially interesting
in view of the subsequent development of manufacturing enterprises.
"Iron works" he represents as "greatly increasing in the United
States," and so great is the demand that "iron furnished before
the Revolution at an average of sixty-four dollars per ton" was
then sold at "eighty." Nails and spikes, made in large part by
boys, needed further "protection," as 1,800,000 pounds had been
imported the previous year. Iron was wholly made by "charcoal,"
but there were several mines of "fossil coal" already "worked in
Virginia," and "a copious supply of it would be of great value to
the iron industry." Respecting "cotton" Mr. Hamilton attached far
more consideration to its manufacture than to its culture. He
distrusted the quality of that grown at home because so far from
the equator, and he wished the new factories in Rhode Island and
Massachusetts to have the best article at the cheapest possible
rate. To this end the repeal of the three-cent duty on cotton
levied the preceding year was "indispensable." He argued that "not
being, like hemp, an universal production of the country, cotton
affords less assurance of an adequate internal supply." If the
duty levied on glass should not prove sufficient inducement to its
manufacture, he would stimulate it "by a direct bounty."
Mr. Hamilton's conceptions of an enlarged plan of "protection"
included not only "prohibitive duties," but when necessary a system
of "bounties and premiums" in addition. He was earnestly opposed
to "a capitation-tax," and declared such levies as an income-tax
to be "unavoidably hurtful to industry." Indirect taxes were
obviously preferred by him whenever they were practicable. Indeed
upon any other system of taxation he believed it would prove
impossible for the Republic of 1790 to endure the burden imposed
upon the public treasury by the funding of the debt of the Revolution.
More promptly than any other financier of that century he saw that
ten dollars could be more easily collected by indirect tax than
one dollar by direct levy, and that he could thus avoid those
burdensome exactions from the people which had proved so onerous
in Europe, and which had just aided in precipitating France into
bloody revolution.
THE WAR TARIFF ENACTED IN 1812.
Important and radical additions to the revenue system promptly
followed Mr. Hamilton's recommendations. From that time onward,
for a period of more than twenty years, additional tariff laws were
passed by each succeeding Congress, modifying and generally increasing
the rate of duties first imposed, and adding many new articles to
the dutiable list. When the war of 1812 was reached, a great but
temporary change was made in the tariff laws by increasing the
entire list of duties one hundred per cent.--simply doubling the
rate in every case. Not content with this sweeping and wholesale
increase of duty, the law provided an additional ten per cent. upon
all goods imported in foreign vessels, besides collecting an
additional tonnage-tax of one dollar and a half per ton on the
vessel. Of course this was war-legislation, and the Act was to
expire within one year after a treaty of peace should be concluded
with Great Britain. With the experience of recent days before him,
the reader does not need to be reminded that, under the stimulus
of this extraordinary rate of duties, manufactures rapidly developed
throughout the country. Importations from England being absolutely
stopped by reason of the war, and in large part excluded from other
countries by high duties, the American market was for the first
time left substantially, or in large degree, to the American
manufacturers.
With all the disadvantages which so sudden and so extreme a policy
imposed on the people, the progress for the four years of these
extravagant and exceptional duties was very rapid, and undoubtedly
exerted a lasting influence on the industrial interests of the
United States. But the policy was not one which commanded general
support. Other interests came forward in opposition. New England
was radically hostile to high duties, for the reason that they
seriously interfered with the shipping and commercial interest in
which her people were largely engaged. The natural result moreover
was a sharp re-action, in which the protective principle suffered.
Soon after the Treaty of Ghent was signed, movements were made for
a reduction of duties, and the famous tariff of 1816 was the result.
In examining the debates on that important Act, it is worthy of
notice that Mr. Clay, from an extreme Western State, was urging a
high rate of duties on cotton fabrics, while his chief opponent
was Daniel Webster, then a representative from Massachusetts. An
additional and still stranger feature of the debate is found when
Mr. Calhoun, co-operating with Mr. Clay, replied to Mr. Webster's
free-trade speech in an elaborate defense of the doctrine of
protection to our manufactures.
Mr. Calhoun spoke with enthusiasm, and gave an interesting _résumé_
of the condition of the country as affected by the war with Great
Britain. He believed that the vital deficiency in our financial
condition was the lack of manufactures, and to supply that deficiency
he was willing to extend the protecting arm of the government.
"When our manufactures are grown to a certain perfection, as they
soon will be under the fostering care of the government, we shall
no longer experience these evils. The farmer will find a ready
market for his surplus products, and, what is almost of equal
consequence, a certain and cheap supply for all his wants. His
prosperity will diffuse itself through every class in the community."
Not satisfied with this unqualified support of the protective
system, Mr. Calhoun supplemented it by declaring that "to give
perfection to this state of things, it will be necessary to add as
soon as possible a system of internal improvements." Mr. Webster's
opposition to protection was based on the fact that it tended to
depress commerce and curtail the profits of the carrying-trade.
The tariff of 1816 was termed "moderately protective," but even in
that form it encountered the opposition of the commercial interest.
It was followed in the country by severe depression in all departments
of trade, not because the duties were not in themselves sufficiently
high, but from the fact that it followed the war tariff, and the
change was so great as to produce not only a re-action but a
revolution in the financial condition of the country. All forces
of industry languished. Bankruptcy was wide-spread, and the distress
between 1817 and 1824 was perhaps deeper and more general than at
any other period of our history. There was no immigration of
foreigners, and consequently no wealth from that source. There
was no market for agricultural products, and the people were
therefore unable to indulge in liberal expenditure. Their small
savings could be more profitably invested in foreign than in domestic
goods, and hence American manufactures received little patronage.
The traditions of that period, as given by the generation that
lived through it, are sorrowful and depressing. The sacrifice of
great landed estates, worth many millions could they have been
preserved for the heirs of the next generation, was a common feature
in the general distress and desolation. The continuance of this
condition of affairs had no small influence on the subsequent
division of parties. It naturally led to a change in the financial
system, and in 1824 a tariff Act was passed, materially enlarging
the scope of the Act of 1816.
THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF OF 1824.
The Act of 1824 was avowedly protective in its character and was
adopted through the influence of Mr. Clay, then Speaker of the
House of Representatives. His most efficient ally on the floor
was Mr. Buchanan of Pennsylvania who exerted himself vigorously in
aid of the measure. Mr. Webster again appeared in the debate,
arguing against the "obsolete and exploded notion of protection,"
and carrying with him nearly the whole vote of Massachusetts in
opposition. Mr. Clay was enabled to carry the entire Kentucky
delegation for the high protective tariff, and Mr. Calhoun's views
having meanwhile undergone a radical change, South Carolina was
found to be unanimous in opposition, and cordially co-operating
with Massachusetts in support of free-trade. The effect of that
tariff was undoubtedly favorable to the general prosperity, and
during the administration of John Quincy Adams every material
interest of the country improved. The result was that the supporters
of the protective system, congratulating themselves upon the effect
of the work of 1824, proceeded in 1828 to levy still higher duties.
They applied the doctrine of protection to the raw materials of
the country, the wool, the hemp, and all unmanufactured articles
which by any possibility could meet with damaging competition from
abroad.
It was indeed an era of high duties, of which, strange as it may
seem to the modern reader, Silas Wright of New York and James
Buchanan of Pennsylvania appeared as the most strenuous defenders,
and were personally opposed in debate by John Davis of Massachusetts
and Peleg Sprague of Maine. To add to the entanglement of public
opinion, Mr. Webster passed over to the side of ultra-protection
and voted for the bill, finding himself in company with Martin Van
Buren of New York, and Thomas H. Benton of Missouri. It was an
extraordinary commingling of political elements, in which it is
difficult to find a line of partition logically consistent either
with geographical or political divisions. Mr. Webster carried with
him not more than two or three votes of the Massachusetts delegation.
His colleague in the Senate, Nathaniel Silsbee, voted against him,
and in the House such personal adherents as Edward Everett and
Isaac C. Bates recorded themselves in the negative. There was a
great deal of what in modern phase would be called "fencing for
position" in the votes on this test question of the day. The names
of no less than five gentlemen who were afterwards Presidents of
the United States were recorded in the yeas and nays on the passage
of the bill in the two Houses,--Mr. Van Buren, General Harrison,
John Tyler, in the Senate, and Mr. Polk and Mr. Buchanan in the
House.
There was a general feeling that the Act of 1828 marked a crisis
in the history of tariff discussion, and that it would in some way
lead to important results in the fate of political parties and
political leaders. Mr. Calhoun was this year elected Vice-President
of the United States, with General Jackson as President, and Mr.
Van Buren was transferred from the Senate to the State Department
as the head of Jackson's cabinet. When by his address and tact he
had turned the mind of the President against Calhoun as his successor,
and fully ingratiated himself in executive favor, the quarrel began
which is elsewhere detailed at sufficient length. In this controversy,
purely personal at the outset, springing from the clashing ambitions
of two aspiring men, the tariff of 1828, especially with the vote
of Mr. Van Buren in favor of it, was made to play an important
part. The quarrel rapidly culminated in Mr. Calhoun's resignation
of the Vice-Presidency, his leadership of the Nullification contest
in South Carolina, and his re-election to the Senate of the United
States some time before the expiration of the Vice-Presidential
term for which he had been chosen. The result was a reduction of
duties, first by the Act of July, 1832, and secondly by Mr. Clay's
famous compromise Act of March 2, 1833, in which it was provided
that by a sliding-scale all the duties in excess of twenty per
cent. should be abolished within a period of ten years. It was
this Act which for the time calmed excitement in the South, brought
Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Clay into kindly relations, and somewhat
separated Mr. Webster and Mr. Clay,--at least producing one of
those periods of estrangement which, throughout their public career,
alternated with the cordial friendship they really entertained for
each other.
THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF OF 1842.
During the operation of this Act,--which was really an abandonment
of the protective principle,--the financial crisis of 1837 came
upon the country, and a period of distress ensued, almost equal to
that which preceded the enactment of the tariff of 1824. Many
persons, still in active business, recall with something of horror
the hardships and privations which were endured throughout the
country from 1837 to 1842. The long-continued depression produced
the revolution against the Democratic party which ended in the
overthrow of Mr. Van Buren and the election of General Harrison as
President of the United States in 1840. The Whig Congress that
came into power at the same time, proceeded to enact the law
popularly known as the tariff of 1842, which was strongly protective
in its character though not so extreme as the Act of 1828. The
vote in favor of the bill was not exclusively Whig, as some of the
Northern Democrats voted for it and some of the Southern Whigs
against it. Conspicuous among the former were Mr. Buchanan of
Pennsylvania and Mr. Wright of New York, who maintained a consistency
with their vote for the tariff of 1828. Conspicuous among Southern
Whigs against it were Berrien of Georgia, Clayton of Delaware,
Mangum of North Carolina, Merrick of Maryland, and Rives of Virginia.
The two men who above all others deserve honor for successful
management of the bill were George Evans, the brilliant and
accomplished senator from Maine, and Thomas M. T. McKennan, for
many years an able, upright, and popular representative from
Pennsylvania. John Quincy Adams, in a public speech delivered in
1843 in the town of Mr. McKennan's residence, ascribed to that
gentleman the chief credit of carrying the Protective Tariff Bill
through the House of Representatives. The vote showed, as all
tariff bills before had, and as all since have shown, that the
local interest of the constituency determines in large measure the
vote of the representative; that planting sections grow more and
more towards free-trade and manufacturing sections more and more
towards protection.
The friends of home industry have always referred with satisfaction
to the effect of the tariff of 1842 as an explicit and undeniable
proof of the value of protection. It raised the country from a
slough of despond to happiness, cheerfulness, confidence. It
imparted to all sections a degree of prosperity which they had not
known since the repeal of the tariff of 1828. The most suggestive
proof of its strength and popularity was found in the contest of
1844 between Mr. Polk and Mr. Clay, where the Democrats in the
critical Northern States assumed the advocacy of the tariff of 1842
as loudly as the supporters of Mr. Clay. Other issues overshadowed
the tariff, which was really considered to be settled, and a
President and Congress were chosen without any distinct knowledge
on the part of their constituents as to what their action might be
upon this question. The popular mind had been engrossed with the
annexation of Texas and with the dawn of the free-soil excitement;
hence protection and free-trade were in many States scarcely debated
from lack of interest, and, in the States where interest prevailed,
both parties took substantially the same side.
A deception had however been practiced in the manufacturing States
of the North, and when the administration of Mr. Polk was installed,
the friends of protection were startled by the appointment of a
determined opponent of the tariff of 1842, as Secretary of the
Treasury. Robert J. Walker was a senator from Mississippi when
the Act was passed, and was bitterly opposed to it. He was a man
of great originality, somewhat speculative in his views, and willing
to experiment on questions of revenue to the point of rashness.
He was not a believer in the doctrine of protection, was persuaded
that protective duties bore unjustly and severely upon the planting
section with which he was identified; and he came to his office
determined to overthrow the tariff Act, which he had been unable
to defeat in the Senate. Mr. Walker was excessively ambitious to
make his term in the Treasury an era in the history of the country.
He had a difficult task before him,--one from which a conservative
man would have shrunk. The tariff was undoubtedly producing a
valuable revenue; and, as the administration of Mr. Polk was about
to engage in war, revenue was what they most needed. Being about
to enter upon a war, every dictate of prudence suggested that
aggressive issues should not be multiplied in the country. But
Mr. Walker was not Secretary of War or Secretary of State, and he
was unwilling to sit quietly down and collect the revenue under a
tariff imposed by a Whig Congress, against which he had voted,
while Buchanan in directing our foreign relations, and Marcy in
conducting a successful war, would far outstrip him in public
observation and in acquiring the elements of popularity adapted to
the ambition which all three alike shared.
Mr. Walker made an elaborate report on the question of revenue,
and attacked the tariff of 1842 in a manner which might well be
termed savage. He arraigned the manufacturers as enjoying unfair
advantages,--advantages held, as he endeavored to demonstrate, at
the expense and to the detriment of the agriculturist, the mechanic,
the merchant, the ship-owner, the sailor, and indeed of almost
every industrial class. In reading Mr. Walker's report a third of
a century after it was made, one might imagine that the supporters
of the tariff of 1842 were engaged in a conspiracy to commit fraud,
and that the manufacturers who profited by its duties were guilty
of some crime against the people. But extreme as were his declarations
and difficult as were the obstructions in his path, he was able to
carry his point. Mr. Buchanan, the head of the Cabinet, had voted
for the tariff of 1842, and Mr. Dallas, the Vice-President, had
steadily and ably upheld the doctrine of protection when a member
of the Senate. It was the position of Buchanan and Dallas on the
tariff that won the October election of 1844 for Francis R. Shunk
for governor of Pennsylvania, and thus assured the election of Mr.
Polk. The administration of which Buchanan and Dallas were such
conspicuous and influential members could not forswear protection
and inflict a free-trade tariff on Pennsylvania, without apparent
dishonor and the abandonment of that State to the Whigs. It was
therefore regarded not only as impracticable but as politically
impossible.
THE FREE-TRADE TARIFF OF 1846.
It was soon ascertained however that Mr. Polk sympathized with Mr.
Walker, and Mr. Buchanan was silenced and overridden. The free-
trade tariff of 1846 was passed; and Mr. Dallas, who had been
nominated because of his record as a protectionist, was subjected
to the humiliation of giving his casting vote as Vice-President in
favor of a tariff which was execrated in Pennsylvania, and which
was honestly believed to be inimical in the highest degree to the
interest of the American manufacturer and the American mechanic.
The Act had no small influence in the overthrow of the Polk
administration at the elections for the next ensuing Congress, and
in the defeat of General Cass for the Presidency in 1848. As
senator from Michigan, General Cass had voted for the bill, influenced
thereto by his Southern associates, for whom he always did so much,
and from whom he always received so little. Pennsylvania was at
that time really a Democratic State, but she punished General Cass
for his free-trade course by giving her electoral vote to Taylor.
If she had given it to Cass he would have been chosen President.
It was in connection with the tariff agitation of 1846 that Simon
Cameron originally obtained his strong hold upon the popular sympathy
and support of Pennsylvania. He was a Democrat; had long been
confidential adviser to Mr. Buchanan, and had supported Mr. Polk.
But he was a believer in the doctrine of protection; and as he had
aided in carrying Pennsylvania by declaring himself a friend to
the tariff of 1842, he maintained his faith. When the Polk
administration was organized, a vacancy was created in the Senate
by Mr. Buchanan's appointment as Secretary of State. George W.
Woodward was the regular nominee of the Democratic party for the
place. But Cameron bolted, and with the aid of Whig votes was
chosen senator. He resisted the passage of the tariff of 1846,
stood firmly and consistently for the industrial interests of his
State, cultivated an alliance with the Whigs in the Senate, and by
their aid thwarted all the attempts of the Polk administration to
interfere with his plans and purposes in Pennsylvania. The President
endeavored to heal Judge Woodward's wounds by placing him on the
bench of the Supreme Court as the successor of the eminent Henry
Baldwin. Cameron induced the Whigs to reject him, and then forced
the administration to nominate Robert C. Grier whose appointment
was personally acceptable and agreeable to him. In the successful
tactics then employed by Cameron may be found the secret of his
remarkable career as a party manager in the field in which, for a
full half-century, he was an active and indefatigable worker.
The Whig victory of 1848 was not sufficiently decisive to warrant
any attempt, even had there been desire, to change the tariff.
General Taylor had been elected without subscribing to a platform
or pledging himself to a specific measure, and he was therefore in
a position to resist and reject appeals of the ordinary partisan
character. Moreover the tariff of 1846 was yielding abundant
revenue, and the business of the country was in a flourishing
condition at the time his administration was organized. Money
became very abundant after the year 1849; large enterprises were
undertaken, speculation was prevalent, and for a considerable period
the prosperity of the country was general and apparently genuine.
After 1852 the Democrats had almost undisputed control of the
government, and had gradually become a free-trade party. The
principles embodied in the tariff of 1846 seemed for the time to
be so entirely vindicated and approved that resistance to it ceased,
not only among the people but among the protective economists, and
even among the manufacturers to a large extent. So general was
this acquiescence that in 1856 a protective tariff was not suggested
or even hinted by any one of the three parties which presented
Presidential candidates.
THE FREE-TRADE TARIFF OF 1857.
It was not surprising therefore that with a plethoric condition of
the National Treasury for two or three consecutive years, the
Democratic Congress, in the closing session of Pierce's administration,
enacted what has since been known as the tariff of 1857. By this
law the duties were placed lower then they had been at any time
since the war of 1812. The Act was well received by the people,
and was indeed concurred in by a considerable proportion of the
Republican party. The Senate had a large Democratic majority, but
in the House three parties divided the responsibility,--no one of
them having an absolute majority. The Republicans had a plurality
and had chosen Mr. Banks Speaker, but the American party held the
balance of power in the House and on several of the leading
committees. Some prominent Republicans, however, remaining true
to their old Whig traditions, opposed the reduction of duties.
Mr. Seward voted against it, but his colleague, Mr. Hamilton Fish,
voted for it. Mr. Seward represented the protective tendencies of
the country districts of New York, and Mr. Fish the free-trade
tendencies of the city. Mr. Sumner and Mr. Wilson both voted for
it, as did also Senator Allen of Rhode Island, the direct representative
of the manufacturers of that State. Mr. Bell of New Hampshire
voted for it, while Senators Collamer and Foote of Vermont voted
against it. Mr. Fessenden did not oppose it, but his colleague,
Mr. Nourse, voted against it. The Connecticut senators, Foster
and Toucey, one of each party, supported the measure.
In the House, the New-England representatives generally voted for
the bill, but Mr. Morrill of Vermont opposed it. The Pennsylvania
delegation, led by James H. Campbell and John Covode, did all in
their power to defeat it. The two Washburns, Colfax, and George G.
Dunn headed a formidable opposition from the West. Humphrey Marshall
and Samuel F. Swope of Kentucky were the only representatives from
slave States who voted in the negative; though in the Senate three
old and honored Whigs, John Bell of Tennessee, John B. Thompson of
Kentucky, and Henry S. Geyer of Missouri maintained their ancient
faith and voted against lowering the duties. It was an extraordinary
political combination that brought the senators from Massachusetts
and the senators from South Carolina, the representatives from New
England and the representatives from the cotton States, to support
the same tariff bill,--a combination which had not before occurred
since the administration of Monroe. This singular coalition
portended one of two results: Either an entire and permanent
acquiescence in the rule of free-trade, or an entire abrogation of
that system, and the revival, with renewed strength, of the doctrine
of protection. Which it should be was determined by the unfolding
of events not then foreseen, and the force of which it required
years to measure.
The one excuse given for urging the passage of the Act of 1857 was
that under the tariff of 1846 the revenues had become excessive,
and the income of the government must be reduced. But it was soon
found to be a most expensive mode of reaching that end. The first
and most important result flowing from the new Act was a large
increase in importations and a very heavy drain in consequence upon
the reserved specie of the country, to pay the balance which the
reduced shipments of agricultural products failed to meet. In the
autumn of 1857, half a year after the passage of the tariff Act,
a disastrous financial panic swept over the country, prostrating
for the time all departments of business in about the same degree.
The agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing interests were
alike and equally involved. The distress for a time was severe
and wide-spread. The stagnation which ensued was discouraging and
long continued, making the years from 1857 to 1860 extremely dull
and dispiriting in business circles throughout the Union. The
country was not exhausted and depleted as it was after the panic
of 1837, but the business community had no courage, energy was
paralyzed, and new enterprises were at a stand-still.
It soon became evident that this condition of affairs would carry
the tariff questions once more into the political arena, as an
active issue between parties. Thus far, the new Republican
organization had passively acquiesced in existing laws on the
subject; but the general distress caused great bodies of men, as
is always the case, to look to the action of the Government for
relief. The Republicans found therefore a new ground for attacking
the Democracy,--holding them responsible for the financial depression,
initiating a movement for returning to the principle and practice
of protection, and artfully identifying the struggle against slavery
with the efforts of the workingmen throughout the North to be freed
from injurious competition with the cheapened labor of Europe.
This phase of the question was presented with great force in certain
States, and the industrial classes, by a sort of instinct of self-
preservation as it seemed to them, began to consolidate their votes
in favor of the Republican party. They were made to see, by clever
and persuasive speakers, that the slave labor of the South and the
ill-paid labor of Europe were both hostile to the prosperity of
the workingman in the free States of America, and that the Republican
party was of necessity his friend, by its opposition to all the
forms of labor which stood in the wy of his better remuneration
and advancement.
REPUBLICAN PARTY FAVORS PROTECTION.
The convention which nominated Mr. Lincoln met when the feeling
against free-trade was growing, and in many States already deep-
rooted. A majority of those who composed that convention had
inherited their political creed from the Whig party, and were
profound believers in the protective teachings of Mr. Clay. But
a strong minority came from the radical school of Democrats, and,
in joining the Republican party on the anti-slavery issue, had
retained their ancient creed on financial and industrial questions.
Care was for that reason necessary in the introduction of new issues
and the imposition of new tests of party fellowship. The convention
therefore avoided the use of the word "protection," and was contented
with the moderate declaration that "sound policy requires such an
adjustment of imposts as will encourage the development of the
industrial interests of the whole country." A more emphatic
declaration might have provoked resistance from a minority of the
convention, and the friends of protection acted wisely in accepting
what was offered with unanimity, rather than continue the struggle
for a stronger creed which would have been morally weakened by
party division. They saw also that the mere form of expression
was not important, so long as the convention was unanimous on what
theologians term the "substance of doctrine." It was noted that
the vast crowd which attended the convention cheered the tariff
resolution as lustily as that which opposed the spread of slavery
into free territory. From that hour the Republican party gravitated
steadily and rapidly into the position of avowed advocacy of the
doctrine of protection. The national ticket which they presented
was composed indeed of an original Whig protectionist and an original
Democratic free-trader; but the drift of events, as will be seen,
carried both alike into the new movement for a protective system.
A review of the tariff legislation in the period between the war
of 1812 and the political revolution of 1860 exhibits some sudden
and extraordinary changes on the part of prominent political leaders
in their relation to the question. The inconsistency involved is
however more apparent than real. Perhaps it would be correct to
say that the inconsistency was justifiable in the eyes of those
who found it necessary to be inconsistent. Mr. Webster was a
persistent advocate of free-trade so long as Massachusetts was a
commercial State. But when, by the operation of laws against the
enactment of which he had in vain protested, Massachusetts became
a manufacturing State, Mr. Webster naturally and inevitably became
a protectionist. Mr. Calhoun began as a protectionist when he
hoped for the diffusion and growth of manufactures throughout all
sections alike. He became a free-trader when he realized that the
destiny of the South was to be purely agricultural, devoted to
products whose market was not, in his judgment, to be enlarged by
the tariff, and whose production was enhanced in cost by its
operation. Colonel Benton's change was similar to Mr. Calhoun's,
though at a later period, and not so abrupt or so radical. Mr. Van
Buren's shifting of position was that of a man eagerly seeking the
current of popular opinion, and ready to go with the majority of
his party. Of all the great lights, but one burned steadily and
clearly. Mr. Clay was always a protectionist, and, unlike Mr. Van
Buren, he forced his party to go with him. But as a whole, the
record of tariff legislation, from the very origin of the government,
is the record of enlightened selfishness; and enlightened selfishness
is the basis of much that is wisest in legislation.
It is natural that both sides to the tariff controversy should
endeavor to derive support for their principles from the experience
of the country. Nor can it be denied that each side can furnish
many arguments which apparently sustain its own views and theories.
The difficulty in reaching a satisfactory and impartial conclusion
arises from the inability or unwillingness of the disputants to
agree upon a common basis of fact. If the premises could be candidly
stated, there would be not trouble in finding a true conclusion.
In the absence of an agreement as to the points established, it is
the part of fairness to give a succinct statement of the grounds
maintained by the two parties to the prolonged controversy,--grounds
which have not essentially changed in a century of legislation and
popular contention.
It is maintained by free-traders that under the moderate tariff
prevailing from the origin of the government to the war of 1812
the country was prosperous, and manufactures were developing as
rapidly as was desirable or healthful. Protectionists on the other
hand aver that the duty levied in 1789 was the first of uniform
application throughout all the States, and that, regardless of its
percentage, its influence and effect were demonstrably protective;
that it was the first barrier erected against the absolute commercial
supremacy of England, and that it effectually did its work in
establishing the foundation of the American system. In the absence
of that tariff, they maintain that England, under the influence of
actual free-trade, had monopolized our market and controlled our
industries. Finally they declare that the free-traders yield the
whole case in acknowledging that the first tariff imparted an
impetus to manufactures and to commercial independence wholly
unknown while the States were under the Articles of Confederation
and unable to levy uniform duties on imports.
COMPARISON OF REVENUE SYSTEMS.
The free-traders point to the destructive effect of the war tariff
of 1812, which unduly stimulated and then inevitably depressed the
country. They assume this to be a pregnant illustration of a truth,
otherwise logically deduced by them, as to the re-action sure to
follow an artificial stimulus given to any department of trade.
The protectionists declining to defend the war duties as applicable
to a normal condition, find in the too sudden dropping of war rates
the mistake which precipitated the country into financial trouble.
Depression, they say, would naturally have come; but it was hastened
and increased by the inconsiderate manner in which the duties were
lowered in 1816. From that time onward the protectionists claim
that the experience of the country has favored their theories of
revenue and financial administration. The country did not revive,
or prosperity re-appear, until the protective tariff of 1824 was
enacted. The awakening of all branches of industry by that Act
was further promoted by the tariff of 1828, to which the protectionists
point as the perfected wisdom of their school. Mr. Clay publicly
asserted that the severest depression he had witnessed in the
country was during the seven years preceding the tariff of 1824,
and that the highest prosperity was during the seven years following
that Act.
The free-traders affirm that the excitement in the South and the
sectional resistance to the tariff of 1828 show the impossibility
of maintaining high duties. The protectionists reply that such an
argument is begging the question, and is simply tantamount to
admitting that protection is valuable if it can be upheld. The
protectionists point to the fact that their system was not abandoned
in 1832 upon a fair consideration of its intrinsic merits, but as
a peace-offering to those who were threatening the destruction of
the government if the duties were not lowered. Many protectionists
believe that if Mr. Clay had been willing to give to General Jackson
the glory of an absolute victory over the Nullifiers of South
Carolina, the revenue system of the country would have been very
different. They think however that the temptation to settle the
question by compromise instead of permitting Jackson to settle it
by force was perhaps too strong to be resisted by one who had so
many reasons for opposing and hating the President.
A more reasonable view held by another school of protectionists is
that Mr. Clay did the wisest possible thing in withdrawing the
tariff question from a controversy where it was complicated with
so many other issues,--some of them bitter and personal. He justly
feared that the protective principle might be irretrievably injured
in the collision thought to be impending. He believed moreover
that the best protective lesson would be taught by permitting the
free-traders to enforce their theories for a season, trusting for
permanent triumph to the popular re-action certain to follow.
There was nothing in the legislation to show that Mr. Clay or his
followers had in any degree abandoned or changed their faith in
protective duties of their confidence in the ultimate decision of
the public judgment. The protectionists aver that the evils which
flowed from the free-trade tariff of 1833, thus forced on the
country by extraneous considerations, were incalculably great, and
negatively established the value of the tariff of 1828 which had
been so unfairly destroyed. They maintain that it broke down the
manufacturing interest, led to excessive importations, threw the
balance of trade heavily against us, drained us of our specie, and
directly led to the financial disasters of 1837 and the years
ensuing. They further declare that this distressing situation was
not relieved until the protective tariff of 1842 was passed, and
that thenceforward, for the four years in which that Act was allowed
to remain in force, the country enjoyed general prosperity,--a
prosperity so marked and wide-spread that the opposing party had
not dared to make an issue against the tariff in States where there
was large investment in manufacturing.
The free-traders consider the tariff of 1846 to be a conclusive
proof the beneficial effect of low duties. They challenge a
comparison of the years of its operation, between 1846 and 1857,
with any other equal period in the history of the country.
Manufacturing, they say, was not forced by a hot-house process to
produce high-priced goods for popular consumption, but was gradually
encouraged and developed on a healthful and self-sustaining basis,
not to be shaken as a reed in the wind by every change in the
financial world. Commerce, as they point out, made great advances,
and our carrying trade grew so rapidly that in ten years from the
day the tariff of 1846 was passed our tonnage exceeded the tonnage
of England. The free-traders refer with especial emphasis to what
the term the symmetrical development of all the great interests of
the country under this liberal tariff. Manufactures were not
stimulated at the expense of the commercial interest. Both were
developed in harmony, while agriculture, the indispensable basis
of all, was never more flourishing. The farmers and planters at
no other period of our history were in receipt of such good prices,
steadily paid to them in gold coin, for their surplus product,
which they could send to the domestic market over our own railways
and to the foreign market in our own ships.
COMPARISON OF REVENUE SYSTEMS.
Assertions as to the progress of manufactures in the period under
discussion are denied by the protectionists. While admitting the
general correctness of the free-trader's statements as to the
prosperous condition of the country, they call attention to the
fact that directly after the enactment of the tariff of 1846 the
great famine occurred in Ireland, followed in the ensuing years by
short crops in Europe. The prosperity which came to the American
agriculturist was therefore from causes beyond the sea and not at
home,--causes which were transient, indeed almost accidental.
Moreover an exceptional condition of affairs existed in the United
States in consequence of our large acquisition of territory from
Mexico at the close of the war and the subsequent and almost
immediate discovery of gold in California. A new and extended
field of trade was thus opened in which we had the monopoly, and
an enormous surplus of money was speedily created from the products
of the rich mines on the Pacific coast. At the same time Europe
was in convulsion from the revolutions of 1848, and production was
materially hindered over a large part of the Continent. This
disturbance had scarcely subsided when three leading nations of
Europe, England, France, and Russia, engaged in the wasteful and
expensive war of the Crimea. This struggle began in 1853 and ended
in 1856, and during those years it increased consumption and
decreased production abroad, and totally closed the grain-fields
of Russia from any competition with the United States.
The protectionists therefore hold that the boasted prosperity of
the country under the tariff of 1846 was abnormal in origin and in
character. It depended upon a series of events exceptional at home
and even more exceptional abroad,--events which by the doctrine of
probabilities would not be repeated for centuries. When peace was
restored in Europe, when foreign looms and forges were set going
with renewed strength, when Russia resumed her export of wheat,
and when at home the output of the gold-mines suddenly decreased,
the country was thrown into distress, followed by a panic and by
long years of depression. The protectionists maintain that from
1846 to 1857 the United States would have enjoyed prosperity under
any form of tariff, but that the moment the exceptional conditions
in Europe and in America came to an end, the country was plunged
headlong into a disaster from which the conservative force of a
protective tariff would in large part have saved it. The protectionists
claim moreover that in these averments they are not wise after the
fact. They show a constant series of arguments and warnings from
leading teachers of their economic school, especially from Horace
Greeley and Henry C. Carey, accurately foretelling the disastrous
results which occurred at the height of what was assumed to be our
solid and enduring prosperity as a nation. These able writers were
prophets of adversity, and the inheritors of their faith claim that
their predictions were startlingly verified.
The free-traders, as an answer to this arraignment of their tariff
policy, seek to charge responsibility for the financial disasters
to the hasty and inconsiderate changes made in the tariff in 1857,
for which both parties were in large degree if not indeed equally
answerable. The protectionists will not admit the plea, and insist
that the cause was totally inadequate to the effect, considering
the few months the new tariff had been in operation. They admit
that the low scale of duties in the new tariff perhaps may have
added to the distress, by the very rapid increase of importations
which it invited; but they declare that its period of operation
was entirely too brief to create a result so decided, if all the
elements of disaster had not been in existence, and in rapid
development, at the time the Act was passed. The tariff of 1846
therefore under which there had been a very high degree of prosperity,
was, in the judgment of the protectionists, successfully impeached,
and a profound impression in consequence made on the public mind
in favor of higher duties.
PROTECTION IN PENNSYLVANIA.
The question of the tariff was of especial significance and influence
in Pennsylvania. Important in that State, it became important
everywhere. Pennsylvania had been continuously and tenaciously
held by the Democratic party. In the old political divisions she
had followed Jefferson and opposed Adams. In the new divisions
she had followed Jackson and opposed Clay. She was Republican as
against the Federalists, she was Democratic as against the Whigs.
From the election of Jackson in 1828 to the year 1860,--a period
that measured the lifetime of a generation,--she had, with very
few exceptions, sustained the Democratic party. Joseph Ritner was
elected governor by the Whigs in 1835, in consequence of Democratic
divisions. Harrison, in the political convulsion of 1840, triumphed
in the State by the slight majority of three hundred. Taylor
received her electoral vote, partly in consequence of dissensions
between Cass and Van Buren, and partly in consequence of the free-
trade opinions of Cass. In 1854 James Pollock was chosen governor
by the sudden uprising and astounding development of the Native-
American excitement as organized by the _Know-Nothing_ party. The
repeal of the Missouri Compromise aided the canvass of Pollock,
but that alone would not have loosened the strong moorings of the
Pennsylvania Democracy. Mr. Buchanan recovered the State two years
afterwards, and would have held it firmly in his grasp but for the
financial revulsion and the awakened demand for a protective tariff.
Dissociated from the question of protection, opposition to the
extension of slavery was a weak issue in Pennsylvania. This was
conclusively shown in the gubernatorial contest of 1857, when David
Wilmot, the personal embodiment of Free-soil principles, was the
Republican candidate for governor. Besides the general strength
of the Territorial issue, Mr. Wilmot had the advantage of all the
anti-slavery zeal which was aroused by the announcement of the Dred
Scott decision, with the censurable connection therewith of President
Buchanan. Thus an angry element was superadded for personal
prejudice and effective agitation. Yet Mr. Wilmot was disastrously
beaten by the Democratic candidate, Governor Parker, the adverse
majority reaching indeed tens of thousands.
The crushing Republican defeat received in the person of Wilmot
occurred on the very eve of the financial distress of 1857. The
Democratic canvass had been made while there was yet no suspicion
of impending panic and revulsion,--made indeed with constant boasts
of the general prosperity and with constant ascription of that
prosperity to the well-defined and long-continued policy of the
Democratic party. From that time the Democratic party became
embarrassed in Pennsylvania. With a tariff of their own making,
with a President of their own choice, with both branches of Congress
and every department of the government under their control, a
serious disaster had come upon the country. The promises of
Democratic leaders had failed, their predictions had been falsified,
and as a consequence their strength was shattered. The Republicans
of Pennsylvania, seeing their advantage, pressed it by renewed and
urgent demands for a protective tariff. On the other issues of
the party they had been hopelessly beaten, but the moment the
hostility to slave-labor in the Territories became identified with
protected labor in Pennsylvania, the party was inspired with new
hopes, received indeed a new life.
It was this condition of public opinion in Pennsylvania which made
the recognition of the protective system so essential in the Chicago
platform of 1860. It was to that recognition that Mr. Lincoln in
the end owed his election. The memorable victory of Andrew G.
Curtin, when he was chosen governor by a majority of thirty-two
thousand, was largely due to his able and persuasive presentation
of the tariff question, and to his effective appeals to the laboring-
men in the coal and iron sections of the State. But for this issue
there was in fact no reason why Curtin should have been stronger
in 1860 than Wilmot was in 1857. Indeed, but for that issue he
must have been weaker. The agitation over the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise had somewhat subsided with the lapse of years: the free-
State victory in Kansas was acknowledged and that angry issue
removed; while the Dred Scott decision, failing to arouse popular
resentment at the time it was pronounced, could hardly be effective
for an aggressive canvass three years later. If Governor Curtin
could have presented no other issue to the voters of Pennsylvania,
he would undoubtedly have shared the fate which Wilmot met when he
had these anti-slavery questions as his only platform. Governor
Curtin gave a far greater proportion of his time to the discussion
of the tariff and financial issues than to all others combined,
and he carried Pennsylvania because a majority of her voters believed
that the Democratic party tended to free-trade, and that the
Republican party would espouse and maintain the cause of protection.
PENNSYLVANIA'S INFLUENCE IN 1860.
Had the Republicans failed to carry Pennsylvania, there can be no
doubt that Mr. Lincoln would have been defeated. An adverse result
in Pennsylvania in October would certainly have involved the loss
of Indiana in November, besides California and Oregon and the four
votes in New Jersey. The crisis of the national campaign was
therefore reached in the triumph of Governor Curtin in the State
election which preceded by four weeks the direct choice of President.
It would be difficult to compute the possible demoralization in
the Republican ranks if Pennsylvania had been lost in October.
The division among the Democrats was a fruitful source of encouragement
and strength to the Republicans, but would probably have disappeared
with the positive assurance of success in the national struggle.
Whether in the end Douglas or Breckinridge would have been chosen
President is matter of speculation, but it is certain that Mr.
Lincoln would have been defeated. The October election of Pennsylvania
was for so long a period an unerring index to the result of the
contest for the Presidency, that a feeling almost akin to superstition
was connected with it. Whichever party carried it was sure, in
the popular judgment, to elect the President. It foretold the
crushing defeat of John Quincy Adams in 1828; it heralded the
disaster to Mr. Clay in 1844; it foredoomed General Cass in 1848.
The Republicans, having elected their candidate for governor in
1854 by a large majority, confidently expected to carry the State
against Mr. Buchanan in 1856. But the Democratic party prevailed
in the October election, and the supporters of Frémont at once
recognized the hopelessness of their cause. The triumph of Governor
Curtin was the sure precursor of Mr. Lincoln's election, and that
very fact added immeasurably to his popular strength in the closing
month of the prolonged and exciting struggle.
In reviewing the agencies therefore which precipitated the political
revolution of 1860, large consideration must be given to the
influence of the movement for Protection. To hundreds of thousands
of voters who took part in that memorable contest, the tariff was
not even mentioned. Indeed this is probably the fact with respect
to the majority of those who cast their suffrages for Mr. Lincoln.
It is none the less true that these hundreds of thousands of ballots,
cast in aid of free territory and as a general defiance to the
aggressions of the pro-slavery leaders of the South, would have
been utterly ineffectual if the central and critical contest in
Pennsylvania had not resulted in a victory for the Republicans in
October. The tariff therefore had a controlling influence not only
in deciding the contest for political supremacy but in that more
momentous struggle which was to involve the fate of the Union. It
had obtained a stronger hold on the Republican party than even the
leaders of that organization were aware, and it was destined to a
larger influence upon popular opinion than the most sagacious could
foresee.
In the foregoing summary of legislation upon the tariff, the terms
Free-trade and Protection are used in their ordinary acceptation
in this country,--not as accurately defining the difference in
revenue theories, but as indicating the rival policies which have
so long divided political parties. Strictly speaking, there has
never been a proposition by any party in the United States for the
adoption of free-trade. To be entirely free, trade must encounter
no obstruction in the way of tax, either upon export or import.
In that sense no nation has ever enjoyed free-trade. As
contradistinguished from the theory of protection, England has
realized freedom of trade by taxing only that class of imports
which meet no competition in home production, thus excluding all
pretense of favor or advantage to any of her domestic industries.
England came to this policy after having clogged and embarrassed
trade for a long period by the most unreasonable and tyrannical
restrictions, ruthlessly enforced, without regard to the interests
or even the rights of others. She had more than four hundred Acts
of Parliament, regulating the tax on imports, under the old
designations of "tonnage and poundage," adjusted, as the phrase
indicates, to heavy and light commodities. Beyond these, she had
a cumbersome system of laws regulating and in many cases prohibiting
the exportation of articles which might teach to other nations the
skill by which she had herself so marvelously prospered.
When by long experiment and persistent effort England had carried
her fabrics to perfection; when by the large accumulation of wealth
and the force of reserved capital she could command facilities
which poorer nations could not rival; when by the talent of her
inventors, developed under the stimulus of large reward, she had
surpassed all other countries in the magnitude and effectiveness
of her machinery, she proclaimed free-trade and persuasively urged
it upon all lands with which she had commercial intercourse.
Maintaining the most arbitrary and most complicated system of
protection so long as her statesmen considered that policy
advantageous, she resorted to free-trade only when she felt able
to invade the domestic markets of other countries and undersell
the fabrics produced by struggling artisans who were sustained by
weaker capital and by less advanced skill. So long as there was
danger that her own marts might be invaded, and the products of
her looms and forges undersold at home, she rigidly excluded the
competing fabric and held her own market for her own wares.
FREE-TRADE POLICY OF ENGLAND.
England was however neither consistent nor candid in her advocacy
and establishment of free-trade. She did not apply it to all
departments of her enterprise, but only to those in which she felt
confident that she could defy competition. Long after the triumph
of free-trade in manufactures, as proclaimed in 1846, England
continued to violate every principle of her own creed in the
protection she extended to her navigation interests. She had
nothing to fear from the United States in the domain of manufacturers,
and she therefore asked us to give her the unrestricted benefit of
our markets in exchange for a similar privilege which she offered
to us in her markets. But on the sea we were steadily gaining upon
her, and in 1850-55 were nearly equal to her in aggregate tonnage.
We could build wooden vessels at less cost than England and our
ships excelled hers in speed. When steam began to compete with
sail she saw her advantage. She could build engines at less cost
than we, and when, soon afterward, her ship-builders began to
construct the entire steamer of iron, her advantages became evident
to the whole world.
England was not content however with the superiority which these
circumstances gave to her. She did not wait for her own theory of
Free-trade to work out its legitimate results, but forthwith
stimulated the growth of her steam marine by the most enormous
bounties ever paid by any nation to any enterprise. To a single
line of steamers running alternate weeks from Liverpool to Boston
and New York, she paid nine hundred thousand dollars annually, and
continued to pay at this extravagant rate for at least twenty years.
In all channels of trade where steam could be employed she paid
lavish subsidies, and literally destroyed fair competition, and
created for herself a practical monopoly in the building of iron
steamers, and a superior share in the ocean traffic of the world.
But every step she took in the development of her steam marine by
the payment of bounty, was in flat contradiction of the creed which
she was at the same time advocating in those departments of trade
where she could conquer her competitors without bounty.
With her superiority in navigation attained and made secure through
the instrumentality of subsidies, England could afford to withdraw
them. Her ships no longer needed them. Thereupon, with a promptness
which would be amusing if it did not have so serious a side for
America, she proceeded to inveigh through all her organs of public
opinion against the discarded and condemned policy of granting
subsidies to ocean steamers. Her course in effect is an exact
repetition of that in regard to protection of manufactures, but as
it is exhibited before a new generation, the inconsistency is not
so readily apprehended nor so keenly appreciated as it should be
on this side of the Atlantic. Even now there is good reason for
believing that many lines of English steamers, in their effort to
seize the trade to the exclusion of rivals, are paid such extravagant
rates for the carrying of letters as practically to amount to a
bounty, thus confirming to the present day (1884) the fact that no
nation has ever been so persistently and so jealously protective
in her policy as England so long as the stimulus of protection is
needed to give her the command of trade. What is true of England
is true in greater or less degree of all other European nations.
They have each in turn regulated the adoption of free-trade by the
ratio of their progress towards the point where they could overcome
competition. In all those departments of trade where competition
could overcome them, they have been quick to interpose protective
measures for the benefit of their own people.
The trade policy of the United States at the foundation of the
government had features of enlightened liberality which were unknown
in any other country of the world. The new government was indeed
as far in advance of European nations in the proper conception of
liberal commerce as it was on questions relating to the character
of the African slave-trade. The colonists had experienced the
oppression of the English laws which prohibited export from the
mother country of the very articles which might advance their
material interest and improve their social condition. They now
had the opportunity, as citizens of a free Republic, to show the
generous breadth of their statesmanship, and they did so by providing
in their Constitution, that Congress should never possess the power
to levy "a tax or duty on articles exported from any State."
At the same time trade was left absolutely free between all the
States of the Union, no one of them being permitted to levy any
tax on exports or imports beyond what might be necessary for its
inspection laws. Still further to enforce this needful provision,
the power to regulate commerce between the States was given to the
General Government. The effect of these provisions was to insure
to the United States a freedom of trade beyond that enjoyed by any
other nation. Fifty-five millions of American people (in 1884),
over an area nearly as large as the entire continent of Europe,
carry on their exchanges by ocean, by lake, by river, by rail,
without the exactions of the tax-gatherer, without the detention
of the custom house, without even the recognition of State lines.
In these great channels, the domestic exchanges represent an annual
value perhaps twenty-five times as great as the total of exports
and imports. It is the enjoyment of free-trade and protection at
the same time which has contributed to the unexampled development
and marvelous prosperity of the United States.
OPERATION OF PROTECTIVE LAWS.
The essential question which has grown up between political parties
in the United States respecting our foreign trade, is whether a
duty should be laid upon any import for the direct object of
protecting and encouraging the manufacture of the same article at
home. The party opposed to this theory does not advocate the
admission of the article free, but insists upon such rate of duty
as will produce the largest revenue and at the same time afford
what is termed "incidental protection." The advocates of actual
free-trade according to the policy of England--taxing only those
articles which are not produced at home--are few in number, and
are principally confined to _doctrinaires_. The instincts of the
masses of both parties are against them. But the nominal free-
trader finds it very difficult to unite the largest revenue from
any article with "incidental protection" to the competing product
at home. If the duty be so arranged as to produce the greatest
amount of revenue, it must be placed at that point where the foreign
article is able to undersell the domestic article and thus command
the market to the exclusion of competition. This result goes beyond
what the so-called American free-trader intends in practice, but
not beyond what he implies in theory.
The American protectionist does not seek to evade the legitimate
results of his theory. He starts with the proposition that whatever
is manufactured at home gives work and wages to our own people,
and that if they duty is even put so high as to prohibit the import
of the foreign article, the competition of home producers will,
according to the doctrine of Mr. Hamilton, rapidly reduce the price
to the consumer. He gives numerous illustrations of articles which
under the influence of home competition have fallen in price below
the point at which the foreign article was furnished when there
was no protection. The free-trader replies that the fall in price
has been still greater in the foreign market, and the protectionist
rejoins that the reduction was made to compete with the American
product, and that the former price would probably have been maintained
so long as the importer had the monopoly of our market. Thus our
protective tariff reduced the price in both countries. This has
notably been the result with respect to steel rails, the production
of which in America has reached a magnitude surpassing that of
England. Meanwhile rails have largely fallen in price to the
consumer, the home manufacture has disbursed countless millions of
money among American laborers, and has added largely to our industrial
independence and to the wealth of the country.
While many fabrics have fallen to as low a price in the United
States as elsewhere, it is not to be denied that articles of clothing
and household use, metals and machinery, are on an average higher
than in Europe. The difference is due in large degree to the wages
paid to labor, and thus the question of reducing the tariff carries
with it the very serious problem of a reduction in the pay of the
artisan and the operative. This involves so many grave considerations
that no party is prepared to advocate it openly. Free-traders do
not, and apparently dare not, face the plain truth--which is that
the lowest priced fabric means the lowest priced labor. On this
point protectionists are more frank than their opponents; they
realize that it constitutes indeed the most impregnable defense of
their school. Free-traders have at times attempted to deny the
truth of the statement; but every impartial investigation thus far
has conclusively proved that labor is better paid, and the average
condition of the laboring man more comfortable, in the United States
than in any European country.
An adjustment of the protective duty to the point which represents
the average difference between wages of labor in Europe and in
America, will, in the judgment of protectionists, always prove
impracticable. The difference cannot be regulated by a scale of
averages because it is constantly subject to arbitrary changes.
If the duty be adjusted on that basis for any given date, a reduction
of wages would at once be enforced abroad, and the American
manufacturer would in consequence be driven to the desperate choice
of surrendering the home market or reducing the pay of workmen.
The theory of protection is not answered, nor can its realization
to attained by any such device. Protection, in the perfection of
its design as described by Mr. Hamilton, does not invite competition
from abroad, but is based on the controlling principle that
competition at home will always prevent monopoly on the part of
the capitalist, assure good wages to the laborer, and defend the
consumer against the evils of extortion.
TENDENCY OF OVER-PRODUCTION.
An argument much relied upon and strongly presented by the advocates
of free-trade is the alleged tendency to over-production of protected
articles, followed uniformly by seasons of depression and at certain
intervals by financial panic and wide-spread distress. These
results are unhappily too familiar in the United States, but the
protectionists deny that the cause is correctly given. They aver
indeed that a glut of manufactured articles is more frequently seen
in England than in the United States, thus proving directly the
reverse of the conclusion assumed by the free-traders, and establishing
the conservative and restraining power of a protective tariff.
The protectionists direct attention to the fact that the first
three instances in our history in which financial panic and prolonged
depression fell upon the country, followed the repeal of protective
tariffs and the substitution of mere revenue duties,--the depression
of 1819-24, that of 1837-42, and that of 1857-61. They direct
further attention to the complementary fact that, in each of these
cases, financial prosperity was regained through the agency of a
protective tariff, the operation of which was prompt and beneficent.
On the other hand the panic of 1873 and the depression which lasted
until 1879 undoubtedly occurred after a protective tariff had been
for a long time in operation. Free-traders naturally make much of
this circumstance. Protectionists, however, with confidence and
with strong array of argument, make answer that the panic of 1873
was due to causes wholly unconnected with revenue systems,--that
it was the legitimate and the inevitable outgrowth of an exhausting
war, a vitiated and redundant currency, and a long period of reckless
speculation directly induced by these conditions. They aver that
no system of revenue could have prevented the catastrophe. They
maintain however that by the influence of a protective tariff the
crisis was long postponed; that under the reign of free-trade it
would have promptly followed the return of peace when the country
was ill able to endure it. They claim that the influence of
protection would have put off the re-action still longer if the
rebuilding of Chicago and Boston, after the fires of 1871 and 1872,
had not enforced a sudden withdrawal of $250,000,000 of ready money
from the ordinary channels of trade to repair the loss which these
crushing disasters precipitated.
The assailants of protection apparently overlook the fact that
excessive production is due, both in England and in America, to
causes beyond the operation of duties either high or low. No cause
is more potent than the prodigious capacity of machinery set in
motion by the agency of steam. It is asserted by an intelligent
economist that, if performed by hand, the work done by machinery
in Great Britain would require the labor of seven hundred millions
of men,--a far larger number of adults than inhabit the globe. It
is not strange that, with this vast enginery, the power to produce
has a constant tendency to outrun the power to consume. Protectionists
find in this a conclusive argument against surrendering the domestic
market of the United States to the control of British capitalists,
whose power of production has no apparent limit. When the harmonious
adjustment of international trade shall ultimately be established
by "the Parliament of man" in "the Federation of the world," the
power of production and the power of consumption will properly
balance each other; but in traversing the long road and enduring
the painful process by which that end shall be reached, the
protectionist claims that his theory of revenue preserves the newer
nations from being devoured by the older, and offers to human labor
a shield against the exactions of capital.
CHAPTER X.
Presidential Election of 1860.--The Electoral and Popular Vote.--
Wide Divergence between the Two.--Mr. Lincoln has a Large Majority
of Electors.--In a Minority of 1,000,000 on Popular Vote.--Beginning
of Secession.--Rash Course of South Carolina.--Reluctance on the
Part of Many Southern States.--Unfortunate Meeting of South-Carolina
Legislature.--Hasty Action of South-Carolina Convention.--The Word
"Ordinance."--Meeting of Southern Senators in Washington to promote
Secession.--Unwillingness in the South to submit the Question to
Popular Vote.--Georgia not eager to Secede.--Action of Other States.
--Meeting of Congress in December, 1860.--Position of Mr. Buchanan.
--His Attachment to the Union as a Pennsylvanian.--Sinister Influences
in his Cabinet.--His Evil Message to Congress.--Analysis of the
Message.--Its Position destructive to the Union.--The President's
Position Illogical and Untenable.--Full of Contradictions.--Extremists
of the South approve the Message.--Demoralizing Effect of the
Message in the North and in the South.--General Cass resigns from
State Department.--Judge Black succeeds him.--Character of Judge
Black.--Secretaries Cobb, Floyd, and Thompson.--Their Censurable
Conduct in the Cabinet.--Their Resignation.--Re-organization of
Cabinet.--Dix, Holt, Stanton.--Close of Mr. Buchanan's Administration.
--Change in the President's Course.--The New Influences.--Analysis
of the President's Course.--There were two Mr. Buchanans.--Personal
and Public Character of Mr. Buchanan.
The winter following the election of Mr. Lincoln was filled with
deplorable events. In the whole history of the American people,
there is no epoch which recalls so much that is worthy of regret
and so little that gratifies pride. The result of the election
was unfortunate in the wide divergence between the vote which Mr.
Lincoln received in the electoral colleges and the vote which he
received at the polls. In the electoral colleges he had an aggregate
of 180. His opponents, united, had but 123. Of the popular vote,
Lincoln received 1,866,452; Douglas, 1,291,547; Breckinridge,
850,082; Bell, 646,124. Mr. Lincoln's vote was wholly from the
free States, except some 26,000 cast for him in the five border
slave States. In the other slave States his name was not presented
as a candidate. Mr. Douglas received in the South about 163,000
votes. In the North the votes cast distinctively for the Breckinridge
electoral ticket were less than 100,000, and distinctively for the
Bell electoral ticket about 80,000.
It was thus manifest that the two Northern Presidential candidates,
Lincoln and Douglas, had absorbed almost the entire vote in the
free States, and the two Southern Presidential candidates, Breckinridge
and Bell, had absorbed almost the entire vote in the slave States.
The Northern candidate received popular support in the South in
about the same degree that the Southern candidate received popular
support in the North. In truth as well as in appearance it was a
sectional contest in which the North supported Northern candidates,
and the South supported Southern candidates. It was the first time
in the history of the government in which the President was chosen
without electoral votes from both the free and the slave States.
This result was undoubtedly a source of weakness to Mr. Lincoln,--
weakness made more apparent by his signal failure to obtain a
popular majority. He had a large plurality, but the combined vote
of his opponents was nearly a million greater than the vote which
he received.
The time had now come when the Southern Disunionists were to be
put to the test. The event had happened which they had declared
in advance to be cause of separation. It was perhaps the belief
that their courage and determination were challenged, which forced
them to action. Having so often pledged themselves not to endure
the election of an anti-slavery President, they were now persuaded
that, if they quietly submitted, they would thereby accept an
inferior position in the government. This assumed obligation of
consistency stimulated them to rash action; for upon every
consideration of prudence and wise forecast, they would have quietly
accepted a result which they acknowledged to be in strict accordance
with the Constitution. The South was enjoying exceptional prosperity.
The advance of the slave States in wealth was more rapid then at
any other period of their history. Their staple products commanded
high prices and were continually growing in amount to meet the
demands of a market which represented the wants of the civilized
world. In the decade between 1850 and 1860 the wealth of the South
had increased three thousand millions of dollars, and this not from
an overvalution of slaves, but from increased cultivation of land,
the extension of railways, and all the aids and appliances of vast
agricultural enterprises. Georgia alone had increased in wealth
over three hundred millions of dollars, no small proportion of
which was from commercial and manufacturing ventures that had proved
extremely profitable. There was never a community of the face of
the globe whose condition so little justified revolution as that
of the slave States in the year 1860. Indeed, it was a sense of
strength born of exceptional prosperity which led them to their
rash adventure of war.
THE FIRST EFFORT AT SECESSION.
It would however be an injustice to the People of the South to say
that in November, 1860, they desired, unanimously, or by a majority,
or on the part of any considerable minority, to engage in a scheme
of violent resistance to the National authority. The slave-holders
were in the main peacefully disposed, and contented with the
situation. But slavery as an economical institution and slavery
as a political force were quite distinct. Those who viewed it and
used it merely as a system of labor, naturally desired peace and
dreaded commotion. Those who used it as a political engine for
the consolidation of political power had views and ambitions
inconsistent with the plans and hopes of law-abiding citizens. It
was only by strenuous effort on the part of the latter class that
an apparent majority of the Southern people committed themselves
to the desperate design of destroying the National Government.
The first effort at secession was made, as might have been expected,
by South Carolina. She did not wait for the actual result of the
election, but early in October, on the assumption of Lincoln's
success, began a correspondence with the other Cotton States. The
general tenor of the responses did not indicate a decided wish or
purpose to separate from the Union. North Carolina was positively
unwilling to take any hasty step. Louisiana, evidently remembering
the importance and value of the Mississippi River and of its numerous
tributaries to her commercial prosperity, expressed an utter
disinclination to separate from the North-West. Georgia was not
ready to make resistance, and at most advocated some form of
retaliatory legislation. It was evident that even in the Cotton-
belt and the Gulf States there was in the minds of sober people
the gravest objection to revolutionary measures.
It happened, most unfortunately, that the South-Carolina Legislature
assembled early in November for the purpose of choosing Presidential
electors, who in that State were never submitted to the popular
vote. While it might seem extravagant to ascribe the revolution
which convulsed the country to an event so disconnected and apparently
so inadequate, it is nevertheless true that the sudden _furor_
which seized a large number of the Southern people came directly
from that event. Indeed, it is scarcely an exaggeration to say
that the great civil war, which shook a continent, was precipitated
by the fact that the South-Carolina Legislature assembled at the
unpropitious moment. Without taking time for reflection, without
a review of the situation, without stopping to count the cost, with
a boldness born of passionate resentment against the North, the
rash men of South Carolina fired the train. In a single hour they
created in their own State a public sentiment which would not brook
delay or contradiction or argument. The leaders of it knew that
the sober second thought, even in South Carolina, would be dangerous
to the scheme of a Southern confederacy. They knew that the feeling
of resentment among the Southern people must be kept at white-heat,
and that whoever wished to speak a word of caution or moderation
must be held as a public enemy, and subjected to the scorn and the
vengeance of the people.
In this temper a convention was ordered by the Legislature. The
delegates were to be chosen directly by the people, and when
assembled were to determine the future relation of South Carolina
to the Government of the United States. The election was to be
held in four weeks, and the convention was to assemble on the 17th
of December. The unnatural and unprecedented haste of this action,
by which South Carolina proceeded, as she proclaimed, to throw off
her national relations, is more easily comprehended by recalling
the difficult mode provided in every State for a change in its
constitution. In not a single State of the American Union can the
organic law be changed in less than a year, or without ample
opportunity for serious consideration by the people. At that very
moment the people of South Carolina were inhibited from making the
slightest alteration in their own constitution except by slow and
conservative processes which gave time for deliberation and
reflection. In determining a question momentous beyond all
calculation to themselves and to their posterity, they were hurried
into the election of delegates, and the delegates were hurried into
convention, and the convention was hurried into secession by a
terror of public opinion that would not endure resistance and would
not listen to reason.
The few who were left in possession of coolness and sound judgment
among the public men of South Carolina, desired to stay the rush
of events by waiting for co-operation with the other slave-holding
States. Their request was denied and their argument answered by
the declaration that co-operation had been tried in 1850, and had
ended in defeating all measures looking to Disunion. One of the
members declared that if South Carolina again waited for co-operation,
slavery and State-rights would be abandoned, State-sovereignty and
the cause of the South would be lost forever. The action of the
convention was still further stimulated by the resignation of Mr.
Hammond and Mr. Chestnut, United-States senators from South Carolina,
and by the action of Governor Pickens in appointing a cabinet of
the same number and of the same division of departments that had
been adopted in the National Government.
THE ACTION OF SOUTH CAROLINA.
South Carolina was urged forward in this course by leading Disunionists
in other States who needed the force of one bold example of secession
to furnish the requisite stimulus to their own communities. The
members of the South Carolina convention, recognizing the embarrassment
and incongruity of basing their action simply upon the constitutional
election of a President, declared that the public opinion of their
State "had for a long period been strengthening and ripening for
Disunion." Mr. Rhett, eminent in the public service of his State,
asserted "that the secession of South Carolina was not produced by
Mr. Lincoln's election, or by the non-execution of the Fugitive-
slave Law; that it was a matter which had been gathering head for
thirty years," and that they were now "determined upon their course
at whatever risk."
Among the singular incidents of the South-Carolina secession,
followed subsequently by other States, was the solemn import attached
to the word _ordinance_. The South gave it a significance which
elevated its authority above the Constitution, and above the laws
of their own State and of the United States. And yet, neither in
legal definition nor in any ordinary use of the word, was there
precedent or authority for attaching to it such impressive meaning.
An _ordinance_ of Parliament was but a temporary Act which the
Commons might alter at their pleasure. An _Act_ of Parliament
could not be changed except by the consent of king, lords, and
commons. In this country, aside from the use of the word in
declaring the freedom of the North-west Territory in 1787, _ordinance_
has uniformly been applied to Acts of inferior bodies, to the
councils of cities, to the authorities of towns, to the directors
of corporations,--rarely if ever to the Acts of legislative assemblies
which represent the power of the State.
It is still more singular that, in passing the ordinance of Secession,
the convention worded it so that it should seem to be the repeal
of the ordinance of the 23d of May, 1788, whereby the Constitution
of the United States was ratified by South Carolina, when, in simple
truth, the Act of that State ratifying the Federal Constitution
was never called an ordinance. Mirabeau said that words were
things; and this word was so used in the proceedings of Secession
conventions as to impress the mind of the Southern people with its
portentous weight and solemnity. With an amendment to the
constitutions of their States they had all been familiar. In the
enactment of their laws thousands had participated. But no one of
them had ever before seen or heard or dreamed of any thing of such
momentous and decisive character as an Ordinance. Even to this
day, when disunion, secession, rebellion have all been destroyed
by the shock of arms, and new institutions have been built over
their common grave, the word "ordinance" has, in the minds of many
people both in the North and in the South, a sound which represents
the very majesty of popular power.
If the other Southern States would have been left to their own
counsels, South Carolina would have stood alone, and her Secession
of 1860 would have proved as abortive as her Nullification of 1832.
The Disunion movement in the remaining States of the South originated
in Washington. Finding that the Cotton States, especially those
bordering on the Gulf of Mexico, were moving too slowly, the senators
from Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi,
and Florida held a meeting in Washington on the 5th of January,
1861. The South had always contended for the right of States to
instruct their senators, but now the Southern senators proceeded
to instruct their States. In effect they sent out commands to the
governing authorities and to the active political leaders, that
South Carolina must be sustained; that the Cotton States must stand
by her; and that the secession of each and all of them must be
accomplished in season for a general convention to be held at
Montgomery, not later than Feb. 15, and, in any event, before the
inauguration of Mr. Lincoln. The design was that the new President
of the United States should find a Southern Confederacy in actual
existence, with the ordinary departments of government in regular
operation, with a name and a flag and a great seal, and all the
insignia of national sovereignty visible.
It is a suggestive fact that, in carrying out these designs, the
political leaders determined, as far as possible, to prevent the
submission of the ordinances of Secession to the popular vote. It
is not indeed probable that, in the excited condition to which they
had by this time brought the Southern mind, Secession would have
been defeated; but the withholding of the question from popular
decision is at least an indication that there was strong apprehension
of such a result, and that care was taken to prevent the divisions
and acrimonious contests which such submission might have caused.
In the Georgia convention the resolution declaring it to be her
right and her duty to secede was adopted only by a vote of 165 to
130. A division of similar proportion in the popular vote would
have stripped the secession of Georgia of all moral force, and
hence the people were not allowed to pass upon the question.
ACTION OF OTHER COTTON STATES.
Georgia was really induced to secede, only upon the delusive
suggestion that better terms could be made with the National
Government by going out for a season than by remaining steadfastly
loyal. The influence of Alexander H. Stephens, while he was still
loyal, was almost strong enough to hold the State in the Union;
and but for the phantasm of securing better terms outside, the
Empire State of the South would have checked and destroyed the
Secession movement at the very outset. Mississippi followed
Jefferson Davis with a vote amounting almost to unanimity. Florida,
Louisiana, and Alabama followed with secession ordained by conventions
and no vote allowed to the people. Texas submitted the ordinance,
after the other States had seceded, and by the force of their
example carried it by a vote of about three to one. These were
the original seven States that formed the nucleus of the Confederacy.
They had gone through what they deemed the complete process of
separation from the Union, without the slightest obstruction from
any quarter and without the interposition of any authority from
the National Government against their proceedings.
Long before the Secession movement had been developed to the extent
just detailed, Congress was in session. It assembled one month
after the Presidential election, and fifteen days before the
Disunionists of South Carolina met in their ill-starred convention.
Up to that time there had been excitement, threats of resistance
to the authority of the government in many sections of the South,
and an earnest attempt in the Cotton States to promote co-operation
in the fatal step which so many were bent on taking. But there
had been no overt act against the national authority. Federal
officers were still exercising their functions in all the States;
the customs were still collected in Southern ports; the United-
States mails were still carried without molestation from the Potomac
to the Rio Grande. But the critical moment had come. The Disunion
conspiracy had reached a point where it must go forward with
boldness, or retreat before the displayed power and the uplifted
flag of the Nation. The administration could adopt no policy so
dangerous as to permit the enemies of the Union to proceed in their
conspiracy, and the hostile movement to gain perilous headway. At
that juncture Mr. Buchanan confronted a graver responsibility than
had ever before been imposed on a President of the United States.
It devolved on him to arrest the mad outbreak of the South by
judicious firmness, or by irresolution and timidity to plunge the
Nation into dangers and horrors, the extent of which was mercifully
veiled from the vision of those who were to witness and share them.
PENNSYLVANIA AND THE UNION.
There could be no doubt in the mind of any one that the destruction
of the Union would be deplored by Mr. Buchanan as profoundly as by
any living man. His birth and rearing as a Pennsylvanian leave no
other presumption possible. In the original Union, Pennsylvania
was appropriated denominated the Keystone of the arch, supported
by, and in turn supporting, the strength of all. Of the "old
thirteen" there were six free States north of her, and six slave
States south of her. She was allied as warmly by ties of friendship
and of blood with her Maryland and Virginia neighbors on the one
side as with those of New Jersey and New York on the other. Her
political and social connection on both sides were not more intimate
than those of a business and commercial character. As the Union
grew in power and increased in membership, Pennsylvania lost nothing
of her prestige. She held to the new States as intimate relations
as she held to the old. The configuration of the country and the
natural channels of communication have bound her closely to all
sections. Her northern border touching the great lakes, connected
her by sail and steam, before the era of the railway, with the
magnificent domain which lies upon the shores of those inland seas.
Her western rivers, whose junction marks the site of a great city,
form part of the most extensive system of interior water-communications
on the globe, affording a commercial highway twenty thousand miles
in length through seventeen States not included in the original
Union. Patriotic tradition increased Pennsylvania's attachment to
the National Government. It was on her soil that the Declaration
of Independence was proclaimed. It was in her Legislative halls
that the Constitution was formed and the "more perfect Union" of
the States ordained. From geographical position therefore, from
material interest, from inherited pride, from every association
and sympathy, from every aspiration, and from every hope, Pennsylvania
was for the Union, inviolable and indissoluble. No threat of its
destruction ever came from her councils, and no stress of circumstances
could ever seduce her into a calculation of its value, or drive
her to the contemplation of its end.
With all his attachment to the Union, Mr. Buchanan had been brought
under influences which were hostile to it. In originally constituting
his Cabinet, sinister agencies had controlled him, and far-seeing
men anticipated trouble when the names were announced. From the
South he had selected Howell Cobb of Georgia for the Treasury, John
B. Floyd of Virginia for Secretary of War, Jacob Thompson of Missouri
for the Interior, and Aaron V. Brown of Tennessee for Postmaster-
General. From the North he had selected Lewis Cass of Michigan
for the State Department, Isaac Toucey of Connecticut for the Navy,
and Jeremiah S. Black of Pennsylvania for Attorney-General. It
seemed extraordinary that out of seven Cabinet officers four should
be given to the South, when the North had a vast preponderance of
population and wealth. It was hardly less than audacious that the
four departments assigned to the South should be those which dealt
most intimately and most extensively with the finances, the
manufactures, and the commerce of the country. The quiet manner
in which the North accepted this inequitable distribution of
political power added only another proof of the complete ascendency
which the South had acquired in the councils of the Democratic
party.
Mr. Buchanan had always looked to the statesmen of the South as a
superior class; and after a political life wholly spent in close
association and constant service with them, it could not be expected
that, even in a crisis threatening destruction to the Union, he
would break away from them in a day. They had fast hold of him,
and against the influence of the better men in his Cabinet they
used him for a time to carry out their own ends. Secessionists
and Abolitionists Mr. Buchanan no doubt regarded as equally the
enemies of the Union. But the Secessionists all came from the
party that elected him President, and the Abolitionists had all
voted against him. The Abolitionists, in which phrase Mr. Buchanan
included all men of anti-slavery conviction, had no opportunity,
even if they had desired, to confer with the President, while the
Secessionists from old and friendly association, were in daily and
intimate relations with him. They undoubtedly persuaded the
President by the most plausible arguments that they were not in
fault; that the whole responsibility lay at the door of the Northern
anti-slavery men; and that, if these disturbers of the peace could
be suppressed, all would be well. It was under these influences,
artfully insinuated and persistently plied, that Mr. Buchanan was
induced to write his mischievous and deplorable message of the
first Monday of December, 1860,--a message whose evil effect can
never be estimated, and whose evil character can hardly be
exaggerated.
The President informed Congress that "the long-continued and
intemperate interference of the Northern people with the question
of slavery in the Southern States has at last produced its natural
effect. . . . The time has arrived so much dreaded by the Father
of his Country, when hostile geographical parties have been formed."
He declared that he had "long foreseen and often forewarned" his
countrymen of "the impending danger." Apparently arguing the case
for the Southern extremists, the President believed that the danger
"does not proceed solely from the attempt to exclude slavery from
the Territories, nor from the efforts to defeat the execution of
the Fugitive-slave Law." Any or all of these evils, he said, "might
have been endured by the South," trusting to time and reflection
for a remedy. "The immediate peril," Mr. Buchanan informed the
country, "arises from the fact that the long-continued agitation
in the free States has at length produced its malign influence on
the slaves, and inspired them with vague notions of freedom. Hence
a sense of security no longer exists around the family altar. The
feeling of peace at home has given place to apprehensions of servile
insurrections, and many a matron throughout the South retires at
night in dread of what may befall herself and her children before
morning." The President was fully persuaded that "if this apprehension
of domestic danger should extend and intensify itself, disunion
will become inevitable."
PRESIDENT BUCHANAN AND THE SOUTH.
Having thus stated what he believed to be the grievances of the
South, Mr. Buchanan proceeded to give certain reasons why the slave-
holders should not break up the government. His defensive plea
for the North was worse, if worse were possible, than his aggressive
statements on behalf of the South. "The election of any one of
our fellow-citizens to the office of President," Mr. Buchanan
complacently asserted, "does not of itself afford just cause for
dissolving the Union." And then he adds an extraordinary qualification:
"This is more especially true if his election has been effected by
a mere plurality, and not a majority, of the people, and has resulted
from transient and temporary causes, which may probably never again
occur." Translated into plainer language, this was an assurance
to the Southern Disunionists that they need not break up the
government at that time, because Mr. Lincoln was a minority President,
and was certain to be beaten at the next election. He reminded
the Southern leaders moreover that in the whole history of the
Federal Government "no single Act had ever passed Congress, unless
the Missouri Compromise be an exception, impairing in the slightest
degree the rights of the South to their property in slaves." The
Missouri Compromise had been repealed, so that the entire body of
national statutes, from the origin of the government to that hour
was, according to President Buchanan, guiltless of transgression
against the rights of slave-holders. Coming from such a source,
the admission was one of great historic value.
The President found that the chief grievance of the South was in
the enactments of the free States known as "personal liberty laws."
When the Fugitive-slave Law subjected the liberty of citizens to
the decision of a single commissioner, and denied jury trial to a
man upon the question of sending him to lifelong and cruel servitude,
the issue throughout the free States was made one of self-preservation.
Without having the legal right to obstruct the return of a fugitive
slave to his servitude, they felt not only that they had the right,
but that it was their duty, to protect free citizens in their
freedom. Very likely these enactments, inspired by an earnest
spirit of liberty, went in many cases too far, and tended to produce
conflicts between National and State authority. That was a question
to be determined finally and exclusively by the Federal Judiciary.
Unfortunately Mr. Buchanan carried his argument beyond that point,
coupling it with a declaration and an admission fatal to the
perpetuity of the Union. After reciting the statutes which he
regarded as objectionable and hostile to the constitutional rights
of the South, and after urging their unconditional repeal upon the
North, the President said: "The Southern States, standing on the
basis of the Constitution, have a right to demand this act of
justice from the States of the North. Should it be refused, then
the Constitution, to which all the States are parties, will have
been willfully violated by one portion of them in a provision
essential to the domestic security and happiness of the remainder.
In that event, the injured States, after having used all peaceful
and constitutional means to obtain redress, would be justified in
revolutionary resistance to the government of the Union."
By this declaration the President justified, and in effect advised,
an appeal from the constitutional tribunals of the country to a
popular judgment in the aggrieved States, and recognized the right
of those States, upon such popular judgment, to destroy the
Constitution and Union. The "constitutional means" of redress were
the courts of the country, and to these the President must have
referred in the paragraph quoted. After an appeal to the courts,
and a decision upon the questions presented, it would have been
the plain duty of the parties to accept the decision as authoritative
and final. By the advice of the President, the States of the South
were to accept the decision obtained by constitutional means, in
case it was favorable to them, and to disregard it, and to destroy
both the Constitution and the Union, if it should prove to be
adverse to the popular opinion in those States.
It is not improbable that the President's language conveyed more
than his real meaning. He may have intended to affirm that if the
free States should refuse to repeal their obnoxious statutes after
a final decision against their constitutionality, then the slave
States would be justified in revolutionary resistance. But he had
no right to make such an argument or suggest such an hypothesis,
for never in the history of the Federal Government had the decision
of the Supreme judicial tribunal been disobeyed or disregarded by
any State or by any individual. The right of "revolutionary
resistance" was not so foreign to the conception of the American
citizen as to require suggestion and enforcement from Mr. Buchanan.
His argument in support of the right at that crisis was prejudicial
to the Union, and afforded a standing-ground for many Southern men
who were beginning to feel that the doctrine of Secession was
illogical, unsafe, untenable. They now had the argument of a
Northern President in justification of "revolutionary resistance."
Throughout the South, the right of Secession was abandoned by a
large class, and the right of Revolution substituted.
FATAL ADMISSION OF THE PRESIDENT.
Having made his argument in favor of the right of "Revolution,"
Mr. Buchanan proceeded to argue ably and earnestly against the
assumption by any State of an inherent right to secede from the
government at its own will and pleasure. But he utterly destroyed
the force of his reasoning by declaring that "after much serious
reflection" he had arrived at "the conclusion that no power has
been delegated to Congress, or to any other department of the
Federal Government, to coerce a State into submission which is
attempting to withdraw, or has actually withdrawn," from the Union.
He emphasized his position by further declaring that, "so far from
this power having been delegated to Congress, it was expressly
refused by the convention which framed the Constitution." Congress
"possesses many means," Mr. Buchanan added, "of preserving the
Union by conciliation; but the sword was not placed in their hands
to preserve it by force."
The fatal admission was thus evolved from the mind of the President,
that any State which thought itself aggrieved and could not secure
the concessions demanded, might bring the Government down in ruins.
The power to destroy was in the State. The power to preserve was
not in the Nation. The President apparently failed to see that if
the Nation could not be preserved by force, its legal capacity for
existence was dependent upon the concurring and continuing will of
all the individual States. The original bond of union was, therefore,
for the day only, and the provision of the Constitution which gave
to the Supreme Court jurisdiction in controversies between States
was binding no further than the States chose to accept the decisions
of the Court.
The difference between the President and the Secessionists of the
South was a difference of opinion as to the time for action, and
as to the name by which that action should be called. In principle
there was concurrence. The President insisted that the injured
party should appeal to the aggressor, and then to the courts, with
the reserved right of revolution always in view and to be exercised
if neither the aggressor nor the courts furnished satisfactory
redress. The President recognized the reserved right of revolution
in the States, and it was a necessary incident of that right that
each State might decide when the right should be exercised. He
suggested that, as justification of revolution, the Federal Government
must be guilty of "a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise"
of powers not granted by the Constitution, quoting from the text
of the State-rights declaration by Virginia in 1798. But in all
his arguments he left the State to be the ultimate judge of the
constitutionality of the Acts of the Federal Government. Under
these doctrines the Government of the United States was shorn of
all power to preserve its own existence, and the Union might crumble
and fall while its constituted authorities stood paralyzed and
impotent.
This construction was all that the extremists of the South desired.
With so much conceded, they had every thing in their own hands.
They could march out of the Union at their own will and caprice,
without resistance from the National Government, and they could
come back upon such conditions as, with the President's aid, they
might extort from an alarmed and weakening North. Assured by the
language of the President that they could with impunity defy the
constitutional authority of the government, the Secessionists were
immeasurably encouraged. The Southern men had for three generations
been cherishing the belief that they were as a class superior to
Northern men, and they were more than ever confirmed in this pleasing
illusion when they saw a Northern President, with the power of the
nation in his hands, deliberately affirming that he could exercise
no authority over or against them.
Men who, under the wholesome restraint of executive power, would
have refrained from taking aggressive steps against the National
Government, were by Mr. Buchanan's action forced into a position
of hostility. Men in the South, who were disposed to avoid extreme
measures, were by taunt and reproach driven into the ranks of
Secession. They were made to believe, after the President's message,
that the South would be ruined if she did not assert a position
which the National authority confessed it had no right and no means
to contest. The Republicans had been taunting Southern men with
the intention of using only bluster and bravado, and if they should
now fail to take a decisive step in the direction of Disunion, they
felt that it would be a humiliating retraction of all they had said
in the long struggle over slavery. It would be an invitation to
the Abolitionists and fanatics of the North, to deal hereafter with
the South, and with the question of slavery, in whatever manner
might seem good in their sight. No weapon of logic could have been
more forcible; and, wielded as it was by Southern leaders with
skill and courage, they were able to consolidate the public opinion
and control the political action of their section.
The evil effects of Mr. Buchanan's message were not confined to
the slave States. It did incalculable harm in the free States.
It fixed in the minds of tens of thousands of Northern men who were
opposed to the Republican party, the belief that the South was
justified in taking steps to break up the government, if what they
termed a war on Southern institutions should be continued. This
feeling had in turn a most injurious influence in the South, and
stimulated thousands in that section to a point of rashness which
they would never have reached but for the sympathy and support
constantly extended to them from the North. Even if a conflict of
arms should be the ultimate result of the Secession movement, its
authors and its deluded followers were made to believe that, against
a South entirely united, there would be opposed a North hopelessly
divided. They were confident that the Democratic party in the free
States held the views expressed in Mr. Buchanan's message. They
had conclusively persuaded themselves that the Democrats, together
with a large proportion of the conservative men in the North who
had supported Mr. Bell for the Presidency, would oppose an "abolition
war," and would prove a distracting and destructive force in the
rear of the Union army if it should ever commence its march
Southward.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE RESIGNS.
The most alarming feature of the situation to reflecting men in
the North was that, so far as known, all the members of Mr. Buchanan's
Cabinet approved the destructive doctrines of the message. But as
the position of the President was subjected to examination and
criticism by the Northern press, uneasiness was manifested in
Administration circles. It was seen that if the course foreshadowed
by Mr. Buchanan should be followed, the authority of the Union
would be compelled to retreat before the usurpations of seceding
States, and that a powerful government might be quietly overthrown,
without striking one blow of resistance, or uttering one word of
protest. General Cass was the first of the Cabinet to feel the
pressure of loyalty from the North. The venerable Secretary of
State, whose whole life had been one of patriotic devotion to his
country, suddenly realized that he was in a false position. When
it became known that the President would not insist upon the
collection of the national revenue in South Carolina, or upon the
strengthening of the United-States forts in the harbor of Charleston,
General Cass concluded that justice to his own reputation required
him to separate from the Administration. He resigned on the twelfth
of December,--nine days after Mr. Buchanan had sent his fatal
message to Congress.
CHARACTER AND CONDUCT OF JUDGE BLACK.
Judge Black, who had from the beginning of the Administration been
Mr. Buchanan's chief adviser, now became so by rank as the successor
of General Cass in the State Department. He was a man of remarkable
character. He was endowed by nature with a strong understanding
and a strong will. In the profession of the law he had attained
great eminence. His learning had been illustrated by a prolonged
service on the bench before the age at which men, even of exceptional
success at the bar, usually attract public observation. He had
added to his professional studies, which were laborious and
conscientious, a wide acquaintance with our literature, and had
found in its walks a delight which is yielded to few. In history,
biography, criticism, romance, he had absorbed every thing in our
language worthy of attention. Shakspeare, Milton, indeed all the
English poets, were his familiar companions. There was not a
disputed passage or an obscure reading in any one of the great
plays upon which he could not off-hand quote the best renderings,
and throw original light from his own illumined mind. Upon theology
he had apparently bestowed years of investigation and reflection.
A sincere Christian, he had been a devout and constant student of
the Bible, and could quote its passages and apply its teachings
with singular readiness and felicity. To this generous store of
knowledge he added fluency of speech, both in public address and
private communication, and a style of writing which was at once
unique, powerful, and attractive. He had attained unto every
excellence of mental discipline described by Lord Byron. Reading
had made him a full man, talking a ready man, writing an exact man.
The judicial literature of the English tongue may be sought in vain
for finer models than are found in the opinions of Judge Black when
he sat, and was worthy to sit, as the associate of John Bannister
Gibson, on the Supreme Bench of Pennsylvania.
In political opinion he was a Democrat, self-inspired and self-
taught, for his father was a Whig who had served his State in
Congress. He idolized Jefferson and revered Jackson as embodying
in their respective characters all the elements of the soundest
political philosophy, and all the requisites of the highest political
leadership. He believed in the principles of Democracy as he did
in a demonstration of Euclid,--all that might be said on the other
side was necessarily absurd. He applied to his own political creed
the literal teachings of the Bible. If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
had held slaves without condemnation or rebuke from the Lord of
hosts, he believed that Virginia, Carolina, and Georgia might do
the same. He found in the case of Onesiums, St. Paul's explicit
approval of the Fugutive-slave Law of 1850, and in the cruel case
of Passmore Williamson he believed himself to be enforcing the
doctrines of the New Testament. Personally unwilling to hold even
a beast of burden in oppressive bondage, nothing could induce him
to condemn slave-holding in those whose conscience permitted them
to practice it. In the Abolitionists he found the chief disturbers
of the Republic, and he held New England answerable to posterity
and to God for all the heresies which afflicted either Church or
State. He had an uncompromising hostility to what are termed New-
England ideas, though the tenderest ties of his life were of New-
England origin. "The New-Englander individually I greatly affect,"
he often said, "but, in the mass, I judge them to be stark mad."
"I think, too," he would add, "that if you are going to make much
of a New-Englander, he should, like Dr. Johnson's Scotchman, be
caught young."
To his native State Judge Black was devotedly attached. He inherited
the blood of two strong elements of its population,--the German
and the Scotch-Irish,--and he united the best characteristics of
both in his own person. He had always looked upon Pennsylvania as
the guardian of the Federal Union, almost as the guarantor of its
safety and its perpetuity. He spoke of her as the break-water that
protected the slave States from the waves of radicalism which were
threatening to ingulf Southern institutions. The success of the
Republican party in 1860 he regarded as a portent of direst evil,
--indeed, as a present disaster, immeasurably sorrowful. The
excitement in the Southern States over the probability of Mr.
Lincoln's election he considered natural, their serious protest
altogether justifiable. He desired the free States to be awakened
to the gravity of the situation, to be thoroughly alarmed, and to
repent of their sins against the South. He wished it understood
from ocean to ocean that the position of the Republican party was
inconsistent with loyalty to the Union, and that its permanent
success would lead to the destruction of the government. It was
not unnatural that with these extreme views he should be carried
beyond the bounds of prudence, and that, in his headlong desire to
rebuke the Republican party as enemies of the Union, he should aid
in precipitating a dissolution of the government before the
Republicans could enter upon its administration. He thus became
in large degree responsible for the unsound position and the
dangerous teachings of Mr. Buchanan. In truth some of the worst
doctrines embodied in the President's evil message came directly
from an opinion given by Judge Black as Attorney-General, and, made
by Mr. Buchanan still more odious and more dangerous by the quotation
of a part and not the whole.
It was soon manifest however to Judge Black, that he was playing
with fire, and that, while he was himself desirous only of arousing
the country to the dangers of anti-slavery agitation, Mr. Buchanan's
administration was every day effectually aiding the Southern
conspiracy for the destruction of the Union. This light dawned on
Judge Black suddenly and irresistibly. He was personally intimate
with General Cass, and when that venerable statesman retired from
the Cabinet to preserve his record of loyalty to the Union, Judge
Black realized that he was himself confronted by an issue which
threatened his political destruction. Could he afford, as Secretary
of State, to follow a policy which General Cass believed would
destroy his own fame? General Cass was nearly fourscore years of
age, with his public career ended, his work done. Judge Black was
but fifty, and he had before him possibly the most valuable and
most ambitious period of his life. He saw at a glance that if
General Cass could not be sustained in the North-West, he could
not be sustained in Pennsylvania. He possessed the moral courage
to stand firm to the end, in defiance of opposition and regardless
of obloquy, if he could be sure he was right. But he had begun to
doubt, and doubt led him to review with care the position of Mr.
Buchanan, and to examine its inevitable tendencies. He did it with
conscience and courage. He had none of that subserviency to Southern
men which had injured so many Northern Democrats. Until he entered
the Cabinet in 1857, he had never come into personal association
with men from the slave-holding States, and his keen observation
could not fail to discern the inferiority to himself of the four
Southern members of the Cabinet.
Judge Black entered upon his duties as Secretary of State on the
17th of December,--the day on which the Disunion convention of
South Carolina assembled. He found the malign influence of Mr.
Buchanan's message fully at work throughout the South. Under its
encouragement only three days were required by the convention at
Charleston to pass the Ordinance of Secession, and four days later
Governor Pickens issued a proclamation declaring "South Carolina
a separate, sovereign, free, and independent State, with the right
to levy war, conclude peace, and negotiate treaties." From that
moment Judge Black's position towards the Southern leaders was
radically changed. They were no longer fellow-Democrats. They
were the enemies of the Union to which he was devoted: they were
conspirators against the government to which he had taken a solemn
oath of fidelity and loyalty.
Judge Black's change, however important to his own fame, would
prove comparatively fruitless unless he could influence Mr. Buchanan
to break with the men who had been artfully using the power of his
administration to destroy the Union. The opportunity and the test
came promptly. The new "sovereign, free, and independent" government
of South Carolina sent commissioners to Washington to negotiate
for the surrender of the national forts, and the transfer of the
national property within her limits. Mr. Buchanan prepared an
answer to their request which was compromising to the honor of the
Executive and perilous to the integrity of the Union. Judge Black
took a decided and irrevocable stand against the President's
position. He advised Mr. Buchanan that upon the basis of that
fatal concession to the Disunion leaders he could not remain in
his Cabinet. It was a sharp issue, but was soon adjusted. Mr.
Buchanan gave way, and permitted Judge Black, and his associates
Holt and Stanton, to frame a reply for the administration.
THE PRESIDENT AND THE SOUTHERN LEADERS.
Jefferson Davis, Mr. Toombs, Mr. Benjamin, Mr. Slidell, who had
been Mr. Buchanan's intimate and confidential advisers, and who
had led him to the brink of ruin, found themselves suddenly
supplanted, and a new power installed at the White House. Foiled,
and no longer able to use the National Administration as an
instrumentality to destroy the National life, the Secession leaders
in Congress turned upon the President with angry reproaches. In
their rage they lost all sense of the respect due to the Chief
Magistrate of the Nation, and assaulted Mr. Buchanan with coarseness
as well as violence. Senator Benjamin spoke of him as "a senile
Executive under the sinister influence of insane counsels." This
exhibition of malignity towards the misguided President afforded
to the North the most convincing and satisfactory proof that there
had been a change for the better in the plans and purposes of the
Administration. They realized that it must be a deep sense of
impending danger which could separate Mr. Buchanan from his political
associations with the South, and they recognized in his position
a significant proof of the desperate determination to which the
enemies of the Union had come.
The stand taken by Judge Black and his loyal associates was in the
last days of December, 1860. The re-organization of the Cabinet
came as a matter of necessity. Mr. John B. Floyd resigned from
the War Department, making loud proclamation that his action was
based on the President's refusal to surrender the national forts
in Charleston Harbor to the Secession government of South Carolina.
This manifesto was not necessary to establish Floyd's treasonable
intentions toward the government; but, in point of truth, the plea
was undoubtedly a pretense, to cover reasons of a more personal
character which would at once deprive him of Mr. Buchanan's
confidence. There had been irregularities in the War Department
tending to compromise Mr. Floyd, for which he was afterwards indicted
in the District of Columbia. Mr. Floyd well knew that the first
knowledge of these shortcomings would lead to his dismissal from
the Cabinet. Whatever Mr. Buchanan's faults as an Executive may
have been, his honor in all transactions, both personal and public,
was unquestionable, and he was the last man to tolerate the slightest
deviation from the path of rigid integrity.
Mr. Thompson, the Secretary of the Interior, followed Mr. Floyd
after a short interval. Mr. Cobb had left the Treasury a few days
before General Cass resigned from the Cabinet, and had gone to
Georgia to stimulate her laggard movements in the scheme of destroying
the government. His successor was Philip Francis Thomas of Maryland,
who entered the Cabinet as a representative of the principles whose
announcement had forced General Cass to resign. The change of
policy to which the President was now fully committed, forced Mr.
Thomas to retire, after a month's service. He frankly stated that
he was unable to agree with the President and his chief advisers
"in reference to the condition of things in South Carolina," and
therefore tendered his resignation. Mr. Thomas adhered to the
Union, and always maintained an upright and honorable character,
but his course at that crisis deprived him subsequently of a seat
in the United-States Senate, though at a later period he served in
the House as representative from Maryland.
Mr. Cobb, Mr. Floyd, and Mr. Thompson had all remained in the
Cabinet after the Presidential election in November, in full
sympathy, and so far as was possible in full co-operation, with
the men in the South who were organizing resistance to the authority
of the Federal Government. Neither those gentlemen, nor any friend
in their behalf, ever ventured to explain how, as sworn officers
of the United States, they could remain at their posts consistently
with the laws of honor,--laws obligatory upon them not only as
public officials who had taken a solemn oath of fidelity to the
Constitution, but also as private gentlemen whose good faith was
pledged anew every hour they remained in control of the departments
with whose administration they had been intrusted. Their course
is unfavorably contrasted with that of many Southern men (of whom
General Lee and the two Johnstons were conspicuous examples), who
refused to hold official positions under the National Government
a single day after they had determined to take part in the scheme
of Disunion.
BUCHANAN'S RECONSTRUCTED CABINET.
By the re-organization of the Cabinet, the tone of Mr. Buchanan's
administration was radically changed. Judge Black had used his
influence with the President to secure trustworthy friends of the
Union in every department. Edwin M. Stanton, little known at the
time to the public, but of high standing in his profession, was
appointed Attorney-General soon after Judge Black took charge of
the State Department. Judge Black had been associated with Stanton
personally and professionally, and was desirous of his aid in the
dangerous period through which he was called to serve.
Joseph Holt, who, since the death of Aaron V. Brown in 1859, had
been Postmaster-General, was now appointed Secretary of War, and
Horatio King of Maine, for many years the upright first assistant,
was justly promoted to the head of the Post-office Department.
Mr. Holt was the only Southern man left in the Cabinet. He was a
native of Kentucky, long a resident of Mississippi, always identified
with the Democratic party, and affiliated with its extreme Southern
wing. Without a moment's hesitation he now broke all the associations
of a lifetime, and stood by the Union without qualification or
condition. His learning, his firmness, and his ability, were
invaluable to Mr. Buchanan in the closing days of his administration.
General John A. Dix of New York was called to the head of the
Treasury. He was a man of excellent ability, of wide experience
in affairs, of spotless character, and a most zealous friend of
the Union. He found the Treasury bankrupt, the discipline of its
officers in the South gone, its orders disregarded in the States
which were preparing for secession. He at once imparted spirit
and energy into the service,--giving to the administration of this
department a policy of pronounced loyalty to the government. No
act of his useful and honorable life has been so widely known or
will be so long remembered as his dispatch to the Treasury agent
at New Orleans to take possession of a revenue cutter whose commander
was suspected of disloyalty and of a design to transfer his vessel
to the Confederate service. Lord Nelson's memorable order at
Trafalgar was not more inspiring to the British navy than was the
order of General Dix to the American people, when, in the gloom of
that depressing winter, he telegraphed South his peremptory words,
"If any man attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on
the spot."
Thus reconstructed, the Cabinet as a whole was one of recognized
power,--marked by high personal character, by intellectual training,
by experience in affairs, and by aptitude for the public service.
There have been Cabinets perhaps more widely known for the possession
of great qualities; but, if the history of successive administrations
from the origin of the government be closely studied, it will be
found that the re-organized Cabinet of President Buchanan must take
rank as one of exceptional ability.
For the remaining two months of Mr. Buchanan's administration the
destinies of the country were in the keeping of these constitutional
advisers. If in any respect they failed to come to the standard
of a loyalty that was quickened by subsequent developments, they
no doubt fairly represented the demand of the Northern States at
the time. There was everywhere the most earnest desire to avert
a conflict, and an unwillingness to recognize the possibility of
actual war. The majority of the Republican party in both branches
of Congress was not advocating a more decided or more aggressive
course with the South, during the months of January and February,
than the Cabinet, with Judge Black at its head, was pursuing. The
time for executive acts of a more pronounced character was directly
after the Presidential election, when the first symptoms of resistance
to national authority were visible in the South. If the new Cabinet
had been then in power, the history of the civil revolt might have
been different. But the force that will arrest the first slow
revolution of a wheel cannot stand before it when, by unchecked
velocity, it has acquired a destructive momentum. The measures
which might have secured repression in November would only have
produced explosion in January.
THE PRESIDENT'S NEW POSITION.
The change of position on the part of Mr. Buchanan was not left to
inference, or to the personal assurance of the loyal men who composed
his re-organized Cabinet. He announced it himself in a special
message to Congress on the 8th of January, 1861. The tone was so
different from the message of December, that it did not seem possible
that the two could have been written by the same man. It was
evident from many passages in the second message that he was trying
to reconcile it with the first. This was the natural course
suggested by the pride of one who overrated the virtue of consistency.
The attempt was useless. The North with unaffected satisfaction,
the South with unconcealed indignation, realized that the President
had entirely escaped from the influences which dictated the first
message. He now asserted that, "as the Chief Executive under the
Constitution of the United States," he had no alternative but "to
collect the public revenues, and to protect the public property,
so far as this might be practicable under existing laws." Remarking
that his province "was to execute, and not to make, the laws," he
threw upon Congress the duty "of enlarging their provisions to meet
exigencies as they may occur." He declared it as his own conviction
that "the right and the duty to use military force defensively
against those who resist the federal officers in the execution of
their legal functions, and against those who assail the property
of the Federal Government, are clear and undeniable." Conceding
so much, the mild denial which the President re-asserted, of "the
right to make aggressive war upon any State," may be charitably
tolerated; for, under the defensive power which he so broadly
approved, the whole force of national authority could be used
against a State aggressively bent upon Secession.
The President did not fail to fortify his own position at every
point with great force. The situation had become so serious, and
had "assumed such vast and alarming proportions, as to place the
subject entirely above and beyond Executive control." He therefore
commended "the question, in all its various bearings, to Congress,
as the only tribunal possessing the power to meet the existing
exigency." He reminded Congress that "to them belongs exclusively
the power to declare war, or to authorize the employment of military
force in all cases contemplated by the Constitution." Not abandoning
the hope of an amicable adjustment, the President pertinently
informed Congress that "they alone possess the power to remove
grievances which might lead to war, and to secure peace and union."
As a basis of settlement, he recommended a formal compromise by
which "the North shall have exclusive control of the territory
above a certain line, and Southern institutions shall have protection
below that line." This plan, he believed, "ought to receive
universal approbation." He maintained that on Congress, and "on
Congress alone, rests the responsibility." As Congress would
certainly in a few days be under the control of the Republicans in
both branches,--by the withdrawal of senators and representatives
from the seceding States,--Mr. Buchanan's argument had a double
force. Not only was he vindicating the position of the Executive
and throwing the weight of responsibility on the Legislative
Department of the government, but he was protecting the position
of the Democratic party by saying, in effect, that the President
chosen by that party stood ready to approve and to execute any laws
for the protection of the government and the safety of the Union
which a Republican Congress might enact.
A certain significance attached to the date which the President
had selected for communicating his message to Congress. It was
the eighth day of January, the anniversary of the Battle of New
Orleans, celebrated that year with enthusiastic demonstrations in
honor of the memory of Andrew Jackson, who had, on a memorable
occasion not unlike the present, sworn an emphatic oath that "the
Federal Union must and shall be preserved." There was also marked
satisfaction throughout the loyal States with Mr. Buchanan's
assurance of the peace of the District of Columbia on the ensuing
4th of March, on the occasion of Mr. Lincoln's inauguration. He
did not himself "share in the serious apprehensions that were
entertained of disturbance" on that occasion, but he made this
declaration, which was received in the North with hearty applause:
"In any event, it will be my duty to preserve the peace, and this
duty shall be performed."
The change of sentiment towards Mr. Buchanan after the delivery of
the special message, was as marked in the North as it was in the
South, though in the opposite direction. It would not be true to
say that any thing like popularity attended the President in his
new position; but the change of feeling was so great that the
Legislature of Massachusetts, on the 23d of January, 1861, adopted
resolutions in which they declared that they regarded "with unmingled
satisfaction the determination evinced in the recent firm and
patriotic special message of the President of the United States to
amply and faithfully discharge his constitutional duty of enforcing
the laws, and preserving the integrity of the Union." The Legislature
"proffered to the President, through the Governor of the Commonwealth,
such aid in men and money as he may require to maintain the authority
of the National Government." These resolutions were forwarded to
Mr. Buchanan by Governor Andrew. They were only one of many
manifestations which the President received of approval of his
course.
The Massachusetts Legislature was radically Republican in both
branches, and even in making a reference to "men and money" as
requisite to maintain the Union, they had gone farther than the
public sentiment at that time approved. Coercive measures were
generally condemned. A few days after the action of the Legislature,
a large meeting of the people of Boston, held in Faneuil Hall,
declared that they "depended for the return of the seceding States,
and the permanent preservation of the Union, on conciliatory
counsels, and a sense of the benefits which the Constitution confers
on all the States, and not on military coercion." They declared
that they shrunk "with horror from the thought of civil war between
the North and the South."
It must always be remembered that the disbelief in ultimate secession
was nearly universal throughout the free States. The people of
the North could not persuade themselves that the proceedings in
the Southern States would lead to any thing more serious than
hostile demonstrations, which would end, after coaxing and compromise,
in a return to the Union. But with this hope of final security
there was, on the part of the great mass of the people in the free
States, the gravest solicitude throughout the winter of 1860-61,
and a restless waiting and watching for a solution of the troubles.
Partisan leaders were busy on both sides seeking for an advantage
that might survive the pending trials. Northern Democrats in many
instances sought to turn the occasion to one of political advantage
by pointing out the lamentable condition to which anti-slavery
agitation had brought the country. This was naturally answered by
Republicans with defiance, and with an affected contempt and
carelessness of what the South might do. Much that was written
and much that was spoken throughout the North during that winter,
both by Democrats and Republicans, would have remained unwritten
and unspoken if they had realized the seriousness and magnitude of
the impending calamity.
FINAL ESTIMATE OF MR. BUCHANAN.
In a final analysis and true estimate of Mr. Buchanan's conduct in
the first stages of the revolt, the condition of the popular mind
as just described must be taken into account. The same influences
and expectations that wrought upon the people were working also
upon him. There were indeed two Mr. Buchanans in the closing months
of the administration. The first was Mr. Buchanan of November and
December, angered by the decision of the Presidential election and
more than willing that the North, including his own State, should
be disciplined by fright to more conservative views and to a stricter
observance of what he considered solemn obligations imposed by the
Constitution. If the Southern threat of resistance to the authority
of the Union had gone no farther than this, Mr. Buchanan would have
been readily reconciled to its temporary violence, and would probably
have considered it a national blessing in disguise.--The second
was Mr. Buchanan of January and February, appalled by surrounding
and increasing perils, grieved by the conduct of Southern men whom
he had implicitly trusted, overwhelmed by the realization of the
evils which had obviously followed his official declarations, hoping
earnestly for the safety of the Union, and yet more disturbed and
harrowed in his mind than the mass of loyal people who did not
stand so near the danger as he, or so accurately measure its alarming
growth. The President of December with Cobb and Floyd and Thompson
in his Cabinet, and the President of January with Dix and Stanton
and Holt for his councilors, were radically different men. No true
estimate of Mr. Buchanan in the crisis of his public career can
ever be reached if this vital distinction be overlooked.
It was Mr. Buchanan's misfortune to be called to act in an emergency
which demanded will, fortitude, and moral courage. In these
qualities he was deficient. He did not possess the executive
faculty. His life had been principally devoted to the practice of
law in the most peaceful of communities, and to service in legislative
bodies where he was borne along by the force of association. He
had not been trained to prompt decision, had not been accustomed
to exercise command. He was cautious and conservative to the point
of timidity. He possessed ability of a high order, and, though he
thought slowly, he could master the most difficult subject with
comprehensive power. His service of ten years in the House and an
equal period in the Senate was marked by a conscientious devotion
to duty. He did not rank with the ablest members of either body,
but always bore a prominent part in important discussions and
maintained himself with credit.
PERSONAL CHARACTER OF MR. BUCHANAN.
It was said of Mr. Buchanan that he instinctively dreaded to assume
responsibility of any kind. His keenest critic remarked that in
the tentative period of political issues assumed by his party, Mr.
Buchanan could always be found two paces to the rear, but in the
hour of triumph he marched proudly in the front rank. He was not
gifted with independence or self-assertion. His bearing towards
Southern statesmen was derogatory to him as a man of spirit. His
tone towards administrations of his own party was so deferential
as almost to imply a lack of self-respect. He was not a leader
among men. He was always led. He was led by Mason and Soulé into
the imprudence of signing the Ostend Manifesto; he was led by the
Southern members of his Cabinet into the inexplicable folly and
blunder of indorsing the Lecompton iniquity; he was led by Disunion
senators into the deplorable mistake contained in his last annual
message. Fortunately for him he was led a month later by Black
and Holt and Stanton to a radical change of his compromising
position.
If Mr. Buchanan had possessed the unconquerable will of Jackson or
the stubborn courage of Taylor, he could have changed the history
of the revolt against the Union. A great opportunity came to him
but he was not equal to it. Always an admirable adviser where
prudence and caution were the virtues required, he was fatally
wanting in a situation which demanded prompt action and strong
nerve. As representative in Congress, as senator, as minister
abroad, as Secretary of State, his career was honorable and
successful. His life was singularly free from personal fault or
short-coming. He was honest and pure-minded. His fame would have
been more enviable if he had never been elevated to the Presidency.
CHAPTER XI.
Congress during the Winter of 1860-61.--Leave-taking of Senators
and Representatives.--South Carolina the First to secede.--Her
Delegation in the House publish a Card withdrawing.--Other States
follow.--Mr. Lamar of Mississippi.--Speeches of Seceding Senators.
--Mr. Yulee and Mr. Mallory of Florida.--Mr. Clay and Mr. Fitzpatrick
of Alabama.--Jefferson Davis.--His Distinction between Secession
and Nullification.--Important Speech by Mr. Toombs.--He defines
Conditions on which the Union might be allowed to survive.--Mr.
Iverson's Speech.--Georgia Senators withdraw.--Insolent Speech of
Mr. Slidell of Louisiana.--Mr. Judah P. Benjamin's Special Plea
for his State.--His Doctrine of "A Sovereignty held in Trust."--
Same Argument of Mr. Yulee for his State.--Principle of State
Sovereignty.--Disproved by the Treaty of 1783.--Notable Omission
by Secession Senators.--Grievances not stated.--Secession Conventions
in States.--Failure to state Justifying Grounds of Action.--
Confederate Government fail likewise to do it.--Contrast with the
Course of the Colonies.--Congress had given no Cause.--Had not
disturbed Slavery by Adverse Legislation.--List of Measures Favorable
to Slavery.--Policy of Federal Government steadily in that Direction.
--Mr. Davis quoted Menaces, not Acts.--Governing Class in the South.
--Division of Society there.--Republic ruled by an Oligarchy.--
Overthrown by Election of Lincoln.--South refuses to acquiesce.
No feature of the extraordinary winter of 1860-61 is more singular
in retrospect than the formal leave-taking of the Southern senators
and representatives in their respective Houses. Members of the
House from the seceding States, with few exceptions, refrained from
individual addresses, either of farewell or defiance, but adopted
a less demonstrative and more becoming mode. The South-Carolina
representatives withdrew on the 24th of December (1860), in a brief
card laid before the House by Speaker Pennington. They announced
that, as the people of their State had "in their sovereign capacity
resumed the powers delegated by them to the Federal Government of
the United States," their "connection with the House of Representatives
was thereby dissolved." They "desired to take leave of those with
whom they had been associated in a common agency, with mutual regard
and respect for the rights of each other." They "cherished the
hope" that in future relations they might "better enjoy the peace
and harmony essential to the happiness of a free and enlightened
people."
SOUTHERN REPRESENTATIVES WITHDRAW.
Other delegations retired from the House in the order in which
their States seceded. The leave-taking, in the main, was not
undignified. There was no defiance, no indulgence of bravado.
The members from Mississippi "regretted the necessity" which impelled
their State to the course adopted, but declared that it met "their
unqualified approval." The card was no doubt written by Mr. L. Q.
C. Lamar, and accurately described his emotions. He stood firmly
by his State in accordance with the political creed in which he
had been reared, but looked back with tender regret to the Union
whose destiny he had wished to share and under the protection of
whose broader nationality he had hoped to live and die. A few
Southern representatives marked their retirement by speeches bitterly
reproaching the Federal Government, and bitterly accusing the
Republican party; but the large majority confined themselves to
the simpler form of the card.
Whether the ease and confidence as to the future which these Southern
representatives manifested was really felt or only assumed, can
never be known. They were all men of intelligence, some of them
conspicuously able; and it seems incredible that they could have
persuaded themselves that a great government could be dissolved
without shock and without resistance. They took leave with no more
formality than that with which a private gentleman, aggrieved by
discourteous treatment, withdraws from a company in which he feels
that he can no longer find enjoyment. Their confidence was based
on the declarations and admissions of Mr. Buchanan's message; but
they had, in effect, constructed that document themselves, and the
slightest reflection should have warned them that, with the change
of administration to occur in a few weeks, there would be a different
understanding of Executive duty, and a different appeal to the
reason of the South.
The senators from the seceding States were more outspoken than the
representatives. They took the opportunity of their retirement to
say many things which, even for their own personal fame, should
have been left unsaid. A clear analysis of these harangues is
impossible. They lacked the unity and directness of the simple
notifications with which the seceding representatives had withdrawn
from the House. The valedictories in the Senate were a singular
compound of defiance and pity, of justification and recrimination.
Some of the speeches have an insincere and mock-heroic tone to the
reader twenty years after the event. They appear to be the
expressions of men who talked for effect, and who professed themselves
ready for a shock of arms which they believed would never come.
But the majority of the utterances were by men who meant all they
said; who, if they did not anticipate a bloody conflict, were yet
prepared for it, and who were too deeply stirred by resentment and
passion to give due heed to consequences.
On the 21st of January the senators from Florida, Alabama, and
Mississippi formally withdrew from the Senate. Their speeches
showed little variety of thought, consisting chiefly of indictments
against the free States for placing the government under the control
of an anti-slavery administration. Mr. Yulee was the first to
speak. He solemnly announced to the Senate that "the State of
Florida, though a convention of her people, had decided to recall
the powers which she had delegated to the Federal Government, and
to assume the full exercise of all her sovereign rights as an
independent and separate community." At what particular period in
the history of the American continent Florida had enjoyed "sovereign
rights," by what process she had ever "delegated powers to the
Federal Government," or at what time she had ever been "an independent
and separate community," Mr. Yulee evidently preferred not to inform
the Senate. His colleague, Mr. Mallory, implored the people of
the North not to repeat the fatal folly of the Bourbons by imagining
that "the South would submit to the degradation of a constrained
existence under a violated Constitution." Mr. Mallory regarded
the subjugation of the South by war as impossible. He warned the
North that they were dealing with "a nation, and not with a
faction."
Mr. Clement C. Clay, Jr., of Alabama, boasted that in the convention
which adopted the Ordinance of Secession in his State there was
not one friend of the Union; and he resented with indignation what
he termed the offensive calumny of the Republicans in denouncing
slavery and polygamy as twin relics of barbarism. The action of
Alabama, he said, was not from "sudden, spasmodic, and violent
passion." It was the conclusion her people had reached "after
years of enmity, injustice, and injury at the hands of their Northern
brethren." Instead of causing surprise, "it is rather matter of
reproach that they have endured so much and so long, and have
deferred this act of self-defense until to-day." Mr. Clay's speech
was insulting and exasperating to the last degree. His colleague,
Mr. Fitzpatrick, a man of better tempter, showed reserve and an
indisposition to discuss the situation. He contented himself with
the expression of a general concurrence in the views of Mr. Clay,
adding no word of bitterness himself. He said that he "acknowledged
loyalty to no other power than to the sovereign State of Alabama."
But for the pressure brought upon him, Mr. Fitzpatrick would have
been glad to retain his seat in the Senate and wait the course of
events. He was not in his heart a Disunionist, as his colleague
was. He would have accepted the nomination for the Vice-Presidency
on the ticket with Douglas the preceding year, if the whole political
power of the Cotton States had not opposed his wishes and forced
him into the support of Breckinridge.
VALEDICTORY OF JEFFERSON DAVIS.
Jefferson Davis expressed his concurrence in the action of the
people of Mississippi. He believed that action was necessary and
proper, but would "have felt himself equally bound if his belief
had been otherwise." He presented an analysis of the difference
between the remedies of nullification and secession. Nullification
was a remedy inside of the Union; secession a remedy outside. He
expressed himself as against the theory of nullification, and
explained that, so far from being identified with secession, the
two are antagonistic principles. Mr. Calhoun's mistake, according
to Mr. Davis, was in trying to "nullify" the laws of the Union
while continuing a member of it. He intimated that President
Jackson would never have attempted to "execute the laws" in South
Carolina as he did against the nullifiers in 1832, if the State
had seceded, and that therefore his great example could not be
quoted in favor of "coercion." It is not believed that Mr. Davis
had the slightest authority for this aspersion upon the memory of
Jackson. It seems rather to have been a disingenuous and unwarranted
statement of the kind so plentifully used at the time for the
purpose of "firing the Southern heart."
There had been an impression in the country that Mr. Davis was
among the most reluctant of those who engaged in the secession
movement; but in his speech he declared that he had conferred with
the people of Mississippi before the step was taken, and counseled
them to the course which they had adopted. This declaration was
a great surprise to Northern Democrats, among whom Mr. Davis had
many friends. For several years he had been growing in favor with
a powerful element in the Democracy of the free States, and, but
for the exasperating quarrel of 1860, he might have been selected
as the Presidential candidate of his party. No man gave up more
than Mr. Davis in joining the revolt against the Union. In his
farewell words to the Senate, there was a tone of moderation and
dignity not unmixed with regretful and tender emotions. There was
also apparent a spirit of confidence and defiance. He evidently
had full faith that he was going forth to victory and to power.
Mr. Toombs of Georgia did not take formal leave, but on the 7th of
January delivered a speech which, though addressed to the Senate
of the United States, was apparently intended to influence public
sentiment in Georgia, where there was an uncomfortable halting in
the progress of secession. The speech had special interest, not
alone from Mr. Toombs's well-known ability, but because it was the
only presentation of the conditions on which the scheme of Disunion
might be arrested, and the Cotton States held fast in their loyalty
to the government,--conditions which, in the language of Mr. Toombs,
would "restore fraternity and peace and unity to all of us." It
was not believed that Mr. Toombs had the faintest expectation that
his proposition would receive favorable consideration in the free
States. His point would be fully gained by showing that the free
States would not accept conditions which Georgia had the right to
exact as the basis of her remaining in the Union. Once firmly
persuaded that she was deprived of her constitutional rights,
Georgia could the more easily be led or forced into secession.
The first condition prescribed by Mr. Toombs was, that in all the
territory owned or to be acquired by the United States, slave
property should be securely protected until the period of the
formation of a State government, when the people could determine
the question for themselves. The second condition was, that property
in slaves should be entitled to the same protection from the
Government of the United States in all its departments everywhere,
which is extended to other property, provided that there should be
no interference with the liberty of a State to prohibit or establish
slavery within its limits. The third condition was, that persons
committing crimes against slave property in one State, and fleeing
to another, should be delivered up in the same manner as persons
committing crimes against other forms of property, and that the
laws of the State from which such persons flee should be the test
of the criminality of the act. The fourth condition was, that
fugitive slaves should be surrendered under the Act of 1850 without
being entitled to a writ of _habeas corpus_, or trial by jury, or
other obstructions in the States to which they might flee. The
fifth and last demand was, that Congress should pass efficient laws
for the punishment of all persons in any of the States who should
in any manner aid or abet invasion or insurrection in any other
State, or commit any other act against the law of nations tending
to disturb the tranquility of the people or government of any other
State. Without the concession of these points Mr. Toombs said the
Union could not be maintained. If some satisfactory arrangement
should not be made, he was for immediate action. "We are," he
said, "as ready to fight now as we ever shall be. I will have
equality or war." He denounced Mr. Lincoln as "an enemy to the
human race, deserving the execration of all mankind."
GEORGIA SENATORS WITHDRAW.
Three weeks later the Georgia senators withdrew. Georgia had on
the 19th of January, after much dragooning, passed the Ordinance
of Secession, and on the 28th, Mr. Alfred Iverson, the colleague
of Mr. Toombs, communicated the fact to the Senate in a highly
inflammatory speech. He proclaimed that Georgia was the sixth
State to secede, that a seventh was about to follow, and that "a
confederacy of their own would soon be established." Provision
would be made "for the admission of other States," and Mr. Iverson
assured the Senate that within a few months "all the slave-holding
States of the late confederacy of the United States will be united
together in a bond of union far more homogenous, and therefore more
stable, than the one now being dissolved." His boasting was
unrestrained, but his conception of the contest which he and his
associates were inviting was pitiably inadequate. "Your conquest,"
said he, addressing the Union senators, "will cost you a hundred
thousand lives and a hundred millions of dollars."
The conclusion of Mr. Iverson's harangue disclosed his fear that
after all Georgia might prefer the old Union. "For myself," said
he, "unless my opinions greatly change, I shall never consent to
the reconstruction of the Federal Union. The Rubicon is passed,
and with my consent shall never be recrossed." But these bold
declarations were materially qualified by Mr. Iverson when he
reflected on the powerful minority of Union men in Georgia, and
the general feeling in that State against a conflict with the
National Government. "In this sentiment," said he, "I may be
overruled by the people of my State and of the other Southern
States." . . . "Nothing, however, will bring Georgia back except
a full and explicit recognition and guaranty of the safety and
protection of the institution of domestic slavery." This was the
final indication of the original weakness of the secession cause
in Georgia, and of the extraordinary means which were taken to
impress the people of that State with the belief that secession
would lead to reconstruction on a basis of more efficient protection
to the South and greater strength to the whole Union.
On the 4th of February Mr. Slidell and Mr. Benjamin delivered their
valedictories as senators from Louisiana. Mr. Slidell was aggressively
insolent. He informed the Senate that if any steps should be taken
to enforce the authority of the Union in the seceded States, they
would be resisted. "You may," he said, "under color of enforcing
your laws and collecting your revenue, blockade our ports. This
will be war, and we shall meet it with different but equally
efficient weapons. We will not permit the consumption or introduction
of any of your manufactures. Every sea will swarm with our
privateers, the volunteer militia of the ocean." He confidently
expected foreign aid. "How long," he asked, "will the great naval
powers of Europe permit you to impede their free intercourse with
their best customers, and to stop the supply of the great staple
which is the most important basis of their manufacturing industry?"
"You were," said he, adding taunt to argument, "with all the wealth
of this once great confederacy, but a fourth or fifth rate naval
power. What will you be when emasculated by the withdrawal of
fifteen States, and warred upon by them with active and inveterate
hostility?"
In a tone of patronizing liberality, Mr. Slidell gave assurance
that the new confederacy would recognize the rights of the inhabitants
of the valley of the Mississippi and its tributaries to free
navigation, and would guarantee to them "a free interchange of
agricultural production without impost, and the free transit from
foreign countries of every species of merchandise, subjected only
to such regulations as may be necessary for a protection of the
revenue system which we may establish." Had Mr. Slidell been less
inspired by insolence, and more largely endowed with wisdom, he
would have remembered that when the Union contained but six millions
of people, they were willing to fight any one of three great European
powers for freedom of access to the sea for the inhabitants of the
valley of the Mississippi, and that it was from the first a physical
impossibility to close it or in any way restrict it against the
rights of the North-West. The people of that section, even without
the prestige of the national flag, were immeasurably stronger than
the people of the South-West, and were, unaided, fully competent
to fight their way to the ocean over any obstacles which the powers
behind Mr. Slidell could interpose. In the mere matching of local
strength, it was sheer folly for the States of the lower Mississippi
to attempt to control the mouth of that river.
SPEECHES OF BENJAMIN AND SLIDELL.
Mr. Judah P. Benjamin spoke in a tone of moderation as contrasted
with the offensive dictation of Mr. Slidell. He devoted himself
mainly to answering an argument which came instinctively to every
man's mind, and which bore with particular severity upon the action
of Louisiana. Mr. Benjamin brought his eminent legal ability to
the discussion, but failed even to satisfy himself. The State of
Louisiana was formed from territory which had been bought and paid
for by the United States out of the common treasury of the whole
people. Whatever specious plea might be made for the independent
and separate sovereignty of the old thirteen States, the argument
could not apply to Louisiana. No one could maintain that Louisiana
had ever enjoyed a separate sovereignty of any kind, nominal or
real. She had been originally owned by France, had been sold to
Spain, had been sold back again to France, and had been bought by
the United States. These sales had been made without protest from
any one, and the title conferred at each transfer was undisputed,
the sovereignty of the purchasing power undeniable.
Confronting these facts, and realizing the difficulty they presented,
Mr. Benjamin was reduced to desperate straits for argument. "Without
entering into the details of the negotiation," he said, "the archives
of our State Department show the fact to be that although the
domain, the public lands and other property of France in the ceded
province, were conveyed by absolute title to the United States,
the sovereignty was not conveyed _otherwise than in trust_." This
peculiar statement of a sovereignty that was "conveyed in trust"
Mr. Benjamin attempted to sustain by quoting the clause in the
treaty which gave the right of the people of Louisiana to be
incorporated into the Union "on terms of equality with the other
States." From this he argued that the sovereignty of the _Territory_
of Louisiana held in trust by the Federal Government, and conveyed
to the _State_ of Louisiana on her admission to the Union, was
necessarily greater than the National sovereignty. Indeed, Mr.
Benjamin recognized no "Nation" in the United States and no real
sovereignty in the General Government which was but the agent of
the sovereign States. It properly and logically followed, according
to Mr. Benjamin, that the "sovereignty held in trust," might, when
conferred, be immediately and rightfully employed to destroy the
life of the trustee. The United States might or might not admit
Louisiana to the Union, for the General Government was sole judge
as to time and expediency--but when once admitted, the power of
the State was greater than the power of the Government which
permitted the State to come into existence. Such were the
contradictions and absurdities which the creed of the Secessionists
inevitably involved, and in which so clever a man as Mr. Benjamin
was compelled to blunder and flounder.
Pursuing his argument, Mr. Benjamin wished to know whether those
who asserted that Louisiana had been bought by the United States
meant that the United States had the right based on that fact to
sell Louisiana? He denied in every form that there had ever been
such a purchase of Louisiana as carried with it the right of sale.
"I deny," said he, "the fact on which the argument is founded. I
deny that the Province of Louisiana or the people of Louisiana were
ever conveyed to the United States for a price as property that
could be bought or sold at will." However learned Mr. Benjamin
may have been in the law, he was evidently ill informed as to the
history of the transaction of which he spoke so confidently. He
should have known that the United States, sixteen years after it
bought Louisiana from France, actually sold or exchanged a large
part of that province to the King of Spain as part of the consideration
in the purchase of the Floridas. He should have known that at the
time the Government of the United States disposed of a part of
Louisiana, there was not an intelligent man in the world who did
not recognize its right and power to dispose of the whole. The
theory that the United States acquired a less degree of sovereignty
over Louisiana than was held by France when she transferred it, or
by Spain when she owned it, was never dreamed of when the negotiation
was made. It was an afterthought on the part of the hard-pressed
defenders of the right of secession. It was the ingenious but lame
device of an able lawyer who undertook to defend what was
indefensible.
Mr. Yulee of Florida had endeavored to make the same argument on
behalf of his State, feeling the embarrassment as did Mr. Benjamin,
and relying, as Mr. Benjamin did, upon the clause in the treaty
with Spain entitling Florida to admission to the Union. Mr. Benjamin
and Mr. Yulee should both have known that the guaranty which they
quoted was nothing more and nothing less than the ordinary condition
which every enlightened nation makes in parting with its subjects
or citizens, that they shall enter into the new relation without
discrimination against them and with no lower degree of civil rights
than had already been enjoyed by those who form the nation to which
they are about to be annexed. Louisiana, when she was transferred
to the United States, received no further guaranty than Napoleon
in effect gave to Spain at the treaty of San Ildefonso, or than
the Spanish Bourbons had given to the French Bourbons in the treaty
of 1763 at the close of the Seven Years' War. In each of the three
transfers of the sovereignty of Louisiana, the same condition was
perfectly understood as to the rights of the inhabitants. Mr.
Benjamin drew the conclusion which was not only diametrically wrong
in morals, but diametrically erroneous in logic. Instead of
inferring that a State, situated as Louisiana was, should necessarily
become greater than the power which purchased it, simply because
other States in the Union which she joined had assumed such power,
a discriminating mind of Mr. Benjamin's acuteness should have seen
that the very position proved the reverse of what he stated, and
demonstrated, in the absurdity of Louisiana's secession, the equal
absurdity of the secession of South Carolina and Georgia.
THE ARGUMENT OF MR. BENJAMIN.
It seemed impossible for Mr. Benjamin or for any other leader of
Southern opinion to argue the question of State rights fairly or
dispassionately. They had been so persistently trained in the
heresy that they could give no weight to the conclusive reasoning
of the other side. The original thirteen, they averred, were "free,
sovereign, and independent States," acknowledged to be such by the
King of Great Britain in the Treaty of peace in 1783. The new
States, so the argument ran, were all admitted to the Union of
terms of equality with the old. Hence all were alike endowed with
sovereignty. Even the historical part of this argument was strained
and fallacious. Much was made in the South of Mr. Toombs's
declaration that "the original thirteen" were as "independent of
each other as Australia and Jamaica." So indeed they were as long
as they remained British Colonies. Their only connection in that
condition was in their common dependence on the Crown. But the
first step towards independence of the Crown was to unite. From
that day onward they were never separate. Nor did the King of
Great Britain acknowledge the "independence and sovereignty" of
the thirteen individual and separate States. The Treaty of peace
declares that "His Majesty acknowledges the said United States
[naming them] to be free, sovereign, and independent States."--not
separately and individually, but the "said _United_ States." The
King then agrees that "the following are and shall be the boundaries
of the said United States,"--proceeding to give, not the boundaries
of each State, but the boundaries of the whole as one unit, one
sovereignty, one nationality. Last of all, the commissioners who
signed the treaty with the King's commissioner were not acting for
the individual States, but for the _United_ States. Three of them,
John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay, were from the North,
and Henry Laurens from the South. The separate sovereignties whose
existence was so persistently alleged by Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Toombs
were not represented when independence was conceded. Mr. Benjamin's
conclusion, therefore, was not only illogical, but was completely
disproved by plain historical facts.
It seems never to have occurred to Mr. Benjamin, or to Mr. Yulee,
or to the Texas senators, or to the Arkansas senators, that the
money paid from a common treasury of the nation gave any claim to
National sovereignty. Their philosophy seems to have been that
the General Government had been paid in full by the privilege of
nurturing new States, of improving their rivers and harbors, of
building their fortifications, of protecting them in peace, of
defending them in war. The privilege of leading the new communities
through the condition of Territorial existence up to the full
majesty of States, was, according to secession argument, sufficient
compensation, and removed all shadow of the title or the sovereignty
of the National Government, the moment the inhabitants thus benefitted
announced their desire to form new connections. Louisiana had cost
fifteen millions of dollars at a time when that was a vast sum of
money. It had cost five millions of money and the surrender of a
province, to purchase Florida, and nearly a hundred millions more
to extinguish the Indian title, and make the State habitable for
white men. Texas cost the National Treasury ninety millions of
dollars in the war which was precipitated by her annexation, and
ten millions more paid to her in 1850, in adjustment of her boundary
trouble. All these States apparently regarded the tie that bound
them to the National Government as in no degree mutual, as imposing
no duty upon them. By some mysterious process still unexplained,
the more they gained from connection with the National authority,
the less was their obligation thereto, the more perfect their right
to disregard and destroy the beneficent government which had created
them and fostered them.
SOUTHERN GRIEVANCES NOT STATED.
In all the speeches delivered by the senators from the seceding
States, there was no presentation of the grievances which, in their
own minds, justified secession. This fact elicited less notice at
the time than it calls forth in retrospect. Those senators held
in their hands in the beginning, the fate of the secession movement.
If they had advised the Southern States that it was wiser and better
to abide in the Union, and at least to wait for some overt act of
wrong against the slave States, the whole movement would have
collapsed. But they evidently felt that this would be a shrinking
and cowardly policy after the numerous manifestoes they had issued.
South Carolina had taken the fatal step, and to fail in sustaining
her would be to co-operate in crushing her. While these motives
and aims are intelligible, it seems utterly incredible that not
one of the senators gave a specification of the wrongs which led
the South to her rash step. Mr. Toombs recounted the concessions
on which the South would agree to remain; but these were new
provisions and new conditions, never intended by the framers of
the Federal Constitution; and they were abhorrent to the civilization
of the nineteenth century.
Mr. Toombs, Mr. Jefferson Davis, and Mr. Benjamin were the three
ablest senators who spoke in favor of secession. Not one of them
deemed it necessary to justify his conduct by a recital of the
grounds on which so momentous a step could bear the test of historic
examination. They dealt wholly in generalities as to the past,
and apparently based their action on something that was to happen
in the future. Mr. John Slidell sought to give a strong reason
for the movement, in the statement that, if Lincoln should be
inaugurated with Southern assent, the 4th of March would witness,
in various quarters, outbreaks among the slaves which, although
they would be promptly suppressed, would carry ruin and devastation
to many a Southern home. It was from Mr. Slidell that Mr. Buchanan
received the information which induced him to dwell at length in
his annual message on this painful feature of the situation. But
it was probably an invention of Mr. Slidell's fertile brain--imposed
upon the President and intended to influence public sentiment in
the North. It was in flat contradiction of the general faith in
the personal fealty of their slaves, so constantly boasted by the
Southern men,--a faith abundantly justified by the subsequent fact
that four years of war passed without a single attempt to servile
insurrection. At the time of the John Brown disturbance the South
resented the imputation of fear, made upon it by the North. If
now the danger was especially imminent, Southern leaders were solely
to blame. They would not accept the honorable assurance of the
Republican party and of the President-elect that no interference
with slavery in the States was designed. They insisted in all
their public addresses that Mr. Lincoln was determined to uproot
slavery everywhere, and they might well fear that these repeated
declarations had been heard and might be accepted by their slaves.
The omission by individual senators to present the grievances which
justified secession is perhaps less notable then the same omission
by the conventions which ordained secession in the several States.
South Carolina presented, as a special outrage, the enactment of
personal-liberty bills in the free States, and yet, from the
foundation of the Federal Government, she had probably never lost
a slave in consequence of these enactments. In Georgia the attempt
at justification reached the ludicrous when solemn charge was made
that a bounty had been paid from the Federal Treasury to New-England
fishermen. The tariff was complained of, the navigation laws were
sneered at. But these were all public policies which had been in
operation with Southern consent and largely with Southern support,
throughout the existence of the Republic. When South Carolina
attempted, somewhat after the illustrious model of the Declaration
of Independence, to present justifying reasons for her course, the
very authors of the document must have seen that it amounted only
to a parody.
Finding no satisfactory exhibit of grievances, either in the speeches
of senators or in the declarations of conventions, one naturally
infers that the Confederate Government, when formally organized at
Montgomery in February, must have given a full and lucid statement
to the world of the reasons for this extraordinary movement. When
our fathers were impelled to break their loyalty to the English
king, and to establish an independent government, they declared in
the very fore-front of the document which contained their reasons,
that "when it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the
political bonds which have connected them with another, and to
assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station
to which the laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a
decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that _they should
declare the causes which impel them to the separation_." They
followed this assertion with an exhibit of causes which, in the
judgment of the world, has been and ever will be, a complete
justification of their revolutionary movement.
THOMAS JEFFERSON AND JEFFERSON DAVIS.
The Confederate Government saw fit to do nothing of the kind.
Their Congress put forth no declaration or manifesto, and Jefferson
Davis in his Inaugural as President utterly failed--did not even
attempt--to enumerate the grounds of complaint upon which the
destruction of the American Union was based. He said that "the
declared compact of the Union from which we have withdrawn was to
establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the
common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessing
of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. And when, in the judgment
of the sovereign States now composing this confederacy, it has been
perverted from the purposes for which it was ordained, and ceases
to answer the ends for which it was established, a peaceful appeal
to the ballot-box declared, that, so far as they were concerned,
the government created by that compact should cease to exist. In
this they merely assert the right which the Declaration of Independence
of 1776 defined to be inalienable." But in what manner, at what
time, by what measure, "justice, domestic tranquillity, common
defense, the general welfare," had been destroyed by the government
of the Union, Mr. Jefferson Davis did not deign to inform the world
to whose opinion he appealed.
Mr. Jefferson, in draughting the Declaration of Independence which
Davis quotes as his model, said "the history of the present King
of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations,
all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny
over these States." What would have been thought of Mr. Jefferson
if he had stopped there and adduced no instance and given no proof
of his serious indictment against George III.? But Mr. Jefferson
and his fellow-patriots in that great Act proceeded to submit their
proof to the judgment of a candid world. They recited twenty-eight
distinct charges of oppression and tyranny, depriving them of rights
to which they were entitled as subjects of the Crown under the
British Constitution. From that hour to this, there has been no
disproval of the truth of these charges or of the righteousness of
the resistance to which our forefathers resorted. It would have
been well for the dignity of the Southern Confederacy in history
if one of its many able men had placed on record, in an authentic
form, the grounds upon which, and the grievances for which,
destruction of the Union could be justified.
In his message to the Confederate Congress, Mr. Davis apparently
attempted to cure the defects of his Inaugural address, and to give
a list of measures which he declared to have been hostile to Southern
interests. But it is to be observed that not one of these measures
had been completed. They were merely menaced or foreshadowed. As
matter of fact, emphasized by Mr. Buchanan in his message, and
known to no one better than to Mr. Davis, not a single measure
adverse to the interests of slavery had been passed by the Congress
of the United States from the foundation of the government. If
the Missouri Compromise of 1820 be alleged as an exception to this
sweeping assertion, it must be remembered that that compromise was
a Southern and not a Northern measure, and was a triumph of the
pro-slavery members of Congress over the anti-slavery members; and
that its constitutionality was upheld by the unanimous voice of
the Cabinet in which Mr. Crawford of Georgia and Mr. Calhoun of
South Carolina were leading members.
On the other hand, the policy of the government had been steadily
in favor of slavery; and the measures of Congress which would
strengthen it were not only numerous, but momentous in character.
They are familiar to every one who knows the simplest elements of
our national history. The acquisition of Louisiana, the purchase
of Florida, the Mexican war, were all great national movements
which resulted in strengthening the slave power. Every demand
which the South made for protection had been conceded. More
stringent provisions for the return of fugitive slaves were asked,
and a law was enacted trampling under foot the very spirit of
liberty, and putting in peril the freedom of men who were citizens
of Northern States. The Missouri Compromise, passed with the
consent and support of the South, was repealed by Southern dictation
the moment its operation was found to be hostile to the spread of
slavery. The rights of slavery in the Territories required judicial
confirmation, and the Supreme Court complied by rendering the famous
decision in the case of Dred Scott. Against all these guaranties
and concessions for the support of slavery, Mr. Davis could quote,
not anti-slavery aggressions which had been made, but only those
which might be made in the future.
SOUTHERN RESISTANCE TO LAW.
This position disclosed the real though not the avowed cause of
the secession movement. Its authors were not afraid of an immediate
invasion of the rights of the slave-holder in the States, but they
were conscious that the growth of the country, the progress of
civilization, and the expansion of our population, were all hostile
to their continued supremacy as the governing element in the
Republic. The South was the only section in which there was
distinctively a governing class. The slave-holders ruled their
States more positively than ever the aristocratic classes ruled
England. Besides the distinction of free and slave, or black and
white, there was another line of demarcation between white men that
was as absolute as the division between patrician and plebeian.
The nobles of Poland who dictated the policy of the kingdom were
as numerous in proportion to the whole population as the rich class
of slave-holders whose decrees governed the policy of their States.
It was, in short, an oligarchy which by its combined power ruled
the Republic. No President of any party had ever been elected who
was opposed to its supremacy. The political revolution of 1860
had given to the Republic an anti-slavery President, and the Southern
men refused to accept the result. They had been too long accustomed
to power to surrender it to an adverse majority, however lawful or
constitutional that majority might be. They had been trained to
lead and not to follow. They were not disciplined to submission.
They had been so long in command that they had become incapable of
obedience. Unwillingness to submit to Constitutional authority
was the controlling consideration which drove the Southern States
to the desperate design of a revolution, peaceful they hoped it
would be, but to a revolution even if it should be one of blood.
CHAPTER XII.
Congress in the Winter of 1860-61.--The North offers Many Concessions
to the South.--Spirit of Conciliation.--Committee of Thirteen in
the Senate.--Committee of Thirty-three in the House.--Disagreement
of Senate Committee.--Propositions submitted to House Committee.--
Thomas Corwin's Measure.--Henry Winter Davis.--Justin S. Morrill--
Mr. Houston of Alabama.--Constitutional Amendment proposed by
Charles Francis Adams.--Report of the Committee of Thirty-three.--
Objectionable Measures proposed.--Minority Report by Southern
Members.--The Crittenden Compromise proposed.--Details of that
Compromise.--Mr. Adams's Double Change of Ground.--An Old Resolution
of the Massachusetts Legislature.--Mr. Webster's Criticism Pertinent.
--Various Minority Reports.--The California Members.--Washburn and
Tappan.--Amendment to the Constitution passed by the House.--By
the Senate also.--New Mexico.--The Fugitive-slave Law.--Mr. Clark
of New Hampshire.--Peace Congress.--Invited by Virginia.--Assembles
in Washington.--Peace Measures proposed.--They meet no Favor in
Congress.--Territories of Colorado, Dakota, and Nevada originated.
--Prohibition of Slavery abandoned.--Republicans in Congress do
not ask it.--Explanation required.--James S. Green of Missouri.--
His Character as a Debater.--Northern Republicans frightened at
their own Success.--Anxious for a Compromise.--Dread of Disunion.
--Northern Democrats.--Dangerous Course pursued by them.--General
Demoralization of Northern Sentiment.
While the Secession leaders were engaged in their schemes for the
disruption of the National Government and the formation of a new
confederacy, Congress was employing every effort to arrest the
Disunion tendency by making new concessions, and offering new
guaranties to the offended power of the South. If the wild
precipitation of the Southern leaders must be condemned, the
compromising course of the majority in each branch of Congress will
not escape censure,--censure for misjudgment, not for wrong intention.
The anxiety in both Senate and House to do something which should
allay the excitement in the slave-holding section served only to
develop and increase its exasperation and its resolution. A man
is never so aggressively bold as when he finds his opponent afraid
of him; and the efforts, however well meant, of the National Congress
in the winter of 1860-61 undoubtedly impressed the South with a
still further conviction of the timidity of the North, and with a
certainty that the new confederacy would be able to organize without
resistance, and to dissolve the Union without war.
COMMITTEES OF CONCILIATION.
Congress had no sooner convened in December, 1860, and received
the message of Mr. Buchanan, with its elaborate argument that the
National Government possessed no power to coerce a State, than in
each branch special committees of conciliation were appointed.
They were not so termed in the resolutions of the Senate and House,
but their mission was solely one of conciliation. They were charged
with the duty of giving extraordinary assurances that Slavery was
not to be disturbed, and of devising measures which might persuade
Southern men against the rashness on which they seemed bent. In
the Senate they raised a committee of thirteen, representing the
number of the original States of the Union. In the House the
committee was composed of thirty-three members, representing the
number of States then existing. In the Senate, Mr. Powell of
Kentucky was chairman of the committee of thirteen, which was
composed of seven Democrats, five Republicans, and the venerable
Mr. Crittenden of Kentucky, who belonged to neither party. It
contained the most eminent men in the Senate of all shades of
political opinion. In the House, Thomas Corwin was made chairman,
with a majority of Republicans of the more conservative type, a
minority of Democrats, and Mr. Henry Winter Davis of Maryland, who
held a position similar to that occupied by Mr. Crittenden in the
Senate.
The Senate committee promptly disagreed, and before the close of
December reported to the Senate their inability to come to any
conclusion. The committee of thirty-three was more fortunate, or
perhaps unfortunate, in being able to arrive at a series of
conclusions which tended only to lower the tone of Northern opinion
without in the least degree appeasing the wrath of the South. The
record of that committee is one which cannot be reviewed with pride
or satisfaction by any citizen of a State that was loyal to the
Union. Every form of compromise which could be suggested, every
concession of Northern prejudice and every surrender of Northern
pride, was urged upon the committee. The measures proposed to the
committee by members of the House were very numerous, and those
suggested by the members of the committee themselves seemed designed
to meet every complaint made by the most extreme Southern agitators.
The propositions submitted would in the aggregate fill a large
volume, but a selection from the mass will indicate the spirit
which had taken possession of Congress.
Mr. Corwin of Ohio wished a declaration from Congress that it was
"highly inexpedient to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia
unless with the consent of the States of Maryland and Virginia."
Mr. Winter Davis suggested the Congress should request the States
to revise their statutes with a view to repeal all personal-liberty
bills, and further that the Fugitive-slave Law be so amended as to
secure trial by jury to the fugitive slave, not in the free State
where he was arrested, but in the slave State to which he might be
taken. Mr. Morrill of Vermont offered a resolution declaring that
all accessions of foreign territory shall hereafter be made by
treaty stipulation, and that no treaty shall be ratified until it
had received the legislative assent of two-thirds of all the States
of the Union, and that neither Congress nor any Territorial
Legislature shall pass any law establishing or prohibiting slavery
in any Territory thus acquired until it shall have sufficient
population to entitle it to admission to the Union. Mr. Houston
of Alabama urged the restitution of the Missouri line of 36° 30´.
There was in the judgment of many Southern men a better opportunity
to effect an adjustment on this line of partition than upon any
other basis that had been suggested. But the plea carried with it
a national guaranty and protection of slavery on the southern side
of the line, and its effect would inevitably have been in a few
years to divide the Republic from ocean to ocean. Mr. Taylor of
Louisiana wanted the Constitution so amended that the rights of
the slave-holder in the Territories could be guarantied, and further
amended so that no person, "unless he was of the Caucasian race
and of pure and unmixed blood," should ever be allowed to vote for
any officer of the National Government.
PROPOSITIONS OF COMPROMISE.
Mr. Charles Francis Adams proposed that the Constitution of the
United States be so amended that no subsequent amendment thereto,
"having for its object any interference with slavery, shall originate
with any State that does not recognize that relation within its
own limits, or shall be valid without the assent of every one of
the States composing the Union." No Southern man, during the long
agitation of the slavery questions extending from 1820 to 1860,
had ever submitted so extreme a proposition as that of Mr. Adams.
The most precious muniment of personal liberty never had such deep
embedment in the organic law of the Republic as Mr. Adams now
proposed for the protection of slavery. The well-grounded jealousy
and fear of the smaller States had originally secured a provision
that their right to equal representation in the Senate should never
be taken from them even by an amendment of the Constitution. Mr.
Adams now proposed to give an equal safeguard and protection to
the institution of slavery. Yet the proposition was opposed by
only three members of the committee of thirty-three,--Mason W.
Tappan of New Hampshire, Cadwallader C. Washburn of Wisconsin,
and William Kellogg of Illinois.
After a consideration of the whole subject, the majority of the
committee made a report embodying nearly every objectionable
proposition which had been submitted. The report included a
resolution asking the States to repeal all their personal-liberty
bills, in order that the recapture and return of fugitive slaves
should in no degree be obstructed. It included an amendment to
the Constitution as proposed by Mr. Adams. It offered to admit
New Mexico, which then embraced Arizona, immediately, with its
slave-code as adopted by the Territorial Legislature,--thus confirming
and assuring its permanent character as a slave State. It proposed
to amend the Fugitive-slave Law by providing that the right to
freedom of an alleged fugitive should be tried in the slave State
from which he was accused of fleeing, rather than in the free State
where he was seized. It proposed, according to the demand of Mr.
Toombs, that a law should be enacted in which all offenses against
slave property by persons fleeing to other States should be tried
where the offense was committed, making the slave-code, in effect,
the test of the criminality of the act,--an act which, in its
essential character, might frequently be one of charity and good
will.
These propositions had the precise effect which, in cooler moments,
their authors would have anticipated. They humiliated the North
without appeasing or satisfying the South. Five Southern members
made a minority report in which still further concessions were
demanded. They submitted what was known as the Crittenden Compromise,
demanding six amendments to the Constitution for the avowed purpose
of placing slavery under the guardianship and protection of the
National Government, and, after the example of Mr. Adams's proposed
amendment, intrenching the institution where agitation could not
disturb it, where legislation could not affect it, where amendments
to the Constitution would be powerless to touch it.
--The first amendment proposed that in "all the territory of the
United States south of the old Missouri line, either now held or
to be hereafter acquired, the slavery of the African race is
recognized as existing, not to be interfered with by Congress, but
to be protected as property by all the departments of the Territorial
Government during its continuance."
--The second amendment declared that "Congress shall have no power
to interfere with slavery even in those places under its exclusive
jurisdiction in the slave States."
--The third amendment took away from Congress the exclusive
jurisdiction over the District of Columbia, as guarantied in the
Constitution, declaring that Congress should "never interfere with
slavery in the District, except with the consent of Virginia and
Maryland, so long as it exists in the State of Virginia or Maryland,
nor without the consent of the inhabitants of the District, nor
without just compensation for the slaves. Nor shall Congress
prohibit officers of the General Government nor members of Congress
from bringing with them their slaves to the District, holding them
there during the time their duties may require them to remain, and
afterwards taking them from the District."
--The fourth amendment prohibited Congress from interfering with
the transportation of slaves from one State to another, or from
one State to any Territory south of the Missouri line, whether that
transportation be by land, by navigable river, or by the sea.
--The fifth amendment conferred upon Congress the power, and
prescribed its duty, to provide for the payment to the owner of a
fugitive slave his full value from the National Treasury, in all
cases where the marshal was prevented from arresting said fugitive
by violence or intimidation, or where the fugitive, after arrest,
was rescued by force.
--The sixth amendment provided for a perpetual existence of the
five amendments just quoted, by placing them beyond the power of
the people to change or revise--declaring that "no future amendment
to the Constitution shall ever be passed that shall affect any
provision of the five amendments just recited; that the provision
in the original Constitution which guaranties the count of three-
fifths of the slaves in the basis of representation, shall never
be changed by any amendment; that no amendment shall ever be made
which alters or impairs the original provision for the recovery of
fugitives from service; that no amendment shall be made that shall
ever permit Congress to interfere in any way with slavery in the
State where it may be permitted."
PROPOSITIONS OF COMPROMISE.
Before Mr. Corwin submitted his report, Mr. Charles Francis Adams
appears to have become disgusted with his own proposition for the
amendment of the Constitution. This disgust was caused by the
refusal of the Southern members of the committee to agree to the
declaration that "peaceful acquiescence in the election of the
Chief Magistrate, accomplished in accordance with every legal and
constitutional requirement, is the paramount duty of every good
citizen of the United States." The proposition of Mr. Adams to
this effect was amended by Mr. Millson of Virginia, who substituted
"high and imperative" for "paramount." But even in this modified
form, seven Southern members asked to be excused from voting upon
it, and Mr. Adams seems wisely to have thought that "if there could
not be agreement on a proposition so fundamental and essential as
that, it was of no use to seek any remedy for the existence of
evils by legislation of Congress." Mr. Adams, therefore, made a
report dissenting from the committee, stating that he had changed
his course, and now declined to recommend the very measures which
he had in good faith offered. This was on the 14th of January.
On the 31st of January Mr. Adams changed his course again, and
returned to the unqualified support of the measures proposed by
the committee. In his speech of that date, he asked, addressing
the South, "How stands the case, then? We offer to settle the
question finally in all of the present territory that you claim,
by giving you every chance of establishing Slavery that you have
any right to require of us. You decline to take the offer because
you fear it will do you no good. Slavery will not go there. Why
require protection where you will have nothing to protect? . . .
All you appear to desire it is for New Mexico. Nothing else is
left. Yet you will not accept New Mexico at once, because ten
years of experience have proved to you that protection has been of
no use thus far." These are somewhat extraordinary words in 1861
from a man who in 1850 had, as a Conscience Whig, declined to
support Mr. Webster for making in advance the same statements, and
for submitting arguments that were substantially identical.
During the debate, in which Mr. Adams arraigned the Disunionists
of the South with considerable power, he was somewhat embarrassed
by a Southern member who quoted resolutions which Mr. Adams had
introduced in the Massachusetts Legislature in 1844, and which had
been passed by that body, respecting the annexation of Texas. He
had declared therein, just as Josiah Quincy had declared with
reference to the acquisition of Louisiana, "that the power to unite
an independent foreign State with the United States is not among
the powers delegated to the General Government by the Constitution
of the United States." He declared, further, that "the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts, faithful to the compact between the people of
the United States, according to the plain meaning and intent in
which it was understood and acceded to by them, is sincerely anxious
for its preservation; and that it is determined, as it doubts not
other States are, to submit to undelegated powers in no body of
men on earth; and that the project of the annexation of Texas,
unless resisted on the threshold, may tend to drive these States
into a dissolution of the Union." This resolution of Mr. Adams
was unfortunate in every respect for his position in the debate on
that day, since it really included and justified every constitutional
heresy entertained by Mr. Calhoun, and claimed for the State of
Massachusetts every power of secession or dissolution which was
now asserted by the Southern States.
Mr. Webster, in one of his ablest speeches (in reply to Mr. Calhoun
in February, 1833), devoted his great powers to demonstrating that
the Constitution was not "a compact," and that the people of the
States had not "acceded" to it. Mr. Adams had unfortunately used
the two words which, according to Mr. Webster, belonged only to
the lexicon of disloyalty. "If," said Mr. Webster, "in adopting
the Constitution nothing was done but _acceding to a compact_,
nothing would seem necessary in order to break it up but to _secede
from the same compact_." "Accession," as a word applied to
political association, implies coming into a league, treaty, or
confederacy. "Secession" implied departing from such league or
confederacy. Mr. Adams had further declared that the people of
Massachusetts are "faithful to the compact according to the plain
meaning and intent in which it was understood by them." But
according to Mr. Webster, and in accordance with the principles
absolutely essential to maintain a constitutional government,
Massachusetts had no part or lot in deciding the question which
Mr. Adams's resolution covered. If Massachusetts reserved to
herself the right to determine the sense in which she understood
her accession to the compact of the Federal Government, she gave
full warrant to South Carolina to determine for herself the sense
of the compact to which she acceded, and therefore justified the
action of the Southern States. Whether Texas was constitutionally
or unconstitutionally annexed to the Union was no more to be decided
by Massachusetts than the constitutionality of the prohibition of
Slavery north of the Missouri line was to be decided by South
Carolina. The position of Mr. Adams in 1844 had therefore returned
to plague its inventor in 1861, and in a certain sense to weaken
the position of the loyal States.
REPORT OF COMPROMISE COMMITTEE.
Various reports were submitted by members of the minority, of no
special significance, differing often on immaterial points. The
members from California and Oregon who represented the Breckinridge
party of the North, united in a recommendation for a general
convention to be called under the authority of the Constitution,
to propose such amendments as would heal all existing differences,
and afford sufficient guaranties to the growing interests of the
government and people. The only bold words spoken were in the able
report by Cadwallader C. Washburn of Wisconsin and Mason W. Tappan
of New Hampshire. They made an exhaustive analysis of the situation
in plain language. They reviewed ably and conclusively the report
made by Mr. Corwin for the majority of the committee, and spoke as
became men who represented the justice and the power of a great
Republic. They vindicated the conduct of the General Government,
and showed that the Union was not to be preserved by compromises
nor by sacrifice of principle. They regarded the discontent and
hostility in the South as without just cause, and intimated that
those States might purchase at a high price some valuable information
to be learned only in the school of experience. They embodied
their entire recommendations in a single resolution in which they
declared that the provisions of the Constitution were ample for
the preservation of the Union; that it needed to be obeyed rather
than amended; and that "our extrication from present difficulties
is to be looked for in efforts to preserve and protect the public
property and enforce the laws, rather than in new guaranties for
particular interests, or in compromises, or concessions to unreasonable
demands."
When the report of the committee of thirty-three came before the
House for action, the series of resolution were first tested by a
motion to lay upon the table, which was defeated by a vote of nearly
two to one; and after angry debate running through several days,
the resolutions, which were only directory in their character, were
adopted by a large majority. When the constitutional amendment was
reached, Mr. Corwin substituted for that which was originally
draughted by Mr. Adams, an amendment declaring that "no amendment
shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to
Congress the power to abolish, or interfere, within any State, with
the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held
to labor or service by the laws of said State." This was adopted
by a vote of 133 to 65. It was numbered as the thirteenth amendment
to the Federal Constitution, and would have made slavery perpetual
in the United States, so far as any influence or power of the
National Government could affect it. It intrenched slavery securely
in the organic law of the land, and elevated the privilege of the
slave-holder beyond that of the owner of any other species of
property. It received the votes of a large number of Republicans
who were then and afterwards prominent in the councils of the party.
Among the most distinguished were Mr. Sherman of Ohio, Mr. Colfax,
Mr. C. F. Adams, Mr. Howard of Michigan, Mr. Windom of Minnesota,
and Messrs. Moorhead and McPherson of Pennsylvania. The sixty-five
negative votes were all Republicans whom the excitement of the hour
did not drag from their moorings, and many of whom have since done,
as they had done before, signal service for their party and their
country. Thaddeus Stevens was at their head, and he was sustained
by the two Washburns, by Bingham of Ohio, by Roscoe Conkling, by
Anson Burlingame, by Owen Lovejoy, by Marston and Tappan of New
Hampshire, by Galusha A. Grow, by Reuben E. Fenton, and by others
who, if less conspicuous, were not less deserving.
When the proposition reached the Senate, it was adopted by a vote
of 24 to 12, precisely the requisite two-thirds. Among those who
aided in carrying it were Hunter of Virginia, Nicholson of Tennessee,
Sebastian of Arkansas, and Gwin of California, who soon after
proceeded to join the Rebellion. Eight Republican senators, Anthony
of Rhode Island, Baker of Oregon, Dixon and Foster of Connecticut,
Grimes and Harlan of Iowa, Morrill of Maine, and Ten Eyck of New
Jersey, voted in the affirmative. Only twelve out of twenty-five
Republican senators voted in the negative. Mr. Seward, Mr. Fessenden,
Mr. Collamer, and others among the weightiest Republican leaders
are not recorded as voting. As pairs were not announced, it may
be presumed that they consented to the passage of the amendment.
Before the resolution could reach the States for concurrence, either
by convention or Legislature, the evidences of Southern outbreak
had so increased that all such efforts at conciliation were seen
to be vain, and in the end they proved hurtful. Only two States,
Maryland and Ohio, gave their assent to the amendment. In the New-
England States it was rejected, and in many it was not acted upon.
Whoever reads the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution as it
now stands, and compares it with the one which was proposed by the
Thirty-sixth Congress, will be struck with the rapid revolution of
public sentiment, and will not be at a loss to draw some useful
lessons as to the course of public opinion and the conduct of public
men in times of high excitement.
THE CRITTENDEN COMPROMISE.
The propositions of the committee of thirty-three to admit New
Mexico as a slave State, and to amend the Fugitive-slave Law, were
both passed by the House, but were defeated or not acted upon in
the Senate. In that body the efforts of the friends of conciliation
were mainly confined to the Crittenden compromise which has already
been outlined in the proceedings of the House. But for the eminent
respectability of the venerable senator from Kentucky, his propositions
would have had short consideration. They were of a character not
to be entertained by a free people. They dealt wholly in the
finding of new guaranties for slavery, without attempting to intimate
the possible necessity of new guaranties for freedom. Perhaps the
most vicious feature in this whole series of proposed amendments
to the Constitution was the guaranty of slavery against the power
of Congress in all territory of the United States south of 36° 30´.
This offered a premium upon the acquisition of territory, and was
an encouragement to schemes of aggression against friendly powers
south of the United States, which would always have had the sympathy
and support of one-half the Union, and could hardly have been
resisted by any moral power of the General Government. It would
have opened anew the old struggle for equality between free States
and slave States, and would in all probability have led the country
to war within three years from its adoption,--war with Mexico for
the border States of that Republic, war with Spain for the acquisition
of Cuba. This would have followed as matter of policy with Southern
leaders, whether they intended to abide in the Union, or whether
they intended, at some more advantageous and opportune moment, to
secede from it. If they concluded to remain, their political power
in the National Government would have been greatly increased from
the acquisition of new States. If they desired to secede, they
would have acquired a much more formidable strength and vastly
larger area by the addition of Southern territory to which the
Crittenden propositions would not only have invited but driven them.
While these propositions were under discussion, Mr. Clark of New
Hampshire offered as a substitute the resolution with which Messrs.
Washburn and Tappan had closed their report in the House,--a
resolution of which Mr. Clark was the author, and which he had
previously submitted to the consideration of the Senate. The test
question in the Senate was whether Mr. Clark's resolution should
be substituted for the Crittenden proposition, and this was carried
by a vote of 25 to 23. The twenty-five were all Republicans; the
twenty-three were all Democrats, except Mr. Crittenden of Kentucky
and Mr. Kennedy of Maryland, who had been supporters of Mr. Bell
in the Presidential election. It is a fact worthy of note that
six senators from the extreme Southern States sat in their seats
and refused to vote on the proposition. Had they chosen they could
have defeated the action. But they believed, with a certain
consistency and wisdom, that no measure could be of value to the
South unless it had the concurrence of senators from the North;
and with this motive they imposed upon the Republicans of the Senate
the responsibility of deciding the Crittenden proposition. It was
matter of congratulation with Republicans who did not lose their
judgment in that trying season, that the Senate stood firmly against
the fatal compromise which was urged by so many strong influences.
Much was forgiven for other unwise concessions, so long as this
was definitely rejected.
PROPOSITIONS OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE.
Meanwhile a body of men had assembled in the National Capital upon
the invitation of the State of Virginia, for the purpose of making
an earnest effort to adjust the unhappy controversy. The Peace
Congress, as it was termed, came together in the spirit in which
the Constitution was originally formed. Its members professed,
and no doubt felt, an earnest desire to afford to the slave-holding
States, consistently with the principles of the Constitution,
adequate guaranties for the security of their rights. Virginia's
proposition was brought to the National Capital by Ex-President
John Tyler, deputed by his State to that honorable duty. In response
to the invitation twenty-one States, fourteen free and seven slave,
had sent delegates, who assembled in Washington on the 4th of
February, 1861. After remaining in session some three weeks, the
Peace Congress submitted an article of amendment to the Constitution,
contained in seven sections, making as many distinct propositions.
--The first section restored the line of the Missouri Compromise
as it was before the repeal in 1854.
--The second provided that no further acquisition of territory
should be made except by the consent of a majority of all the
senators from the slave-holding States and a majority of all the
senators from the free States.
--The third declared that no amendment to the Constitution shall
be made interfering with Slavery in the States, nor shall Congress
prohibit it in the District of Columbia, nor interfere with the
inter-State slave-trade, nor place any higher rate of taxation on
slaves than upon land. At the same time it abolished the slave-
trade in the District of Columbia.
--The fourth provided that no construction of the Constitution
shall prevent any of the States aiding, by appropriate legislation,
in the arrest and delivery of fugitive slaves.
--The fifth forever prohibited the foreign slave-trade.
--The sixth declared that the amendments to the Constitution herein
proposed shall not be abolished or changed without the consent of
all the States.
--The seventh provided for the payment from the National Treasury
for all fugitive slaves whose recapture is prevented by violence.
These propositions met with little favor in either branch of Congress.
Mr. Crittenden, finding that he could not pass his own resolutions,
endeavored to substitute these, but could induce only six senators
to concur with him. In the House there was no action whatever upon
the report. The venerable Ex-President was chosen to preside over
the deliberations of the conference, but was understood not to
approve the recommendations. Far as they went, they had not gone
far enough to satisfy the demands of Virginia, and still less the
demands of the States which had already seceded. It is a curious
circumstance that one of the delegates from Pennsylvania, Mr. J.
Henry Puleston, was not a citizen of the United States, but a
subject of Queen Victoria, and is now (1884), and has been for
several years, a member of the British Parliament.
To complete the anomalies and surprises of that session of Congress,
it is necessary to recall the fact, that, with a Republican majority
in both branches, Acts organizing the Territories of Colorado,
Dakota, and Nevada were passed without containing a word of
prohibition on the subject of slavery. From the day that the
administration of Mr. Polk began its career of foreign acquisition,
the question of slavery in the Territories had been a subject of
controversy between political parties. When the Missouri Compromise
was repealed, and the Territories of the United States north of
the line of 36° 30´ were left without slavery inhibition or
restriction, the agitation began which ended in the overthrow of
the Democratic party and the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency
of the United States. It will therefore always remain as one of
the singular contradictions in the political history of the country,
that, after seven years of almost exclusive agitation on this one
question, the Republicans, the first time they had the power as a
distinctive political organization to enforce the cardinal article
of their political creed, quietly and unanimously abandoned it.
And the abandoned it without a word of explanation. Mr. Sumner
and Mr. Wade and Mr. Chandler, the most radical men in the Senate
on the Republican side, sat still and allowed the bill to be passed
precisely as reported by James S. Green of Missouri, who had been
the ablest defender of the Breckinridge Democracy in that body.
In the House, Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, Mr. Owen Lovejoy, the Washburns,
and all the other radical Republicans vouchsafed no word explanatory
of this extraordinary change of position.
COLORADO, DAKOTA, AND NEVADA.
If it be said in defense of this course that all the Territories
lay north of 36° 30´, and were therefore in no danger of slavery,
it only introduces fresh embarrassment by discrediting the action
of the Republican party in regard to Kansas, and discrediting the
earnest and persistent action of the anti-slavery Whigs and Free-
Soilers, who in 1848 successfully insisted upon embodying the Wilmot
Proviso in the Act organizing the Territory of Oregon. Surely, if
an anti-slavery restriction were needed for Oregon, it was needed
for Dakota which lay in the same latitude. Beyond doubt, if the
Territory of Kansas required a prohibition against slavery, the
Territory of Colorado and the Territory of Nevada, which lay as
far south, needed it also. To allege that they could secure the
President's approval of the bills in the form in which they were
passed, and that Mr. Buchanan would veto each and every one of them
if an anti-slavery proviso were embodied, is to give but a poor
excuse, for, five days after the bills received the Executive
signature, Mr. Buchanan went out of office, and Abraham Lincoln
was installed as President.
If, indeed, it be fairly and frankly admitted, as was the fact,
that receding from the anti-slavery position was part of the
conciliation policy of the hour, and that the Republicans did it
the more readily because they had full faith that slavery never
could secure a foothold in any of the Territories named, it must
be likewise admitted that the Republican party took precisely the
same ground held by Mr. Webster in 1850, and acted from precisely
the same motives that inspired the 7th of March speech. Mr. Webster
maintained for New Mexico only what Mr. Sumner now admitted for
Colorado and Nevada. Mr. Webster acted from the same considerations
that now influenced and controlled the judgment of Mr. Seward. As
matter of historic justice, the Republicans who waived the anti-
slavery restriction should at least have offered and recorded their
apology for any animadversions they had made upon the course of
Mr. Webster ten years before. Every prominent Republican senator
who agreed in 1861 to abandon the principle of the Wilmot Proviso
in organizing the Territories of Colorado and Nevada, had, in 1850,
heaped reproach upon Mr. Webster for not insisting upon the same
principle for the same territory. Between the words of Mr. Seward
and Mr. Sumner in the one crisis and their votes in the other,
there is a discrepancy for which it would have been well to leave
on record an adequate explanation. The danger to the Union, in
which they found a good reason for receding from the anti-slavery
restriction on the Territories, had been cruelly denied to Mr.
Webster as a justifying motive. They found in him only a guilty
recreancy to sacred principle for the same act which in themselves
was inspired by devotion to the Union.
It was certainly a day of triumph for Mr. Douglas. He was justified
in his boast that, after all the bitter agitation which followed
the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, the Republicans adopted
his principle and practically applied its provisions in the first
Territory which they had the power to organize. Mr. Douglas had
been deprived of his chairmanship of the Committee of Territories
by the Southern leaders, and his place had been given to James S.
Green of Missouri. His victory therefore was complete when Mr.
Seward waived the anti-slavery guaranty on behalf of the Republicans,
and when Mr. Green waived the pro-slavery guaranty on behalf of
the Breckinridge Democracy. It was the apotheosis of Popular
Sovereignty, and Mr. Douglas was pardonable even for an excessive
display of self-gratulation over an event so suggestive and so
instructive. Mr. Grow, the chairman of Territories in the House,
frankly stated that he had agreed with Mr. Green, chairman of
Territories in the Senate, that there should be no reference whatever
to the question of slavery in any of the Territorial bills. It
cannot be denied that this action of the Republican party was a
severe reflection upon that prolonged agitation for prohibition of
slavery in the Territories by Congressional enactment. A surrender
of the principle with due explanation of the reasons, properly
recorded for the instruction of those who should come after, would
have left the Republican party in far better position than did the
precipitate retreat which they made without a word of apology,
without an attempt at justification.
If receding from the anti-slavery creed of the Republican party
was intended as a conciliation to the South, the men who made the
movement ought to have seen that it would prove ineffectual. The
Republicans no more clearly perceived that they risked nothing on
the question of slavery in organizing those Territories without
restriction, than the Southern leaders perceived that they would
gain nothing by it. In vain is the net spread in the sight of any
bird. The South had realized their inability to compete with
Northern emigration by their experience in attempting to wrest
Kansas from the control of free labor. They were not to be deluded
now by a nominal equality of rights in Territories where, in a long
contest for supremacy, they were sure to be outnumbered, outvoted,
and finally excluded by organic enactment. The political agitation
and the sentimental feeling on this question were therefore exposed
on both sides,--the North frankly confessing that they did not
desire a Congressional restriction against slavery, and the South
as frankly conceding that the demand they had so loudly made for
admission to the Territories was really worth nothing to the
institution of slavery. The whole controversy over the Territories,
as remarked by a witty representative from the South, related to
an imaginary negro in an impossible place.
James Stephens Green, who was so prominent in this legislation,
who prepared and reported the bills, and who was followed by a
unanimous Senate, terminated his public service on the day Mr.
Lincoln was inaugurated. He was then but forty-four years of age,
and had served only four years in the Senate. He died soon after.
No man among his contemporaries had made so profound an impression
in so short a time. He was a very strong debater. He had peers,
but no master, in the Senate. Mr. Green on the one side and Mr.
Fessenden on the other were the senators whom Douglas most disliked
to meet, and who were the best fitted in readiness, in accuracy,
in logic, to meet him. Douglas rarely had a debate with either in
which he did not lose his temper, and to lose one's temper in debate
is generally to lose one's cause. Green had done more than any
other man in Missouri to break down the power of Thomas H. Benton
as a leader of the Democracy. His arraignment of Benton before
the people of Missouri in 1849, when he was but thirty-two years
of age, was one of the most aggressive and successful warfares in
our political annals. His premature death was a loss to the country.
He was endowed with rare powers which, rightly directed, would have
led him to eminence in the public service.
NORTHERN DEMORALIZATION.
It would be unjust to the senators and representatives in Congress
to leave the impression that their unavailing efforts at conciliating
the South were any thing more or less than a compliance with a
popular demand which overspread the free States. As soon as the
election was decided in favor of Mr. Lincoln, and the secession
movement began to develop in the South, tens of thousands of those
who had voted for the Republican candidates became affrighted at
the result of their work. This was especially true in the Middle
States, and to a very considerable extent in New England. Municipal
elections throughout the North during the ensuing winter showed a
great falling-off in Republican strength. There was, indeed, in
every free State what might, in the political nomenclature of the
day, be termed an utter demoralization of the Republican party.
The Southern States were going farther than the people had believed
was possible. The wolf which had been so long used to scare, seemed
at last to have come. Disunion, which had been so much threatened
and so little executed, seemed now to the vision of the multitude
an accomplished fact,--a fact which inspired a large majority of
the Northern people with a sentiment of terror, and imparted to
their political faith an appearance of weakness and irresolution.
Meetings to save the Union upon the basis of surrender of principle
were held throughout the free States, while a word of manly resistance
to the aggressive disposition of the South, or in re-affirmation
of principles so long contended for, met no popular response. Even
in Boston, Wendell Phillips needed the protection of the police in
returning to his home after one of his eloquent and defiant harangues,
and George William Curtis was advised by the Republican mayor of
Philadelphia that his appearance as a lecturer in that city would
be extremely unwise. He had been engaged to speak on "The Policy
of Honesty." But so great had been the change in popular feeling
in a city which Mr. Lincoln had carried by a vast majority, that
the owner of the hall in which Mr. Curtis was to appear, warned
him that a riot was anticipated if he should speak. Its doors were
closed against him. This was less than five weeks after Mr. Lincoln
was elected, and the change of sentiment in Philadelphia was but
an index to the change elsewhere in the North.
The South, meanwhile, had been encouraged in the work of secession
by thousands of Democrats who did not desire or look for the
dissolution of the Union, but wished to plot of secession to go
far enough, and the danger to the Union to become just imminent
enough, to destroy their political opponents. Men who afterwards
attested their loyalty to the Union by their lives, took part in
this dangerous scheme of encouraging a revolt which they could not
repress. They apparently did not comprehend that lighted torches
cannot be carried with safety through a magazine of powder; and,
though they were innocent of intentional harm, they did much to
increase an evil which was rapidly growing beyond all power of
control. As already indicated, the position of President Buchanan
and the doctrines of his message had aided in the development of
this feeling in the North. It was further stimulated by the
commercial correspondence between the two sections. The merchants
and factors in the South did not as a class desire Disunion, and
they were made to believe that the suppression of Abolitionism in
the North would restore harmony and good feeling. Abolitionism
was but another name for the Republican party, and in business
circles in the free State that party had come to represent the
source of all our trouble. These men did not yet measure the full
scope of the combination against the Union, and persisted in
believing that its worst enemies were in the North. The main result
of these misconceptions was a steady and rapid growth of strength
throughout the slave States in the movement for Secession.
ENACTMENT OF THE MORRILL TARIFF.
Fruitless and disappointing as were the proceedings of this session
of Congress on the subjects which engrossed so large a share of
public attention, a most important change was accomplished in the
revenue laws,--a change equivalent to a revolution in the economic
and financial system of the government. The withdrawal of the
Southern senators and representatives left both branches of Congress
under the control of the North, and by a considerable majority
under the direction of the Republican party. In the preceding
session of Congress the House, having a small Republican majority,
had passed a bill advancing the rate of duties upon foreign
importations. This action was not taken as an avowed movement for
protection, but merely as a measure to increase the revenue.
During Mr. Buchanan's entire term the receipts of the Treasury had
been inadequate to the payment of the annual appropriations by
Congress, and as a result the government had been steadily incurring
debt at a rate which was afterwards found to affect the public
credit at a critical juncture in our history. To check this
increasing deficit the House insisted on a scale of duties that
would yield a larger revenue, and on the 10th of May, 1860, passed
the bill. In the Senate, then under the control of the Democratic
party, with the South in the lead, the bill encountered opposition.
Senators from the Cotton States thought they saw in it the hated
principle of protection, and protection meant in their view, strength
and prestige for the manufacturing States of the North. The bill
had been prepared in committee and reported in the House by a New-
England member, Mr. Morrill of Vermont, which of itself was sufficient
in the eyes of many Southern men to determine its character and
its fate.
Mr. Robert M. T. Hunter of Virginia was at the time Chairman of
the Senate Committee of Finance. He was a man of sturdy common
sense, slow in his methods, but strong and honest in his processes
of reasoning. He advanced rapidly in public esteem, and in 1839,
at thirty years of age, was chosen Speaker of the House of
Representatives. He was a sympathizer with the South-Carolina
extremists, and coalesced with the Whigs to defeat the regular
Democrats who were sustaining the Administration of Mr. Van Buren.
In 1847 Mr. Hunter was chosen senator from Virginia, and served
continuously till the outbreak of the war. He was a conservative
example of that class of border State Democrats who were blinded
to all interests except those of slavery.
The true wealth of Virginia, in addition to her agriculture and in
aid of it, lay in her vast deposits of coal and iron, in her
extensive forests, in her unsurpassed water power. Her natural
resources were beyond computation, and suggested for her a great
career as a commercial and manufacturing State. Her rivers on the
eastern slope connected her interior with the largest and finest
harbor on the Atlantic coast of North America, and her jurisdiction
extended over an empire beyond the Alleghanies. Her climate was
salubrious, and so temperate as to forbid the plea always used in
justification of negro slavery in the Cotton States, that the white
man could not perform agricultural labor. A recognition of Virginia's
true destiny would point to Northern alliances and Northern
sympathies. Mr. Hunter's sympathies were by birth and rearing with
the South. The alliances he sought looked towards the Gulf and
not towards the Lakes. Any measure which was displeasing to South
Carolina or Alabama was displeasing to Mr. Hunter, and he gave no
heed to what might be the relations of Virginia with the New England,
Middle, and Western States. He measured the policy of Virginia by
the policy of States whose geographical position, whose soil,
climate, products, and capacities were totally different from hers.
By Mr. Hunter's policy, Virginia could sell only slaves to the
South. A more enlightened view would have enabled Virginia to
furnish a large proportion of the fabrics which the Southern States
were compelled to purchase in communities far to the north of her.
Mr. Hunter was no doubt entirely honest in this course. He was
upright in all his personal and political relations, but he could
not forget that he was born a Southern man and a slave-holder. He
had a full measure of that pride in his State so deeply cherished
by Virginians. At the outset of his public career he became
associated with Mr. Calhoun, and early imbibed the doctrines of
that illustrious senator, who seldom failed to fascinate the young
men who fell within the sphere of his personal influence.
Mr. Hunter therefore naturally opposed the new tariff, and under
his lead all action upon it was defeated for the session. This
conclusion was undoubtedly brought about by considerations outside
of the legitimate scope of the real question at issue. The struggle
for the Presidency was in progress, and any concession by the slave
States on the tariff question would weaken the Democratic party
in the section where its chief strength lay, and would correspondingly
increase the prestige of Lincoln's supporters in the North and of
Mr. Fillmore's followers in the South. Mr. Hunter had himself just
received a strong support in the Charleston convention for the
Presidency, securing a vote almost equal to that given to Douglas.
This was an additional tie binding him to the South, and he responded
to the wishes of that section by preventing all action on the tariff
bill of the House pending the Presidential struggle of 1860.
SENATE VOTES ON THE MORRILL TARIFF.
But the whole aspect of the question was changed when at the ensuing
session of Congress the senators and representatives from the Cotton
States withdrew, and betook themselves to the business of establishing
a Southern Confederacy. Mr. Hunter's opposition was not relaxed,
but his supporters were gone. Opposition was thus rendered powerless,
and the first important step towards changing the tariff system
from low duties to high duties, from free-trade to protection, was
taken by the passage of the Morrill Bill on the second day of March,
1861. Mr. Buchanan was within forty-eight hours of the close of
his term and he promptly and cheerfully signed the bill. He had
by this time become not only emancipated from Southern thraldom
but in some degree embittered against Southern men, and could
therefore readily disregard objections from that source. His early
instincts and declarations in favor of a protective policy doubtless
aided him in a conclusion which a year before he could not have
reached without a conflict in his Cabinet that would probably have
ended in its disruption.
The passage of the Morrill Tariff was an event which would almost
have marked an era in the history of the government if public
attention had not been at once absorbed in struggles which were
far more engrossing than those of legislative halls. It was however
the beginning of a series of enactments which deeply affected the
interests of the country, and which exerted no small influence upon
the financial ability of the government to endure the heavy
expenditure entailed by the war which immediately followed. Theories
were put aside in the presence of a great necessity, and the belief
became general that in the impending strain on the resources of
the country, protection to home industry would be a constant and
increasing strength to the government.
On the passage of the bill in the Senate, on the 20th of February,
the yeas were 25 and the nays 14. No Democratic senator voted in
the affirmative and no Republican senator in the negative. It was
not only a sharp division on the party line but almost equally so
on the sectional line. Mr. Douglas, Mr. Rice of Minnesota, Mr.
Latham of California, and Mr. Lane of Oregon were the only Northern
senators who united with the compact South against the bill.
Senators from Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas
were still taking part in the proceedings. Mr. Crittenden of
Kentucky and Mr. Kennedy of Maryland were favorable to the policy
of protection, but on this bill they withheld their votes. They
had not abandoned all hope of an adjustment of the Disunion troubles,
and deemed the pending measure too radical a change of policy to
be adopted in the absence of the senators and representatives from
seven States so deeply interested. Andrew Johnson of Tennessee,
sympathizing warmly with the Republicans on all questions relating
to the preservation of the Union, was too firmly wedded to the
theory of free-trade to appreciate the influence which this measure
would exert in aid of the national finances.
The test vote in the House was taken on the 27th of February, on
a motion made by Mr. Branch of North Carolina to lay the bill on
the table. Only 43 votes were given in favor, while 102 were
recorded against this summary destruction of the measure. The
sectional line was not so rigidly maintained as it was in the House.
Of the hostile vote 28 were from the South and 15 from the North.
The Virginia delegation, following Mr. Hunter's example, voted
solidly in opposition. The Southern men who voted for the bill
were in nearly every instance distinguished for their hostility to
secession. John A. Gilmer of North Carolina, Thomas A. R. Nelson,
and William B. Stokes of Tennessee, William C. Anderson, Francis
M. Bristow, Green Adams, and Laban T. Moore of Kentucky, separated
from their section, and in their support of a protective tariff
openly affiliated with the North.
The Morrill Tariff, as it has since been popularly known, was part
of a bill whose title indicates a wider scope than the fixing of
duties on imports. It provided also for the payment of outstanding
Treasury notes and authorized a loan. These additional features
did little to commend it to those who were looking to an alliance
with the Secessionists, nor did the obvious necessity of money for
the national Treasury induce the ultra disciples of free-trade in
the North to waive their opposition to a measure which distinctly
looked to the establishment of protection. It was a singular
combination of circumstances which on the eve of the Southern revolt
led to the inauguration of a policy that gave such industrial and
financial strength to the Union in its hour of dire necessity, in
the very crisis of its fate.
CHAPTER XIII.
Mr. Lincoln's Journey from Springfield to Washington.--Speeches on
the Way.--Reaches Washington.--His Secret Journey.--Afterwards
regretted.--Precautions for his Safety.--President Buchanan.--
Secretary Holt.--Troops for the Protection of Washington.--Inauguration
of Mr. Lincoln.--Relief to the Public Anxiety.--Inaugural Address.
--Hopefulness and Security in the North.--Mr. Lincoln's Appeal to
the South.--Fails to appease Southern Wrath.--Dilemma of the South.
--The New Cabinet.--The "Easy Accession" of Former Times.--Seward
Secretary of State.--Chase at the Head of the Treasury.--Radical
Republicans dissatisfied.--Influence of the Blairs.--Comment of
Thaddeus Stevens.--The National Flag in the Confederacy.--Flying
at only Three Points.--Defenseless Condition of the Government.--
Confidence of Disunion Leaders.--Extra Session of the Senate.--
Douglas and Breckinridge.--Their Notable Debate.--Douglas's Reply
to Wigfall.--His Answer to Mason.--Condition of the Territories.--
Slavery not excluded by Law.--Public Opinion in Maine, 1861.--Mr.
Lincoln's Difficult Task.--His Wise Policy.--His Careful Preparation.
--Statesmanship of his Administration.
When Southern confidence was at its height, and Northern courage
at its lowest point, Mr. Lincoln began his journey from Springfield
to Washington to assume the government of a divided and disorganized
Republic. His speeches on the way were noticeable for the absence
of all declaration of policy or purpose touching the impending
troubles. This peculiarity gave rise to unfavorable comments in
the public press of the North, and to unfounded apprehensions in
the popular mind. There was fear that he was either indifferent
to the peril, or that he failed to comprehend it. The people did
not understand Mr. Lincoln. The failure to comprehend was on their
part, not on his. Had he on that journey gratified the aggressive
friends of the Union who had supported him for the Presidency, he
would have added immeasurably to the serious troubles which already
confronted him. He had the practical faculty of discerning the
chief point to be reached, and then bending every energy to reach
it. He saw that the one thing needful was his regular, constitutional
inauguration as President of the United States. Policies both
general and in detail would come after that. He could not afford
by imprudent forwardness of speech or premature declaration of
measures to increase the embarrassment which already surrounded
him. "Let us do one thing at a time and the big things first" was
his homely but expressive way of indicating the wisdom of his
course.
A man of ordinary courage would have been overwhelmed by the task
before him. But Mr. Lincoln possessed a certain calmness, firmness,
and faith that enabled him to meet any responsibility, and to stand
unappalled in any peril. He reached Washington by a night journey,
taken secretly much against his own will and to his subsequent
chagrin and mortification, but urged upon him by the advice of
those in whose judgment and wisdom he was forced to confide. It
is the only instance in Mr. Lincoln's public career in which he
did not patiently face danger, and to the end of his life he
regretted that he had not, according to his own desire, gone through
Baltimore in open day, trusting to the hospitality of the city, to
the loyalty of its people, to the rightfulness of his cause and
the righteousness of his aims and ends. He came as one appointed
to a great duty, not with rashness, not with weakness, not with
bravado, not with shrinking, but in the perfect confidence of a
just cause and with the stainless conscience of a good man. Threats
that he never should be inaugurated had been numerous and serious,
and it must be credited to the administration of Mr. Buchanan, that
ample provision had been made for the protection of the rightful
ruler of the nation.
PATRIOTIC CONDUCT OF JOSEPH HOLT.
The active and practical loyalty of Joseph Holt in this crisis
deserves honorable mention. When, at the close of December, 1860,
he succeeded Mr. Floyd as Secretary of War, no troops were stationed
in Washington or its neighborhood. After consultation with General
Scott, then in command of the army, and with the full approval of
President Buchanan, Secretary Holt thought it wise to make precautions
for the safety of the National Capital. Seven companies of artillery
and one company of sappers and miners were accordingly brought to
Washington. This movement gave offense to the Southern men who
still remained in Congress, and Mr. Branch of North Carolina offered
a resolution declaring that "the quartering of troops around the
capital was impolitic and offensive," and that, "if permitted, it
would be destructive of civil liberty, and therefore the troops
should be forthwith removed." The House laid the resolution on
the table by a vote of 125 to 35. Ex-President Tyler had formally
complained to the President from the Peace Congress, that United-
States troops were to march in the procession which was to celebrate
the 22d of February. When so many of the Southern people were
engaged in seizing the forts and other property of the government,
it was curious to witness their uneasiness at the least display of
power on the part of the National Government.
The tone of Secretary Holt's report to the President in regard to
the marshaling of troops in the National Capital was a manifestation
of courage in refreshing contrast with the surrounding timidity.
He stated in very plain language that "a revolution had been in
progress for the preceding three months in several of the Southern
States;" that its history was one of "surprise, treacheries, and
ruthless spoliations;" that forts of the United States had been
captured and garrisoned, and "hostile flags unfurled from the
ramparts;" that arsenals had been seized, and the arms which they
contained appropriated to the use of the captors; that more than
half a million of dollars, found in the mint of New Orleans, had
been unscrupulously applied to replenish the treasury of Louisiana;
that a conspiracy had been entered into for the armed occupation
of Washington as part of the revolutionary programme; and that he
could not fail to remember that, if the early admonitions in regard
to the designs of lawless men in Charleston Harbor had been acted
on, and "adequate re-enforcements sent there before the revolution
began, the disastrous political complications which ensued might
not have occurred."
The inauguration of Mr. Lincoln was an immense relief to the country.
There had been an undefined dread throughout the Northern States,
colored and heightened by imagination, that Mr. Lincoln would in
some way, by some act of violence or of treachery, be deprived of
the Presidency, and the government thrown into anarchy. Mr.
Breckinridge was the Vice-President, and there had been a vague
fear that the count of the electoral votes, over which he presided,
would in some way be obstructed or tampered with, and that the
regularity of the succession might be interrupted, and its legitimacy
stained. But Mr. Breckinridge had performed his official duty with
scrupulous fidelity, and Mr. Lincoln had been declared by him, in
the presence of the two Houses of Congress, to be lawfully and
constitutionally elected President of the United States. Anarchy
and disorder in the North would at that time have proved so
advantageous to the leaders of Secession, that the apprehension
was firmly fixed in the Northern mind that some attempt would be
made to bring it about. The very fact, therefore, that Mr. Lincoln
was in possession of the office, that he was quietly living in the
Executive mansion, that the Senate of the United States was in
session, with a quorum present, ready to act upon his nominations,
imported a new confidence and opened a new prospect to the friends
of the Union.
The Inaugural address added to the feeling of hopefulness and
security in the North. It effectually removed every trace of
unfavorable impression which had been created by Mr. Lincoln's
speeches, and gave at once a new view and an exalted estimate of
the man. He argued to the South, with persuasive power, that the
institution of Slavery in the States was not in danger by his
election. He admitted the full obligation under the Constitution
for the return of fugitive slaves. He neither affirmed nor denied
any position touching Slavery in the Territories. He was fully
aware that many worthy, patriotic citizens desired that the National
Constitution should be amended; and, while he declined to make any
recommendation, he recognized the full authority of the people over
the subject, and said he should favor rather than oppose a fair
opportunity for them to act upon it. He expressed a preference,
if the Constitution was to be amended, for a general convention
rather than for action through State Legislatures. He so far
departed from his purpose not to speak of particular amendments as
to allude to the one submitted by the late Congress, to the effect
that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic
institutions of the States; and he said that, holding such a
provision to be now implied in the Constitution, he had no objection
to its being made express and irrevocable. He pleaded earnestly,
even tenderly, with those who would break up the Union. "In your
hands," said he, "my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in
mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will
not assail you. You can have no conflict without yourselves being
the aggressors. You can have no oath registered in heaven to
destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to
preserve, protect, and defend it. I am loath to close. We are
not enemies, but friends. Though passion may have strained, it
must not break, our bonds of affection."
While the effect produced by the Inaugural in the North was so
auspicious, no corresponding impression was made in the South.
Mr. Lincoln's concise and candid statement of his opinions and
purposes in regard to Slavery, his majestic and unanswerable argument
against Secession, and his pathetic appeal to the people and States
of the South, all alike failed to win back the disaffected communities.
The leaders of the Secession movement were only the more enraged
by witnessing the favor with which Mr. Lincoln's position was
received in the North. The declaration of the President that he
should execute the laws in all parts of the country, as required
by his oath, and that the jurisdiction of the nation under the
Constitution would be asserted everywhere and constantly, inspired
the doubting with confidence, and gave to the people of the North
a common hope and a common purpose in the approaching struggle.
The address left to the seceding States only the choice of retiring
from the position they had taken, or of assuming the responsibilities
of war. It was clear that the assertion of jurisdiction by two
separate governments over the same territory and people must end
in bloodshed. In this dilemma was the South placed by the Inaugural
address of President Lincoln. Mr. Buchanan had admitted the right
of Secession, while denying the wisdom of its exercise; but the
right when exercised carried jurisdiction with it. Hence it was
impossible for Mr. Buchanan to assert jurisdiction and attempt its
exercise over the territory and people of the seceding States.
But Mr. Lincoln, by his Inaugural address, set himself free from
all logical entanglements. His emphatic words were these: "I
therefore consider that, in view of the Constitution and the laws,
the Union is unbroken; and to the extent of my ability, I shall
take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me,
that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States.
. . . I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as
a declared purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend
and maintain itself."
THE CABINET OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.
Mr. Lincoln constituted his Cabinet in a manner at least unusual
if not unprecedented. It had been the general practice of Presidents,
from the first organization of the government, to tender the post
of Secretary of State to the man considered to be next in prominence
to himself in the party to which both belonged. In the earlier
history of the country, the expected successor in the Executive
office was selected. This was indeed for a long period so uniform
that the appointment to the State Department came to be regarded
as a designation to the Presidency. In political phrase, this mode
of reaching the coveted place was known as the "easy accession."
By its operation Madison succeeded Jefferson, Monroe succeeded
Madison, John Quincy Adams succeeded Monroe. After successful
application for a quarter of a century the custom fell into disfavor
and, by bitter agitation, into disuse. The cause of its overthrow
was the appointment of Henry Clay to the State Department, and the
baseless scandal of a "bargain and sale" was invented to deprive
Mr. Clay of the "easy accession." After a few years, when National
Conventions were introduced, it became the habit of the President
to tender the State Department to a leading or prominent competitor
for the Presidential nomination. Thus General Harrison offered
the post to Mr. Clay, who declined; and then to Mr. Webster, who
accepted. President Polk appointed Mr. Buchanan. President Pierce
appointed Mr. Marcy. President Buchanan appointed General Cass.
Following in the same line, Mr. Lincoln now invited his chief rival,
Mr. Seward, to the State Department. But his courtesy did not stop
there. He was generous beyond all example to his rivals. He called
Salmon P. Chase to the Treasury, appointed Simon Cameron to the
War Department, and made Edward Bates of Missouri Attorney-General.
These were the three who, next to Mr. Seward, received the largest
votes of the minority in the convention which nominated Mr. Lincoln.
The Cabinet was completed by the appointment of Gideon Welles of
Connecticut Secretary of the Navy, Caleb B. Smith of Indiana
Secretary of the Interior, and Montgomery Blair of Maryland Postmaster-
General.
The announcement of these names gave fair satisfaction to the party,
though the most advanced and radical element of the Republicans
regarded its composition with distrust. There had been strong hope
on the part of the conservative friends of the Union that some
prominent man from the Cotton States would be included in the
Cabinet, and overtures were undoubtedly made to that effect directly
after the election in November. But the rapidly developing revolt
against the Union made such an appointment undesirable if not
altogether impracticable. By the time of the inauguration it was
found that such an olive-branch from the President would exert no
influence over the wild passions which had been aroused in the
South. The name most frequently suggested was that of Mr. John A.
Gilmer of North Carolina, who was a sincere friend of the Union,
and did all in his power to avert a conflict; but his appointment
to the Cabinet would have destroyed him at home, without bringing
strength at that crisis to the National cause.
The opinions and characteristics of each member of the Cabinet were
very closely scanned and criticised. Mr. Seward was known to be
fully committed to the policy of conciliation towards the South,
and to the adoption of every measure consistent with the honor of
the country to avert war and induce the return of the seceding
States. Mr. Chase was understood to favor a moderate policy, but
did not go so far as Mr. Seward. Mr. Cameron sympathized with Mr.
Seward more than with Mr. Chase. Mr. Bates was extremely conservative,
but a zealous friend of the Union, and a lifelong disciple of Mr.
Clay. Mr. Welles was of Democratic antecedents, a follower of Van
Buren and Wright, an associate of John M. Niles, anti-slavery in
principle, a strict constructionist, instinctively opposed to Mr.
Seward, readily co-operating with Mr. Chase. His appointment was
a surprise to New-England Republicans who expected a much more
prominent member of the party to be called to the Cabinet. It was
understood that the selection was due to the counsel of Vice-
President Hamlin, who soon after had such serious differences with
Mr. Welles that a state of absolute non-intercourse existed between
them during the whole period of his incumbency of the Navy Department.
Mr. Caleb B. Smith had been prominent in the House of Representatives
when Mr. Lincoln was a member, had been popular as a public speaker
in the West, but had no aptitude for so serious a task as the
administration of a great department, and did not long retain his
position.
THE CABINET OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.
Mr. Blair was appointed as a citizen of Maryland. This gave serious
offense to many of Mr. Lincoln's most valued supporters, and was
especially distasteful to the Union men of Maryland, with Henry
Winter Davis at their head. They regarded Mr. Blair as a non-
resident, as not in any sense identified with them, and as disposed
from the outset to foment disturbance where harmony was especially
demanded. Mr. Bates had been appointed from Missouri largely by
the influence of Francis P. Blair, Jr.; and the border-State
Republicans were dissatisfied that the only two members of the
Cabinet from the slave States had been appointed apparently without
any general consultation among those who were best fitted to give
the President advice on so important a matter. The extreme men in
the Republican party, of the type of Benjamin F. Wade and Owen
Lovejoy, believed that the Cabinet was so constituted as to insure
what they termed "a disgraceful surrender to the South." It was
a common saying at the time in Washington, among the radical
Republicans, that Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet did not contain three as
absolute and strong defenders of the Union as Dix, Holt, and Stanton,
who had just retired with Mr. Buchanan. Thaddeus Stevens, with
his accustomed sharpness of speech, said the Cabinet was composed
of an assortment of rivals whom the President appointed from
courtesy, one stump-speaker from Indiana, and two representatives
of the Blair family.
In the seven States which constituted the original Southern
Confederacy, the flag of the United States was flying at only three
points on the day of Mr. Lincoln's inauguration. The army of the
United States still held Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston;
Fort Pickens, opposite the Pensacola Navy Yard; and Key West, the
extreme southern point of Florida. Every other fort, arsenal, dock-
yard, mint, custom-house, and court-house had been seized by the
Confederacy, and turned to hostile use. Fort Moultrie, Castle
Pinckney, and the United-States arsenal at Charleston had been
seized by the troops of South Carolina; Forts Jackson and Pulaski,
and the United-States arsenal at Augusta, by the troops of Georgia;
the Chattahoochee and St. Augustine arsenals and the Florida forts,
by the troops of that State; the arsenal at Baton Rouge, and Forts
Jackson and St. Philip, together with the New-Orleans mint and
custom-house, by the troops of Louisiana; the Little-Rock arsenal
by the troops of Arkansas; Forts Johnson and Caswell by the troops
of North Carolina; and General Twiggs had traitorously surrendered
to the State of Texas all the military stores in his command,
amounting in value to a million and a half of dollars. By these
means the seceding States had come into possession of all the
artillery, small arms, ammunition, and supplies of war needed for
immediate use, and were well prepared for the opening of the
campaign. On the part of the government there was no such preparation.
Indeed the government did not at that moment have twelve thousand
available troops against the most formidable rebellion in history.
Its whole navy could not make one large squadron, and its most
effective ships were at points remote from the scene of conflict.
The revenues of the country were not then yielding more than thirty
millions per annum, and the credit was so low that one per cent.
a month had been paid by the retiring administration for the funds
necessary to close its unfortunate career.
In view of all these facts, it cannot be matter of wonder that the
Disunion leaders in the South laughed to scorn any efforts on the
part of the Government of the United States to arrest their progress,
much less to subdue them, and enforce their return to the Union.
North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas had not yet
seceded. The Union sentiment was strong in each one of these
States, and the design of Mr. Lincoln was to pursue a policy so
mild and conciliatory as to win them to the side of the government.
Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri were excited by strong minorities
who desired to aid the South, while no strong element in their
population was ready to take decisive measures for the Union.
Palliation, conciliation, concession, compromise, were the only
words heard, and the almost universal opinion in the South, shared
largely by the North, was that to precipitate war would be to
abandon the last hope for restoration of the Union.
EXTRA SESSION OF THE SENATE.
The extra session of the Senate, called by Mr. Buchanan for the
convenience of the new administration, assembled on the 4th of
March. All the Southern States were represented in full except
those which had members in the Confederate Congress at Montgomery,
and from one of these--the State of Texas--both senators, John
Hemphill and Louis T. Wigfall, were present. Texas was indeed
represented in the Congress of the Confederate States at Montgomery
and in the Congress of the United States at Washington at the same
time. Some excuse was given for the continuance of the senators
by an alleged lack of completeness in the secession proceedings of
their State; but to the apprehension of the ordinary mind, a
secession that was complete enough to demand representation at
Montgomery was complete enough to end it at Washington. The Texas
senators, therefore, did not escape the imputation of seizing a
mere pretext for remaining at Washington somewhat in the character
of spies upon the new administration. John C. Breckinridge of
Kentucky and Thomas L. Clingman of North Carolina took the usual
oath to support the Constitution--Clingman for his second term,
Breckinridge for his first. Salmon P. Chase was sworn in as senator
from Ohio, and retired the next day to the Treasury Department.
John Sherman was his successor. Among the new senators who entered,
and who afterwards became conspicuous, were Howe of Wisconsin and
Baker of Oregon. The session was only for Executive purposes, and
of course possessed no legislative power; but the debates were of
interest and of value to the country.
Mr. Douglas, with the characteristic boldness of a leader and with
a patriotism which did him honor, defended the Inaugural address
of Mr. Lincoln against the assault of opposition senators. In
reply to Wigfall of Texas, who wished to know Douglas's views upon
certain points of policy, he said, "I do not choose to proclaim
what my policy would be, in view of the fact that the senator does
not regard himself as the guardian of the honor and the interests
of my country, but is looking to the interests of another which he
thinks is in hostility. It would hardly be good policy or wisdom
for me to reveal what I think ought to be our policy to one who
may so soon be in the councils of the enemy and in the command of
his armies." Being pressed by Wigfall to know what he would advise
the President to do in the critical condition of Fort Sumter,
Douglas sarcastically answered that he "should have no hesitancy
in replying to the senator from Texas if that senator held himself
bound by his oath to support the Constitution of the United States,
and to protect and aid the honor of the country instead of
communicating it to the enemy to be used against us." It was a
vast gain to the Union that Douglas spoke so boldly in defense of
Mr. Lincoln; and it was significant that Wigfall received imputations
upon his honor without threats of a duel, and without even using
the language of resentment.
Mr. Mason of Virginia came to the aid of Wigfall in the debate,
but fared badly at the hands of Douglas. He asked Douglas to define
what should be done in this crisis in regard to Fort Sumter. "If
the senator from Virginia," said Douglas, "had voted right in the
last Presidential election, I should have been, perhaps, in a
position to-day to tell him authoritatively what ought to be done.
Not occupying that position, I must refer the senator from Virginia
to those who have been intrusted by the American people, according
to the Constitution, with the decision of that question." The
speech of Wigfall had given great offense, and the castigation
administered by Douglas was heartily responded to throughout the
North. Wigfall had boasted that he owed no allegiance to the
government; that he was a foreigner and owed allegiance to another
government. On the next day, reciting these words as a preamble,
Mr. Foster of Connecticut moved "that Louis T. Wigfall be and hereby
is expelled from the Senate." Mr. Clingman of North Carolina moved
as a substitute a declaration that "Texas having seceded from the
Union, and being no longer one of the United States, is not entitled
to be represented in this body." After a brief debate, the
resolutions were referred to the Judiciary by the votes of Republican
senators, who, not wishing to precipitate any issue prematurely,
and persuaded that Wigfall's presence was helping rather than
harming the Union cause, concluded to let the matter rest.
BRECKINRIDGE AND DOUGLAS.
A notable debate took place between Breckinridge and Douglas, in
which the issues that had led to the disruption of the Democracy
in the late Presidential election were, in a certain sense, fought
over again. Mr. Breckinridge's speech was carefully prepared, and
presented the Southern side in a tone of dignity and confidence;
but the reply of Douglas exhibited his superiority as a debater.
Breckinridge had declared that whatever settlement be made of other
questions, there must be a concession to the South of the right to
emigrate into all the Territories, or at least an equitable partition
of the National Domain. In reply, Douglas reminded him that the
South had, by the action of a Republican Congress, the full right
to emigrate into all the territory of the United States; and that,
with the consent of the Republican Congress, every inch of the
territory of the United States south of the thirty-seventh degree
of latitude was at that hour open to slavery. "So far," said he,
"as the doctrine of popular sovereignty and non-intervention is
concerned, the Colorado Bill and the Nevada Bill and the Dakota
Bill are identically the same with the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and
in its precise language." The answer was at once a complete
destruction of the argument of Breckinridge, and a severe indictment
of the Republican party. Never before in the existence of the
Federal Government had its territory been so open, by Congressional
enactment and by judicial decision, to the slave-holder as on the
day that Abraham Lincoln assumed the office of President of the
United States. It is a singular fact that, on the eve of the utter
destruction of the institution of Slavery, its legal status was
stronger than ever before in the history of the government, and
the area over which it might lawfully spread was far larger than
at any previous period. Douglas showed in this debate how absolutely
groundless was the excuse of slave-holders for basing secession or
revolution upon the failure to acquire their rights in the Territories,
when never before had their rights in the Territories been so
absolutely complete.
Public opinion in March, 1861, was so unsettled, the popular mind
so impressible, that a spirit of discontent soon began to spread
over the loyal States on the part of those who had hoped for what
they termed a vigorous administration. For a few weeks the conduct
of the government fell under the animadversion of all classes in
the North. To those who wanted an instant settlement, and the
return of the seceding States upon their own terms, the administration
seemed too radical. To those who demanded that the flag be
maintained, and Fort Sumter promptly re-enforced, who would be
satisfied with nothing less than the recovery of every piece of
public property of which the Confederates had possessed themselves,
the administration appeared altogether too conservative. The
overwhelming public desire after all was for peace, and the
overwhelming public opinion was against the extremists who would,
by any possibility, precipitate war. The administration thus began
its career with no firm footing beneath it, with an aggressive and
defiant enemy in front of it, with a public opinion divided,
distrustful, and compromising, behind it.
No more difficult task has ever been presented to any government
than that which Mr. Lincoln and his Cabinet assumed in the month
of March, 1861. To judge it now by any appearance of irresolution,
or by any seeming deficiency of courage, would be trying it by a
standard totally inapplicable and unfair. Before and beyond all
things, Mr. Lincoln desired to prevent war, and he felt that every
day of peace gave fresh hope that bloodshed might be avoided. In
his Inaugural address he had taken the strongest ground for the
preservation of the Union, and had carefully refrained from every
act and every expression which would justify, even in the public
opinion of the South, an outbreak of violence on the part of the
Confederates. He believed that the Southern revolt had attained
its great proportions in consequence of Mr. Buchanan's assertion
that he had not power to coerce a seceding State. Mr. Lincoln had
announced a different creed, and every week that the South continued
peaceful, his hope of amicable adjustment grew stronger. He believed
that with the continuance of peace, the Secessionists could be
brought to see that Union was better than war for all interests,
and that in an especial degree the institution of Slavery would be
imperiled by a resort to arms. He had faith in the sober second-
thought. If the South would deliberate, the Union would be saved.
He feared that the Southern mind was in the condition in which a
single untoward circumstance might precipitate a conflict, and he
determined that the blood of his brethren should not be on his
hands.
STATESMANSHIP OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.
Mr. Lincoln saw, moreover, that war between a divided North and a
united South would be a remediless calamity. If, after all efforts
at peace, war should be found unavoidable, the Administration had
determined so to shape its policy, so to conduct its affairs, that
when the shock came it should leave the South entirely in the wrong,
and the government of the Union entirely in the right. Consolidated
as might be the front which the Rebellion would present, the
administration was resolved that it should not be more solid, more
immovable, more courageous, than that with which the supporters of
the government would meet it. Statesmanship cannot be judged upon
theories. It must be decided by results. When that conclusive
test is brought to bear, Mr. Lincoln's administration of the
government in the weeks immediately following his inauguration
deserves the highest praise; and all the more because it was
compelled to disregard the clamor and disappoint the expectations
of many who had been conspicuously influential in bringing it into
power, and who therefore thought themselves entitled to give
counsel.
CHAPTER XIV.
President Lincoln and the Confederate Commissioners.--Misleading
Assurance given by Judge Campbell.--Mr. Seward's Answer to Messrs.
Forsythe and Crawford.--An Interview with the President is desired
by the Commissioners.--Rage in the South.--Condition of the Montgomery
Government.--Roger A. Pryor's Speech.--President determines to send
Provisions to Fort Sumter.--Advises Governor Pickens.--Conflict
precipitated.--The Fort surrenders.--Effect of the Conflict on the
North.--President's Proclamation and Call for Troops.--Responses
of Loyal States.--Popular Uprising.--Democratic Party.--Patriotism
of Senator Douglas.--His Relations with Mr. Lincoln.--His Death.--
Public Service and Character.--Effect of the President's Call on
Southern States.--North Carolina.--Tennessee.--Virginia.--Senator
Mason's Letter.--Responses of Southern Governors to the President's
Call for Troops.--All decline to comply.--Some of them with Insolent
Defiance.--Governors of the Free States.--John A. Andrew, E. D.
Morgan, Andrew G. Curtin, Oliver P. Morton.--Energetic and Patriotic
Action of all Northern Governors.--Exceptional Preparation in
Pennsylvania for the Conflict.--Governors of Free States all
Republicans except in California and Oregon.--Critical Situation
on Pacific Coast.--Loyalty of its People.--President's Reasons for
postponing Session of Congress.--Election in Kentucky.--Union
Victory.--John J. Crittenden and Garrett Davis.--John Bell.--
Disappoints Expectation of Union Men.--Responsibility of Southern
Whigs.--Their Power to arrest the Madness.--Audacity overcomes
Numbers.--Whig Party of the South.--Its Brilliant Array of Leaders.
--Its Destruction.
The negotiation which the seceding State of South Carolina had
unsuccessfully attempted with President Buchanan, for the surrender
of Fort Sumter, was now formally renewed by the Confederate Government
with the administration of Mr. Lincoln. The week following the
inauguration, John Forsythe of Alabama and Martin J. Crawford of
Georgia appeared in Washington in the character of Commissioners
from the Confederate States, "with a view," as they defined it,
"to a speedy adjustment of all questions growing out of the political
separation, upon such terms of amity and good will as the respective
interests, geographical contiguity, and future welfare of the two
nations, may render necessary." They addressed their communication
to the Secretary of State as a matter pertaining to the Foreign
Department of the government, and waited with confidence for an
answer that would practically recognize the nationality which they
assumed to represent. Judge Campbell of the Supreme Court, a
citizen of Alabama, had held some conferences with Mr. Seward, the
result of which was his personal assurance to the Commissioners
that Fort Sumter would be evacuated before the 25th of March; and
he urged them not to insist upon too prompt an answer to their
demand. At his instance, the reply of Mr. Seward was withheld from
official delivery, and, though dated the 15th of March, was really
not read by the Commissioners until the 7th or 8th of April.
THE CONFEDERATE COMMISSIONERS.
Mr. Seward's answer threw the Commissioners and the entire South
into a rage. He declined to comply with the request of Messrs.
Forsythe and Crawford. He saw in them, "not a rightful and
accomplished revolution, not an independent nation with an established
government, but only the perversion of a temporary and partisan
excitement, and an inconsiderate purpose of unjustifiable and
unconstitutional aggression upon the rights and the authority vested
in the Federal Government." Mr. Seward further advised them that
he "looked for the cure of evils which should result from proceedings
so unnecessary, so unwise, so unusual, so unnatural, not to irregular
negotiations having in view untried relations, but to regular,
considerate action of the people of those States through the Congress
of the United States, and through such extraordinary conventions,
if there be need thereof, as the Federal Constitution contemplates
and authorizes to be assembled." Under these circumstances, Mr.
Seward informed the Commissioners that his official duties were
confined to the conduct of the foreign relations of his country,
and did not at all embrace domestic questions, or questions arising
between the several States and the Federal Government.
The Secretary of State was unable, therefore, to comply with the
request of Messrs. Forsythe and Crawford, and declined to appoint
a day on which they might submit the objects of their visit to the
President of the United States. He refused to recognize them as
diplomatic agents, and would not hold correspondence or further
communication with them. Lest the Commissioners might console
themselves with the reflection that Mr. Seward was speaking only
for himself, and that the President might deal with them less
curtly, he informed them that he had cheerfully submitted his answer
to Mr. Lincoln, who coincided in the views it expressed, and
sanctioned the Secretary's decision declining official intercourse
with Messrs. Forsythe and Crawford. The rejoinder of the Confederate
Commissioners to Mr. Seward was in a threatening tone, upbraiding
him with bad faith, and advising him that "Fort Sumter cannot be
provisioned without the effusion of blood;" reminding him also that
they had not come to Washington to ask the Government of the United
States to recognize the independence of the Confederacy, but for
an "adjustment of new relations springing from a manifest and
accomplished revolution."
Up to this time there had not been the slightest collision between
the forces of the Confederacy and the forces of the Union. The
places which had been seized, belonging to the Federal Government,
had been taken without resistance; and the authorities of Montgomery
appeared to a great many Southern people to be going through blank
motions, and to be aping power rather than exercising it. Their
defiant attitude had been demoralizing to the public sentiment in
the North, but their failure to accomplish any thing in the way of
concession from the National Government, and their apparent timidity
in refraining from a shock of arms, was weakening the Disunion
sentiment in the States which composed the Confederacy. Jefferson
Davis had been inaugurated with great pomp and pretension in
February, and now April had been reached with practically nothing
done but the issuing of manifestoes, and the maintenance of a mere
shadow of government, without its substance. The Confederates had
as yet no revenue system and no money. They had no armed force
except some military companies in the larger cities, organized long
before secession was contemplated. They had not the pretense of
a navy, or any power apparently to create one. While the administration
of Mr. Lincoln, therefore, was disappointing great numbers in the
North by its failure to do something decisive towards re-establishing
the National authority in the rebellious States, the inhabitants
of those States were becoming daily dissatisfied with the fact that
the administration of Mr. Davis was doing nothing to consolidate
and protect the Confederacy.
DISSATISFACTION WITH THE CONFEDERACY.
Ever since the inauguration of Jefferson Davis, the flag of the
United States had been flying over the strongest fortress in the
Confederacy, and no forcible effort had been made to displace it.
The first flush of joy and congratulation was over, and re-action
had begun throughout the revolting States. The Confederate Government
was reminded by many of the leading newspapers of the South that
unless some decisive step were taken to assert its authority and
establish its prestige, it would quietly crumble to pieces. The
apparent non-resistance of Mr. Lincoln's administration had, in
many minds, the effect of casting contempt upon the whole Southern
movement, and the refusal to recognize or receive commissioners of
Mr. Davis's appointment was regarded as a direct insult to their
government, which, unless met by some decisive step, would subject
the leaders to the derision of public opinion throughout the new
Confederacy. Mr. Buchanan had been willing to receive commissioners
from seceding States, so far as to confer with them, even when he
declared that he had no power to take any action in the premises.
Mr. Lincoln had advanced beyond the position of Mr. Buchanan when
he refused even to give audience to representatives bearing the
commission of the Confederate States.
The situation therefore had become strained. The point had been
reached where it was necessary to go forward or go backward; where
the Confederacy must assert itself, or the experiment of secession
be abandoned. From all quarters of the seven States came the demand
upon the Montgomery government to do something decisive. A prominent
member of the Alabama Legislature told Jefferson Davis that "unless
he sprinkled blood in the face of the Southern people they would
be back in the old Union in less than ten days." Public meetings
were held to urge the government to action. At Charleston, in
answer to a large crowd who came to pay him honor, Roger A. Pryor
(whose attractive eloquence has since been used to better ends)
told the people that only one thing was necessary to force Virginia
into the Southern Confederacy: "to strike a blow." That done, he
promised them that "Virginia would secede in less than an hour by
Shrewsbury clock."
The indifference of Mr. Lincoln's administration to the program of
the Southern Confederacy was apparent and not real. In his Inaugural
he had declared that the power confided to him would be used to
hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the
government, and to collect the duties and imposts, but, beyond what
was necessary for those objects, there would be no invasion, no
use of force against or among the people anywhere. Influential
persons connected with Mr. Lincoln's administration may have wavered
in regard to the expediency of re-enforcing Major Anderson and
holding possession of Fort Sumter, but the President himself wisely
concluded that to retreat from that point would be an almost fatal
step. There was not a citizen in the North who had not become
interested in the fate of Major Anderson and the brave soldiers
under his command. Though many patriotic men of conservative or
timid nature advised a quiet withdrawal from Fort Sumter rather
than an open conflict for its possession, there was an instinctive
undertone in the masses of the people in the Northern States against
a concession so humiliating. If prestige were needed for the
government at Montgomery, Mr. Lincoln felt that it was needed for
the government at Washington, and if he withdrew from Sumter he
could not see any point where he could make a stand.
The President determined, therefore, to send supplies to Major
Anderson. He wisely saw that if he failed to do this he would be
receding from the temperate and conservative position taken in the
Inaugural, and that it would give to the Confederates a degree of
courage, and to the North a degree of despondency, which would
vastly increase the difficulty of restoring the Union. In Mr.
Lincoln's own language: "the abandonment of Sumter would be utterly
ruinous, under the circumstances." . . . "At home it would discourage
the friends of the Union, embolden its adversaries, and go far to
insure to the latter a recognition abroad. In fact, it would be
our national destruction consummated." Having taken this determination,
he communicated it to Governor Pickens of South Carolina just at
the time that Mr. Seward delivered to the commissioners of Jefferson
Davis the government's refusal to receive them. The answer to the
commissioners, and the determination not to permit Anderson to be
starved out of Fort Sumter with the hostile guns of the Confederacy
pointed at him, brought on the conflict. As soon as the two events
were made public, the Confederate Secretary of War instructed
General Beauregard that if the information conveyed to Governor
Pickens was authentic, he should proceed to reduce the fort. The
conflict came on the 12th of April, and after a furious cannonade
of thirty-four hours, Major Anderson, being out of provisions, was
compelled to surrender. The fleet that was bringing him relief
arrived too late, and the flag of the United States was lowered to
the Confederacy. Those who had urged Mr. Davis to strike a blow
and to sprinkle blood in the faces of the people as a means of
consolidating Southern opinion, were undoubtedly successful.
Throughout the States of the Confederacy the inhabitants were crazed
with success. They had taken from the National Government its
strongest fortress on the South-Atlantic coast. They felt suddenly
awakened to a sense of power, and became wild with confidence in
their ability to defy the authority of the United States.
EFFECT OF FORT SUMTER'S FALL.
The Confederate Government, however, had not anticipated the effect
of an actual conflict on the people of the North. Until the hour
of the assault on Sumter they had every reason for believing that
Mr. Lincoln's administration was weak; that it had not a sustaining
force of public opinion behind it in the free States; that, in
short, Northern people were divided very much on the line of previous
party organizations, and that his opponents had been steadily
gaining, his supporters as steadily losing, since the day of the
Presidential election in November. The Confederates naturally
counted much on this condition of Northern sentiment, and took to
themselves the comforting assurance that vigorous war could never
be made by a divided people. They had treasured all the extreme
sayings of Northern Democrats about resisting the march of a Black
Republican army towards the South, and offering their dead bodies
as obstructions to its progress. They believed, and had good reason
for believing, that half the population of the North was opposed
to the policy of subjugation, and they accepted the creed of Mr.
Buchanan that there was no power in the Constitution to coerce a
sovereign State.
Never was popular delusion so suddenly and so completely dispelled.
The effect of the assault on Sumter and the lowering of the National
flag to the forces of the Confederacy acted upon the North as an
inspiration, consolidating public sentiment, dissipating all
differences, bringing the whole people to an instant and unanimous
determination to avenge the insult and re-establish the authority
of the Union. Yesterday there had been doubt and despondency; to-
day had come assurance and confidence. Yesterday there had been
division; to-day there was unity. The same issue of the morning
paper that gave intelligence of the fall of Sumter, brought also
a call from the President of the United States for seventy-five
thousand men to aid him "in suppressing combinations against the
law, too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial
proceedings." He notified the people that "the first service
assigned to the force hereby called forth will probably be to
repossess the forts, places, and property which have been seized
from the Union;" and he concluded by convening an extra session of
Congress to assemble on the fourth day of the ensuing July. The
President stated, in his Proclamation, that the laws of the United
States had been "for some time past opposed, and their execution
obstructed, in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama,
Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, by combinations too
powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial
procedure, or by the powers vested in the marshals by law." He
had therefore "called forth the militia to suppress such combinations,
and to cause the laws to be duly executed." He appealed to all
loyal citizens "to aid in maintaining the honor, the integrity,
and the existence of the National Union, and the perpetuity of
popular government." The Proclamation was general. The Call for
troops was issued specifically to every State except the seven
already in revolt.
The Proclamation was responded to in the loyal States with an
unparalleled outburst of enthusiasm. On the day of its issue
hundreds of public meetings were held, from the eastern border of
Maine to the extreme western frontier. Work was suspended on farm
and in factory, and the whole people were roused to patriotic ardor,
and to a determination to subdue the Rebellion and restore the
Union, whatever might be the expenditure of treasure or the sacrifice
of life. Telegrams of congratulation and sympathy fell upon the
White House like snow-flakes in a storm; and the President was made
to feel, after all the months of gloom and darkness through which
he had passed since his election, that light had broken, that day
had dawned, and that the open struggle for the Union, however severe
and however sanguinary it might prove, was preferable to the slough
of despond in which the nation had been cast, and the valley of
humiliation through which the government had been groping.
In the history of popular uprisings and of manifestations of National
enthusiasm, there is perhaps no equal to that which was seen in
the free States of the Union in the weeks immediately following
the rash attack on Fort Sumter. While the feeling was too deep to
brook resistance, or quietly to endure a word of opposition, it
was happily so tempered with discretion as to prevent personal
outrages upon the few who did not join in the general chorus for
the Union. Suspected men were waited upon and requested to speak
for the loyal cause, and newspapers, which before the firing of
Sumter had been offensive in tone, were compelled to hoist the
National flag over their offices, and openly support the government.
But these cases were few and exceptional; and it is due to the
Democracy of the North to say, that however strongly they had
opposed the election of Mr. Lincoln, and however hostile they had
been to the principles which he represented, the mass of the party
responded with noble enthusiasm and with patriotic fidelity to the
Union. Their great leader, Senator Douglas, set a worthy example
by promptly waiting on the President, and expressing his deepest
sympathy and his most earnest co-operation in the struggle for the
life of the nation.
PATRIOTIC COURSE OF MR. DOUGLAS.
The patriotic course of Mr. Douglas had been of invaluable service
to the government from the hour of Mr. Lincoln's inauguration.
The old friendship between the illustrious rivals from Illinois,
which had begun when each was in his youth, was now strongly revived.
Differing always on political issues, they were at once in accord
when the fate of the government was at stake. The position of
Douglas during the extra session of the Senate had given marked
satisfaction to Mr. Lincoln, and when the deliberations came to a
close, on the 28th of March, the President said that a great gain
had been made to the cause of the Union, by the direction which
the speeches of Douglas would give to the sympathy and action of
the Northern Democracy. From the hour of actual danger, Mr. Douglas
had spoken no partisan word, had known no partisan division, had
labored only for the government of the nation, had looked only to
its safety and its honor. He had a larger following than any other
party leader of his day. Nearly a million and a half of men believed
in his principles, were devoted to him personally, trusted him
implicitly. The value of his active loyalty to the Union may be
measured by the disaster which would have been caused by hesitation
on his part. When he returned to his State, after the firing on
Sumter, the Republican Legislature of Illinois received him with
a display of feeling as profound as that with which they would have
welcomed Mr. Lincoln. His address on that memorable occasion was
worthy of the loftiest patriot, and was of inestimable value to
the cause of the Union. Perhaps no words spoken carried confidence
to more hearts, or gave greater strength to the National cause.
Mr. Douglas did not live to return to the Senate. The extra session
of March closed his public service. He died in Chicago on the
third day of June, 1861, at the early age of forty-eight. His last
days were his best days. The hour of his death was the hour of
his greatest fame. In his political career he had experienced the
extremes of popular odium and of popular approval. His name had
at different periods been attended with as great obloquy as ever
beset a public man. It was his happy fate to have changed this
before his death, and to have secured the enthusiastic approbation
of every lover of the Union. His career had been stormy, his
partisanship aggressive, his course often violent, his political
methods sometimes ruthless. He had sought favor at the South too
long to regain mastery of the North, and he had been defeated in
the Presidential struggle of 1860,--a struggle in which the ambition
of his life had been centred. But with danger to the Union his
early affections and the associations of his young life had come
back. He remembered that he was a native of New England, that he
had been reared in New York, that he had been crowned with honors
by the generous and confiding people of Illinois. He believed in
the Union of the States, and he stood by his country with a fervor
and energy of patriotism which enshrined his name in the history
and in the hearts of the American people. His death created the
profoundest impression in the country, and the Administration felt
that one of the mighty props of the Union had been torn away.
The rank of Mr. Douglas as a statesman is not equal to his rank as
a parliamentary leader. As a statesman, he was full of resources,
fertile in expedients. But he lacked the truest form of conservatism,
and more than once in his career carried partisan contests beyond
the point of safety. His participation in the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise is an illustration, all the more pertinent and impressive
because his own judgment was against the measure, and he allowed
himself to be controlled by the fear that another might usurp the
place in Southern regard so long held by himself. In parliamentary
discussion it is not easy to overstate the power of Mr. Douglas.
Indeed, it would be difficult to name his superior. He did not
attain the dignity of Webster's stately style. He was not gifted
with the fire that burned through Clay's impulsive speech. But as
a ready, comprehensive speaker, armed at all points and using his
weapons with deadliest effect, he was the equal of either. In the
rapidity with which he marshaled the facts favorable to his position,
in the consummate skill with which he presented his argument, in
the dashing and daring manner by which he overcame an opponent more
strongly intrenched than himself, Mr. Douglas is entitled to rank
with the most eminent of parliamentary debaters.
ADDITIONS TO THE CONFEDERACY.
The effect of Major Anderson's surrender of Sumter and of the
President's call for troops proved prejudicial to the Union sentiment
in the slave States which had not yet seceded. It would be more
correct, perhaps, to say that Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation was a test
of loyalty which revealed the actual character of public sentiment
in those States, till then not known in the North. Mr. Lincoln
had done every thing in his power to conciliate them, and to hold
them fast in their loyalty to the Union. But the sympathy with
the South, engendered by the common danger to the institution of
Slavery, was too powerful to be resisted. North Carolina, which
had always been moderate, conservative, and Union-loving, threw
her fortunes with the Confederacy. Tennessee, distracted by the
unforeseen defection of such staunch Union men as John Bell and
Baillie Peyton,* went Southward with the general current. Virginia
could not be restrained, although she was warned and ought to have
seen, that if she joined the Rebellion she would inevitably become
the battle-ground, and would consign her territory to devastation
and her property to destruction. The Virginia convention which
was in session before the firing on Fort Sumter, and which was
animated by a strong friendship for the Union, was carried in to
the vortex of secession by the surrounding excitement. By a vote
of 88 to 55 the State determined to join the Confederacy. The
wonder is that in the prevailing excitement and arrogant dictation,
there could have been found fifty-five men to resist so powerful
a tide of public opinion. The minority was strong enough, however,
to command the submission of the ordinance to a vote of the people,
--a submission which was in form and not in substance, for in
reality no freedom of opinion was conceded.
The ordinance which was passed on the 17th of April, three days
after the fall of Sumter, declared that "it should take effect when
ratified by a majority of the votes of the people of the State,
cast at a poll to be taken thereon on the fourth Thursday in May."
The Convention did not submit its work to popular review and decision
in a fair and honorable way. Eight days after the act of submission,
the Convention passed another ordinance, by which Virginia agreed
"to adopt and ratify the Constitution of the Provisional Government
of the Confederate States." They provided that this second ordinance
should have no effect if the first should be rejected by the people.
It is not difficult to see that the action was taken in order to
render the rejection of the first ordinance impossible. Under the
second ordinance, the Convention at once entered into a formal
alliance, offensive and defensive, with the Confederate States.
Their Vice-President, Alexander H. Stephens, appeared in Richmond
as commissioner of his government, and the Convention appointed Ex-
President John Tyler, William Ballard Preston, James P. Holcombe,
and other leading citizens, as commissioners for Virginia. These
joint commissioners made a formal compact between Virginia and the
Confederate States on the 25th of April, the day after the Convention
had adopted the Confederate Constitution. By this compact, Virginia,
"looking to a speedy union with the Confederate States," placed
"the whole military force of the Commonwealth under the control
and direction of the Confederate States, upon the same basis and
footing as if said Commonwealth were now a member of said
Confederacy."
Without waiting for the decision of the people on the question of
secession, the national flag was removed from the public buildings,
and the Confederate flag was raised. All the property of the
General Government was seized and, by an article in the agreement
with the Confederate commissioner, was in due time to be turned
over to the Montgomery government. In short, the State Government
of Virginia proceeded in its mad career of hostility to the Union,
without the slightest regard to the future decision of the people
on the important issue which in form had been submitted to them.
They evidently intended to make a rejection of the Disunion ordinance
impossible. For their own honor, the man who contrived and guided
these proceedings would better have adopted the bold precedent of
those States which refused altogether to submit the ordinance to
popular vote.
It ought not to escape notice that General Robert E. Lee is not
entitled to the defense so often made for him, that in joining the
Disunion movement he followed the voice of his State. General Lee
resigned his commission in the army of the Union and assumed command
of Confederate troops, long before Virginia had voted upon the
ordinance of secession. He gave the influence of his eminent name
to the schemes of those who, by every agency, _fas aut nefas_, were
determined to hurl Virginia into secession. The very fact that
General Lee had assumed command of the troops in Virginia was a
powerful incentive with many to vote against the Union. Jefferson
Davis had anticipated and measured the full force of the effect
which would be produced upon Virginians by General Lee's identification
with the Confederate cause. Whether or not there be ground for
making General Lee the subject of exceptional censure, there is
surely none for excusing him as one who reluctantly obeyed the
voice of his State. If he had remained in the national army until
the people of Virginia voted on the ordinance of secession, the
strength of the Union cause in his State would have been greater.
If he had chosen, as a citizen of Virginia, to stand by the Union
until his State decided against him, secession might have been
defeated. It is fair that his action should be clearly understood,
and that his name should bear the just responsibility.
THE SECESSION OF VIRGINIA.
All pretense of a fair submission of the question to popular vote
was finally abandoned, and the abandonment practically proclaimed
in a letter of Senator James M. Mason, which was published on the
16th of May, some ten days in advance of the election. "If it be
asked," wrote Mr. Mason, "what those shall do who cannot in conscience
vote to separate Virginia from the United States, the answer is
simple and plain. Honor and duty alike require that they should
not vote on the question, and if they retain such opinions they
must leave the State." Mr. Mason thus accurately defined what the
South understood by the submission of secession ordinances to
popular vote. It meant that a man might vote for an ordinance but
not against it; if he desired to vote against it, and persisted in
the desire, he should leave the State. It is rather a matter of
surprise that of 161,000 votes cast in Virginia on the question,
32,000 were registered against secession. These friends of the
Government were, it is true, in large part from the western section
of the State where slaves were few and the loyal sentiment was
strong. It is an interesting fact that along the mountain range
through Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and even as far South
as Georgia, the inhabitants generally sympathized with the Union.
Though often forced to aid the Rebellion, they were at heart loyal
to the government of their fathers, and on many important occasions
rendered the most valuable service to the National cause. The
devotion of large numbers in East Tennessee to the Federal Government
seriously embarrassed the new Confederacy. The remaining slave
States, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, gave trouble to the
administration, but did not succeed in separating themselves from
the Union. Large numbers of their people joined the Southern army,
but the political power of those States was wielded in favor of
the loyal cause. They desired to enact the part of neutrals; but
the National Government, from the first, took strong ground against
a policy so dishonorable in the States, so injurious to the Union.
The responses made by the Southern governors to the President's
call for troops are so characteristic, and afford so true a picture
of the times, as to merit notice. Nearly every one returned a
scornful and defiant message. Governor Magoffin replied that
Kentucky "would furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing
her sister States of the South." Governor Letcher declared that
"the militia of Virginia would not be furnished to the powers at
Washington for any such use or purpose as they had in view, which
was the subjugation of the Southern States," and that "the civil
war which the powers at Washington had chosen to inaugurate would
be met by the South in a spirit as determined." Governor Jackson
considered "the call to be illegal, unconstitutional, and revolutionary;
its objects to be inhuman and diabolical," and it "would not be
complied with by Missouri." Governor Harris said that Tennessee
"would not furnish a single man for coercion, but would raise fifty
thousand men for the defense of her rights, and those of her Southern
brethren." Governor Ellis of North Carolina answered that he "could
be no party to the wicked violation of the laws of the country and
to the war upon the liberties of a free people." Governor Rector
declared that the President's call for troops was only "adding
insult to injury, and that the people of Arkansas would defend, to
the last extremity, their honor and their property against Northern
mendacity and usurpation." Governor Hicks for prudential reasons
excused Maryland at the time from responding to the President's
call, and when a month afterwards he notified the War Department
of his readiness to comply with the request of the Government, he
was informed that three-months' men were not needed, and that
arrangements had been made for accepting three-years' volunteers
from Maryland. Governor Burton of Delaware replied that "there
was no organized militia in the State, and no law authorizing such
organization." Indisposition to respond to the President was
therefore in different degrees manifest in every part of the Union
where Slavery had wrought its demoralizing influence. Mr. Lincoln
was disappointed at this proof of the sectional character of the
contest, and he realized that if American nationality was to be
preserved, it must look for help to the abounding resources and
the patriotic loyalty of the free States.
THE GOVERNORS OF LOYAL STATES.
It fortunately happened that the governors of the free States were
devoted to the Union in as great degree as the Southern governors
were devoted to the Confederacy. It may well be doubted whether
at any time in history of the government there had been so large
a number of able men occupying the gubernatorial chairs of the
Northern States. They were not only eminent in an intellectual
point of view, but they had a special fitness for the arduous and
patriotic duties so unexpectedly devolved upon them. They became
popularly known as the "War Governors," and they exercised a
beneficent and decisive influence upon the fortunes of the Union.
The Governor of Massachusetts, John A. Andrew, added fervor to the
patriotism of the whole people, and nobly led his State in her
generous outpouring of aid and comfort to the loyal cause. The
vigor which Massachusetts had imparted to the Revolution against
the Crown was surpassed by the ardor with which she now threw
herself into the contest for the Union. She had been often reproached
for urging forward the anti-slavery agitation, which was the excuse
of the South for rebelling against the National authority. A
somewhat similar accusation had been lodged against her by the
Royal Governors and by the Tories a century before. But the men
who found this fault with Massachusetts--a fault wholly on virtue's
side--will not deny that when the hour of trial came, when convictions
of conscience were to be maintained by the strength of the right
arm, and faith in principle was to be attested by a costly sacrifice
of blood, her sons added imperishable honor to their ancestral
record of heroism in the cause of human Liberty and Constitutional
Government.
The other New-England States were not less ardent than Massachusetts.
Israel Washburn, the Governor of Maine, impulsive, energetic,
devoted to the cause of the Union, was sustained by the people of
the State without regard to party and with the noblest enthusiasm.
William A. Buckingham of Connecticut, of mature years and stainless
life, was a young man once more when his country demanded his best
energies. The young Governor of Rhode Island, William Sprague,
laid aside the civilian's dress for the uniform of a soldier, and
led the troops of his State to the National Capital. Ichabod
Goodwin of New Hampshire and Erastus Fairbanks of Vermont, two of
their most honored and useful men, filled out the list of New
England's worthy Executives. Throughout the six States there was
but one anxiety, one resolve,--anxiety for the safety of the
government, resolve to subdue the revolt against it.
New England is not mentioned first except in a geographical sense.
More important even than her patriotic action was the course of
the great Central and Western States. New York and Pennsylvania
of themselves constituted no mean power, with a population of seven
millions, with their boundless wealth, and their ability to produce
the material of war. Edwin D. Morgan was the Executive of New
York. He was a successful merchant of high character, of the
sturdiest common sense and soundest judgment. A man of wealth
himself, he possessed the entire confidence of the bankers and
capitalists of the metropolis. His influence in aid of the finances
of the government in its early period of depression was given
without stint and was of incalculable value. In the neighboring
State of New Jersey, Governor Charles Olden was ready for hearty
co-operation, and seconded with patriotic zeal every movement in
aid of the loyal cause.
Of a different type from Governor Morgan, but equally valuable and
more enthusiastic, was the Governor of Pennsylvania, Andrew G.
Curtin. Circumstances had thrown him into close and cordial
relations with Mr. Lincoln,--relations which had their origin at
the time of the Chicago Convention, and which had grown more intimate
after Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated. Before the firing on Sumter,
but when the States of the Confederacy were evidently preparing
for war, Mr. Lincoln earnestly desired a counter signal of readiness
on the part of the North. Such a movement in New England would
have been regarded in the South merely as a fresh ebullition of
radicalism. In New York the tone was too conservative and Governor
Morgan too cautious to permit the demonstration to be made there.
Governor Curtin undertook to do it in Pennsylvania at the President's
special request. On the eleventh day of April, one day before the
South precipitated the conflict, the Legislature of Pennsylvania
passed an Act for the better organization of the militia, and
appropriated five hundred thousand dollars to carry out the details
of the measure. The manifest reference to the impending trouble
was in the words prescribing the duty of the Adjutant-General of
the State in case the President should call out the militia. It
was the first official step in the loyal States to defend the Union,
and the generous appropriation, made in advance of any blow struck
by the Confederacy, enabled Governor Curtin to rally the forces of
the great Commonwealth to the defense of the Union with marvelous
promptness. His administration was vigorous, and his support of
the Union cause was in the highest degree efficient, patriotic,
and successful. He attained an exceptional popularity with the
soldiers, and against the most bitter attacks never lost his hold
on the confidence and personal regard of Mr. Lincoln.
GOVERNORS OF LOYAL STATES.
In the West the commanding figure among a number of distinguished
Executives was Oliver P. Morton of Indiana. He was of stalwart
frame, full health, and the highest physical vigor. His energy
was untiring, his will unconquerable. In the closely balanced
condition of parties in his State, he had been trained to the most
aggressive and exacting form of leadership, so that he entered upon
his gubernatorial duties with a certain experience in the control
of men which was of marked value. He possessed a mind of extraordinary
strength; and in frequent contests at the bar and upon the stump,
he had thoroughly disciplined his faculties. In debate he was
formidable. It cannot be said that he exhibited striking originality
of thought, or that he possessed in large degree the creative power.
But in the art of presenting with force and clearness a subject
which he had studied, of analyzing it and simplifying it to the
comprehension of the common mind, of clothing it in language as
plain and forcible as the diction of John Bunyan, he has had few
equals among the public men of America.
The Governor of Iowa was Samuel J. Kirkwood, a man of truth, courage,
and devoted love of country. Distinguished for comprehensive
intelligence, for clear foresight, for persuasive speech, for
spotless integrity, for thorough acquaintance with the people, he
was a model of executive efficiency. Alexander Ramsey, the first
governor of the Territory of Minnesota, was now governor of that
State. As strong in character as he was in popularity, as able as
he was patriotic, he broadened by his executive career a personal
fame already enviable. Austin Blair of Michigan was a worthy
compeer of these eminent officials, and administered his high trust
with honor to himself and with advantage to his country. Richard
Yates of Illinois had been chosen governor the day Mr. Lincoln was
elected President, and enjoyed an exceptional popularity with the
people of his State. William Dennison had succeeded Salmon P.
Chase in the gubernatorial chair of Ohio, and was unremitting in
his labor for the Union. Alexander W. Randall of Wisconsin had
contributed in no small degree by public and attractive speech to
the triumph of Mr. Lincoln, and was now intrusted with an important
duty, to which he gave himself with genuine zeal.
In these sixteen States--all the non-slaveholding Commonwealths
east of the Rocky Mountains--the governors were members of the
Republican party. They were in political accord, and in complete
personal sympathy with the administration. This was regarded by
Mr. Lincoln as not in all respects a fortunate circumstance. It
was his belief, as it was the belief of many others, that if loyal
Democrats had been in the executive chairs of some of the largest
States, the effect would have been more impressive. It would have
suggested a more absolute unity of the Northern people in support
of the government. It would in some degree have relieved the
struggle for national life from the opprobrium contained in the
reproach which subsequently became too common, that after all it
was "a Republican war," waged merely for the abolition of slavery.
The two States on the Pacific coast had Democratic governors, and,
by reason of the strong influence which the Southern Democrats had
exercised in both under the influence of William M. Gwin and Joseph
Lane, there was deep solicitude as to the course of event in that
important outpost of the Union. The loyal adherence of those States
to the National Government was a profound disappointment to the
Confederacy. Jefferson Davis had expected, with a confidence
amounting to certainty, and based, it is believed, on personal
pledges, that the Pacific Coast, if it did not actually join the
South, would be disloyal to the Union, and would, from its remoteness
and its superlative importance, require a large contingent of the
national forces to hold it in subjection. It was expected by the
South that California and Oregon would give at least as much trouble
as Kentucky and Missouri, and would thus indirectly but powerfully
aid the Southern cause. The enthusiastic devotion which these
distant States showed to the Union was therefore a surprise to the
South and a most welcome relief to the National Government. The
loyalty of the Pacific Coast was in the hearts of its people, but
it was made more promptly manifest and effective by the patriotic
conduct of Governor Downey and Governor Whittaker, and by the fervid
and persuasive eloquence of Thomas Starr King.
The war wrought a great change in the relative position of parties
in California. In the autumn of 1861 the Republican candidate,
Leland Stanford, was chosen Governor of the State. He received
56,036 votes, while John Conness, a war Democrat, received 30,944,
and McConnell who was the representative of the Gwin Democracy,
which had so long controlled the State, received 32,750. The men
who supported Conness, if driven to the choice, would have supported
Stanford as against McConnell, thus showing the overwhelming
sentiment of California in favor of the Union. Two years before,
in the election of 1859, Mr. Stanford, as the Republican candidate,
received but 10,110 votes, while Milton S. Latham, representing
the Buchanan administration, received 62,255, and Curry, the Douglas
candidate, 31,298. The majority of the Douglas men, if forced to
choose, would have voted for Latham as against Stanford. In the
Presidential election of 1860 California gave Mr. Lincoln 38,734
votes, Mr. Douglas 38,120, Mr. Breckinridge 33,975, Mr. Bell 9,136.
The vote which Governor Stanford received in September, 1861, shows
how rapid, radical, and complete was the political revolution caused
in California by the Southern Rebellion.
THE ELECTION IN KENTUCKY.
In the eager desire of the loyal people to hasten all measures of
preparation for the defense of the Union, fault was found with Mr.
Lincoln for so long postponing the session of Congress. Between
the date of his proclamation and the date of the assembling of
Congress, eighty days were to elapse. Zealous and impatient
supporters of the loyal cause feared that the Confederacy would be
enabled to consolidate its power, and to gather its forces for a
more serious conflict than they could make if more promptly confronted
with the power of the Union. But Mr. Lincoln judged wisely that
time was needed for the growth and consolidation of Northern opinion,
and that senators and representatives, after the full development
of patriotic feeling in the free States, would meet in a frame of
mind better suited to the discharge of the weighty duties devolving
upon them. An additional and conclusive reason with the President
was, that Kentucky had not yet elected her representatives to the
Thirty-seventh Congress, and would not do so, under the constitution
and laws, until the ensuing August. Mr. Lincoln desired to give
ample time for canvassing Kentucky for the special election, which
was immediately ordered by the governor of the State for the
twentieth of June. From the first, Mr. Lincoln had peculiar interest
in the course and conduct of Kentucky. It was his native State,
and Mr. Clay had been his political exemplar and ideal. He believed
also that in the action of her people would be found the best index
and the best test of the popular opinion of the Border slave States.
He did every thing therefore that he could properly do, to aid
Kentucky in reaching a conclusion favorable to the Union. He was
rewarded with a great victory. Of the ten representatives chosen,
nine were decided friends of the Union, with the venerable Crittenden
at their head, ably seconded by Robert Mallory and William H.
Wadsworth. Only one member, Henry C. Burnett, was disloyal to the
government, and he, after a few months' tarry in the Union councils,
went South and joined the Rebellion. The popular vote showed 92,365
for the Union candidates, and 36,995 for the Secession candidates,
giving a Union majority of more than 55,000. Mr. Lincoln regarded
the result in Kentucky as in the highest degree auspicious, and as
amply vindicating the wisdom of delaying the extra session of
Congress. The effect was to stimulate a rapidly developing loyalty
in the western part of Virginia, to discourage rebellious movements
in Missouri, and to arrest Disunion tendencies in Maryland.
Under the protection of the administration, and inspired by the
confidence of its support, the Union men of Kentucky had done for
that State what her Union men might have done for Tennessee if John
Bell and his Whig associates had been as bold and as true to their
old principles and John J. Crittenden and Garrett Davis had proved
in Kentucky. The conduct of Mr. Bell was a sad surprise to his
Northern friends, and a keen mortification to those Southern Whigs
who had remained firm in their attachment to the Union. The vote
which he had received in the South at the Presidential election
was very nearly as large as that given to Breckinridge. The vote
of Bell and Douglas united, exceeded that given to Breckinridge in
the slave States by more than a hundred thousand. The popular
judgment in the North had been that the Disunion element in the
South was massed in support of Breckinridge, and that all who
preferred the candidacy of Bell or Douglas might be relied upon in
the supreme crisis as friends of the Union. Two Southern States,
Kentucky and Tennessee, had given popular majorities for Mr. Bell,
and there was no reason for supposing that the Union sentiment of
Tennessee was any less pronounced than that of Kentucky. Indeed,
Tennessee had the advantage of Mr. Bell's citizenship and long
identification with her public service, while Kentucky encountered
the personal influence and wide-spread popularity of Mr. Breckinridge,
who took part against the Union.
If Mr. Bell had taken firm ground for the Union, the Secession
movement would have been to a very great extent paralyzed in the
South. Mr. Badger of North Carolina, of identically similar
principles with Crittenden, could have given direction to the old
Whig sentiment of his State, and could have held it steadily as
Kentucky was held to the Union. The Bell and Everett campaign had
been conducted upon the single and simple platform of the Union
and the Constitution,--devotion to the Union, obedience to the
Constitution. Mr. Everett, whose public life of grace, eloquence,
and purity had not been especially distinguished for courage,
pronounced with zeal and determination in favor of Mr. Lincoln's
administration, and lent his efforts on the stump to the cause of
the Union with wonderful effect through the Northern States. The
eagerness of Virginia Democrats never could have swept their State
into the whirlpool of Secession if the supporters of Mr. Bell in
Tennessee and North Carolina had thrown themselves between the Old
Dominion and the Confederacy. With that aid, the former Whigs of
Virginia, led by Stuart and Botts and Wickham and Baldwin, and
united with the loyal Democrats of the mountain and the valley,
could have held the State firmly to the support of the Union, and
could have effectively nullified the secret understanding between
Mr. Mason and the Montgomery government, that Virginia should secede
as soon as her open co-operation was needed for the success of the
Southern revolt.
THE WHIGS OF THE SOUTH.
A large share of the responsibility for the dangerous development
of the Rebellion must therefore be attributed to John Bell and his
half million Southern supporters, who were all of the old Whig
party. At the critical moment they signally failed to vindicate
the principles upon which they had appealed in the preceding canvass
for popular support. They are not justly chargeable with original
Disunion proclivities. Sentiments of that kind had been consolidated
in the Breckinridge party. But they are responsible for permitting
a party whose rank and file did not outnumber their own to lead
captive the public opinion of the South, and for permitting themselves
to be pressed into a disavowal of their political principles, and
to the adoption of the extreme views against which they had always
warred. The precipitate manner in which the Southern men of the
ancient Whig faith yielded their position as friends of the Union
was an instructive illustration of the power which a compact and
desperate minority can wield in a popular struggle. In a secret
ballot, where every man could have voted according to his own
convictions and desires, the Secession scheme would have been
defeated in Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and
Arkansas. But the men who led the Disunion movement, understood
the practical lesson taught by the French revolutionist, that
"audacity" can overcome numbers. In such a contest conservatism
always goes down, and radicalism always triumphs. The conservative
wishes to temporize and to debate. The radical wishes to act, and
is ready to shoot. By reckless daring a minority of Southern men
raised a storm of sectional passion to which the friends of the
Union bowed their heads and surrendered.
It would be incorrect to speak of a Whig party in the South at the
outbreak of the civil war. There were many Whigs, but their
organization was gone. It was the destruction of that party which
had prepared the way for a triumph of the Democratic Disunionists.
In the day of their strength the Whigs could not have been overborne
in the South by the Secessionists, nor would the experiment have
been tried. No party in the United States ever presented a more
brilliant array of talent than the Whigs. In the South, though
always resting under the imputation of not being so devoted to the
support of Slavery as their opponents, they yet maintained themselves,
by the power of intellect and by the prestige of chivalric leadership,
in some extraordinary political battles. Many of their eminent
men have a permanent place in our history. Others, with less
national renown, were recognized at home as possessing equal power.
In their training, in their habits of mind, in their pride and
independence, in their lack of discipline and submission, they were
perhaps specially fitted for opposition, and not so well adapted
as men of less power, to the responsibility and detail of
administration. But an impartial history of American statesmanship
will give some of the most brilliant chapters to the Whig party
from 1830 to 1850. If their work cannot be traced in the National
statute-books as prominently as that of their opponents, they will
be credited by the discriminating reader of our political annals
as the English of to-day credit Charles James Fox and his Whig
associates--for the many evils which they prevented.
[* Baillie Peyton is erroneously described as uniting with the
South. He remained true to the Union throughout the contest.]
CHAPTER XV.
Thirty-Seventh Congress assembles.--Military Situation.--List of
Senators: Fessenden, Sumner, Collamer, Wade, Chandler, Hale,
Trumbull, Breckinridge, Baker of Oregon.--List of Members of the
House of Representatives: Thaddeus Stevens, Crittenden, Lovejoy,
Washburne, Bingham, Conkling, Shellabarger.--Mr. Grow elected
Speaker.--Message of President Lincoln.--Its Leading Recommendations.
--His Account of the Outbreak of the Rebellion.--Effect of the
Message on the Northern People.--Battle of Bull Run.--Its Effect
on Congress and the Country.--The Crittenden Resolution adopted.--
Its Significance.--Interesting Debate upon it in the Senate.--First
Action by Congress Adverse to Slavery.--Confiscation of Certain
Slaves.--Large Amount of Business dispatched by Congress.--Striking
and Important Debate between Baker and Breckinridge.--Expulsion of
Mr. Breckinridge from the Senate.--His Character.--Credit due to
Union Men of Kentucky.--Effect produced in the South of Confederate
Success at Bull Run.--Rigorous Policy adopted by the Confederate
Government.--Law respecting "Alien Enemies."--Law sequestrating
their Estates.--Rigidly enforced by Attorney-General Benjamin.--An
Injudicious Policy.
The Thirty-seventh Congress assembled according to the President's
proclamation, on the fourth day of July, 1861. There had been no
ebb in the tide of patriotic enthusiasm which overspread the loyal
States after the fall of Sumter. Mr. Lincoln's sagacity in fixing
the session so late had apparently been well approved. The temper
of the senators and representatives as they came together could
not have been better for the great work before them. Startling
events, following each other thick and fast, had kept the country
in a state of absorbing excitement, and Congress saw around it on
every side the indications of a sanguinary struggle to come. Even
after the firing on Sumter, anxious and thoughtful men had not
given up all hope of an adjustment. The very shock of arms in the
harbor of Charleston, it was believed by many, might upon sober
second thought induce Southern men to pause and consider and
negotiate before taking the fatal plunge. Such expectations were
vain. The South felt that their victory was pre-ordained. Jefferson
Davis answered Mr. Lincoln's call for seventy-five thousand men by
a proclamation ordering the enlistment of one hundred thousand.
The Confederacy was growing in strength daily. State after State
was joining it, and energy and confidence prevailed throughout all
its borders. The situation grew every day more embarrassing and
more critical. Without waiting for the action of Congress, Mr.
Lincoln had called for forty-two thousand additional volunteers,
and added eleven new regiments, numbering some twenty-two thousand
men, to the regular army. A blockade of the Southern ports had
been ordered on the 19th of April, and eighteen thousand men had
been added to the navy.
No battle of magnitude or decisive character had been fought when
Congress assembled; but there had been activity on the skirmish
line of the gathering and advances forces and, at many points,
blood collision. In Baltimore, on the historic 19th of April, the
mob had endeavored to stop the march of Massachusetts troops hurrying
to the protection of the National Capital. In Missouri General
Nathaniel Lyon had put to flight the disloyal governor, and
established the supremacy of National authority. In Western Virginia
General McClellan had met with success in some minor engagements,
and on the upper Potomac the forces under General Robert Patterson
had gained some advantages. A reverse of no very serious character
had been experienced at Big Bethel, near Hampton Roads, by the
troops under General Benjamin F. Butler. General Robert C. Schenck,
in command of a small force, had met with a repulse a few miles
from Washington, near Vienna in the State of Virginia. These
incidents were not in themselves of special importance, but they
indicated an aggressive energy on the part of the Confederates,
and foreshadowed the desperate character which the contest was
destined to assume. Congress found itself legislating in a fortified
city, with patrols of soldiers on the streets and with a military
administration which had practically superseded the civil police
in the duty of maintaining order and protecting life. The situation
was startling and serious, and for the first time people began to
realize that we were to have a war with bloody fighting and much
suffering, with limitless destruction of property, with costly
sacrifice of life.
UNITED-STATES SENATORS.
The spirit in both branches of Congress was a fair reflection of
that which prevailed in the North. Andrew Johnson of Tennessee
was the only senator who appeared from the eleven seceding States.
John C. Breckinridge was present from Kentucky, somewhat mortified
by the decisive rebuke which he had received in the vote of his
State. The first important act of the Senate was the seating of
James H. Lane and Samuel C. Pomeroy as senators from the new State
of Kansas, which had been admitted at the last session of Congress
as a free State,--in a bill which, with historic justice, Mr.
Buchanan was called upon to approve, after he had announced in
Congress, during the first year of his administration, that Kansas
was as much a slave State as South Carolina. The first question
of moment growing out of the Rebellion was the presentation of
credentials by Messrs. Willey and Carlile, who claimed seats as
senators from Virginia, the right to which was certified by the
seal of the State with the signature of Francis H. Pierpont as
governor. The credentials indicated that Mr. Willey was to take
the seat vacated by Mr. Mason, and Mr. Carlile that vacated by Mr.
Hunter. The loyal men of Virginia, especially from the western
counties, finding that the regularly organized government of the
State had joined the Rebellion, extemporized a government composed
of the Union men of the Legislature which had been in session the
preceding winter in Richmond. This body had met in Wheeling, and
elected two men as senators who had stood firmly for the Union in
the convention which had forced Virginia into secession. Their
admission to the Senate was resisted by Mr. James A. Bayard, then
senator from Delaware, and by the few other Democratic senators
who still held seats. But after discussion, Mr. Willey and Mr.
Carlile were sworn in, and thus the first step was taken which led
soon after to the partition of the Old Dominion and the creation
of the new State of West Virginia. The free States had a unanimous
representation of Republican senators, with the exception of John
R. Thompson from New Jersey, Jesse D. Bright from Indiana, James
W. Nesmith from Oregon, and the two senators from California, Milton
S. Latham and James A. McDougall, the latter of whom was sworn in
as the successor of William M. Gwin.
The Senate, though deprived by secession of many able men from the
South, presented an imposing array of talent, statesmanship, and
character. William Pitt Fessenden had already served one term with
distinction, and was now in the third year of his second term. He
possessed a combination of qualities which gave him just eminence
in his public career. He was brilliant from his youth upward; had
led the Maine Legislature when but a few years beyond his majority;
and, at a time when members of the legal profession are struggling
for a first foot-hold, he had stepped to the front rank in the bar
of Maine. He was elected a representative in Congress in 1840 at
thirty-four years of age. He never enjoyed popularity in the sense
in which that word is ordinarily used, but he had the absolute
confidence and admiration of his constituents. He possessed that
peculiar strength with the people--the most valuable and most
enduring a public man can have--which comes from a sense of pride
in the ability and character of the representative. Somewhat
reserved and distant in manner to the world at large, he was genial
and delightful to the intimate circle whom he called friends.
As a debater Mr. Fessenden was exceptionally able. He spoke without
apparent effort, in a quiet, impressive manner, with a complete
master of pure English. He preserved the _lucidus ordo_ in his
argument, was never confused, never hurried, never involved in
style. A friend once said to him that the only criticism to be
made of his speeches in the Senate was that he illustrated his
point too copiously, throwing light upon it after it was made plain
to the comprehension of all his hearers. "That fault," said he,
"I acquired in addressing juries, where I always tried to adapt my
argument to the understanding of the dullest man of the twelve."
It was a fault which Mr. Fessenden overcame, and in his later years
his 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 who achieved greater distinction
than Mr. Fessenden, but it may well be doubted whether in the
qualities named he ever had a superior in that body. His personal
character was beyond reproach. He maintained the highest standard
of purity and honor. His patriotism was ardent and devoted. The
general character of his mind was conservative, and he had the
heartiest contempt of every thing that savored of the demagogue in
the conduct of public affairs. He was never swayed from his
conclusion by the passion of the hour, and he met the gravest
responsibilities with even mind. He had a lofty disregard of
personal danger, possessing both moral and physical courage in a
high degree. He was constant in his devotion to duty, and no doubt
shortened his life by his public labors.*
UNITED-STATES SENATORS.
Mr. Sumner, though five years the junior, was senior in senatorial
service to Mr. Fessenden, and had attained wider celebrity. Mr.
Sumner's labor was given almost exclusively to questions involving
our foreign relations, and to issues growing out of the slavery
agitation. To the latter he devoted himself, not merely with
unswerving fidelity but with all the power and ardor of his nature.
Upon general questions of business in the Senate he was not an
authority, and rarely participated in the debates which settled
them; but he did more than any other man to promote the anti-slavery
cause, and to uprear its standard in the Republican party. He had
earned, in an unexampled degree, the hatred of the South, and this
fact had increased the zeal for him among anti-slavery men throughout
the North. The assault, made upon him by Preston S. Brooks, a
South-Carolina representative, for his famous speech on Kansas,
had strengthened his hold upon his constituency, which was not
merely the State of Massachusetts but the radical and progressive
Republicans of the entire country.
Mr. Sumner was studious, learned, and ambitious. He prepared his
discussions of public questions with care, but was not ready as a
debater. He presented his arguments with power, but they were
laborious essays. He had no faculty for extempore speech. Like
Addison, he could draw his draft for a thousand pounds, but might
not have a shilling of change. This did not hinder his progress
or lessen his prestige in the Senate. His written arguments were
the anti-slavery classics of the day, and they were read more
eagerly than speeches which produced greater effect on the hearer.
Colonel Benton said that the eminent William Pinkney of Maryland
was always thinking of the few hundred who came to hear him in the
Senate Chamber, apparently forgetting the million who might read
him outside. Mr. Sumner never made that mistake. His arguments
went to the million. They produced a wide-spread and prodigious
effect on public opinion and left an indelible impression on the
history of the country.
Jacob Collamer of Vermont was a senator of eminent worth and ability.
He had earned honorable fame as a member of the House of Representatives,
and as a member of the Cabinet in the administration of General
Taylor. He had entered the Senate at a ripe age, and with every
qualification for distinguished service. To describe him in a
single word, he was a wise man. Conservative in his nature, he
was sure to advise against rashness. Sturdy in his principles, he
always counseled firmness. In the periods of excitement through
which the party was about to pass, his judgment was sure to prove
of highest value--influenced, as it always was, by patriotism, and
guided by conscience. Without power as an orator, he was listened
to in the Senate with profound attention, as one who never offered
counsel that was not needed. He carried into the Senate the gravity,
the dignity, the weight of character, which enabled him to control
more ardent natures; and he brought to a later generation the wisdom
and experience acquired in a long life devoted to the service of
his State and of his country.
UNITED-STATES SENATORS.
Zachariah Chandler had been the recognized leader of the Republican
party in Michigan from its formation. He had superseded General
Cass with a people in whose affections the latter had been strongly
intrenched before Chandler was born. He had been four years in
the Senate when the war broke out, and he was well established in
reputation and influence. He was educated in the common schools
of his native State of New Hampshire, but had not enjoyed the
advantage of collegiate training. He was not eloquent according
to the canons of oratory; but he was widely intelligent, had given
careful attention to public questions, and spoke with force and
clearness. He was a natural leader. He had abounding confidence
in himself, possessed moral courage of a high order, and did not
know the sensation of physical fear. He was zealous in the
performance of public duty, radical in all his convictions, patriotic
in every thought, an unrelenting foe to all forms of corruption.
He distinguished between a friend and an enemy. He was always
ready to help the one, and, though not lacking in magnanimity, he
seldom neglected an opportunity to cripple the other.
Lyman Trumbull had entered the Senate six years before, when Illinois
revolted against the course of Douglas in destroying the Missouri
Compromise. Mr. Lincoln had earnestly desired the place, but waived
his claims. The election of Trumbull was considered desirable for
the consolidation of the new party, and the Republicans of Whig
antecedents were taught a lesson of self-sacrifice by the promptness
with which Mr. Lincoln abandoned the contest. Judge Trumbull had
acquired a good reputation at the bar of his State, and at once
took high rank in the Senate. His mind was trained to logical
discussion, and as a debater he was able and incisive. His political
affiliations prior to 1854 were with the Democracy, and aside from
the issue in regard to the extension of slavery, he did not fully
sympathize with the principles and tendencies of the Republican
party. He differed from Mr. Lincoln just as Preston King, senator
from New York, differed from Mr. Seward. Lincoln and Seward believed
in Henry Clay and all the issues which he represented, while Trumbull
and King were devoted to the policies and measures which characterized
the administration of Jackson. The two classes of men composing
the Republican party were equally zealous in support of the principles
that led to the political revolution of 1860, but it was not easy
to see what would be the result of other issues which time and
necessity might develop.
Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio had been ten years in the Senate when the
war broke out. He entered in March, 1851--the immediate successor
of Thomas Ewing who had been transferred to the Senate from the
Cabinet of Taylor, to take the place of Thomas Corwin who left the
Senate to enter the Cabinet of Fillmore. Mr. Wade was elected as
a Whig--the last senator chosen by that party in Ohio. His triumph
was a rebuke to Mr. Corwin for his abandonment of the advanced
position which he had taken against the aggressions of the slave
power. It was rendered all the more significant by the defeat of
Mr. Ewing, who with his strong hold upon the confidence and regard
of the people of Ohio, was too conservative to embody the popular
resentment against the odious features of the Compromise of 1850.
Mr. Wade entered the Senate with Mr. Sumner. Their joint coming
imparted confidence and strength to the contest for free soil, and
was a powerful re-enforcement to Mr. Seward, Mr. Chase, and Mr.
Hale, who represented the distinctively anti-slavery sentiment in
the Senate. The fidelity, the courage, the ability of Mr. Wade
gave him prominence in the North, and were a constant surprise to
the South. He brought to the Senate the radicalism which Mr.
Giddings had so long upheld in the House, and was protected in his
audacious freedom of speech by his steadiness of nerve and his
known readiness to fight.
Henry B. Anthony entered the Senate on the 4th of March, 1859, at
forty-four years of age. He had been Governor of Rhode Island ten
years before. He received a liberal education at Brown University,
and was for a long period editor of the _Providence Journal_, a
position in which he established an enviable fame as a writer and
secured an enduring hold upon the esteem and confidence of his
State. In the Senate he soon acquired the rank to which his thorough
training and intelligence, his graceful speech, his ardent patriotism,
his stainless life entitled him. No man has ever enjoyed, among
his associates of all parties, a more profound confidence, a more
cordial respect, a warmer degree of affection.
UNITED-STATES SENATORS.
John P. Hale of New Hampshire was still pursuing the career which
he had begun as an early advocate of the anti-slavery cause, and
in which he had twice overthrown the power of the Democratic party
in New Hampshire.--Henry Wilson was the colleague of Mr. Sumner,
and was a man of strong parts, self-made, earnest, ardent, and
true.--Lot M. Morrill was the worthy associate of Mr. Fessenden,
prominent in his profession, and strong in the regard and confidence
of the people of his States.--The author of the Wilmot Proviso came
from Pennsylvania as the successor of Simon Cameron, and as the
colleague of Edgar Cowan, whose ability was far greater than his
ambition or his industry.--James W. Grimes, a native of New Hampshire,
who had gone to Iowa at the time of its organization as a Territory
and had been conspicuously influential in the affairs of the State,
entered the Senate in March, 1859. He possessed an iron will and
sound judgment. He was specially distinguished for independence
of party restraint in his modes of thought and action. He and
Judge Collamer of Vermont were the most intimate associates of Mr.
Fessenden, and the three were not often separated on public questions.
--The colleague of Mr. Grimes was James Harlan, one of Mr. Lincoln's
most valued and most confidential friends, and subsequently a member
of his Cabinet.--James R. Doolittle came from Wisconsin, a far more
radical Republican than his colleague, Timothy O. Howe, and both
were men of marked influence in the councils of their party.--John
Sherman filled the vacancy occasioned by the appointment of Mr.
Chase to the Treasury. Mr. Chase had been chosen as the successor
of George E. Pugh, and remained in the Senate but a single day.
Mr. Sherman had been six years in the House, and had risen rapidly
in public esteem. He had been the candidate of his party for
Speaker, and had served as chairman of Ways and Means in the Congress
preceding the war.--From the far-off Pacific came Edward Dickinson
Baker, a senator from Oregon, a man of extraordinary gifts of
eloquence; lawyer, soldier, frontiersman, leader of popular
assemblies, tribune of the people. In personal appearance he was
commanding, in manner most attractive, in speech irresistibly
charming. Perhaps in the history of the Senate no man ever left
so brilliant a reputation from so short a service. He was born in
England, and the earliest recollection of his life was the splendid
pageant attending the funeral of Lord Nelson.** He came with his
family to the United States when a child, lived for a time in
Philadelphia, and removed to Illinois, where he grew to manhood
and early attained distinction. He served his State with great
brilliancy in Congress, and commanded with conspicuous success one
of her regiments in the war with Mexico. The Whigs of the North-
West presented Colonel Baker for a seat in the Cabinet of President
Taylor. His failure to receive the appointment was a sore
mortification to him. He thought his political career in Illinois
was broken; and in 1852, after the close of his service in Congress,
he joined the throng who were seeking fortune and fame on the
Pacific slope. When leaving Washington he said to a friend that
he should never look on the Capitol again unless he could come
bearing his credentials as a senator of the United States. He
returned in eight years.
Among the opposition senators, some fourteen in number, the most
prominent was John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, who had stepped
from the Vice-President's chair to the floor of the Senate as the
successor of Mr. Crittenden. Mr. Breckinridge at that time was
forty years of age, attractive in personal appearance, graceful,
and cordial in manner, by inheritance and by cultivation a gentleman.
He came from a section where family rank gave power and influence.
He united in his person the best blood of the South and the North,
--preserving and combining the most winning traits of each. His
lineage in Kentucky naturally brought to him the sympathy and
support of the State. He was born to success and authority among
his people. Originally he had anti-slavery convictions, as had
all the members of his eminent family. So strongly was this tendency
developed in his mind that, when he came to the bar, he removed to
the Territory of Iowa, intending to identify himself with the growth
of the free North-West. Circumstances overcame the determination,
and carried him back to Kentucky, where he was welcomed at the
hearth-stones and in the hearts of her people.
MR. CLAY AND MR. BRECKINRIDGE.
At twenty-five years of age Mr. Breckinridge was appointed major
in one of the Kentucky regiments, which served in the Mexican war.
After his return he entered upon the practice of his profession in
Lexington, and against all the traditions of his family identified
himself with the Democratic party. An apparently slight incident
had an important bearing upon his earlier political career. He
was selected to deliver the address of welcome to Mr. Clay on his
return to Kentucky in the autumn of 1850, from the field of his
senatorial triumph in securing the adoption of the celebrated
compromise of that year. Mr. Breckinridge's speech was graceful
and effective. He eulogized Mr. Clay's work with discrimination,
and paid the highest tribute to the illustrious statesman. Mr.
Clay was visibly touched by the whole scene. His old opponents
were present by the thousand to do him honor. The enmities and
antagonisms of earlier years were buried. He had none but friends
and supporters in Kentucky. He responded with earnestness, and
even with emotion: "My welcome," he said, "has been made all the
more grateful from being pronounced by my eloquent young friend,
the son of an eloquent father, the grandson of a still more eloquent
grandfather, both of whom were in days long gone my cherished
companions, my earnest supporters." Mr. Clay's words were so warm,
his manner was so cordial, that it seemed as if he intended to
confer upon Breckinridge the leadership in Kentucky, which, after
a half century's domination, he was about to surrender. Undoubtedly
the events of that day aided Breckinridge the next year in carrying
the Ashland District for Congress, and drew to him thereafter the
support of many influential Whigs. He entered Congress when the
slavery discussion was absorbing public attention, and by the
irresistible drift of events he was carried into an association
with extreme Southern men. It was by their friendly influence that
he was promoted to the Vice-Presidency as soon as he became eligible
under the Constitution. During the four stormy years of Buchanan's
administration, when the sectional contest approached its crisis,
Mr. Breckinridge became more and more the representative of Southern
opinion, and, though unequal to Douglas in the arena of debate, he
became the leader of those who opposed the "popular sovereignty"
dogma of the Illinois senator. He was thence drawn by influences
which he could not have controlled if he had desired, into the
prolonged and exciting controversy which disrupted the Democratic
party. Intellectually Mr. Breckinridge was not the equal of many
Southern men who deferred to him as a leader. His precedence was
due to his personal character, to his strong connections, to his
well-tempered judgment, and especially to a certain attractiveness
of manner which was felt by all who came in contact with him.
The prominence of New England in the Senate was exceptional. So
many positions of influence were assigned to her that it created
no small degree of jealously and ill-feeling in other sections.
The places were allotted according to the somewhat rigid rules of
precedence which obtain in that body, but this fact did not induce
senators from the Middle and Western States to acquiesce with grace.
The chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations was given
to Mr. Sumner; Mr. Fessenden was placed at the head of the Finance
Committee, which then included Appropriations; Mr. Wilson was made
chairman of Military Affairs; Mr. John P. Hale, chairman of Naval
Affairs; Mr. Collamer, chairman of Post-office and Post-roads; Mr.
Foster of Connecticut, chairman of Pensions; Mr. Clark of New
Hampshire, chairman of Claims; Mr. Simmons of Rhode Island, chairman
of Patents; Mr. Foot of Vermont, chairman of Public Buildings and
Grounds; Mr. Anthony, chairman of Printing; Mr. Dixon of Connecticut,
chairman of Contingent Expenses. Mr. Lot M. Morrill, who had just
entered the public service from Maine, was the only New-England
senator left without a chairmanship. There were in all twenty-two
committees in the Senate. Eleven were given to New England. But
even this ratio does not exhibit the case in its full strength.
The Committees on Foreign Relations, Finance, Military Affairs,
and Naval Affairs shaped almost the entire legislation in time of
war, and thus New England occupied a most commanding position.
The retirement of Mr. Seward, Mr. Chase, and Mr. Cameron from the
Senate to enter the Cabinet undoubtedly increased the number of
important positions assigned to New England. Twenty-two States
were represented in the Senate, and it was impossible to make
sixteen of them, including the four leading States of the Union,
recognize the justice of placing the control of National legislation
in the hands of six States in the far North-East. It was not a
fortunate arrangement for New England, since it provoked prejudices
which proved injurious in many ways, and lasted for many years.
THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
The House of Representatives was promptly organized by the election
of Galusha A. Grow of Pennsylvania as Speaker. Mr. Grow came from
the Wilmot district, on the northern border of the State, where
the anti-slavery sentiment had taken earliest and deepest root.
As Connecticut had in the Colonial period claimed a large part of
the area of North Pennsylvania, her emigration tended in that
direction, and this fact had given a distinct and more radical type
to the population. Mr. Grow was himself a native of Connecticut.
He was chosen Speaker because of his activity in the anti-slavery
struggles of the House, and because of his aptitude for the duties
of the chair. Francis P. Blair, Jr., of Missouri was a rival
candidate, and was supported by strong influences. It was not
considered expedient to hold a party caucus, and the Democratic
minority declined to present a candidate. On the roll call, Mr.
Grow received 71 votes, Mr. Blair 40, while 48 votes, principally
of Democratic representatives, were cast for different gentlemen
who were in no sense candidates. Accepting Mr. Grow's plurality
as the best form of nomination to the office, a large number of
the friends of Mr. Blair changed their votes before the result was
authoritatively declared, and Mr. Grow was announced as receiving
90 votes,--a majority of all the members. Two members appeared
from Virginia. The other Confederate States were without
representation. Emerson Etheridge of Tennessee was chosen Clerk,
in compliment to his fidelity and courage as a Union man.
The House was filled with able men, many of whom had parliamentary
experience. The natural leader, who assumed his place by common
consent, was Thaddeus Stevens, a man of strong peculiarities of
character, able, trained, and fearless. Born in Vermont and educated
at Dartmouth, he had passed all his adult years in Pennsylvania,
and was thoroughly identified with the State which he had served
with distinction both in her own Legislature and in Congress. He
had the reputation of being somewhat unscrupulous as to political
methods, somewhat careless in personal conduct, somewhat lax in
personal morals; but to the one great object of his life, the
destruction of slavery and the elevation of the slave, he was
supremely devoted. From the pursuit of that object nothing could
deflect him. Upon no phase of it would he listen to compromise.
Any man who was truly anti-slavery was his friend. Whoever espoused
the cause and proved faithless in never so small a degree, became
his enemy, inevitably and irreconcilably. Towards his own race he
seemed often to be misanthropic. He was learned in the law, and
for a third of a century had held high rank at the bar of a State
distinguished for great lawyers. He was disposed to be taciturn.
A brilliant talker, he did not relish idle and aimless conversation.
He was much given to reading, study, and reflection, and to the
retirement which enabled him to gratify his tastes. As was said
of Mr. Emerson, Mr. Stevens loved solitude and understood its use.
Upon all political questions Mr. Stevens was an authority. He
spoke with ease and readiness, using a style somewhat resembling
the crisp, clear sententiousness of Dean Swift. Seldom, even in
the most careless moment, did a sentence escape his lips, that
would not bear the test of grammatical and rhetorical criticism.
He possessed the keenest wit, and was unmerciful in its use toward
those whom he did not like. He illustrated in concrete form the
difference between wit and humor. He did not indulge in the latter.
He did not enjoy a laugh. When his sharp sallies would set the
entire House in an uproar, he was as impassive, his visage as
solemn, as if he were pronouncing a funeral oration. His memory
of facts, dates, and figures was exact, and in argument he knew
the book and chapter and page for reference. He was fond of young
men, invited their society, encouraged and generously aided them.
He was easily moved by the distress of others. He was kind,
charitable, lavish of his money in the relief of poverty. He had
characteristics which seemed contradictory, but which combined to
make one of the memorable figures in the Parliamentary history of
the United States,--a man who had the courage to meet any opponent,
and who was never overmatched in intellectual conflict.
Mr. Stevens had efficient colleagues from Pennsylvania. The most
distinguished was John Hickman, who had been a Democrat until 1860,
and who in debate was skillful and acute. William D. Kelley entered
the House at this session for the first time, and was destined to
serve his State for a long series of years, with ability, fidelity,
and usefulness. James K. Moorhead, John Covode, Edward McPherson,
and John W. Killinger were active and influential members.***
THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
New York sent Reuben E. Fenton, already prominent, popular, and
strong in the public service; Elbridge G. Spaulding, who became
useful and even eminent as an adviser in financial legislation;
William A. Wheeler, afterwards Vice-President of the United States;
Theodore Pomeroy, the neighbor and confidential friend of Mr.
Seward; Charles B. Sedgwick, of pronounced ability in the law;
Charles H. Van Wyck, who afterwards sought distinction in the West;
and Abraham Olin, subsequently well known in judicial life. The
ablest and most brilliant man of the delegation was Roscoe Conkling.
He had been elected to the preceding Congress when but twenty-nine
years of age, and had exhibited a readiness and eloquence in debate
that placed him at once in the first rank. His command of language
was remarkable. In affluent and exuberant diction Mr. Conkling
was never surpassed in either branch of Congress, unless, perhaps,
by Rufus Choate.
The Ohio delegation was especially strong. John A. Bingham, the
oldest in service on the Republican side, was an effective debater,
well informed, ready, and versatile. A man of high principle, of
strong faith, of zeal, enthusiasm, and eloquence, he could always
command the attention of the House. His colleague, Samuel
Shellabarger, was distinguished for the logical and analytical
character of his mind. Without the gift of oratory, paying little
heed to the graces of speech, Mr. Shellabarger conquered by the
intrinsic strength of his argument, which generally amounted to
demonstration. His mind possessed many of the qualities which
distinguished Mr. Lincoln. In fairness, lucidness, fullness of
statement, the two had a striking resemblance. Valentine B. Horton
was a valuable member on all questions of finance and business;
and on the issues touching slavery James M. Ashley followed the
radical example of Mr. Giddings. Among the Democrats, George H.
Pendleton, Clement L. Vallandigham, and Samuel S. Cox were especially
conspicuous. Mr. Pendleton was regarded as the leader of the
Democratic side of the House by a large section of his party, and
his assignment to the Committee of Ways and Means by the Speaker
was intended as a recognition of that fact. Mr. Cox gave much
attention to foreign affairs, to which his mind had been drawn by
a brief but fruitful participation in the diplomatic service of
the country. Mr. Vallandigham possessed ability, and a certain
form of dogged courage, combined with a love of notoriety, which
allured him to the assumption of extreme positions and the advocacy
of unpopular measures. No other State was in the aggregate so ably
represented as Ohio.
THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
Indiana was influential in the House. Schuyler Colfax was at the
height of his successful career on the floor and destined to eminent
promotion in the public service. Among his Republican colleagues
were George W. Julian, long and creditably identified with the anti-
slavery cause, and especially esteemed for the conscientious
attention he had given to all questions relating to the public
lands; Albert G. Porter, in his second Congress, well trained for
debate, with ability and high character, rapidly winning public
favor, but cut off from his legislative career by a Democratic
majority in his district, although his strength with the people
has since been strikingly attested; William McKee Dunn, a man of
sound judgment, to be known and appreciated afterwards in other
fields of honorable duty. On the Democratic side, William S. Holman
already ranked as an old member. His efforts were steadily and
persistently directed to the enforcement of public economy; and
though he may have sometimes been unreasonable, and though he was
often accused of acting the part of a demagogue, the country owes
him a debt of gratitude for the integrity, intelligence, and
simplicity with which he has illustrated a most honorable career
as representative of the people. Daniel W. Voorhees, by nature a
fierce partisan, yet always filled with generous impulses, was in
his second Congress. His character was significantly illustrated
by his willingness to lend his attractive eloquence in the Virginia
courts in defense of one of John Brown's associates in the Harper's
Ferry tragedy,--a magnanimous act in view of the risk to his position
among the pro-slavery Democracy, with whom he was strongly identified
in party organization.
Illinois sent Elihu B. Washburne, already eight years a representative
in Congress, a man of courage, energy, and principle, devoted to
the Republican party, constant in attendance upon the sessions of
the House, expert in its rules, its most watchful and most careful
member, an economist by nature, a foe to every form of corruption.
Owen Lovejoy, though a native of Maine, springing from Puritan
ancestry, and educated to the Christian ministry in the faith taught
by Calvin, had the fiery eloquence of a French Revolutionist. Not
even the exasperating wit of Thaddeus Stevens, or the studied taunts
of John Quincy Adams, ever threw the Southern men into such rage
as the speeches of Lovejoy. He was recklessly bold. His brother
had been killed by a mob for preaching the doctrine of the
Abolitionists, and he seemed almost to court the same fate. He
was daring enough to say to the Southern Democrats, at a time of
great excitement in the House, in a speech delivered long before
the war, that the negroes were destined to walk to emancipation,
as the children of Israel had journeyed to the promised land,
"through the _Red_ Sea." Among the Democrats the most conspicuous
was William A. Richardson, who had been a devoted adherent of
Douglas, and had co-operated with in the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise. A younger adherent of Douglas was John A. Logan,
serving in his second term. He remained however but a short time
in the Thirty-seventh Congress. His ardent patriotism and ambitious
temperament carried him into the war, where his brilliant career
is known and read of all men.
The most distinguished accession to the House was John J. Crittenden
of Kentucky. He had never before served in that branch, but he
had been chosen to the Senate six times by the Legislature of his
State,--for five full terms and for the remainder of Mr. Clay's
term when he retired in 1842. Only one other man, William E. King
of Alabama, has ever been so many times elected to the Senate.
Mr. Crittenden, like Mr. Clay, entered the Senate at thirty years
of age. His service began the day that Madison left the Presidency,
and ended the day of Lincoln's inauguration. But in this long
period he had served only two full terms, and his total service in
the Senate was little more than twenty years. He resigned in 1819
"to get bread for his family," as he expressed it; the compensation
of a senator for the session of Congress not averaging at that time
more than nine hundred dollars per annum. He resigned in 1841 to
become Attorney-General in the Cabinet of Harrison. He resigned
in 1848 to run for Governor of Kentucky in aid of General Taylor's
candidacy, and he left the governorship in 1850, after the death
of Taylor, to accept his old position in the Cabinet. He was
appointed to the Supreme Bench by John Quincy Adams in the last
year of his administration; but the Senate, already under the
influence of the Jackson men, refused to confirm him. Mr. Clay
wrote to Mr. Crittenden in anticipation of his failure, bidding
him "cultivate calmness of mind and prepare for the worst event."
Mr. Crittenden's ability was of a high order. He stood at the head
of that class of statesmen who were next to the highest grade.
Like so many other eminent Whigs, he was excluded from the full
recognition of his power by the overshadowing prestige of Mr. Clay
and Mr. Webster. The appearance of Mr. Crittenden in the House in
his seventy-fourth year was his patriotic response to the roll-call
of duty. He loved his country and his whole country, and every
effort of his waning strength was put forth in behalf of the Union.
It was his influence, more than that of any other man, which saved
his State from the vortex of Rebellion. But for his strong hold
upon the sympathy and pride of Kentucky, the malign influence of
Breckinridge might have forced the State into the Confederacy.
Mr. Lincoln considered Mr. Crittenden's course entitled to the
admiration and gratitude of every man who was loyal to the Union.
THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
Another Kentuckian gave noble aid to the National cause. Charles
A. Wickliffe was a contemporary of Mr. Crittenden, and had for many
years belonged to the same party. In the Whig dissensions which
followed the accession of Mr. Tyler to the Presidency, Mr. Wickliffe
supported the Administration. As an effective blow to Mr. Clay,
the President called Mr. Wickliffe to his Cabinet. He served as
Postmaster-General through Mr. Tyler's term, and with his chief
went over to the Democratic party, supporting Mr. Polk in 1844.
There was much anger over his course, on the part of the Kentucky
Whigs, resulting in personal estrangements. He was a man of ability,
of commanding appearance, of high character. His return to Congress,
where he had originally entered nearly forty years before, brought
a valuable support to the cause of the Union.
Associated with Crittenden and Wickliffe were three men of mark.
Robert Mallory, William H. Wadsworth, and James S. Jackson were
younger but not less devoted friends of the Union. Their example
was especially valuable in holding thousands of young Kentuckians
from following Breckinridge into the Confederate army. Jackson
gave his life to his country on one of the battle-fields of the war.
--Missouri sent Francis P. Blair, Jr., and James S. Rollins, who
had already been in the smoke and fire of civil conflict, and whose
loyalty to the Union, under every form of peril, entitled them to
the respect and confidence of patriotic men.
--Massachusetts sent Benjamin F. Thomas of rare eloquence; Alexander
H. Rice, afterwards the governor of his State; Thomas D. Elliott,
John B. Alley, the venerable William Appleton; and Henry L. Dawes,
whose long service attests his character, his ability, and the
confidence of his constituents.
--From New Hampshire came Gilman Marston, who soon after gained
credit in the field; from Vermont, Justin S. Morrill, one of the
most useful, industrious, and honorable members of the House; from
Maine, its distinguished ex-governor, Anson P. Morrill; and Frederick
A. Pike, of strong mind, keen and incisive in debate, but lacking
the ambition necessary to give him his proper rank in the House.
Samuel C. Fessenden and Thomas A. D. Fessenden, brothers of the
distinguished senator, were members of this House,--the only instance
in which three brothers were ever in Congress at the same time from
the same State. Three Washburns had served in the preceding
Congress, but they represented three States.
--The far North-West was well represented by young men. William
Windom came from Minnesota, and from Iowa James F. Wilson, a man
of positive strength, destined to take very prominent part in
legislative proceedings. Fernando C. Beaman came from Michigan,
and John F. Potter and A. Scott Sloan from Wisconsin. Martin F.
Conway came from the youngest State of the Union, fresh from the
contests which had made Kansas almost a field of war.
The organization of the House was so promptly effected that the
President's message was received on the same day. Throughout the
country there was an eagerness to hear Mr. Lincoln's views on the
painful situation. The people had read with deep sympathy the
tender plea to the South contained in his Inaugural address. The
next occasion on which they had heard from him officially was his
proclamation for troops after the fall of Sumter. Public opinion
in the North would undoubtedly be much influenced by what the
President should now say. Mr. Lincoln was keenly alive to the
importance of his message, and he weighed every word he wrote. He
maintained, as he always did, calmness of tone, moderation in
expression. He appealed to reason, not to prejudice. He spoke as
one who knew that he would be judged by the public opinion of the
world. It was his fortune to put his name to many state papers of
extraordinary weight, but never to one of graver import than his
first message to Congress.
PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S FIRST MESSAGE.
The President informed Congress that he would not call their
attention "to any ordinary subject of legislation." In fact there
were but two things for Congress to do in the national exigency--
provide for the enlistment of an army, and for the raising of money
necessary to the conduct of a great war. The President vividly
narrated the progressive steps in the South which had brought about
the existing status of affairs. He depicted in strong colors the
condition in which he found the government when he assumed office;
how "the forts, arsenals, dock-yards, and custom-houses" of the
National Government had been seized; how "the accumulations of
national revenue" had been appropriated; how "a disproportionate
share of Federal muskets and rifles" had found their way into the
Southern States, and had been seized to be used against the
government; how the navy had been "scattered in distant seas,
leaving but a small part of it within immediate reach of the
government;" how seven States had seceded from the Union, and formed
"a separate government, which is already invoking recognition, aid,
and intervention from foreign powers." With this critical situation
he was compelled to deal at once, and the policy which he had chosen
when he entered upon his office looked to the exhaustion of all
peaceful measures before a resort to stronger ones.
In pursuing the policy of peace, the President had "sought only to
hold the public places and property not already wrested from the
government, and to collect the revenue--relying for the rest on
time, discussion, and the ballot-box." He had even gone so far as
"to promise a continuance of the mails at government expense to
the very people who were resisting the government;" and he had
given "repeated pledges" that every thing should be "forborne
without which it was believed possible to keep the government on
foot;" that there should be no "disturbances to any of the people,
or to any of their rights." He had gone in the direction of
conciliation as far as it was possible to go, without consenting
to a disruption of the government.
The President gave in detail the events which led to the assault
on Sumter. He declared that the reduction of the fort "was in no
sense a matter of self-defense on the part of the assailants."
They well knew "that the garrison in the fort could by no possibility
commit an aggression upon them;" they were expressly notified that
"the giving of bread to the few brave and hungry men of the garrison
was all which would be attempted, unless themselves, by resisting
so much, should provoke more." They knew that the National Government
desired to keep the garrison in the fort, "not to assail them, but
merely to maintain visible possession, and thus to preserve the
Union from actual and immediate dissolution." The Confederate
Government had "assailed and reduced the fort for precisely the
reverse object--to drive out the visible authority of the Federal
Union, and thus force it to immediate dissolution."
"In this act," said Mr. Lincoln, "discarding all else, they have
forced upon the country the distinct issue--immediate dissolution
or blood; and this issue embraces more than the fate of these United
States. It presents to the whole family of man the question,
whether a Constitutional Republic, a government of the people by
the same people, can or cannot maintain its territorial integrity
against its own domestic foes." The President presented this point
with elaboration. The question really involved, was "whether
discontented individuals, too few in number to control the
administration according to the organic law, can always, upon the
pretenses made in this case, or any other pretenses, or arbitrarily
without pretenses, break up the government, and thus practically
put an end to free government upon the earth. It forces us to ask,
_Is there in all Republics this inherent and fatal weakness?_ Must
a government of necessity be too strong for the liberties of its
own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?"
The President was severe upon Virginia and Virginians. He had made
earnest effort to save the State from joining the Rebellion. He
had held conferences with her leading men, and had gone so far on
the 13th of April as to address a communication, for public use in
Virginia, to the State convention then in session at Richmond, in
answer to a resolution of the convention asking him to define the
policy he intended to pursue in regard to the Confederate States.
In this he re-asserted the position assumed in his Inaugural, and
added that "if, as now appears to be true, an unprovoked assault
has been made on Fort Sumter, I shall hold myself at liberty to
repossess it if I can, and the like places which had been seized
before the government was devolved upon me. I shall, to the best
of my ability, repel force by force." This letter was used to
inflame public sentiment in Virginia, and to hurl the State into
Secession through the agency of a Convention elected to maintain
the Union. Mr. Lincoln afterwards believed that the letter had
been obtained from him under disingenuous pretenses and for the
express purpose of using it, as it was used, against the Union and
in favor of the Confederacy.
PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S FIRST MESSAGE.
The President's resentment towards those who had thus, as he thought,
broken faith with him is visible in his message. Referring to the
Virginia convention, he observed that, "the people had chosen a
large majority of professed Union men" as delegates. "After the
fall of Sumter, many members of that majority went over to the
original Disunion minority, and with them adopted an ordinance
withdrawing the State from the Union." In his own peculiar style,
Mr. Lincoln made the stinging comment, "Whether this change was
wrought by their great approval of the assault upon Sumter, or by
their great resentment at the government's resistance to that
assault, is not definitely known." Though the Virginia convention
had submitted the ordinance of Secession to a vote of the people,
to be taken on a day nearly a month in the future, the President
informed Congress that "they immediately commenced acting as if
the State was already out of the Union." They seized the arsenal
at Harper's Ferry, and the navy-yard at Norfolk, and "received,
perhaps invited, large bodies of troops from the so-called seceding
States." They "sent members to their Congress at Montgomery, and
finally permitted the insurrectionary government to be transferred
to their Capitol at Richmond." Mr. Lincoln concluded with an
ominous sentence which might well have inspired Virginians with a
sense of impending peril; "The people of Virginia have thus allowed
his giant insurrection to make its nest within her borders, and
this government has no choice left but to deal with it where it
finds it." In that moment of passion these words, with all their
terrible significance, were heard by Southern men only to be jeered
at.
When the President came to specific recommendations he was brief
and pointed. He asked that Congress would place "at the control
of the government at least four hundred thousand men, and four
hundred millions of money." He said this number was about one-
tenth of those of proper age within the regions where all were
apparently willing to engage, and the sum was "less than a twenty-
third part of the money value owned by men who seem ready to devote
the whole." He argued that "a debt of six hundred millions of
dollars is now a less sum per head than the debt of the Revolution
when we came out of that struggle, and the money value in the
country bears even a greater proportion to what it was then than
does the population." "Surely," he added, "each man has as strong
a motive now to _preserve_ our liberties as each had then to
_establish_ them."
After arguing at length as to the utter fallacy of the right of
Secession, and showing how the public "mind of the South had been
drugged and insidiously debauched with the doctrine for thirty
years," the President closed his message "with the deepest regret
that he found the duty of employing the war power of the government
forced upon him;" but he "must perform his duty, or surrender the
existence of the government." Compromise had been urged upon the
President from every quarter. He answered all such requests frankly:
"No compromise by public servants could in this case be a cure;
not that compromises are not often proper, but that no popular
government can long survive a marked precedent that those who carry
an election can only save the government from immediate destruction
by giving up the main point upon which the people gave the election.
The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse
their own deliberate decision."
Mr. Lincoln thus saw his duty clearly and met it boldly. In his
own person was centred, as he profoundly realized, the fate of
Republican government. He had been elected President of the United
States in strict accordance with all the requirements of the
Constitution. He had been chosen without bribe, without violence,
without undue pressure, by a majority of the electoral votes. If
there had been outrage upon the freedom of the ballot it was not
among his supporters; if there had been a terror of public opinion,
overawing the right of private judgment, it was not in the States
which had voted for him, but in those Southern communities where,
by threats of violence, the opportunity to cast a ballot was denied
to electors favorable to his cause. If he should now yield, he
evil results would be immeasurable and irremediable. "As a private
citizen," he said, "the Executive could not have consented that
Republican institutions shall perish; much less could he in betrayal
of so vast and so sacred a trust as these free people have confided
to him." He avowed that, in full view of his great responsibility,
he had so far done what he had deemed his duty. His words were
almost to foreshadow the great tragedy of after years when declaring
that _he felt he had no moral right to shirk, or even to count the
chances of his own life in what might follow_. In conclusion he
said to Congress, "having thus chosen our own course without guile,
and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and go forward
without fear, and with manly hearts."
The effect of this message upon the public opinion of the North
was very great. If there had been hesitation by any party or any
class upon the subsidence of the first glow of patriotism which
had animated the country after the assault on Sumter, Mr. Lincoln's
words arrested it, and restored enthusiasm and ardor to all hearts.
Indeed, men of thought and discretion everywhere saw that the course
of the President was fixed, and even if they differed from his
conclusions, they were persuaded that safety could be secured only
by following his counsels, and upholding his measures. Mr. Lincoln
had been throughout his life much given to reading, to argument,
to induction, to speculation, to reflection. He was now before
the world as a man of whom decision and action were required, with
the lives and fortunes of unborn millions depending upon his wisdom,
with the fate of Republican liberty and Constitutional government
at stake upon his success. The history of the world shows no
example of a man upon whom extraordinary public duties and perilous
responsibilities were so suddenly thrust. No antecedent training
had apparently fitted him for his work; no experience in affairs
had given assurance that he could master a situation which demanded
an unprecedented expenditure of treasure, which involved the control
of armies larger than the fabled host of Xerxes, which developed
questions of state-craft more delicate and more difficult than
those which had baffled the best minds in Europe.
Under the inspiration of the message, and in strict accordance with
its recommendations, Congress proceeded to its work. No legislation
was attempted, none was even seriously suggested, except measures
relating to the war. In no other session of Congress was so much
accomplished in so brief a time. Convening on the fourth day of
July, both Houses adjourned finally on the 6th of August. There
were in all but twenty-nine working-days, and every moment was
faithfully and energetically employed. Seventy-six public Acts
were passed. With the exception of four inconsiderable bills, the
entire number related to the war,--to the various modes of
strengthening the military and naval forces of the Union, to the
wisest methods of securing money for the public service, to the
effectual building up of the National credit. Many of these bills
were long and complex. The military establishment was re-organized,
the navy enlarged, the tariff revised, direct taxes were levied,
and loan-bills perfected. Two hundred and seven millions of dollars
were appropriated for the army, and fifty-six millions for the
navy. Some details of these measures are elsewhere presented under
appropriate heads. They are referred to here only to illustrate
the patriotic spirit which pervaded Congress, and the magnitude of
the work accomplished under the pressure of necessity.
DEFEAT OF THE UNION ARMY AT BULL RUN.
Seventeen days after the extra session began, and fifteen days
before it closed, the country was startled and profoundly moved by
a decisive defeat of the Union army at Bull Run in Virginia. The
National troops were commanded by General Irvin McDowell, and the
Confederates by General Beauregard. The battle is remarkable for
the large number of division and brigade commanders who afterwards
became widely known. Serving under General McDowell were General
William T. Sherman, General Hunter, General Burnside, General Miles,
General Heintzelman, General Fitz-John Porter, and General Howard.
Serving under General Beauregard were Stonewall Jackson, General
Longstreet, General Ewell, General J. E. B. Stuart. General Joseph
E. Johnston re-enforced Beauregard with another army during the
fight, and became the ranking-officer on the field. The defeat of
the Union army was complete; it was a _rout_, and on the retreat
became a panic. When the troops reached the protection of the
fortifications around Washington, a thorough demoralization pervaded
their ranks. The holiday illusion had been rudely dispelled, and
the young men who had enlisted for a summer excursion, suddenly
found that they were engaged in a bloody war in which comrades and
friends had been slain by their side, and in which they saw nothing
before them but privation, peril, loss of health, and possibly loss
of life. The North had been taught a lesson. The doubting were
at last convinced that the Confederates were equipped for a desperate
fight, and intended to make it. If the Union were to be saved, it
must be saved by the united loyalty and the unflinching resolution
of the people.
The special and immediate danger was an outbreak in the Border
slave States. Their people were seriously divided; but the Union
men, aided by the entire moral influence and in no small degree by
the military force of the Nation, had thus far triumphed. The
repulse of the National arms, with the consequent loss of prestige,
necessarily emboldened the enemies of the Union, who, by playing
upon the prejudices and fears of the slave-holders, might succeed
in seducing them from their allegiance. To prevent the success of
such appeal Mr. Crittenden, whose wise counsels were devoted with
sleepless patriotism to the preservation of loyalty in the Border
States, offered in the House a resolution defining the objects of
the National struggle. The resolution set forth that "the deplorable
civil war has been forced upon the country by the Disunionists of
the Southern States now in arms against the Constitutional Government;"
that "in this National emergency, Congress, banishing all feelings
of mere passion or resentment, will recollect only its duty to the
whole country;" that "the war is not waged in any spirit of
oppression, or for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, or the
overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions
of those States, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the
Constitution, and to preserve the Union with all the dignity,
equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired;" and that,
"as soon as these objects are accomplished, the war ought to cease."
The resolution was adopted by the House without debate, and with
only two negative votes.
THE CRITTENDEN RESOLUTION.
The same resolution was offered in the Senate by Andrew Johnson of
Tennessee two days after its adoption in the House. It led to a
somewhat acrimonious debate. Mr. Polk of Missouri desired an
amendment declaring that the war had been "forced upon the country
by the Disunionists of the Southern and Northern States." He was
asked by Mr. Collamer of Vermont, whether he had ever "heard of
any Northern Disunionists being in revolt against the government."
He replied by asserting his belief that there were Disunionists
North as well as South. He had "read Fourth of July speeches, in
which the country was congratulated that there was now to be a
dissolution of the Union." The amendment was rejected, receiving
only four votes.
--Mr. Collamer spoke ably for the resolution. He was not however
afraid of the word "subjugation." Its literal, classical meaning
was, to pass under the yoke, but in the popular acceptation it
meant that "all the people of the United States should submit to
the Constitution and laws."
--Mr. Harris of New York expressed his approval of the resolution
"precisely as it was offered. Every expression in it was apt and
appropriate." If slavery should be abolished as a result of the
war, he would not "shed a tear over that result; but yet it is not
the purpose of the government in prosecuting the war to overthrow
slavery."
--Mr. Fessenden of Maine agreed with Mr. Collamer as to the word
"subjugation." It expressed the idea clearly, and he was "satisfied
with it. The talk about subjugation is mere clap-trap."
--Mr. Doolittle of Wisconsin said the use of the word "subjugation"
in the resolution did not imply that it was not "the purpose of
the Government to compel the Disunionists to submit to the Constitution
and the laws."
--Mr. Willey of Virginia said that there was a great sensitiveness
in his section; that there was a fear among many that the object
of the war was subjugation; that "its design was to reduce the Old
Dominion to a province, and to make the people (in the language of
the senator from Vermont) pass under the yoke."
--Mr. Hale of New Hampshire favored the resolution. He said the
most radical abolitionists had "always disclaimed the idea or the
power of interfering with slavery in the States."
--Mr. Clark, the colleague of Mr. Hale, would support the resolution,
and would oppose any amendment offered to it, not because he liked
its phraseology, but because "it was drawn by the senator from
Tennessee, and suited him and the region from which he came."
--Mr. Breckinridge of Kentucky could not vote for the resolution,
because he did not "agree with the statement of facts contained in
it." He would not go into the antecedents of the unhappy difficulties.
He did not consider that "the rupture in the harbor of Charleston,
the firing on the _Star of the West_, and the collision at Fort
Sumter, justified those proceedings on the part of the President
which have made one blaze of war from the Atlantic to the western
borders of the Republic." He did not believe that "the President
had a right to take that step which produced the war, and to call
(under Presidential authority alone) the largest army into the
field ever assembled on the American continent, and the largest
fleet ever collected in American harbors." He believed that "the
responsibility for the war is to be charged, first, to the majority
in the two Houses last winter in rejecting amendments to the
Constitution; and, secondly, to the President, for calling out an
armed force."
--Mr. Sherman of Ohio replied with great spirit to Mr. Breckinridge.
He said Ohio and Kentucky stood side by side, and had always been
friends; but if the senator who had just spoken, spoke the voice
of his State, then he feared that Kentucky and Ohio would soon be
enemies. He felt confident however that "the views expressed do
not represent the sentiments of Kentucky's patriotic citizens."
On the contrary, no person with the authority of President Lincoln
"ever forbore so patiently." The people of the loyal States had
"forborne with the Disunionists of the Southern States too much
and too long." There was not a line, not a syllable, not a promise,
in the Constitution which the people of the loyal States did not
religiously obey. "The South has no right to demand any other
compromise. The Constitution was the bond of union; and it was
the South that sought to change it by amendments, or to subvert it
by force. The Disunionists of the Southern States are traitors to
their country, and must be, and will be, subdued."
--Mr. Breckinridge, replying to Mr. Sherman, believed that he truly
represented the sentiment of Kentucky, and would submit the matter
to the people of his State. "If they should decide that the
prosperity and peace of the country would be best promoted by an
unnatural and horrible fraternal war, and should throw their own
energies into the struggle," he would "acquiesce in sadness and
tears, but would no longer be the representative of Kentucky in
the American Senate." He characterized personal allusion which
had been made to himself as ungenerous and unjust, and declared
that he had "never uttered a word or cherished a thought that was
false to the Constitution and Union."
--Mr. Browning of Illinois, the successor of Stephen A. Douglas in
the Senate, closed the debate. He spoke of "the indulgence shown
to Mr. Breckinridge," and of his having used it to "assail the
President vehemently, almost vindictively, while he had not a single
word of condemnation for the atrocious conduct of the rebellious
States." Was the senator from Kentucky here to vindicate them,
and the hurl unceasing denunciations at the President, "who was
never surpassed by any ruler in patriotism, honor, integrity, and
devotion to the great cause of human rights?"
The resolution was adopted with only five dissenting votes,--
Breckinridge and Powell of Kentucky, Johnson and Polk of Missouri,
and Trumbull of Illinois. Mr. Trumbull voted in the negative,
because he did not like the form of expression.
The Crittenden Resolution, as it has always been termed, was thus
adopted respectively, not jointly, by the two Houses of Congress.
Its declarations, contained in the concluding clauses, though made
somewhat under the pressure of national adversity, were nevertheless
a fair reflection of the popular sentiment throughout the North.
The public mind had been absorbed with the one thought of restoring
the Union promptly and completely, and had not even contemplated
interference with slavery as an instrumentality to that end. Many
wise and far-seeing men were convinced from the first that the
Rebellion would result in the destruction of slavery, but for
various reasons deemed it inexpedient to make a premature declaration
of their belief. Indeed, the wisest of them saw that a premature
declaration would probably prove a hinderance and not a help to
the conclusion they most desired. In the Senate it was noted that
Mr. Sumner withheld his vote, as did Thaddeus Stevens and Owen
Lovejoy in the House. But almost the entire Republican vote,
including such men as Fessenden, Hale, Chandler, and Grimes,
sustained the resolution. It was the voice of the Republican party,
with no one openly opposing it in either branch of Congress.
ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENT DEVELOPED.
It was soon discovered, however, that if the National Government
did not interfere with slavery, slavery would seriously interfere
with the National Government. In other words, it was made apparent
that the slaves if undisturbed were to be a source of strength to
the Rebellion. Mr. Crittenden's resolution had hardly passed the
House when it was learned from the participants in the battle of
Bull Run that slaves by the thousand had been employed on the
Confederate side in the construction of earthworks, in driving
teams, in cooking, in the general work of the Quartermaster and
Commissary Departments, and in all forms of camp drudgery. To
permit this was simply adding four millions to the population from
which the Confederates could draw their quotas of men for military
service. It was no answer to say that they never intended to put
arms in the hands of negroes. Their use in the various forms of
work to which they were allotted, and for which they were admirably
qualified, released the same number of white men, who could at once
be mustered into the ranks. The slaves were therefore an effective
addition to the military strength of the Confederacy from the very
beginning of the war, and had seriously increased the available
force of fighting men at the first engagement between the two
armies.
As soon as this fact became well established, Congress proceeded
to enact the first law since the organization of the Federal
Government by which a slave could acquire his freedom. The "Act
to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes" was on
the calendar of the Senate when the disaster at Bull Run occurred,
and had been under consideration the day preceding the battle. As
originally framed, it only confiscated "any property used or employed
in aiding, abetting, or promoting insurrection, or resistance to
the laws." The word "property" would not include slaves, who, in
the contemplation of the Federal law, were always "persons." A
new section was now added, declaring that "whenever hereafter during
the present insurrection against the Government of the United
States, any person held to labor or service under the law of any
State shall be required or permitted by the person to whom such
labor or service is due to take up arms against the United States,
or to work in or upon any fort, dock, navy-yard, armory, intrenchment,
or in any military or naval service whatever against the Government
of the United States, the person to whom such service or labor is
due shall forfeit his claim thereto." The law further provided in
effect that "whenever any person shall seek to enforce his claim
to a slave, it shall be a sufficient answer to such claim, that
the slave had been employed in the military or naval service against
the United States contrary to the provisions of this Act."
ZEAL AND INDUSTRY OF CONGRESS.
The virtue of this law consisted mainly in the fact that it exhibited
a willingness on the part of Congress to strike very hard blows
and to trample the institution of slavery under foot whenever or
wherever it should be deemed advantageous to the cause of the Union
to do so. From that time onward the disposition to assail slavery
was rapidly developed, and the grounds on which the assurance
contained in the Crittenden Resolution was given, had so changed
in consequence of the use of slaves by the Confederate Government
that every Republican member of both Senate and House felt himself
absolved from any implied pledge therein to the slave-holders of
the Border States. Humiliating as was the Bull Run disaster to
the National arms, it carried with it many compensating considerations,
and taught many useful lessons. The nation had learned that war
must be conducted according to strict principles of military science,
and cannot be successfully carried on with banners and toasts and
stump speeches, or by the mere ardor of patriotism, or by boundless
confidence in a just cause. The Government learned that it is
lawful to strike at whatever gives strength to the enemy, and that
an insurgent against the National authority must, by the law of
common sense, be treated as beyond the protection of the National
Constitution, both as to himself and his possessions.
Though the Act thus conditionally confiscating slave property was
signed by Mr. Lincoln, it did not meet his entire approval. He
had no objection to the principle involved, but thought it ill-
timed and premature,--more likely to produce harm than good. He
believed that it would prove _brutum fulmen_ in the rebellious
States, and a source of injury to the Union cause in the Border
slave States. From the outbreak of hostilities, Mr. Lincoln regarded
the position of those States as the key to the situation, and every
thing which tended to weaken their loyalty as a blow struck directly
and with fearful power against the Union. He could not however
veto the bill, because that would be equivalent to declaring that
the Confederate army might have the full benefit of the slave
population as a military force. What he desired was that Congress
should wait on his recommendations in regard to the question of
Slavery. He felt assured that he could see the whole field more
clearly; that, above all, he knew the time and the method for that
form of intervention which would smite the States in rebellion and
not alienate the slave States which still adhered to the Union.
The rapidity with which business was dispatched at this session
gave little opportunity for any form of debate except that which
was absolutely necessary in the explanation of measures. Active
interest in the House centred around the obstructive and disloyal
course of Mr. Vallandigham of Ohio and Mr. Burnett of Kentucky.
Still greater interest attached to the course of Mr. Breckinridge
in the Senate. He had returned to Washington under a cloud of
suspicion. He was thoroughly distrusted by the Union men of
Kentucky, who had in the popular election won a noble victory over
the foes of the National Government, of whom Mr. Breckinridge had
been reckoned chief. No overt act of treason could be charged
against him, but the prevalent belief was that his sympathies were
wholly with the government at Richmond. He opposed every act
designed to strengthen the Union, and continually found fault with
the attitude and with the intentions of the National Government.
He was considered by many to be in Washington only that he might
the more efficiently aid the cause of the Confederacy. During the
consideration of "a bill to suppress insurrection and sedition,"
a debate arose between Mr. Breckinridge and Mr. Baker, the new
senator from Oregon, which fixed the attention of the country upon
the former, and subjected him to general condemnation in the Loyal
States.
BRECKINRIDGE AND BAKER DISCUSSION.
The Oregon senator, with his ardent nature, and his impulse to take
part in every conflict, had raised a regiment of volunteers
principally composed of men from the Pacific coast. It was known
as the California Regiment, and was encamped near Washington.**** On
the 1st of August, while performing the double and somewhat anomalous
duty of commanding his regiment and representing Oregon in the
Senate, Mr. Baker entered the chamber in the full uniform of a
Colonel in the United-States army. He laid his sword upon his desk
and sat for some time listening to the debate. He was evidently
impressed by the scene of which he was himself a conspicuous feature.
Breckinridge took the floor shortly after Baker appeared, and made
a speech, of which it is fair criticism to say that it reflected
in all respects the views held by the members of the Confederate
Congress then in session at Richmond. Colonel Baker evidently grew
restive under the words of Mr. Breckinridge. His face was aglow
with excitement, and he sprang to the floor when the senator from
Kentucky took his seat. His reply, abounding in denunciation and
invective, was not lacking in the more solid and convincing argument.
He rapidly reviewed the situation, depicted the character of the
Rebellion, described the position of Breckinridge, and passionately
asked, "What would have been thought, if, in another Capitol, in
a yet more martial age, a senator, with the Roman purple flowing
from his shoulders, had risen in his place, surrounded by all the
illustrations of Roman glory, and declared that advancing Hannibal
was just, and that Carthage should be dealt with on terms of peace?
What would have been thought, if, after the battle of Cannae, a
senator had denounced every levy of the Roman people, every
expenditure of its treasure, every appeal to the old recollections
and the old glories?"
Mr. Fessenden, who sat near Baker, responded in an undertone "He
would have been hurled from the Tarpeian Rock." Baker, with his
aptness and readiness, turned the interruption to still further
indictment of Breckinridge: "Are not the speeches of the senator
from Kentucky," he asked, "intended for disorganization? are they
not intended to destroy our zeal? are they not intended to animate
our enemies? Sir, are they not words of brilliant, polished
_treason_, even in the very Capitol of the Republic?"
It is impossible to realize the effect of the words so eloquently
pronounced by the Oregon senator. In the history of the Senate,
no more thrilling speech was ever delivered. The striking appearance
of the speaker in the uniform of a soldier, his superb voice, his
graceful manner, all united to give to the occasion an extraordinary
interest and attraction.
The reply of Mr. Breckinridge was tame and ineffective. He did
not repel the fierce characterizations with which Colonel Baker
had overwhelmed him. He did not stop to resent them, though he
was a man of unquestioned courage. One incident of his speech was
grotesquely amusing. He was under the impression that the suggestion
in regard to the Tarpeian Rock had been made by Mr. Sumner, and he
proceeded to denounce the senator from Massachusetts with bitter
indignation. Mr. Sumner looked surprised, but having become
accustomed to abuse from the South, said nothing. When next day
it was shown by the _Globe_ that Mr. Fessenden was the offender,
Mr. Breckinridge neither apologized to Mr. Sumner, nor attacked
the senator from Maine. The first was manifestly his duty. From
the second he excused himself for obvious reasons. After his
experience with Baker, Breckinridge evidently did not court a
conflict with Fessenden.
The course of Mr. Breckinridge was in direct hostility to the
prevailing opinion of his State. The Legislature of Kentucky passed
a resolution asking that he and his colleague, Lazarus W. Powell,
should resign their seats, and, in the event of refusal, that the
Senate would investigate their conduct, and, if it were found to
be disloyal, expel them. Mr. Breckinridge did not wait for such
an investigation. In the autumn of 1861 he joined the Rebellion,
and was welcomed by the leaders and the people of the Confederacy
with extravagant enthusiasm. His espousal of their cause was
considered by them to be as great an acquisition as if a fresh army
corps had been mustered into their service. His act called forth
the most bitter denunciation throughout the North, and among the
loyal people of Kentucky. He had not the excuse pleaded by so many
men of the South, that he must abide by the fortunes of his States,
and the worst interpretation was placed upon his presence at the
July session of Congress.
Among the earliest acts at the next session was the expulsion of
Mr. Breckinridge from the Senate. It was done in a manner which
marked the full strength of the popular disapprobation of his
course. The senators from the rebellious States had all been
expelled at the July session, but without the application of an
opprobrious epithet. There had also been a debate as to whether
expulsion of the persona, or a mere declaration that the seats were
vacant, were the proper course to be pursued by the Senate. Andrew
Johnson maintained the latter, and all the Democratic senators,
except McDougall of California, voted with him. But in the case
of Mr. Breckinridge there was not a negative vote--his own colleague
Powell remaining silent in his seat while five Democratic senators
joined in the vote for his expulsion. The resolution, draughted
by Mr. Trumbull, was made as offensive as possible, curtly declaring
that "John C. Breckinridge, the traitor, be and is hereby expelled
from the Senate."
The mutation of public opinion is striking. Mr. Breckinridge lived
to become a popular idol in Kentucky. Long before his death (which
occurred in 1875 in his fifty-fourth year) he could have had any
position in the gift of his State. If his political disabilities
could have been removed, he would undoubtedly have returned to the
Senate. His support did not come solely from those who had
sympathized with the South, but included thousands who had been
loyally devoted to the Union. He possessed a strange, fascinating
power over the people of Kentucky,--as great as that which had been
wielded by Mr. Clay, though he was far below Mr. Clay in intellectual
endowment. No man gave up more than he when he united his fortunes
with the seceding States. It was his sense of personal fidelity
to the Southern men who had been faithful to him, that blinded him
to the higher obligation of fidelity to country, and to the higher
appreciation of self-interest which is inseparably bound up with
duty. He wrecked a great career. He embittered and shortened a
life originally devoted to noble aims, and in its darkest shadows
filled with generous impulses.
The original aim of Kentucky was to preserve a position of neutrality
in the impending contest was found to be impracticable. The
Confederates were the first to violate it, by occupying that section
of the State bordering upon the Mississippi River with a considerable
force under the command of General Polk, the Episcopal Bishop of
Louisiana. This was on the 4th of September. Two days later the
Colonel of the Twenty-first Illinois Volunteers, who was in command
at Cairo, took possession of Paducah. It was the first important
step in a military career which fills the most brilliant pages in
the military annals of our country. The name of the Illinois
Colonel was Ulysses S. Grant.
EFFECT OF REBEL VICTORY AT BULL RUN.
The Confederate victory at Bull Run produced great effect throughout
the South. The fall of Sumter had been a signal encouragement to
those who had joined the revolt against the Union, but as no blood
had been spilled, and as the garrison had been starved out rather
than shelled out, there was a limit to enthusiasm over the result.
But now a pitched battle had been fought within cannon sound of
the National Capital, and the forces of the Union had been put to
flight. Jefferson Davis had come from Richmond during the battle,
and telegraphed to the Confederate Congress that the night had
"closed upon a hard-fought field," but that the enemy were routed,
and had "precipitately fled, abandoning a large amount of arms,
knapsacks, and baggage;" that "too high praise cannot be bestowed
upon the skill of the Confederate officers or the gallantry of all
their troops;" that "the Confederate force was fifteen thousand,
and the Union army was thirty-five thousand." He evidently knew
the effect which these figures would have upon the pride of the
South, and he did not at the moment stop to verify his statements.
The actual force under McDowell was much less, that under Beauregard
much greater, than Mr. Davis stated. McDowell was certainly
outnumbered after General Johnston's army arrived on the field.
If General Patterson, who was in command in the Shenandoah Valley,
had been able to engage or detain Johnston, the fate of the day
might have been different. But Johnston outgeneraled Patterson,
and achieved what military genius always does,--he had his force
in the right place at the right time.
The effect of the Rebel victory at Bull Run was at once visible in
the rigorous policy adopted by the Confederate Government. The
people of the Confederacy knew that their numbers were less than
those of the Union, but Jefferson Davis had in effect told them
that fifteen Southern men might be relied upon to put to flight
thirty-five Northern men, and on this ratio they felt equal to the
contest. The Congress at Richmond went to every extreme in their
legislation. A fortnight after the battle they passed "an Act
respecting alien enemies," "warning and requiring every male citizen
of the United States, fourteen years old and upwards, to depart
from the Confederate States within forty days from the date of the
President's Proclamation," which was issued on the 14th of August.
Those only could remain who intended to become citizens of the
Confederacy. With the obvious design of avoiding every thing which
could chill the sympathy with the Confederacy so largely prevailing
in the Border States, the Proclamation excepted from its operation
the States of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, the District
of Columbia, the Territories of New Mexico, Arizona, and the Indian
Territory. This was a manifest declaration of what they expected
to include in the Confederacy when the National Government should
finally surrender. Wherever a slave was held, the Confederate
leaders adjudged the people to be their friends and their future
allies.
CONFEDERATE CONFISCATION BILL.
This warning to alien enemies could not however be regarded as a
measure of special harshness, or one beyond the fair exercise of
the war power. But the next step was of a different nature. A
law was enacted sequestrating "the estates, property, and effects
of alien enemies." Mr. Judah P. Benjamin, who was at the time
Attorney-General of the Confederate Government, proceeded to enforce
the Act with utmost rigidity. The exception of the Border States
and Territories, already noted, was also made under this law, but
towards the citizens of States of unquestioned loyalty no mercy
was shown. A close search was instituted by Mr. Benjamin, in which
agents, former partners, attorneys, trustees, and all who might
have the slightest knowledge of a piece of property within the
limits of the Confederacy, belonging to a loyal citizen of the
United States, were compelled to give information under penalty of
a fine which might be as high as five thousand dollars, and
imprisonment which might last for six months. They were forced to
tell of any lands, chattels, rights, interests, an alien enemy
might have, and also of any debts which might be due to an alien
enemy. Mr. Benjamin's letter of instruction included among alien
enemies all "subjects of Great Britain, France, or other neutral
nations, who have a domicile or are carrying on business or traffic
within the States at war with the Confederacy." It was a scheme
of wholesale, cruel confiscation of the property of innocent persons,
and the most ingenious lawyer of the Confederacy was selected to
enforce it by inquisitorial processes which disregarded the confidence
of friendship, the ties of blood, and the loyalty of affection.
The National legislation had given no precedent or warrant for
proceedings so harsh. At the extra session there had been no
attempt at the confiscation of any property except that directly
used in aid of the insurrection. Slaves were added to his class
only after it was learned that they were thus employed by the
Confederates. Not only therefore did the Confederacy introduce
slaves as a component element of the military force, but it resorted
to confiscation of a cruel and rigorous type as one of the sources
of financial strength. If the Confederate authorities had not thus
set the example, it would have been difficult, perhaps impracticable,
to induce Congress to entertain such a line of policy. Many were
in favor of it from the first, but so many were against it that
the precedent thus established by the Confederacy was not only an
irresistible temptation but a justifying cause for lines of National
policy which were afterwards complained of as unusual and
oppressive.
[* NOTE.--The following is a complete list of the Senators who served
in the Thirty-seventh Congress. Republicans in Roman, Democrats
in Italic, American or Old-Line Whigs in small capitals.
CALIFORNIA.--_Milton S. Latham; James A. McDougall._
CONNECTICUT.--James Dixon; Lafayette S. Foster.
DELAWARE.--_James A. Bayard; Willard Saulsbury._
ILLINOIS.--_Stephen A. Douglas_, died June 3, 1861; Lyman Trumbull;
Orville H. Browning, appointed in place of Douglas; _William A.
Richardson_, elected in place of Douglas.
INDIANA.--_Jesse D. Bright_, expelled Feb. 5, 1862; Henry S. Lane;
Joseph A. Wright, appointed in place of Bright; _David Turpie_,
elected in place of Bright.
IOWA.--James W. Grimes; James Harlan.
KANSAS.--James H. Lane; Samuel C. Pomeroy.
KENTUCKY.--_Lazarus W. Powell; James C. Breckinridge_, expelled
Dec. 4, 1861; GARRETT DAVIS, elected in place of Breckinridge.
MAINE.--Lot M. Morrill; William Pitt Fessenden.
MARYLAND.--ANTHONY KENNEDY; JAMES A. PEARCE, died Dec. 30, 1862;
Thomas H. Hicks, elected in place of Pearce.
MASSACHUSETTS.--Charles Sumner; Henry Wilson.
MICHIGAN.--Zachariah Chandler; Kinsley S. Bingham, died Oct. 5,
1861; Jacob M. Howard, elected in place of Bingham.
MINNESOTA.--Morton S. Wilkinson; _Henry M. Rice_.
MISSOURI.--_Trusten Polk_, expelled Jan. 10, 1862; John B. Henderson,
appointed in place of Polk; _Waldo P. Johnson_, expelled Jan. 10,
1862; _Robert Wilson_, appointed in place of Johnson.
NEW HAMPSHIRE.--John P. Hale; Daniel Clark.
NEW JERSEY.--_John R. Thomson_, died Sept. 12, 1862; John C. Ten
Eyck; Richard S. Field, appointed in place of Thomson; _James W.
Wall_, elected in place of Thomson.
NEW YORK.--Preston King; Ira Harris.
OHIO.--Benjamin F. Wade; Salmon P. Chase, resigned March 5, 1861,
to become Secretary of Treasury; John Sherman, elected in place of
Chase.
PENNSYLVANIA.--David Wilmot, elected in place of Cameron; Edgar
Cowan; Simon Cameron, resigned March 5, 1861.
RHODE ISLAND.--James F. Simmons, resigned December, 1862; Henry B.
Anthony; Samuel G. Arnold, elected in place of Simmons.
TENNESSEE.--Andrew Johnson, resigned March 4, 1862, to be military
governor of Tennessee.
VERMONT.--Solomon Foot; Jacob Collamer.
VIRGINIA.--Waitman T. Willey; John S. Carlile.
WISCONSIN.--James R. Doolittle; Timothy O. Howe.]
[** An anachronism occurs in stating that Senator Baker of Oregon
had witnessed as a child the funeral pageant of Lord Nelson. He
was not born for five years after Lord Nelson fell. The error was
taken from a eulogy pronounced on Senator Baker after his death.
The occurrence referred to was doubtless some one of the many
military pageants in London at the close of the Napoleonic wars.]
[*** NOTE.--The following is a list of Representatives in the Thirty-
seventh Congress. Republicans are given in Roman, Democrats in
Italic, American or Old-Line Whigs in small capitals.
CALIFORNIA.--Aaron A. Sargent; Frederick F. Low; Timothy G. Phelps.
CONNECTICUT.--Dwight Loomis; _James E. English; George C. Woodruff_;
Alfred A. Burnham.
DELAWARE.--George P. Fisher.
ILLINOIS.--Eilhu B. Washburne; Isaac N. Arnold; Owen Lovejoy;
William Kellogg; _William A. Richardson_, elected Senator; _John
A. McClernand_, resigned 1861 to enter the army; _James C. Robinson;
Philip B. Fouke; John A. Logan_, resigned 1861 to enter the army;
_William J. Allen_, elected in place of Logan; _Anthony L. Knapp_,
elected in place of McClernand.
INDIANA.--_John Law; James A. Cravens; William S. Holman_; George
W. Julian; Albert G. Porter; _Daniel W. Voorhees_; Albert S. White;
Schuyler Colfax; William Mitchell; John P. C. Shanks; W. McKee Dunn.
IOWA.--Samuel R. Curtis, resigned Aug. 4, 1861, to enter the army;
William Vandever; James F. Wilson, elected in place of Curtis.
KANSAS.--Martin F. Conway.
KENTUCKY.--_Henry C. Burnett_, expelled Dec. 3, 1861; JAMES S.
JACKSON, died in 1862; HENRY GRIDER; _Aaron Harding; Charles A.
Wickliffe_; GEORGE W. DUNLAP; ROBERT MALLORY; _John W. Menzies_;
SAMUEL L. CASEY, elected in place of Burnett; WILLIAM H. WADSWORTH;
JOHN J. CRITTENDEN; GEORGE H. YEAMAN, elected in place of Jackson.
LOUISIANA.--BENJAMIN F. FLANDERS, seated in February, 1863; MICHAEL
HAHN, seated in February, 1863.
MAINE.--John N. Goodwin; Charles W. Walton, resigned May 26, 1862;
Samuel C. Fessenden; Anson P. Morrill; John H. Rice; Frederick A.
Pike; Thomas A. D. Fessenden, elected in place of Walton.
MARYLAND.--JOHN W. CRISFIELD; EDWIN H. WEBSTER; _Cornelius L. L.
Learly_; FRANCIS THOMAS; CHARLES B. CALVERT; _Henry May_.
MASSACHUSETTS.--Thomas D. Eliot; James Buffington; Benjamin F.
Thomas; Alexander H. Rice; William Appleton, resigned in 1861; John
B. Alley; Daniel W. Gooch; Charles R. Train; Goldsmith F. Bailey,
died May 8, 1862; Charles Delano; Henry L. Dawes; Samuel Hooper,
elected in place of Appleton; Amasa Walker, elected in place of
Bailey.
MICHIGAN.--Bradley F. Granger; Fernando C. Beaman; Francis W.
Kellogg; Rowland E. Trowbridge.
MINNESOTA.--Cyrus Aldrich; William Windom.
MISSOURI.--Francis P. Blair, Jr., resigned in 1862; JAMES S. ROLLINS;
_Elijah H. Norton; John W. Reid_, expelled Dec. 2, 1861; _John W.
Noell; John S. Phelps; William A. Hall; Thomas L. Price_, elected
in place of Reid.
NEW HAMPSHIRE.--Gilman Marston; Edward H. Rollins; Thomas M.
Edwards.
NEW JERSEY.--John T. Nixon; John L. N. Stratton; _William G. Steele;
George T. Cobb; Nehemiah Perry_.
NEW YORK.--E. Henry Smith; MOSES F. ODELL; _Benjamin Wood_; William
Wall; Frederick A. Conkling; _Elijah Ward; Edward Haight_; Charles
H. Van Wyck; _John B. Steele_; Stephen Baker; Abraham B. Olin;
James B. McKean; William A. Wheeler; Scorates N. Sherman; _Chauncey
Vibbard_; Richard Franchot; Roscoe Conkling; R. Holland Duell;
William E. Lansing; Ambrose W. Clark; Charles B. Sedgwick; Theodore
M. Pomeroy; John P. Chamberlain; Alexander S. Diven; Robert B. Van
Valkenburgh; Alfred Ely; Augustus Frank; Burt Van Horn; Elbridge
G. Spaulding; Reuben E. Fenton; _Erastus Corning; James E. Kerrigan_;
Isaac C. Delaplaine.
OHIO.--_George H. Pendleton_; John A. Gurley; _Clement L. Vallandigham;
William Allen_; James M. Ashley; _Chilton A. White_; Richard A.
Harrison; Samuel Shellabarger; _Warren P. Noble_; Carey A. Trimble;
Valentine B. Horton; _Samuel S. Cox_; Samuel T. Worcester; Harrison
G. Blake; William P. Cutler; _James R. Morris_; Sidney Edgerton;
Albert G. Riddle; John Hutchins; John A. Bingham; _R. H. Nugen_.
OREGON.--_George K. Shiel_.
PENNSYLVANIA.--_William E. Lehman_; John P. Verree; William D.
Kelley; William M. Davis; John Hickman; _Thomas B. Cooper_, died
April 4, 1862; _John D. Stiles_, elected in place of Cooper,
deceased; _Sydenham E. Ancona_; Thaddeus Stevens; John W. Killinger;
James H. Campbell; _Hendrick R. Wright_; Philip Johnson; Galusha
A. Grow, Speaker; James T. Hale; _Joseph Bailey_; Edward McPherson;
Samuel S. Blair; John Covode; _Jesse Lazear_; James K. Moorhead;
Robert McKnight; John W. Wallace; John Patton; Elijah Babbitt;
_Charles J. Biddle_.
RHODE ISLAND.--William P. Sheffield; George H. Browne.
TENNESSEE.--GEORGE W. BRIDGES; ANDREW J. CLEMENTS; HORACE MAYNARD.
VERMONT.--Portus Baxter; Justin S. Morrill; Ezekiel P. Walton.
VIRGINIA.--Jacob B. Blair, elected in place of Carlile; William G.
Brown, John S. Carlile, elected Senator July, 1861; Joseph E. Segar;
Charles H. Upton; Kililan V. Whaley.
WISCONSIN.--Luther Hanchett, died Nov. 24, 1862; Walter D. McIndoe,
elected in place of Hanchett; John F. Potter; A. Scott Sloan.
_Territorial Delegates_.--Colorado, Hiram P. Bennett; Dakota, John
B. S. Todd; Nebraska, Samuel G. Daily; Nevada, John Cradlebaugh;
New-Mexico, John S. Watts; Utah, John M. Bernhisel; Washington,
William H. Wallace.]
[**** It should be stated that the so-called "California" regiment
of Colonel Baker was recruited principally in Philadelphia from
the young men of that city.]
CHAPTER XVI.
Second Session of Thirty-seventh Congress.--The Military Situation.
--Disaster at Ball's Bluff.--Death of Colonel E. D. Baker.--The
President's Message.--Capital and Labor.--Their Relation discussed
by the President.--Agitation of the Slavery Question.--The House
refuses to re-affirm the Crittenden Resolution.--Secretary Cameron
resigns.--Sent on Russian Mission.--Succeeded by Edwin M. Stanton.
--His Vigorous War Measures.--Victories in the Field.--Battle of
Mill Spring.--General Order of the President for a Forward Movement.
--Capture of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson.--Prestige and Popularity
of General Grant.--Illinois Troops.--General Burnside's Victory in
North Carolina.--Effect of the Victories upon the Country.--Continued
Success for the Union in the South-West.--Proposed Celebration.--
The Monitor and the Merrimac.--Ericsson.--Worden.--Capture of New
Orleans by Farragut.--The Navy.--Its Sudden and Great Popularity.
--Legislation in its Favor.--Battle of Shiloh.--Anxiety in the
North.--Death of Albert Sidney Johnston.--General Halleck takes
the Field.--Military Situation in the East.--The President and
General McClellan.--The Peninsular Campaign.--Stonewall Jackson's
Raid.--Its Disastrous Effect.--Fear for Safety of Washington.--Anti-
Slavery Legislation.--District of Columbia.--Compensated Emancipation.
--Colonization.--Confiscation.--Punishment of Treason.
The first session of the Thirty-seventh Congress came to an end
amid the deep gloom caused by the disastrous defeat at Bull Run.
The second session opened in December, 1861, under the shadow of
a grave disaster at Ball's Bluff, in which the eloquent senator
from Oregon, Edward D. Baker, lost his life. Despite these reverses
the patriotic spirit of the country had constantly risen, and had
increased the Union forces until the army was six hundred thousand
strong. Winfield Scott had gone upon the retired list at the ripe
age of seventy-five, and George B. McClellan had succeeded him in
command of the army. The military achievements thus far had been
scarcely more then defensive. The National Capital had been
fortified; Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri had been
wrenched from rebel domination; while on our Southern coast two
landings had been effected by the Union troops,--the first at
Hatteras in North Carolina, the second at Port Royal in South
Carolina. There was serious danger of a division of popular
sentiment in the North growing out of the Slavery question; there
was grave apprehension of foreign intervention from the arrest of
Mason and Slidell. The war was in its eighth month; and, strong
and energetic as the Northern people felt, it cannot be denied that
a confidence in ultimate triumph had become dangerously developed
throughout the South.
THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE, 1861.
The message of Mr. Lincoln dealt with the situation in perfect
candor. He did not attempt to withhold any thing or to color any
thing. He frankly acknowledged that "our intercourse with foreign
nations had been attended with profound solicitude." He recognized
that "a nation which endured factious domestic division is exposed
to disrespect abroad; and one party, if not both, is sure, sooner
or later, to invoke foreign intervention." With his peculiar power
of condensing a severe expression, he said that "the disloyal
citizens of the United States have offered the ruin of our country
in return for the aid and comfort which they have invoked abroad."
This offer was made on the presumption that some commercial or
substantial gain would accrue to other nations from the destruction
of the Republic; but Mr. Lincoln believed with confidence that
"foreign governments would not in the end fail to perceive that
one strong nation promises more durable peace, and a more extensive,
valuable, and reliable commerce, than can the same nation broken
into hostile fragments," and for this reason he believed that the
rebel leaders had received from abroad "less patronage and
encouragement than they probably expected."
The President dwelt with satisfaction upon the condition of the
Border States, concerning whose course he had constantly exhibited
the profoundest solicitude. He now informed Congress that "noble
little Delaware led off right, from the first," and that Maryland,
which had been "made to seem against the Union," had given "seven
regiments to the loyal cause, and none to the enemy, and her people,
at a regular election, have sustained the Union by a larger majority
and a larger aggregate vote than they ever before gave to any
candidate on any question." Kentucky, concerning which his anxiety
had been deepest, was now decidedly, and, as he thought, "unchangeably,
ranged on the side of the Union." Missouri he announced as
comparatively quiet, and he did not believe she could be again
overrun by the insurrectionists. These Border slave States, none
of which "would promise a single soldier at first, have now an
aggregate of not less than forty thousand in the field for the
Union; while of their citizens certainly not more than a third of
that number, and they of doubtful whereabouts and doubtful existence,
are in arms against it." Beyond these results the President had
some "general accounts of popular movements in behalf of the Union
in North Carolina and Tennessee," and he expressed his belief that
"the cause of the Union is advancing steadily and certainly
Southward."
The one marked change in the popular opinion of the free States,
now reflected in Congress, was in respect to the mode of dealing
with Slavery. Mr. Lincoln was conservative, and always desired to
keep somewhat in the rear rather than too far in advance of the
public judgment. In his message he avoided all direct expression
upon the Slavery question, but with the peculiar shrewdness which
characterized his political discussion he announced a series of
general truths respecting labor and capital which, in effect, were
deadly hostile to the institution. He directed attention to the
fact the "the insurrection is largely if not exclusively a war upon
the first principle of popular government--the rights of the people."
Conclusive evidence of this appeared in "the maturely considered
public documents as well as in the general tone of the insurgents."
He discerned a disposition to abridge the right of suffrage and to
deny to the people the "right to participate in the selection of
public officers except those of the Legislature." He found indeed
that "monarchy itself is sometimes hinted at as a possible refuge
from the power of the people." While he did not think it fitting
to make "a general argument in favor of popular institutions," he
felt that he should scarcely be justified were he "to omit raising
a warning voice against this approach of returning despotism." It
was, he said, "the effort to place capital on an equal footing
with, if not above, labor in the structure of government," and it
assumed "that labor is available only in connection with capital;
that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow
by the use of it induces him to labor."
THE PRESIDENT'S ANTI-SLAVERY ARGUMENT.
Mr. Lincoln found that the next step in this line of argument raised
the question, "whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers,
and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them,
and drive them to it without their consent?" thus leading to the
conclusion that "all laborers are either hired laborers or what we
call slaves," and that "whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed
in that condition for life." From all these theories Mr. Lincoln
radically dissented, and maintained that "labor is the superior of
capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." "No men
living," said he, "are more worthy to be trusted than those who
toil up from poverty--none less inclined to take or touch aught
which they have not honestly earned. Let them beware of surrendering
a political power which they already possess, and which, if
surrendered, will surely be used to close the door of advancement,
and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them till all of
liberty shall be lost." If Mr. Lincoln had directly attempted at
that early stage of the contest to persuade the laboring men of
the North that it was best for them to aid in abolishing Slavery,
he would have seriously abridged the popularity of his administration.
He pursued the wiser course of showing that the spirit of the
Southern insurrection was hostile to all free labor, and that in
its triumph not merely the independence of the laborer but his
right of self-defense, as conferred by suffrage, would be imperiled
if not destroyed. Until the discussion reached the higher plane
on which Mr. Lincoln placed it, the free laborer in the North was
disposed to regard a general emancipation of the slaves as tending
to reduce his own wages, and as subjecting him to the disadvantage
of an odious contest for precedence of race. The masses in the
North had united with the Republican party in excluding Slavery
from the Territories because the larger the area in which free
labor was demanded the better and more certain was the remuneration.
But against a general emancipation Mr. Lincoln was quick to see
that white laborers might be readily prejudiced by superficial
reasoning, and hence he adduced the broader argument which appealed
at once to their humanity, to their sense of manly independence,
and to their instinct of self-preservation against the mastery and
the oppression of capital.
The agitation of the Slavery question, while unavoidable, was
nevertheless attended with serious embarrassments to the Union
cause. The great outburst of patriotism which followed the fall
of Sumter contemplated a rally of the entire North for the defense
of the Flag and the preservation of the Union. Neither political
party was to take advantage of the situation, but all alike were
to share in the responsibility and in the credit of maintaining
the government inviolate. Every month however had demonstrated
more and more that to preserve the government without interfering
with Slavery would be impossible; and as this fact became clearly
evident to the Republican vision, a large section of the Democratic
party obdurately refused to acknowledge it or to consent to the
measures which it suggested. It was apparent therefore within the
first six months of the struggle that a division would come in the
North, which would be of incalculable advantage to the insurrectionists,
and that if the division should go far enough it would insure
victory to the Confederate cause. If the Democratic party as a
whole had in the autumn of the year 1861 taken the ground which a
considerable section of it assumed, it would have been impossible
to conduct the war for the Union successfully. Great credit
therefore was due and was cordially given to the large element in
that party which was ready to brave all the opprobrium of their
fellow-partisans and to accept the full responsibility of co-
operating with the Republicans in war measures.
Congress had hardly come together when the change of opinion and
action upon the Slavery question became apparent. Mr. Holman of
Indiana, reciting the Crittenden resolution which had been passed
the preceding session with only two adverse votes, offered a
resolution that its principles "be solemnly re-affirmed by this
House." Objection was made by several members. Mr. Thaddeus
Stevens moved to lay the resolution on the table, and the motion
prevailed on a yea and nay vote by 71 to 65. The majority were
all Republicans. The minority was principally made up of Democrats,
but Republicans as conspicuous as Mr. Dawes of Massachusetts and
Mr. Shellabarger of Ohio voted in the negative. The wide divergence
between this action on the part of the Republicans on the third
day of December, 1861, and that which they had taken on the preceding
22d of July, was recognized and appreciated by the country, and
thus began the open division on the Slavery question which continually
widened, which consolidated the Republican party in support of the
most radical measures, and which steadily tended to weaken the
Democratic party in the loyal States.
SECRETARY CAMERON RESIGNS.
At the height of the excitement in Congress over the engagement at
Ball's Bluff there was a change in the head of the War Department.
The disasters in the field and the general impatience for more
decisive movements on the part of our armies led to the resignation
of Secretary Cameron. He was in his sixty-third year, and though
of unusual vigor for his age, was not adapted by education or habit
to the persistent and patient toil, to the wearisome detail of
organization, to the oppressive increase of responsibility,
necessarily incident to military operations of such vast proportions
as were entailed by the progress of the war. He was nominated as
Minister to Russia, and on the eleventh day of January, 1862, was
succeeded in the War Department by Edwin M. Stanton.
Mr. Stanton signalized his entrance upon duty by extraordinary
vigor in war measures, and had the good fortune to gain credit for
many successes which were the result of arrangements in progress
and nearly perfected under his predecessor. A week after he was
sworn in, an important victory was won at Mill Springs, Kentucky,
by General George H. Thomas. The Confederate commander, General
Zollicoffer, was killed, and a very decisive check was put to a
new development of Secession sympathy which was foreshadowed in
Kentucky. A few days later, on the 27th of January, under the
inspiration of Mr. Stanton, the President issued a somewhat remarkable
order commanding "a general movement of the land and naval forces
of the United States against the insurgent forces on the 22d of
February." He especially directed that the army at and about
Fortress Monroe, the Army of the Potomac, the Army of Western
Virginia, the army near Munfordsville, Kentucky, the army and
flotilla at Cairo, and the naval force in the Gulf of Mexico be
ready for a movement on that day. The order did not mean what was
stated on its face. It was evidently intended to mislead somebody.
The Illinois colonel who had taken possession of Paducah in the
preceding September was now known as Brigadier-General Grant. He
had been made prominent by a daring fight at Belmont, Missouri, on
the 7th of November (1861) against a largely superior force under
the command of the Confederate General Pillow. For the numbers
engaged it was one of the most sanguinary conflicts of the war.
The quarter-master of the expedition intimated to General Grant
that in case of a reverse he had but two small steamers for transportation
to the Illinois shore. The General's only reply was that in the
event of his defeat "the steamers would hold all that would be
left." He was now in command at Cairo, and co-operating with him
was a flotilla of hastily constructed gunboats under the command
of Flag-officer A. H. Foote of the navy. General Grant evidently
interpreted Mr. Lincoln's order to mean that he need not wait until
the 22d, and he began his movement of the first day of February.
By the 16th he had captured Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. The
flotilla had been more active than the troops, against Fort Henry,
which was speedily evacuated, but Fort Donelson did not surrender
until after a hard-fought land battle in which the characteristic
tenacity, skill, and bravery of General Grant were for the first
time fully shown to the country. "The victory achieved," he
announced in his congratulatory order to the troops, "is not only
great in the effect it will have in breaking down the rebellion,
but has secured the greatest number of prisoners of war ever taken
in a single battle on this continent." The number of prisoners
exceeded ten thousand; forty pieces of cannon and extensive magazines
of ordnance with military stores of all kinds were captured. The
Confederate commander was General S. B. Buckner, who had joined
the rebellion under circumstances which gained him much ill will
in the Loyal States. Under a flag of truce he asked General Grant
on the morning of the 16th for an armistice to "settle the terms
of capitulation." General Grant's answer was, "No terms except
unconditional surrender can be accepted. I propose to move
immediately on your works." General Buckner felt himself "compelled
to accept the ungenerous and unchivalrous terms" which General
Grant proposed. It is due to General Buckner to say that he had
been left in a humiliating position. The two generals who ranked
him, Gideon J. Pillow and John B. Floyd, seeing the inevitable,
had escaped from the fort the preceding night with five thousand
men, leaving to Buckner the mortification of surrender. In view
of this fact the use of the term "unchivalrous" by the Confederate
commander can be justly appreciated.
VICTORY AT FORT DONELSON.
The effect of the victory upon the country was electric. The public
joy was unbounded. General Grant had become in a day the hero of
the war. His fame was on every tongue. The initials of his name
were seized upon by the people for rallying-cries of patriotism,
and were woven into songs for the street and for the camp. He was
"Unconditional Surrender," he was "United States," he was "Uncle
Sam." Not himself only but his State was glorified. It was an
Illinois victory. No less than thirty regiments from that State
were in General Grant's command, and they had all won great credit.
This fact was especially pleasing to Mr. Lincoln. Indiana, Iowa,
Missouri, and Kentucky were all gallantly represented on the field,
but the prestige of the day belonged to Illinois. Many of her
public men, prominent in political life before and since the war,
were in command of regiments. The moral force of the victory was
increased by the fact that so large a proportion of these prominent
officers had been, like General Grant, connected with the Democratic
party,--thus adding demonstration to assurance that it was an
uprising of a people in defense of their government, and not merely
the work of a political party seeking to extirpate slavery. John
A. Logan, Richard J. Oglesby, William R. Morrison, and William Pitt
Kellogg were among the Illinois officers who shared in the renown
of the victory. General Lewis Wallace commanded a division made
up of Indiana and Kentucky troops, and was honorably prominent.
The total force under General Grant was nearly fifty regiments,
furnishing about twenty-eight thousand men for duty. They had
captured the strongest Confederate intrenchment in the West, manned
by nearly seventeen thousand men. The defeat was a great mortification
to Jefferson Davis. He communicated intelligence of the disaster
to the Confederate Congress in a curt message in which he described
the official reports of the battle as "incomplete and unsatisfactory,"
and stated that he had relieved Generals Floyd and Pillow from
command.
Two important results followed the victory. The strong fortifications
erected at Columbus, Kentucky, to control the passage of the
Mississippi, were abandoned by the Confederates; and Nashville,
the capital of Tennessee, was surrendered to the Union army without
resistance. The Confederate force at the latter point was under
command of General Albert Sidney Johnston, who, unable to offer
battle, sullenly retreated southward. If the Confederate troops
had been withdrawn from Fort Donelson in season to effect a junction
with Johnston at Nashville, that able general might have delivered
battle there on terms possibly advantageous to his side. It was
this feature of the case which rendered the loss of Donelson so
serious and so exasperating to the Confederate Government, as shown
in the message of Jefferson Davis.
Another victory for the Union was gained on the coast of North
Carolina under the joint efforts of the army and the navy. General
Burnside was in command of the former and Commodore Gouldsborough
of the latter. The battle of Roanoke Island was fought the day
after the capture of Fort Henry, and the Union victory led to a
lodgment of the national forces on the soil of North Carolina,
which was held firmly to the end. Events beyond the Mississippi
were also favorable to the National Government. General Sterling
Price had been the cause of much trouble in Missouri, where he was
personally popular. He had led many young men into rebellion, and
his efforts to carry the State into the Confederacy were energetic
and unremitting. He had been dominating a large section of Missouri
and creating grave apprehensions for its safety. On the 18th of
February General Halleck, who had succeeded General Frémont in the
command of the Western Department, telegraphed the Secretary of
War: "General Curtis has driven Price from Missouri, and is several
miles across the Arkansas line, cutting up Price's army and hourly
capturing prisoners and stores. The Army of the South-West is
doing its duty nobly. The flag of the Union is floating in
Arkansas."
These victories coming almost simultaneously produced a profound
impression throughout the Loyal States. Men rushed to the conclusion
that the war would be closed and the Union restored before the end
of the year. The most sedate communities become mercurial and
impressible in time of deep excitement. The rejoicing was universal.
Congress ordered the illumination of the Capitol and other public
buildings in Washington on the 22d of February "in honor of the
recent victories of our army and navy;" and "as a mark of respect
to the memory of those who had been killed and in sympathy with
those who have been wounded" the House of Representatives on the
19th of February, on the motion of Mr. Washburne of Illinois,
adjourned without transacting business. The flags taken in the
recent victories were to be publicly exhibited, and a day of general
congratulation was to be associated with the memory of Washington
and "the triumph of the government which his valor and wisdom had
done so much to establish." In the midst of the arrangements for
this celebration, the members of the Cabinet jointly communicated
to Congress on the 21st of February the intelligence that "the
President of the United States is plunged into affliction by the
death of a beloved child." Congress immediately ordered that the
illumination of the public buildings be omitted, and "entertaining
the deepest sentiments of sympathy and condolence with the President
and his family," adjourned. The reading of Washington's Farewell
Address on the 22d, before the two Houses, was the only part
accomplished of the brilliant celebration that had been designed.
THE MONITOR AND THE MERRIMAC.
A fortnight later, on the 8th of March (1862), came the remarkable
engagement in Hampton Roads between the _Monitor_ and the _Merrimac_.
The former vessel arrived at Fortress Monroe after the _Merrimac_
had destroyed the United-States sloop-of-war _Cumberland_ and the
frigate _Congress_, and had driven the steam-frigate _Minnesota_
aground just as darkness put an end to the fight. On Sunday morning,
March 9, the _Merrimac_ renewed her attack upon the _Minnesota_,
and was completely surprised by the appearance of a small vessel
which, in the expressive description of the day, resembled a cheese-
box on a raft. She had arrived from New York at the close of the
first day's fight. From her turret began a furious cannonade which
not only diverted the attack from the _Minnesota_ but after a
ferocious contest of many hours practically destroyed the _Merrimac_,
which was compelled to seek the shelter of Confederate batteries
at Sewell's Point, and never re-appeared in service. The relief
to the North by this victory was incalculable. Not only had the
_Merrimac_ been stopped in her expected bombardment of Northern
cities, but the success of the _Monitor_ assured to the government
a class of armor-plated vessels that could be of great value in
the coast service to which our naval operations were principally
confined. Against land batteries they would prove especially
formidable. Ericsson who constructed the _Monitor_ and Lieutenant
Worden who commanded her, divided the honors, and were everywhere
regarded as having rendered an invaluable service to the country.
The modesty and heroism of Worden secured him an unbounded share
of popular admiration and respect.
In the ensuing month of April the navy performed another great
service by the capture of New Orleans. The fleet was in command
of Captain Farragut, and successfully passed the fortifications
which had been erected by the National Government to prevent a
foreign foe from entering the Mississippi. New Orleans made no
resistance to the approach of the fleet, and General B. F. Butler,
in command of the Department of the Gulf, established his headquarters
in the city. The importance of this conquest to the Union cause
could hardly be estimated. It enabled the government to embarrass
the trans-Mississippi States in their support of the rebel army,
and thus inflicted a heavy blow upon the fortunes of the Confederacy.
New Orleans in the control of the National Government was easy to
defend, and it afforded a base of offensive operations in so many
directions that no amount of vigilance could anticipate the attacks
that might be made by the Union forces.
Viewed in connection with the effective work of Flag-officer Foote
in supporting General Grant in the Henry and Donelson campaign,
and of Gouldsborough in supporting Burnside on the coast of North
Carolina, these later and greater achievements of the navy served
to raise that branch of the service in popular esteem. Besides
the intrinsic merit which attached to the victories, they had all
the advantage of a genuine surprise to the public. Little had been
expected from the navy in a contest where the field of operation
seemed so restricted. But now the people saw that the most important
post thus far wrenched from the Confederacy had been taken by the
navy, and that it was effectively sustaining and strengthening the
army at all points. It was no longer regarded as a mere blockading
force, but was menacing the coast of the Confederate States,
penetrating their rivers, and neutralizing the strength of thousands
of Rebel soldiers who were withdrawn from armies in the field to
man the fortifications rendered necessary by this unexpected form
of attack. These facts made a deep impression of Congress. Since
the close of the second war with Great Britain the navy had enjoyed
no opportunity for distinction. The war with Mexico was wholly a
contest on land, and for a period of forty-five years the navy of
the United States had not measured its strength with any foe.
Meanwhile however it had made great advance in the education and
training of its officers and in the general tone of the service.
Under the secretaryship of George Bancroft, the eminent historian,
(in the cabinet of Mr. Polk,) an academy had been established at
Annapolis for the scientific training of naval officers. By this
enlightened policy, inaugurated if not originally conceived by Mr.
Bancroft, naval officers had for the first time been placed on an
equal footing with the officers of the army who had long enjoyed
the advantages of the well-organized and efficient school at West
Point. The academy had borne fruit, and at the outbreak of the
war, the navy was filled with young officers carefully trained in
the duties of their profession, intelligent in affairs, and with
an _esprit de corps_ not surpassed in the service of any other
country. Their efficiency was supplemented by that of volunteer
officers in large numbers who came from the American merchant
marine, and who in all the duties of seamanship, in courage,
capacity, and patriotism, were the peers of any men who ever trod
a deck.
Congress now realized that a re-organization of the naval service
was necessary, that the stimulus of promotion should be more
liberally used, the pride of rank more generously indulged. An
Act was therefore passed on the 16th of July greatly enlarging the
scope of the naval organization and advancing the rank of its
officers. Farragut had won his magnificent triumph at New Orleans
while holding the rank of captain,--the highest then known to our
service,--and Worden had achieved his great fame at Hampton Roads
with the commission of a lieutenant. David D. Porter, with no
higher rank, had been exercising commands which in any European
government would have been assigned to an admiral. Perhaps no navy
in the world had at that time abler officers than ours, while the
rank and emolument, except for the lowest grades, was shamefully
inadequate. The old navy had only the ranks of passed-midshipman,
lieutenant, commander, and captain. The new law gave nine grades,
--midshipman, ensign, master, lieutenant, lieutenant-commander,
commander, captain, commodore, and rear-admiral. The effect of
the increased rank was undoubtedly stimulating to the service and
valuable to the government. Two higher grades of vice-admiral and
admiral were subsequently added, and were filled by Farragut and
Porter to whom in the judgment of the Department special and emphatic
honor was due. The navy had conquered its own place in the public
regard, and had performed an inestimable service in the contest
against the rebellion.
THE DESPERATE BATTLE OF SHILOH.
The brilliant success in the early spring, both of the army and
navy, was unfortunately not continued in the subsequent months.
General Grant, after the fall of Nashville, marched southward to
confront the army of General A. S. Johnston, and on the 6th and
7th of April a terrible battle was fought at Pittsburg Landing on
the Tennessee River. The battle was originally called by that name
in the annals of the Union, but the title of "Shiloh" given to it
by the Confederate authorities, is the one more generally recognized
in history. In the first day's engagement the Union army narrowly
escaped a crushing defeat; but before the renewal of the contest
on the following morning General Buell effected a junction with
the forces of General Grant, and the two, united, recovered all
the lost ground of the day before and gained a substantial victory
for the Union, though at great cost of life. The Union army lost
some eighteen hundred men killed and nearly eight thousand wounded.
The Confederate loss was not less. There is no doubt that General
Grant was largely outnumbered on the first day, but after the
junction of Buell he probably outnumbered the Confederates. Sixty
thousand was perhaps the maximum of the Union forces on the second
day, while the Confederate army, as nearly as can be ascertained,
numbered fifty thousand. One great event of the battle was the
death of Albert Sidney Johnston, a soldier of marked skill, a man
of the highest personal character. Jefferson Davis made his death
the occasion of a special message to the Confederate Congress, in
which he said that "without doing injustice to the living, our loss
is irreparable." The personal affliction of Mr. Davis was sore.
The two had been at West Point together, and had been close friends
through life. William Preston Johnston, son of the fallen General,
a young man of singular excellence of character and of most attractive
personal traits, was at the time private secretary to Mr. Davis.
He has since been widely known in the South in connection with its
educational progress.
Deep anxiety had preceded the battle throughout the North, and the
relief which followed was grateful. It was made the occasion by
the President for a proclamation in which the people were asked
"to assemble in their places of public worship and especially
acknowledge and render thanks to our Heavenly Father for the successes
which have attended the Army of the Union." But after the first
flush of victory, the battle became the subject of controversy in
the newspapers. Criticism of officers was unsparing, the slaughter
of our soldiers was exaggerated, crimination and recrimination were
indulged in respecting the conduct of troops from certain States.
General Grant was accused of having been surprised and of having
thereby incurred a danger which narrowly escaped being a defeat.
The subject was brought into Congress and warmly debated. Senator
Sherman of Ohio introduced a resolution calling for all the reports
from the officers in command, and made a speech defending the
conduct of the Ohio troops, upon which some reflections had been
inconsiderately and most unjustly cast. Mr. Elihu Washburne made
an elaborate speech in the House on the 2d of May, in which he gave
a full account of the battle, and defended General Grant with much
warmth against all possible charges which, either through ignorance
or malice, had been preferred against him for his conduct of the
battle. This speech, which was of great value to General Grant,
both with the Administration and the country, laid the foundation
of that intimate friendship which so long subsisted between him
and Mr. Washburne. Mr. Richardson of Illinois followed his colleague,
and expressed his disgust with even the introduction of the subject
in Congress. He felt that our armies would gain more renown and
secure greater victories if the "Riot Act" could be read, and both
Houses of Congress dispersed to their homes at the very earliest
moment.
General Halleck, who had command of the Western Department, became
anxious for reputation on the field, and was thought by many to be
jealous of the daily increasing fame of General Grant. After the
battle of Shiloh, he took command in person of the army which Grant
had already rendered illustrious, leaving Grant to command its
right wing. Uniting the Western forces into one large army General
Halleck marched southward in pursuit of the Confederate column now
under the command of Beauregard, and strongly intrenched at Corinth.
As the army approached, Corinth was evacuated, and the campaign of
General Halleck, leading to no important engagement, did not add
to his military fame. Meanwhile there had been increasing
dissatisfaction in Congress and among the people with the supersedure
of General Grant, and to relieve the situation General Halleck was
called to Washington in the early part of July to take command of
the army which had been relinquished by McClellan in March, when
he set forth upon the Peninsular campaign. In the intervening
months there had been no General-in-Chief of the army, the duties
being performed by the Secretary of War.
GENERAL GEORGE B. McCLELLAN.
The Western victories, important as they were, did not remove the
pressure in the East. The popular interest was more largely
concentrated in the success of the Army of the Potomac, which would
secure the safety of the National Capital, and possibly the possession
of the capital of the Confederacy. High hopes had been staked upon
the issue. Elaborate preparations had been made and the utmost
care had been taken in the organization and discipline of the army.
General George B. McClellan was intrusted with the command. He
was a native of Pennsylvania, a distinguished graduate of West
Point, a man of high personal character. His military skill was
vouched for by older officers whose opinions would have weight with
the President. But he had been six months in command of the Army
of the Potomac and had done nothing in the field. The autumn had
passed in inaction, the winter had worn away, and the spring had
come without finding him ready to move. Whatever might be the
justification for delay, it was his misfortune to become the subject
of controversy. There was a McClellan party and an anti-McClellan
party, in the press, among the people, in Congress, and in the
army. How far this may have impaired the efficiency of his command
cannot be known, but it no doubt seriously undermined him in the
confidence of the War Department. Before he had fired a gun in
the Peninsular campaign he was in a disputation with both the
President and Secretary Stanton. On the 9th of April (1862) Mr.
Lincoln wrote him, "Your dispatches complaining that you are not
properly sustained, while they do not offend me, do pain me very
much." General McClellan had complained that the President had
detained McDowell's corps, and thus weakened the strength of his
army, and the President was defending the policy as one necessary
to the safety of Washington. McClellan protested that he had but
eighty-five thousand men at Yorktown. The President insisted that
he had a hundred and eight thousand. "And once more," said the
President, "in conclusion, let me tell you it is indispensable to
you that you strike a blow. I am powerless to help this. You will
do me the justice to remember that I always insisted that going
down the bay in search of a field, instead of fighting at or near
Manassas, was only shifting and not surmounting the difficulty;
that we would find the same enemy and the same or equal intrenchments
at either place. The country will not fail to note (is now noting)
that the present hesitation to move upon the intrenched enemy is
but the story of Manassas repeated. I beg to assure you that I
have never written you or spoken to you in greater kindness of
feeling than now, nor with a fuller purpose of sustaining you so
far as in my most anxious judgment I consistently can."
This condition of affairs with the indication of increasing discord
between the Commander-in-Chief and General McClellan boded no good
to the Union cause, and the entire Peninsular campaign was but a
succession of "hopes deferred" that made the heart sick; of
disappointment, of great sacrifice of life and treasure, and in
the end of positive disaster and humiliating retreat.
As General McClellan neared Richmond and needed re-enforcements
for a decisive battle with General Lee's army, the Confederates
used the most admirable tactics for the purpose of alarming the
authorities at Washington and compelling them to withhold help from
the Army of the Potomac. Stonewall Jackson came thundering down
the Shenandoah Valley with a force which the exaggeration of the
day placed far beyond his real numbers. He brushed aside the army
of General Banks at Winchester by what might well be termed a
military cyclone, and created such consternation that our troops
in the Potomac Valley were at once thrown upon the defensive.
McDowell with his corps was at Fredericksburg, hurrying to Hanover
Court-House for the purpose of aiding McClellan. With our forces
thus remote from Washington, and the fortifications around the city
imperfectly manned, something akin to panic seized upon the
Government. General McDowell, by direct order of the President,
was turned from his march on Richmond, to follow or intercept
Jackson. On the 25th of May the Secretary of War telegraphed to
the governors of the Loyal States: "Intelligence from various
quarters leaves no doubt that the enemy in great force are marching
on Washington. You will please organize and forward immediately
all the militia and volunteer forces in your State." The governors
in turn issued alarming proclamations, some of which were eminently
calculated to spread the contagion of fear prevailing at Washington.
Governor Andrew, with evident apprehension of the worst, informed
the people of Massachusetts that "The wily and barbarous horde of
traitors to the people, to the Government, to our country, and to
liberty, menace again the National Capital: they have attacked and
routed Major-General Banks, are advancing on Harper's Ferry, and
are marching on Washington. The President calls on Massachusetts
to rise at once for its rescue and defense." Throughout the entire
North there was for several days a genuine belief that the National
Capital might soon be in possession of the Confederate army, and
the senators and representatives in Congress be seized as prisoners
of war.
STONEWALL JACKSON'S STRATEGY.
Meanwhile Stonewall Jackson having marched to the very banks of
the Potomac and shelled Harper's Ferry, and having succeeded beyond
his most sanguine expectation in the object which he had in view,
deliberately began his retreat. He was followed up the Shenandoah
Valley by the commands of four Major-Generals and one Brigadier-
General of the Union army. He drew these united forces after him
precisely as he desired, for the benefit of Lee's army at Richmond.
He did not fly from them as if dreading a battle, for that would
have been to dismiss the large Union force to the aid of General
McClellan. Occasionally detailing a fraction of his command to
engage in a skirmish with his pursuers, who far outnumbered his
whole force, he managed to keep his main body at a safe distance,
and to reserve it for a more important work ahead. After thus
drawing our troops so far up the valley that it was impossible for
them to retrace their steps in season for concentration on Richmond,
he rapidly transported the main body of his own troops by rail from
Staunton, and rejoined General Lee in time to take part in the
final and memorable series of engagements which, by the close of
June, had compelled General McClellan to take refuge on the banks
of the James, where he could have the co-operation of the gunboats
which lay at Harrison's Landing.
General Halleck took command as General-in-Chief of the army directly
after the Army of the Potomac had closed its campaign against
Richmond. He visited Harrison's Landing on the 24th of July to
make personal inquiry into the situation, and the result was an
order for the transfer of the army to Acquia Creek. General
McClellan protested earnestly, and, in the judgment of many of the
most skilled in military science, wisely, against this movement.
The Army of the Potomac, he said, was "within twenty-five miles of
Richmond, and with the aid of the gunboats we can supply the army
by water during its advance to within twelve miles of Richmond.
At Acquia Creek we would be seventy miles from Richmond, with land
transportation all the way." He thought the government had ample
troops to protect Washington and guard the line of the Potomac,
and he could not see the wisdom of transporting the Army of the
Potomac two hundred miles at enormous cost, only to place it three
times as far from Richmond as it then was. General Halleck's
position was sustained by the President, and the Secretary of War,
and the argument of General McClellan, convincing and conclusive
as it seems, was overruled by the peremptory mandate of his military
superiors.
The failure of the Peninsular campaign will always be a subject of
controversy. At the time it was one of prolonged and angry dispute.
Where military critics so widely differ, civilians gain the right
to a personal judgment. The weakness of that great military movement
was the lack of cordiality and confidence between the commander
and the Administration at Washington. The seeds of distrust had
been sown and a bountiful crop of disaster was the natural growth.
The withdrawal of McDowell's corps was a fatal blow to McClellan.
Before a military court which was inquiring into the transaction,
General McClellan stated under oath that he had "no doubt that the
Army of the Potomac would have taken Richmond had not the corps of
General McDowell been separated from it; and that, had the command
of General McDowell in the month of May joined the Army of the
Potomac by way of Hanover Court-House, we would have had Richmond
a week after the junction." He added, with evident reference to
Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Stanton, "I do not hold General McDowell
responsible for a failure to join me on that occasion."
STONEWALL JACKSON'S SUCCESSFUL RAID.
When General McDowell was turned back from Fredericksburg to take
part in the fruitless chase after Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah
Valley, he was doing precisely what the President of the Confederate
States would have ordered, had he been able to issue the orders of
the President of the United States. McDowell saw the blunder, but
his directions were peremptory and nothing was left but to obey.
He telegraphed the Secretary of War, "The President's order is a
crushing blow to us." Mr. Lincoln personally and immediately
replied to General McDowell, "The change is as painful to me as it
can possibly be to you or to any one." McDowell then ventured to
argue the case with the President. He distinctly told Mr. Lincoln
that he could effect nothing in trying to cut off Stonewall Jackson
in the Shenandoah Valley. "I shall," he continued, "gain nothing
for you there, and I shall lose much for you here. It is therefore
not only on personal ground that I have a heavy heart in this
matter, but I feel that it throws us all back, and from Richmond
north we shall have all our large mass paralyzed, and shall have
to repeat what we have just accomplished." Mr. Lincoln's order
and the whole of this correspondence were by telegraph on the twenty-
fourth day of May. Conclusive as the reasoning of General McDowell
seems, it did not move Mr. Lincoln from his purpose; and the heavy
re-enforcement which was then within three days of the point where
it could most effectively aid McClellan, was diverted to a hopeless
and useless pursuit. Had McDowell been allowed to proceed as he
desired and as General McClellan confidently expected, he would
have re-enforced the Army of the Potomac for an attack on Lee,
while Stonewall Jackson's corps was in the Shenandoah Valley. By
the unfortunate diversion ordered by Mr. Lincoln, precisely the
reverse occurred. Stonewall Jackson's corps arrived before Richmond
in season to aid in defeating McClellan, while McDowell with his
splendid contingent was aimlessly loitering in a distant part of
Virginia.
The President was led into this course by the urgent advice of the
Secretary of War. When McClellan went to the field, Mr. Stanton
undertook personally to perform the duties of General-in-Chief in
Washington. This was evidently an egregious blunder. Neither by
education, temper, temperament, nor by any other trait of his
character, was Mr. Stanton fitted for this duty. He was very
positively and in a high degree unfitted for it. With three Major-
Generals--McDowell, Banks, and Frémont--exercising independent
commands in the Potomac Valley, with their movements exerting a
direct and important influence upon the fortunes of the main army
under McClellan, there was especial need of a cool-headed, experienced,
able general at the Capital. Had one of the three great soldiers
who have been at the head of the army since the close of the war,
then been in chief command at Washington, there is little hazard
in saying that the brilliant and dashing tactics of Stonewall
Jackson would not have been successful, and that if General McClellan
had failed before Richmond, it would not have been for lack of
timely and adequate re-enforcement.
Before these military disasters occurred, Congress had made progress
in its legislation against the institution of Slavery. At the
beginning of the war there had been an ill-defined policy, or rather
an absence of all policy, in relation to the most important of
pending questions. The winter preceding the outbreak of the
rebellion had been so assiduously devoted by Congress to efforts
of compromise and conciliation, that it was difficult to turn the
public mind promptly to the other side, and to induce the people
to accept the logical consequences of the war. There was no uniform
policy among our generals. Each commander was treating the question
very much according to his own personal predilection, and that was
generally found to be in accordance with his previous political
relations. The most conspicuous exception to this rule was General
Benjamin F. Butler, who had been identified with the extreme pro-
slavery wing of the Democratic party. He was in command in May,
1861, at Fortress Monroe, and he found that when fugitive slaves
sought the protection of his camp they were pursued under flags of
truce, and their return was requested as a right under the Constitution
of the United States by men who were in arms against the Constitution.
The anomaly of this situation was seen by General Butler, and he
met it promptly by refusing to permit the slaves to be returned,
declaring them to be contraband of war. As they were useful to
the enemy in military operations, they were to be classed with arms
and ammunition. This opinion was at first received joyously by
the country, and the word "contraband" became the synonym of fugitive
slave. But General Butler's judgment is justified by the rules of
modern warfare, and its application solved a question of policy
which otherwise might have been fraught with serious difficulty.
In the presence of arms the Fugitive-slave Law became null and
void, and the Dred Scott decision was trampled under the iron hoof
of war.
SLAVERY ABOLISHED IN THE DISTRICT.
The first exercise of legislative power hostile to the institution
of slavery, already detailed, was promptly followed by one still
more decisive. Congress provided for the abolition of the institution
in the District of Columbia. A bill for this purpose was introduced
in the Senate on the 16th of December, 1861, and two months later
Mr. Morrill of Maine, from the Committee on the District, reported
it to the Senate with a favorable recommendation. Garrett Davis
of Kentucky spoke in support of an amendment requiring the
colonization, beyond the limits of the United States, of all persons
who might be liberated by the Act. He was firmly persuaded that
the liberation of slaves with their continued residence among the
whites would result in a war of races. Mr. Hale of New Hampshire
combated his opinion by arguments and facts drawn from the history
of emancipation in Jamaica. Mr. Wilson of Massachusetts gave an
interesting history of the circumstances which led to the selection
of the site for the National Capital upon slave territory.
Mr. Sumner dealt with the subject at great length, enforcing his
views by numerous authorities drawn from history, from the decisions
of courts, and from the opinions of publicists and statesmen of
modern times. The opponents of the measure did not conceal their
apprehension that the abolition of slavery in the District of
Columbia portended its overthrow in the States. Mr. Sumner and
his associates hailed the movement as the inauguration of a policy
destined to produce that result. "The future," said the Massachusetts
senator, "cannot be doubtful. At the National Capital slavery will
give way to freedom. But the good work will not stop here: it must
proceed. What God and Nature decree, Rebellion cannot arrest."
Mr. Sherman of Ohio maintained that it was not a measure for the
preservation of the government, but a municipal regulation, and
that the time had come when it was evidently wise to exercise the
powers granted by the Constitution. Mr. Willey of Virginia deprecated
the existence of slavery in the capital of the country, but he
opposed the emancipation bill as the first of a series of measures
that would end in the abolition of slavery in all the States by
act of Congress. The bill passed the Senate the third day of April
by a vote of 29 to 14.
When the measure reached the House and was read for information it
was at once challenged by Mr. Vallandigham of Ohio; and upon the
parliamentary question "Shall the bill be rejected?" the yeas were
45 and the nays were 93. The debate which immediately followed
was in good temper, with a notable absence of the exasperation
which it was feared the subject would call forth. Mr. Crittenden
of Kentucky stated the objections of the minority, and especially
of the Border slave States, fairly and temperately. The time seemed
to him unpropitious inasmuch as the moving cause of the secession
of the States was the apprehension on their part that Congress was
likely to take measures for the abolition of slavery. The passage
of the bill necessarily rendered futile every attempt at reconciliation.
Secondly, there was an implied agreement with Virginia and Maryland
at the time of the cession of the District that "the system of
slavery shall not be disturbed." And finally, the bill, although
it provided for compensation to lawful owners, was in effect a
measure of confiscation. It passed the House by a vote of 92 to
38. The President accompanied his approval with a special message
in which, while not doubting the constitutionality of the measure,
he intimated that there were "matters within and about the Act
which might have taken a course or shape more satisfactory to his
judgment." He especially commended the provision made for compensation
to the owners of slaves, and referred with satisfaction to the
appropriation made to aid any colored person of the District who
might desire to emigrate "to Liberia, Hayti, or any country beyond
the limits of the United States which the President may determine."
The sum of one hundred thousand dollars was appropriated for this
purpose by the Act--one hundred dollars being allowed to each
emigrant. The experiment came to nothing. The colored persons
who had resided in the United States as slaves were obviously
desirous of trying their fortunes as freemen among the people whom
they knew, and in the homes to which they were attached.
THE PRESIDENT'S CONSERVATIVE COURSE.
Mr. Lincoln had always been a firm believer in the scheme of African
colonization; and in his message of December, 1861, he recommended
a provision for colonizing the slaves set free by the influence of
war. From the slave States which had remained loyal to the Union
he was willing to accept slaves in lieu of the direct tax, according
to some mode of valuation that might be agreed upon, and he was
anxious that adequate provision should be made for their settlement
in some place or places with a climate congenial to them. But the
experiment with the manumitted negroes of the District, which was
made in compliance with this recommendation of the President and
in deference to his personal wishes, frequently and earnestly
expressed, demonstrated the impracticability of the plan. Colonization
could be effected only by the forcible removal of the colored
people, and this would have been a more cruel violation of their
natural rights than a continuance of the slavery in which they were
born. If free choice between the two conditions had been offered,
nine-tenths, perhaps even a larger proportion of the slaves, would
have preferred to remain in their old homes. In an economic point
of view the scheme was indefensible. We were at the time the only
country with undeveloped agricultural resources in warm latitudes,
that was not engaged in seeking labor from all quarters of the
world. The Colonization scheme deliberately proposed to strip the
United States of patient, faithful laborers, acclimated to the
cotton and sugar fields of the South, and capable of adding great
wealth to the nation. Colonization would deprive us of this much
needed labor, would entail vast expense in the deportation of the
negroes, and would devolve upon this country, by a moral responsibility
which it could not avoid, the protection and maintenance of the
feeble government which would be planted on the shores of Africa.
The Liberian experiment, honorable as it was to the colored race,
and successful as it had proved in establishing civilization in
Africa, had not attained such material prosperity as would justify
the United States in the removal of millions of its population to
a remote country where there was no demand for labor.
Mr. Lincoln's course on the Slavery question at that period of his
Administration was steadily and studiously conservative. He had
checked the Secretary of War (Mr. Cameron) in the issuing of an
anti-slavery order which was considered premature and unwise; he
had countermanded and annulled the proclamations of General Hunter
and General Frémont declaring the slaves to be free within the
districts of their respective commands. He now recommended a
measure in the line of his conservative policy, to which he attached
great weight, and from which he anticipated important consequences.
On the 6th of March, 1862, the President sent a message to Congress
recommending the adoption of a joint resolution declaring that "the
United States ought to co-operate with any State which may adopt
gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to each State pecuniary aid
to be used in its discretion to compensate for the inconveniences,
public and private, produced by such change of system." Mr. Lincoln
believed that if the leaders of the existing Rebellion could conquer
their independence, the Border slave States would necessarily join
them from sympathy with their institutions. By the initiation of
emancipation all possible desire or tendency in that direction
would be removed, and thus a severe blow be given to the Rebellion.
He believed in compensation to the slave-holder, and expressed his
opinion that "gradual and not sudden emancipation is better for
all." He asked Congress to consider "how very soon the current
expenses of the war would purchase at a fair valuation all the
slaves in any named State."
When the message reached the House it was referred to the Committee
of the Whole on the State of the Union. Four days later Mr. Roscoe
Conkling moved to suspend the rules in order to bring the resolution
before the House "in the exact form in which the President had
recommended it." The motion prevailed by 86 to 35. Francis P.
Blair of Missouri and the representatives from West Virginia were
the only Border State men who voted to suspend the rules. Mr.
Conkling thought an immediate vote might be taken because he presumed
"every member had made up his mind on the question involved." But
the Kentucky delegation desired time for consultation. They
concluded to oppose the resolution. Mr. Crittenden, speaking the
sentiments of all, asked, "Why do you exact of Kentucky more than
she has already done to show her loyalty? Has she not parted with
all her former allies, with all her natural kindred in other States?
Why should it be asked that she should now surrender up her domestic
institutions?" Against the protest of Kentucky the resolution was
passed, such radical abolitionists as Owen Lovejoy warmly supporting
the proposition to pay for slaves out of the Treasury of the United
States. Mr. Henderson of Missouri and Mr. Willey of West Virginia
were the only Border State senators who saw the vast advantage to
be secured to their own constituents by the passage of the measure.
They supported it ably and heartily. It was earnestly opposed by
the senators from Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware. Mr. Carlile
of West Virginia was the only senator in nominal sympathy with the
Administration who voted against it. The hostility to the President's
policy by senators from the Border slave States was so fixed as to
prevent even a free discussion of the measure, and it was therefore
remanded to a future day for consideration.
CONFISCATION OF REBEL PROPERTY.
A still more aggressive movement against slavery was made by Congress
before the close of this eventful session. On the day that Congress
convened, in the preceding December, Mr. Trumbull gave notice of
his intention to introduce a bill "for the confiscation of the
property of rebels, and giving freedom to the persons they hold in
slavery." Three days later he formally introduced the bill, and
made a lucid explanation of its provisions and its objects. He
"disdained to press it upon the ground of a mere military power
superior to the civil in time of war." "Necessity," said he, "is
the plea of tyrants; and if our Constitution ceases to operate,
the moment a person charged with its observance thinks there is a
necessity to violate it, is of little value." So far from admitting
that the superiority of the military over the civil power in time
of war, Mr. Trumbull held that "under the Constitution the military
is as much the subject of control by the civil power in war as in
peace." He was for suppressing the rebellion "according to law,
and in no other way;" and he warned his countrymen who stood "ready
to tolerate almost any act done in good faith for the suppression
of the rebellion, not to sanction usurpations of power which may
hereafter become precedents for the destruction of constitutional
liberty." Though the bill was introduced on the second day of
December, 1861, it did not become a law until the 17th of July in
the next year.
In the months intervening, it was elaborately debated, almost every
senator taking part in the discussion. Garrett Davis of Kentucky,
who had succeeded Mr. Breckinridge in the Senate, made a long speech
against the bill, contending that Congress had no power to free
any slaves. He wanted a bill of great severity against the rebel
leaders: "to those that would repent" he would give "immunity,
peace, and protection; to the impenitent and incorrigible he would
give the gallows, or exile and the forfeiture of their whole estate."
Such a law as that, he said, his "own State of Kentucky desired.
As Hamilcar brought his infant son Hannibal to the family altar,
and made him swear eternal enmity to the Roman power, so I have
sworn and will ever maintain eternal enmity to the principle of
secession and all its adherents." It was seen throughout the debate
that the bill under consideration was in large part provoked by
the confiscation measures of the Confederate Congress, and Mr.
Davis declared that "the debts due to the North, estimated at
$200,000,000, seized, confiscated, and appropriated by the rebel
government, shall be remunerated fully."
Mr. John B. Henderson of Missouri who, as a Union man of prominence
and ability, had succeeded Trusten Polk in the Senate, opposed the
bill because it would "cement the Southern mind against us and
drive new armies of excited and deluded men from the Border States
to espouse the cause of rebellion." He urged that "the Union
sentiment of the South should be cultivated, and radical measures
tending to destroy that sentiment should be dropped." Mr. Fessenden
was conservative on this as on other questions, and insisted upon
the reference of Mr. Trumbull's bill to a committee; which was the
occasion of some little passage between himself and Mr. Trumbull,
not without temper. Mr. Trumbull suggested that "the senator from
Maine would not be likely to get any light from the deliberations
of five men unless he were himself one of them." Retorting in the
same spirit, but, as he said, good-naturedly, Mr. Fessenden said
he should not "hope that _any_ deliberation of anybody would
enlighten the senator from Illinois."
Sustaining the extreme power of confiscation, Mr. Sumner desired
"the Act to be especially leveled at the institution of Slavery."
He recalled the saying of Charles XII. of Sweden, that the cannoneers
were perfectly right in directing their shots at him, for the war
would be at an instant end if they could kill him; whereas they
would reap little from killing his principal officers. "There is,"
said the senator, "no shot in this war so effective as one against
Slavery, which is king above all officers; nor is there better
augury of complete success than the willingness at last to fire
upon this wicked king." By this means, Mr. Sumner believed that
we should "take from the rebellion its mainspring of activity and
strength, stop its chief stores of provisions and supplies, remove
a motive and temptation to prolonged resistance, and destroy forever
the disturbing influence which, so long as it exists, will keep
this land a volcano, ever ready to break forth anew." Mr. Sumner,
Mr. Wade, and Mr. Chandler, the senators who were regarded as most
radical, desired more stringent provisions than they could secure.
The really able lawyers of the Senate, Mr. Fessenden and Judge
Collamer, repressed the extreme measures which but for their
interposition would have been enacted. As the bill was finally
perfected, Mr. Chandler and his colleague Mr. Howard voted against
it, as did also Mr. Browning of Illinois and the Border-State
Senators Davis of Kentucky, Henderson of Missouri, and Carlile of
Virginia. To the Michigan senators the bill was too weak; to the
others it was too strong. Mr. Willey of Virginia was the only
senator from a slave-holding State who voted on the radical side.
With the exceptions noted, Republican senators all voted for the
bill.
CONFISCATION OF REBEL PROPERTY.
A series of measures in the House relating to confiscation were
under discussion while the Senate was considering the same subject.
The House passed a more stringent bill than the Senate would accept,
and the subject was finally sent to a committee of conference,
which from the points of disagreement framed the measure that
ultimately became a law. As in the Senate, the Border-State men
opposed the measure, but were overborne by the popular opinion
which nearly consolidated the Republican vote of the North in favor
of it. It was however an undoubted weakness, morally and politically,
that such men as Crittenden and Mallory of Kentucky, James S.
Rollins of Missouri, and Francis Thomas and Edwin H. Webster of
Maryland were recorded against it. The bill was passed in the
House by a vote of 82 to 42. The conference report having somewhat
strengthened the original measure passed by the Senate, Messrs.
Howard and Chandler of Michigan gave it their support, but for the
same reason Mr. Cowan of Pennsylvania and Mr. Willey of Virginia
opposed it. The final vote was 27 in favor to 12 against it.
The Act, as it finally passed, affixed to the crime of treason the
punishment of death, or, at the discretion of the court, imprisonment
for not less than five years and a fine of not less than ten thousand
dollars,--all the slaves, if any, to be declared free. "To insure
the speedy termination of the present rebellion" it was made the
duty of the President to cause the seizure of the estate and
property, money, stocks, credits, and effects of the following
classes of persons: First, all those hereafter acting as officers
of the army or the navy of the rebels in arms against the government
of the United States; second, of any person acting as President,
Vice-President, member of Congress, judge of any court, cabinet
officer, foreign minister, commissioner, or consul of the so-called
Confederate States; third, of any person acting as governor of a
State, member of a convention or Legislature, or judge of any court
of any of the so-called Confederate States of America; fourth, of
any person who having held an office of honor, trust, or profit in
the United States shall hereafter hold an office in the so-called
Confederate States; fifth, of any person hereafter holding any
office or agency under the so-called Confederate States or under
any of the several States of said Confederacy; sixth, of any person
who owning property in any loyal State or Territory of the United
States, or in the District of Columbia, shall hereafter assist and
give aid and comfort to the rebellion. "And all sales, transfers,
or conveyances of any such property shall be null and void; and it
shall be a sufficient bar to any suit brought by such persons for
the possession or use of such property, or any of it, to allege
and prove that he is one of the persons described in this section."
In the provisions of the Act directly affecting slavery it was
declared that "All slaves of persons who shall hereafter be engaged
in rebellion against the Government of the United States or who
shall in any way give aid or comfort thereto, escaping from such
persons and taking refuge within the lines of the army, and all
slaves captured from such persons, or deserted by them and coming
under the control of the Government of the United States, and all
slaves of such persons found or being within any place occupied by
rebel forces and afterward occupied by the forces of the United
States, shall be deemed captives, shall be forever free of their
servitude, and not again held as slaves." This provision had a
very sweeping application. Even if the war had ended without a
formal and effective system of emancipation, it is believed that
this statute would have so operated as to render the slave system
practically valueless. When the war closed it is probable that
not less than one-half of all the slaves of the rebel States had
come within the scope of this statute, and had therefore been
declared legally free by the legislative power of the United States.
CONFISCATION OF REBEL PROPERTY.
Mr. Lincoln signed the Confiscation Act with reluctance. Indeed
he had prepared a veto, but a joint resolution had been passed in
order to remove the objections which in the President's view were
absolutely fatal to the original bill, either as regarded its
justice or its constitutionality. He had insisted to certain
senators that the Confiscation Law must in terms exclude the
possibility of its being applied to any act done by a rebel prior
to its passage, and that no punishment or proceeding under it should
be so construed as to work a forfeiture of the real estate of the
offender beyond his natural life. These, with some minor defects,
being corrected, the President affixed his signature and made public
proclamation of the intended enforcement of the Act as qualified
by the joint resolution approved on the same day. But there is
good reason for believing that Mr. Lincoln would have been glad to
confine its application to slave property, and he felt moreover
that he could deal with that subject without the co-operation of
Congress. The military situation was so discouraging that in the
President's view it would have been wiser for Congress to refrain
from enacting laws which, without success in the field, would be
null and void, and which, with success in the field, would be
rendered unnecessary. Congress adjourned on the same day that Mr.
Lincoln approved the bill, and on returning home the senators and
representatives found their constituents depressed, anxious, and
alarmed for the country.
It cannot be said that the results flowing from this measure, either
in restraining the action of Southern men or in securing to the
National Treasury money derived from confiscated property, were at
all in proportion to the importance ascribed to it in the discussion
of both branches of Congress. Indeed the effect both morally and
materially was far short of expectation. It is highly probable
that if the stringent measure of the Confederate Congress and its
stringent enforcement under the vigorous administration of Attorney-
General Benjamin had not been attempted, the Congress of the United
States could not have been induced to enter upon a course of
legislation concerning which there existed much doubt and division
of opinion among the Republicans. It is at least certain that but
for the causes named, the scope of the Confiscation Act would have
been confined within those limits which would have directly influenced
the institution of Slavery, and would not have interfered with any
other species of property. Whatever distress therefore came to
Southern men, from the provisions in the Confiscation Act outside
of those relating to Slavery, may fairly and properly be traced to
the spirit of retaliation (always an effective weapon in time of
war) which naturally followed the causeless and cruel procedure of
the Confederate Government.
CHAPTER XVII.
Ball's Bluff Disaster.--Mr. Conkling's Resolution of Inquiry.--
Unsatisfactory Reply of Secretary Cameron.--Second Resolution.--
Second Reply.--Incidental Debate on Slavery.--Arrest of General
Charles P. Stone.--His History.--His Response to Criticisms made
upon him.--Responsibility of Colonel Baker.--General Stone before
the Committee on the Conduct of the War.--His Examination.--Testimony
of Officers.--General Stone appears before the Committee a Second
Time.--His Arrest by Order of the War Department.--No Cause assigned.
--Imprisoned in Fort Lafayette.--Solitary Confinement.--Sees Nobody.
--His Wife denied Access to him.--Subject brought into Congress.--
A Search for the Responsibility of the Arrest.--Groundless Assumption
of Mr. Sumner's Connection with it.--Mr. Lincoln's Message in Regard
to the Case.--General Stone's Final Release by an Act of Congress.
--Imprisoned for One Hundred and Eighty-nine Days.--Never told the
Cause.--Never allowed a Trial.--Appears a Third Time before the
Committee.--The True Responsibility for the Arrest.--His Restoration
to Service.--His Resignation.--Joins the Khedive's Service.
On the day that Congress convened, (December 2, 1861,) Mr. Roscoe
Conkling offered a resolution which was unanimously agreed to by
the House, requesting "the Secretary of War, if not incompatible
with the public service, to report to the House whether any, and
if any, what, measures have been taken to ascertain who is responsible
for the disastrous movement of our troops at Ball's Bluff." A few
days later Mr. Chandler of Michigan offered a resolution in the
Senate, directing an inquiry by a committee of three "into the
disasters at Bull Run and Ball's Bluff." Mr. Grimes of Iowa offered
a substitute which, after various modifications, directed the
appointment of a "joint committee of three members of the Senate,
and four members of the House of Representatives, to inquire into
the conduct of the present war, with power to send for persons and
papers, and with leave to sit during the sessions of either branch
of Congress." The resolutions led to some debate. Mr. Chandler
maintained that "it is the duty of the Senate to ascertain who is
responsible for sending eighteen hundred men across the Potomac,
in two old scows, without any means of retreat." Mr. McDougall
thought a discussion of the question at that time was impolitic.
Mr. Wilson of Massachusetts, chairman of the Committee on Military
Affairs, while admitting that many mistakes had been made, asserted
the "the greatest error in the conduct of the war has been the
series of irresponsible proclamations issued by generals on the
field." The joint resolution was adopted by the Senate with only
three dissenting votes (Messrs. Latham, Carlile, and Rice) and by
the House unanimously. Mr. Wade of Ohio, Mr. Chandler of Michigan,
and Mr. Andrew Johnson of Tennessee on the part of the Senate, with
Mr. Gooch of Massachusetts, Mr. Covode of Pennsylvania, Mr. Julian
of Indiana, and Mr. Odell of New York on the part of the House,
constituted the committee.
THE DISASTER AT BALL'S BLUFF.
The Secretary of War, in answer to Mr. Conkling's resolution touching
the disaster at Ball's Bluff, stated that Major-General McClellan,
commanding the army, "is of opinion that an inquiry on the subject
of the resolution would at this time be injurious to the public
service." The answer did not satisfy Mr. Conkling. He immediately
moved another resolution declaring that the communication from the
Secretary of War was "not responsive nor satisfactory to the House,
and that the secretary be directed to return a further answer."
A spirited debate followed, taking a somewhat extended range. Mr.
Conkling said that his resolution related to "the most atrocious
military murder ever committed in our history as a people. It
relates to a lost field; to a disastrous and humiliating battle;
to a blunder so gross that all men can see it,--a blunder which
cost us confessedly nine hundred and thirty men, the very pride
and flower of the States from which they came." . . . "The Bluff
is a mile in length up and down the river, and the landing and
ascent were made in the middle of it. Behind this was a six-acre
lot skirted by woods on three sides. Into this burial-ground, one
by one, as the boat brought them over, went up the devoted seventeen
hundred. . . . Behind them rolled a deep river which could never
be repassed. Before them and surrounding them on every side was
a tree-sheltered and skulking foe, three or four times their
number. . . . In an hour, in less than an hour, the field was a
hell of fire raging from every side. The battle was lost before
it was begun. It was from the outset a mere sacrifice, a sheer
immolation, without a promise of success or a hope of escape."
. . . "On the same side of the river with Leesburg," said Mr. Conkling,
"within a day's march of that place, lay General McCall commanding
a division containing fifteen regiments which marched fully eleven
thousand men. If Leesburg were to be attacked, or if a reconnoissance
in force were to be made in that direction, one of the first wonders
in this case is, that the work should have been assigned to General
Stone's division, divided as it was from the scene of action by a
great river, when the division of General McCall was within a day's
march of the spot, with neither river, mountain, nor barrier to be
traversed."
--Mr. Richardson of Illinois thought Mr. Conkling's resolution was
calculated "to raise an issue between the House of Representatives
and the army, and divide the country." He thought this would injure
the cause of the Union. In military matters he would "rather trust
the commanding general of the army than a committee of the House."
--Mr. Crittenden of Kentucky protested against "the House interfering
in the conduct of the war and the management of the army by
investigating transactions which are in their nature purely military."
He maintained that "such a policy takes control out of the hands
of men supposed to be competent and puts it in the hands of men
supposed not to be competent." "If," continued Mr. Crittenden,
"we are to find fault with every movement, who not appoint a
committee of the House to attend the Commander-in-chief? Why not
send them with our army so that the power of Congress may be felt
in battle as well as in the halls of legislation?"
--Mr. Lovejoy of Illinois gave a characteristic turn to the debate.
"I believe before God," said he,--"and if it be fanaticism now it
will not be when history traces the events of the day,--that the
reason why we have had Bull Run and Ball's Bluff and other defeats
and disasters is that God, in his providence, designs to arraign
us before this great question of human freedom, and make us take
the right position." Slavery, according to Mr. Lovejoy, was the
Jonah on board the National ship, and the ship would founder unless
Jonah were thrown overboard. "When Jonah was cast forth into the
sea, the sea ceased from raging." Our battles, in Mr. Lovejoy's
belief, "should be fought so as to hurt slavery," and enable the
President to decree its destruction. "To be President, to be king,
to be victor, has happened to many; to be embalmed in the hearts
of mankind through all generations as liberator and emancipator
has been vouchsafed to few."
THE DISASTER AT BALL'S BLUFF.
--Mr. Wickliffe of Kentucky believed we should "preserve the Union
and slavery under it." He wised to "throw the Abolitionists
overboard."
--Mr. Mallory of Kentucky, while not believing slavery to be
incompatible with our liberty under the Constitution, declared that
so far as he understood the feeling of the people of Kentucky, "if
they ever come to regard slavery as standing in the way of the
Union, they will not hesitate to wipe out the institution." Loud
applause followed this remark.
--Mr. McKee Dunn of Indiana, while believing that "if slavery stands
in the way of the Union it must be destroyed," was not yet "willing
to accept Mr. Lovejoy as prophet, priest, or king." He thought
"the gentleman from Illinois was not authorized to interpret God's
providence" in the affairs of men.
--Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, in recalling the debate to the immediate
question before the House, took occasion to protest against the
doctrine of non-interference laid down by Mr. Crittenden. "Has it
come to this," said Mr. Stevens, "that Congress is a mere automaton,
to register the decrees of another power, and that we have nothing
to do but to find men and money? . . . This is the doctrine of
despotism, better becoming that empire which they are attempting
to establish in the South."
The resolution offered by Mr. Conkling was adopted by a vote of 79
to 54, on a call of the yeas and nays. The affirmative vote was
wholly Republican. A few Republicans voted with the Democrats in
the negative. The reply of Secretary Cameron was no more satisfactory
than to the first resolution. He informed the House that "measures
have been taken to ascertain who is responsible for the disastrous
movement of our troops at Ball's Bluff, but it is not deemed
compatible with the public interest to make known these measures
at the present time." The difference between this answer and the
first, was that the Administration assumed the responsibility of
withholding the information, and did not rest it upon the judgment
of the general in command of the army.
Brigadier-General Charles P. Stone was a graduate of West Point
Military Academy, from Massachusetts. His family belongs to the
old Puritan stock of that commonwealth, and had been honorably
represented in every war in which the American people had engaged.
General Stone served as a lieutenant in the Mexican war with high
credit, and in 1855 resigned his commission and became a resident
of California. It happened that he was in Washington at the breaking
out of the civil war, and in response to the request of his old
commander, General Scott, took a prominent part in the defense of
the capital, considered to be in danger after the rising of the
Baltimore mob. His conduct was so admirable that when the President,
a few weeks later, directed the organization of eleven new regiments
in the Regular Army, he appointed General Stone to the Colonelcy
of the 14th United-States Infantry. After the battle of Bull Run,
when General McClellan was promoted to the command of the Army of
the Potomac, General Stone was selected to command a division which
was directed to occupy the valley of the Potomac above Washington,
as a corps of observation. The Union troops, engaged in the
disastrous battle of Ball's Bluff, belonged to his corps, but were
under the immediate command of Colonel E. D. Baker. The repulse
and slaughter on that melancholy field were followed by excitement
and indignation throughout the country quite as deep as that shown
in Congress. The details of the disaster were greatly exaggerated.
The official summary of losses, made up with care, showed that the
total number killed, including both officers and men, was 49;
wounded, 158; missing, 714, of whom a few were drowned, and the
great mass taken prisoners. The popular admiration for Colonel
Baker was unbounded, and the suspicion that his life had been
needlessly destroyed created such a feeling as demanded a victim.
General Stone was selected for the sacrifice, and popular wrath
was turned upon him with burning intensity. Rumors and exaggerations
filled the newspapers; and the public, in that state of credulity
which is an incident to the victim-hunting mania, accepted every
thing as true. It was widely believed that Colonel Baker said
mournfully, as he marched to the battle-field, "I will obey General
Stone's order, but it is my death-warrant."
BALL'S BLUFF DISASTER INVESTIGATED.
Goaded by these injurious and unfounded rumors, General Stone, in
a letter to the Adjutant-General of the army, written a fortnight
after the battle, deemed it his "duty to answer the persistent
attacks made through the press by the friends of the lamented
Colonel Baker." He called attention to the "distinct violations
by Colonel Baker of his orders and instructions," and declared that
he was left "to use his own discretion about crossing his force,
or retiring that already over." He found it "painful to censure
the acts of one who gallantly died on the field of battle," but
justice to himself required "that the full truth should be made to
appear." Colonel Baker did not receive the order "as a death-
warrant," for it was delivered to him "at his own request." That
"Colonel Baker was determined to fight a battle" was made evident
by the fact that "he never crossed to examine the field, never gave
an order to the troops in advance, and never sent forward to
ascertain their position, until he had ordered over his force, and
passed over a considerable portion of it." On the 5th of January,
1862, General Stone appeared before the Committee on the Conduct
of the War, and was examined under oath as to every detail of the
Ball's-Bluff disaster which could in any way, directly or remotely,
involve his responsibility as a commander. His answers were frank,
withholding nothing, and were evidently intended to communicate
every pertinent fact. So far as may be inferred from the questions
and comments, the evidence was entirely satisfactory to the
committee.
After the examination of General Stone, many officers of his command
appeared before the committee. The captains and lieutenants, fresh
from private life, whose names he probably did not know, and with
whom he perhaps never exchanged a word, were summoned in large
number. They had remarkable stories to tell about General Stone's
disloyalty; about his holding secret correspondence with the enemy;
about his permitting letters and packages to be taken across the
line without examination; about his allowing rebels to go freely
back and forth; and finally about his passing within the rebel
lines to hold confidential interviews with the officers commanding
the force opposed to him. It is singular that men of the acuteness
and high character of those composing the committee did not carefully
sift the testimony and subject it to the test of a rigorous cross-
examination. The stories told by many of these swift witnesses
were on the surface absurd, and should have been exposed. Publicity
alone would have largely counteracted the evil effect of their
narratives, but the examination was secret, and the witnesses
evidently felt that the strongest bias against General Stone was
the proper turn to give their testimony. The atmosphere was, as
it often is in such cases, unfavorable to the suspected man; and
his reputation was mercilessly assailed where he could not reply,
and was not even allowed to hear. When officers of the higher
grades, who came near to General Stone, who shared his confidence
and assisted in his councils, were examined, the weight of the
testimony was markedly different. General F. W. Lander regarded
General Stone as "a very efficient, orderly, and excellent officer."
Colonel Isaac J. Wistar, who succeeded Colonel Baker in the command
of the California regiment, gave the highest testimony to General
Stone's loyalty, and to the "full confidence" reposed in him by
men of every rank in the brigade with which he was serving. Colonel
Charles Devens who, with his regiment, the Fifteenth Massachusetts
Infantry, had borne an honorable part on the bloody field, testified
that he and the officers of the Fifteenth "had confidence in General
Stone." Colonel James H. Van Allen, commanding a regiment of
cavalry in General Stone's division, gave the most cordial testimony
of his loyalty and high character.
After the larger part of the evidence adverse to General Stone had
been heard, he received an intimation through General McClellan
that it might be well for him to appear again before the Committee
on the Conduct of the War. He obtained leave of absence from his
command, repaired to Washington, and presented himself before the
committee on the 31st of January, twenty-six days after his first
testimony had been given. For some reason which the committee did
not deem it necessary to explain, General Stone was not furnished
with the names of the witnesses who had testified against him in
the dark; their testimony was not submitted to him; it was not even
read in his hearing. He was simply informed by the chairman--
Senator Wade of Ohio--that "in the course of our investigations
there has come out in evidence matters which may be said to impeach
you. I do not know that I can enumerate all the points, but I
think I can. In the first place is your conduct in the Ball's-
Bluff affair--your ordering your forces over without sufficient
means of transportation, and in that way endangering your army, in
case of a check, by not being able to re-enforce them. . . . Another
point is that the evidence tends to show that you have had undue
communication with the enemy by letters that have passed back and
forth, by intercourse with officers from the other side, and by
permitting packages to go over unexamined, to known Secessionists.
. . . The next and only other point that now occurs to me is that
you have suffered the enemy to erect formidable fortifications or
batteries on the opposite side of the river, within the reach of
your guns, and which you could easily have prevented." General
Stone's answer was as lucid, frank, and full as could be made to
charges of so sweeping a character. His explanations were unreserved,
and his justification apparently complete and unanswerable against
every form of accusation which the chairman submitted. To the
charge of disloyalty General Stone replied with much feeling, "That
is one humiliation I had hoped I should never be subjected to. I
thought there was one calumny that could not be brought against
me. Any other calumny I should expect after what I have received,
but that one I should have supposed that you personally, Mr.
Chairman, would have rejected at once. _You_ remember last spring
when the Government had so few friends here, when the enemy had
this city I might almost say in his power, I raised all the volunteer
troops that were here during the seven dark days. I disciplined
and posted those troops. I commanded them, and they were the first
to invade the soil of Virginia, and I led them." Mr. Wade here
interrupted, and said, "I was no so unjust as not to mention that
circumstance to the committee." General Stone resumed, "I could
have surrendered Washington. And now I will swear that this
government has not a more faithful soldier, of poor capacity it
may be, but not a more faithful soldier from the day I was called
into service to this minute."
GENERAL CHARLES P. STONE ARRESTED.
Subsequent developments proved that three days before this second
examination General McClellan had in his possession an order from
Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, directing him "to relieve
General Stone from his command of a division in the Army of the
Potomac, and that he be placed in arrest and kept in close custody
until further orders." It is evident therefore that so far as the
War Department was involved, the case had been prejudged, or judged
at least without giving the accused man an opportunity to be heard
in his own defense. It is difficult to understand why his testimony
did not have the effect to recall or suspend the order of arrest,
but despite the candor and evident honesty of his explanations,
the blow fell upon him. Early on Saturday the eighth day of February
General McClellan directed the provost marshal of the district,
General Andrew Porter, "to arrest Brigadier-General Charles P.
Stone at once, and to send him under close custody by first train
to Fort Lafayette, where he will be placed in charge of the commanding
officer, and have no communication with any one from the time of
his arrest." Brigadier-General Sykes, commanding the City Guard,
executed the order, taking General Stone from his bed at midnight
in the hotel where he was stopping, and making him a close prisoner.
Shortly after daylight the following morning General Stone addressed
a note to General Seth Williams, Adjutant-General on the staff of
General McClellan, informing him of his arrest, and adding,
"Conscious of having been at all times a faithful soldier of the
United States, I must respectfully request that I may be furnished
at an early a moment as practicable with a copy of whatever charges
may have been preferred against me, with the opportunity of promptly
meeting them."
To this respectful communication no answer was made, and General
Stone was hurried off to Fort Lafayette, under strict guard, with
an order from General McClellan for his imprisonment. At the fort
the money which he had in his pockets was taken from him, and he
was placed in solitary confinement in a room ordinarily used for
quarters of enlisted men. No letter was allowed to leave him or
reach him without the most rigid inspection. Under this close
_surveillance_, with an armed sentinel pacing before the door of
his room, without opportunity for outdoor air or exercise, he was
kept for forty-nine days. He applied at different times to the
military authorities in Washington for a statement of the charges
against him, for a speedy trial, for access to the records of his
own office and his own headquarters, for a change of the place of
his confinement. To none of these applications was answer of any
kind returned. After he had been nearly two months in prison he
asked that his wife might be allowed to visit him. She was in the
deepest anguish, and her society in his imprisonment could have
subjected the government to no danger, because she would have been
under the same restraint and espionage as her husband. This natural
and reasonable request, made only after his confinement promised
to be indefinite, was peremptorily and curtly refused by the War
Department.
On the fiftieth day the place of his imprisonment was changed from
Fort Lafayette to Fort Hamilton near by, and the opportunity for
open-air exercise within the fort was accorded him, though always
under the eye of a sentinel. Here he renewed his request for the
charges against him, without eliciting answer. He applied to the
officer in command of the fort to learn of what possible crime he
was accused, and the officer replied that he knew nothing of it;
he was absolutely ignorant of any ground for General Stone's
imprisonment. After striving for more than sixty days to ascertain
the nature of his offense, and secure an opportunity to vindicate
himself, the prisoner adopted another course. He applied for
suspension of arrest with liberty to join the army just setting
forth under General McClellan for the Peninsular campaign. No
reply was made to his request. A few weeks later, when the Union
forces under General Banks were defeated in the valley of the
Shenandoah, he again asked the privilege of active duty, and again
was treated with contemptuous silence. On the 4th of July he
telegraphed directly to President Lincoln, recalling the honorable
service in which he had been engaged just one year before. Reminding
the President of the pressing need which the country then had "of
the services of every willing soldier," he begged to be sent to
the field. With manly dignity he declared, "I am utterly unconscious
of any act, word, or design which should make me less eligible to
an honorable place among the soldiers of the Republic than upon
any day of my past life."
GENERAL STONE'S CASE IN CONGRESS.
Meanwhile the subject had forced itself upon the attention of
Congress. On the 24th of March, Senators Latham and McDougall of
California, the first a supporter of Breckinridge in 1860, the
other a supporter of Douglas, with Aaron A. Sargent, representative
from the same State and a most radical Republican, united in an
energetic memorial to Secretary Stanton, on behalf of General Stone
as a citizen of California. They stated that "the long arrest of
General Stone without military trial or inquiry has led to complaints
from many quarters. . . . Having known General Stone for years,
and never having had cause to doubt his loyalty, we feel it our
duty to inquire of the government through you for some explanation
of a proceeding which seems to us extraordinary." To this memorial
no reply was made, and after waiting nearly three weeks Mr. McDougall
introduced in the Senate a very searching resolution of inquiry,
requesting the Secretary of War to state upon whose authority the
arrest was made, and upon whose complaint; why General Stone had
been denied his rights under the articles of war; why no charges
and specifications of his offense had been made; whether General
Stone had not frequently asked to be informed of the charges against
him; and finally upon what pretense he was still kept in prison.
Mr. McDougall spoke in the Senate on the 15th of April in support
of his resolution, making some interesting personal statements.
General Stone was arrested on the night of Saturday, the 8th of
February. "On the Wednesday evening before that," said Mr. McDougall,
"I met General Stone, dressed as became a person of his rank, at
the house of the President, where no one went on that evening except
by special invitation. He was there mingling with his friends,
receiving as much attention and as much consideration from all
about him as any man there present. . . . Only two evenings after
that, if I remember right, he was the guest under similar circumstances
of the senior general in command of our army [McClellan], and there
again receiving the hospitalities of the men first in office and
first in the consideration of the country. On, I think, the very
day of his arrest he was in the War Department, and was received
by the head of that department as a man who had the entire confidence
of the government, and of himself as one of the government's
representatives. On that evening he was seized, taken from his
home and family at midnight, carried off to Fort Lafayette and
imprisoned, as are men convicted and adjudged guilty of the highest
offense known to the law. . . . I undertake to say upon good
authority that almost presently before his arrest he said to the
present Secretary of War [Stanton], 'Sir, I hear complaints about
my conduct as an officer at Ball's Bluff. I wish you to inquire
into it and have the matter determined.' He was assured that there
were no charges against him, and the secretary advised him in
substance in these words: 'There is no occasion for your inquiry;
go back to your command.' That was the day of the night on which
he was arrested." Mr. McDougall's statement, the accuracy of which
was not challenged by any one, disclosed the fact that while General
Stone was a guest at the White House and at the residence of General
McClellan, the latter had in his possession the order for arrest,
and had held it for several days.
The resolution of Mr. McDougall was debated at some length in the
Senate, Mr. Wade making a fiery speech in defense of the course
pursued by the Committee on the Conduct of the War, and Mr. Browning
of Illinois defending the President, upon whom there had been no
imputation of any kind. Mr. Doolittle suggested that the resolution
be referred to a committee. Mr. Wilson of Massachusetts submitted
a substitute, simply requesting "the President of the United States
to communicate to the Senate any information touching the arrest
and imprisonment of General Stone, not deemed incompatible with
the public interest." Mr. Sumner had "no opinion to express in
the case, for he knew nothing about it;" but "it seemed clear" to
him "that General Stone ought to be confronted with his accusers
at an early day, unless there be some reason of an overbearing
military character which would render such a trial improper." Mr.
Sumner had "seen in various newspapers a most persistent attempt"
to connect him "with the credit or discredit of the arrest." He
declared that from the beginning he "had been an absolute stranger
to it." The arrest was made, he repeated, without his "suggestion
or hint, direct or indirect." He declared that he "was as free
from all connection with it" as "the intimate friends and family
relatives of the prisoner." At the close of the debate Mr. McDougall
accepted Mr. Wilson's resolution as a substitute for his, and on
the 21st of April the latter was adopted by general consent.
SENATOR SUMNER AND GENERAL STONE.
The unfounded assumption of Mr. Sumner's connection with the arrest
sprang perhaps from some censorious remarks in the Senate made by
him in December touching General Stone's alleged course in sending
back fugitive slaves. Subsequent intelligence indicated that Mr.
Sumner had been misinformed on this matter, and that the facts did
not inculpate General Stone. But instead of writing to Mr. Sumner
to correct the statements made in his speech, General Stone, most
unwisely and most reprehensibly, addressed to the senator on the
23d of December an ill-tempered and abusive letter. Mr. Henry
Melville Parker of Massachusetts investigated all the facts and
incidents of the case, and came to the conclusion that Mr. Sumner,
as an act of revenge for the insolent letter, had caused General
Stone's arrest. But the facts do not warrant Mr. Parker's conclusion.
Aside from Mr. Sumner's public denial on the floor of the Senate--
which of itself closed the issue--he was never known to be guilty
of an act of revenge. That passion belongs to meaner natures.
The dates, moreover, remove the imputation of Mr. Parker. General
Stone's hasty and ill-considered letter was placed in Mr. Sumner's
hands on Christmas Day, 1861. The arrest was made on the 8th of
February, 1862--forty-six days later. The intervening circumstances
nowhere involve Mr. Sumner in the remotest degree.
In answer to the call upon the President for information, Mr.
Lincoln sent a message to the Senate on the 1st of May, saying,
"General Stone was arrested and imprisoned under my general authority,
and upon evidence which, whether he be guilty or innocent, required,
as appears to me, such proceedings to be had against him for the
public safety." The President deemed it "incompatible with the
public interest, and perhaps unjust to General Stone, to make a
more particular statement of the evidence." After saying that
General Stone had not been tried because the officers to constitute
a court-martial could not be withdrawn from duty without serious
injury to the service, the President gave this public assurance:
"He will be allowed a trial without unnecessary delay: the charges
and specifications will be furnished him in due season, and every
facility for his defense will be afforded him by the War Department."
This message on its face bears evidence that it was prepared at
the War Department, and that Mr. Lincoln acted upon assurances
furnished by Mr. Stanton. The arrest was made upon his "general"
authority, and clearly not from any specific information he possessed.
But the effect of the message was to preclude any further attempt
at intervention by Congress. Indeed the assurance that General
Stone should be tried "without unnecessary delay" was all that
could be asked. But the promise made to the ear was broken to the
hope, and General Stone was left to languish without a word of
intelligence as to his alleged offense, and without the slightest
opportunity to meet the accusers who in the dark had convicted him
without trial, subjected him to cruel punishment, and exposed him
to the judgment of the world as a degraded criminal.
Release from imprisonment came at last by the action of Congress,
coercing the Executive Department to the trial or discharge of
General Stone. In the Act of July 17, 1862, "defining the pay and
emolument of certain officers," a section was inserted declaring
that "whenever an officer shall be put under arrest, except at
remote military posts, it shall be the duty of the officer by whose
orders he is arrested to see that a copy of the charges shall be
served upon him within eight days thereafter, and that he shall be
brought to trial within ten days thereafter unless the necessities
of the service prevent such trial; and then he shall be brought to
trial within thirty days after the expiration of said ten days, or
the arrest shall cease." The Act reserved the right to try the
officer at any time within twelve months after his discharge from
arrest, and by a _proviso_ it was made to apply "to all persons
now under arrest and waiting trial." The bill had been pending
several months, having been originally reported by Senator Wilson
before General Stone's arrest.
The provision of the Act applicable to the case of General Stone
was only a full enforcement by law of the seventy-ninth article of
war, which declared that "no officer or soldier who shall be put
in arrest shall continued in confinement more than eight days, or
until such time as a court-martial can be assembled." It was a
direct violation of the spirit of this article, and a cruel straining
of its letter, to consign General Stone to endless or indefinite
imprisonment. Any man of average intelligence in the law--and
Secretary Stanton was eminent in his profession--would at once say
that the time beyond the eight days allowed for assembling a court-
martial must be a reasonable period, and that an officer was entitled
to prompt trial, or release from arrest. The law now passed was
imperative. Withing eight days the arrested officer must be notified
of the charges against him, within ten days he must be tried, and
"if the necessities of the service prevent a trial" within thirty
days after the ten, the officer is entitled to an absolute discharge.
General Stone's case fell within the justice and the mercy of the
law. The eight days within which he should be notified of the
charges against him had been long passed; the ten days had certainly
expired; but by the construction of the War Department the victim
was still in the power that wronged him for thirty days more. From
the 17th of July, thirty days were slowly told off until the 16th
of August was at last reached, and General Stone was once more a
free man. He had been one hundred and eighty-nine days in prison,
and was at last discharged by the limitation of the statute without
a word of exculpation or explanation. The routine order simply
recited that "the necessities of the service not permitting the
trial, within the time required by law, of Brigadier-General Charles
P. Stone, now confined in Fort Lafayette, the Secretary of War
directs that he be released from arrest."
GENERAL STONE FINALLY RELEASED.
The order simply turned him adrift. He was a Colonel in the Regular
Army and a Brigadier-General in the volunteer service; and the
Secretary, according to the rule of the War Department, should have
given him some instruction,--either assigning him to duty or
directing him to report at some place and await orders. Thinking
it might be an omission, General Stone telegraphed the War Department
that he had the honor "to report for duty." He waited five days
in New York for an answer, and receiving none repaired to Washington.
Reporting promptly at the office of the Adjutant-General, he was
told they had no orders for him, and knew nothing about his arrest.
He then applied to General McClellan, on the eve of the Antietam
campaign, for permission to serve with the army. General McClellan
on the 7th of September wrote to Secretary Stanton that he would
be glad to avail himself of General Stone's services and that he
had "no doubt as to his loyalty and devotion." No answer was
returned by the War Department. On the 25th of September General
Stone, still eager to confront his accusers, applied to General-in-
Chief Halleck for a copy of any charges or allegations against him,
and the opportunity of promptly meeting them. He reminded the
general that two hundred and twenty-eight days had elapsed since
his arrest, and that if he were to be tried for any offense those
who had served under him must be the witnesses of his conduct, and
that from battle and disease these witnesses were falling by hundreds
and thousands; the casualties were so great indeed that his command
was already reduced one-half. General Halleck replied that he had
no official information of the cause of General Stone's arrest,
and that so far as he could ascertain no charges or specifications
were on file against him.
Several weeks later, on the 1st of December, 1862, General Stone
applied to General McClellan, calling his attention to the Act of
July 17, under which any officer arrested had the right to "a copy
of the charges against him within eight days." He therefore
respectfully requested General McClellan, as the officer who ordered
the arrest, to furnish him a copy of the charges. General McClellan
replied on the 5th of December that the order for arrest had been
given him by the Secretary of War, who told him it was at the
solicitation of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, and based
on testimony taken by them. He further informed General Stone that
he had the order, in the handwriting of Secretary Stanton, several
days before it was carried into effect, and added the following
somewhat remarkable statement: "On the evening when you were
arrested I submitted to the Secretary of War the written result of
the examination of a refugee from Leesburg. This information to
a certain extent agreed with the evidence stated to have been taken
by the Committee, and upon its being imparted to the Secretary he
again instructed me to cause you to be arrested, which I at once
did." This discloses the fact that General McClellan was cognizant
of the character of the testimony submitted against General Stone,
and so rigidly withheld from the knowledge of the person most
interested. On receipt of General McClellan's note, General Stone
immediately asked him for the name of the Leesburg refugee and for
a copy of his statement. A member of General McClellan's staff
answered the inquiry, stating that the general "does not recollect
the name of the refugee, and the last time he recollects seeing
that statement was at the War Department immediately previous to
your arrest." General Stone, victim of the perversity which had
uniformly attended the case, was again baffled. He was never able
to see the statement of the "refugee" or even to get his name,
though, according to General McClellan, the testimony of the
refugee was the proximate and apparently decisive cause of General
Stone's arrest.
General Stone applied directly to the President, asking "if he
could inform me why I was sent to Fort Lafayette." The President
replied that "if he told me all he knew about it he should not tell
me much." He stated that while it was done under his general
authority, he did not do it. The President referred General Stone
to General Halleck who stated that the arrest was made on the
recommendation of General McClellan. This was a surprise to General
Stone, for General McClellan had but recently written him that he
had full confidence in his devotion and loyalty. General Halleck
replied that he knew of that letter, and that "the Secretary of
War had expressed great surprise at it because he said that General
McClellan himself had recommended the arrest, and now seemed to be
pushing the whole thing on his [the secretary's] shoulders." The
search for the agency that would frankly admit responsibility was
rendered still more difficult by the denial of the Committee on
the Conduct of the War that the arrest had ever been recommended
by them, either collectively or individually. They had simply
forwarded to the Secretary of War such evidence as was submitted
to them.
RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ARREST.
General Stone appeared before the Committee on the Conduct of the
War on the 27th of February, 1863--nearly five months after his
release from imprisonment. He was allowed to see the testimony
which had hitherto been withheld from him, and answered all the
accusations in detail with convincing candor and clearness. As he
proceeded in his triumphant response to all the accusations against
him, the committee said "Why did you not give us these explanations
when you were here before?"--"Because," replied General Stone, "if
the chairman will remember, the committee did not state to me the
particular cases. . . . I gave general answers to general allegations."
General Stone stated further to the committee that he ought himself
to have asked for a Court of Inquiry after the reverse at Ball's
Bluff. "The reason why I did not," he continued, "was this: While
General McClellan was at Edward's Ferry, he showed me a telegram
which he had written to the President to the effect that he had
examined into the affair at Ball's Bluff and that General Stone
was entirely without blame." "After the expression of that opinion,"
said General Stone, "it would not have been respectful to ask for
a Court of Inquiry. It was given by the highest authority and sent
to the highest authority, and as a soldier I had no right to ask
for justification except of my superiors." Subsequently, on the
occasion of Mr. Conkling's speech "severely criticising" General
Stone's conduct in connection with the affair at Ball's Bluff, the
General applied to the aide-de-camp of General McClellan, as likely
to be informed of the Commander's wishes, to know if he "should
ask for a Court of Inquiry," and the reply was "No." He then asked
if he should make a statement correcting the mistakes in Mr.
Conkling's speech. The reply was "Write nothing; say nothing; keep
quiet." The committee asked General Stone, as a military man, "Who
had the power to bring you to trial?" He answered "When I was
arrested, the General-in-Chief, General McClellan, had that power.
I know I should claim that power if any man under my command were
arrested."
GENERAL STONE'S RESIGNATION.
The responsibility for the arrest and imprisonment of General Stone
must, according to the official record of the case, rest on Secretary
Stanton, Major-General McClellan, and the Committee on the Conduct
of the War. It is very clear that Mr. Lincoln, pressed by a thousand
calls and placing implicit confidence in these three agencies, took
it for granted that ample proof existed to justify the extraordinary
treatment to which General Stone was subjected. General Stone is
not to be classed in that long list of private citizens temporarily
confined without the benefit of _habeas corpus_, on the charge of
sympathizing with the Rebellion. The situation of those persons
more nearly assimilates with that of prisoners of war. It differs
totally from the arrest of General Stone in that the cause of
detention was well known and very often proudly avowed by the person
detained. The key of their prison was generally in the hands of
those who were thus confined,--an honest avowal of loyalty and an
oath of allegiance to the National Government securing their release.
If they could not take the oath they were justifiably held, and
were no more injured in reputation than the millions with whose
daring rebellion they sympathized. But to General Stone the
government permitted the gravest crime to be imputed. A soldier
who will betray his command belongs by the code of all nations to
the most infamous class--his death but feebly atoning for the injury
he has inflicted upon his country. It was under the implied
accusation of this great guilt that General Stone was left in duress
for more than six weary months, deprived of all power of self-
defense, denied the inherited rights of the humblest citizen of
the Republic. In the end, not gracefully but tardily, and as it
seemed grudgingly, the government was compelled to confess its own
wrong and to do partial justice to the injured man by restoring
him to honorable service under the flag of the Nation. No reparation
was made to him for the protracted defamation of his character, no
order was published acknowledging that he was found guiltless, no
communication was ever made to him by National authority giving
even a hint of the grounds on which for half a year he was pilloried
before the nation as a malefactor. The wound which General Stone
received was deep. From some motive, the source of which will
probably remain a mystery, his persecution continued in many petty
and offensive ways, until he was finally driven, towards the close
of the war, when he saw that he could be no longer useful to his
country, to tender his resignation. It was promptly accepted. He
found abroad the respect and consideration which had been denied
him at home, and for many years he was Chief of the General Staff
to the Khedive of Egypt.
It is not conceivable that the flagrant wrong suffered by General
Stone was ever designed by any one of the eminent persons who share
the responsibility for its infliction. They were influenced by
and largely partook of the popular mania which demanded a victim
to atone for a catastrophe. The instances in which this disposition
of the public mind works cruel injury are innumerable, and only
time, and not always time, seems able to render justice. Too often
the object of popular vengeance is hurried to his fate, and placed
beyond the pale of that reparation which returning reason is eager
to extend. Fortunately the chief penalty of General Stone was the
anguish of mind, the wounding of a proud spirit. His case will
stand as a warning against future violations of the liberty which
is the birthright of every American, and against the danger of
appeasing popular clamor by the sacrifice of an innocent man.
Throughout the ordeal, General Stone's bearing was soldierly. He
faced accusation with equanimity and endured suffering with fortitude.
He felt confident of ultimate justice, for he knew that it is not
the manner of his countrymen "to deliver any man to die before that
he which is accused have the accusers face to face, and have license
to answer for himself concerning the crime laid against him."
CHAPTER XVIII.
The National Finances.--Debt when the Civil War began.--Deadly Blow
to Public Credit.--Treasury Notes due in 1861.--$10,000,000 required.
--An Empty Treasury.--Recommendation by Secretary Dix.--Secretary
Thomas recommends a Pledge of the Public Lands.--Strange Suggestions.
--Heavy Burdens upon the Treasury.--Embarrassment of Legislators.
--First Receipts in the Treasury in 1861.--Chief Dependence had
always been on Customs.--Morrill Tariff goes into Effect.--It meets
Financial Exigencies.--Mr. Vallandigham puts our Revenue at
$50,000,000, our Expenditures at $500,000,000.--Annual Deficiency
under Mr. Buchanan.--Extra Session in July, 1861.--Secretary Chase
recommends $80,000,000 by Taxation, and $240,000,000 by Loans.--
Loan Bill of July 17, 1861.--Its Provisions.--Demand Notes.--Seven-
thirties.--Secretary Chase's Report, December, 1861.--Situation
Serious.--Sales of Public Lands.--Suspension of Specie Payment.--
The Loss of our Coin.--Its Steady Export to Europe.
When the civil war began, the Government of the United States owed
a less sum than it owed under the administration of Washington
after the funding of the debt of the Revolution. The population
in 1861 was nine times as large, the wealth thirty times as great
as in 1791. The burden therefore was absolutely inconsiderable
when contrasted with our ability to pay. But there had been such
gross mismanagement of the Treasury, either from incompetency or
design, under the administration of Howell Cobb, that the credit
of the government was injured. There was embarrassment when there
should have been security; there was scarcity when the most ordinary
prudence would have insured plenty. So much depended at that moment
on the ability of the government to raise money by pledging its
faith, that Mr. Cobb perhaps thought he was dealing the deadliest
blow at the nation by depriving it of the good name it had so long
held in the money markets of the world. With unblemished credit
at the opening of the war, the government could have used its
military power with greater confidence, and consequently with
greater effectiveness.
THE NATIONAL CREDIT INJURED.
At the beginning of the year 1861 it was necessary for the government
to raise about $10,000,000 to meet Treasury notes outstanding and
the interest secured upon them. Congress had passed, on the 17th
of December, 1860, a law authorizing the issue of new Treasury
notes for this amount, bearing interest at the rate of six per
cent., and redeemable after one year; but the Secretary of the
Treasury was authorized to issue them, upon public notice, at the
best rates of interest offered by responsible bidders. Before the
close of the month negotiations were completed, after unusual
effort, and it was found that the notes were issued at various
rates, only $70,200 at six per cent., $5,000 at seven per cent.,
$24,500 at eight per cent., $355,000 at rates between eight per
cent. and below ten per cent., $3,283,500 at ten per cent. and
fractions below eleven per cent., $1,432,700 at eleven per cent.,
and by far the larger share, $4,840,000 at twelve per cent. The
average for the whole negotiation made the rate of interest ten
and five-eighths per cent.
The Treasury was empty, for the nominal balance was only $2,233,220
on the 1st of January. Obligations were accruing to such an extent
that General John A. Dix, as Secretary of the Treasury, informed
the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives,
that the revenue exhibited, on the 1st of February, a deficit of
$21,677,524. The committee estimated that the sum needed to carry
on current operations was at least $5,000,000 in addition. A loan
of $25,000,000 was proposed, to meet these demands. Secretary Dix,
who felt the pulse of the financial centres, recommended in a letter
to the Ways and Means Committee that the several States be asked
to pledge the United-States "deposit funds" in their hands for the
security of the loan. His immediate predecessor, Philip F. Thomas,
had, in his annual report in the preceding December, urged that
the "public lands be unconditionally pledged for the ultimate
redemption of all the Treasury notes which it may become necessary
to issue."
Such suggestions seem strange to the ears of those who were afterwards
accustomed to the unbounded credit of the Republic. But these
secretaries were called to hear from capitalists the declaration
that the national debt had increased from $28,460,958 on the 1st
of July, 1857, to $64,640,838 on the 1st of July, 1860, and that
the figures were still mounting upward. In the mean time the
revenues were falling off, the sales of public lands were checked,
and the estimates of customs for the current year were practically
overthrown by the secession of the Southern States and the denial
of the authority of the Union.
The task of Congress might well strike some thoughtful legislators
as that of making bricks without straw. As the Rebellion took form
and organization, it became clear that the ability and willingness
of the people to raise large sums of money were vital factors in
the problem of the maintenance of the Union. It was well that no
one knew just how great were the burdens which the loyal people
must bear. It is no disparagement to the leading statesmen of that
era, that they did not at first propose measures adequate to the
emergency, because no standards existed by which the magnitude of
that emergency could be estimated. If Congress had understood on
the 1st of July, 1861, that the ordinary expenditures of the
government would be, within the fiscal years 1863 and 1864, more
than the entire expenditures of the National Government from the
foundation of the nation to that day, paralysis would have fallen
upon the courage of the bravest. If the necessity had been proclaimed
of raising by loans before the 1st of July, 1865, two thousand
millions of dollars more than the National Treasury had ever received
from loans and revenue combined, the audacity of the demand would
have forbidden serious consideration. If the Ways and Means
Committee had been notified that before the end of 1865, the annual
charge for interest on the national debt, for which provision must
be made, would reach $150,977,697, much more than twice the total
expenditure of the preceding year, skill and energy would have
undergone the crucial test. But the surprise of legislators would
have been equally great if they could then have unrolled the future
records of the Treasury, and have seen that in the year in which
the Rebellion would be suppressed, the receipts from customs would
attain the vast sum of $179,046,651, while from internal revenue,
a source not yet drawn upon, the enormous aggregate of $309,226,813
would be contributed to maintain the public credit.
We are so familiar with the vast sums which the war against the
Rebellion caused the National Government to disburse, that it is
difficult to appreciate the spirit with which the legislators of
1861 approached the impending burdens. They knew that their task
was great. They were in imminent peril, not only from open hostility,
but from doubt and fear. The resources of the Republic had not
been measured, the uprising of popular patriotism had not yet
astonished foreign foes and even the most sanguine of domestic
participants. With the information which was then before the world,
it may be questioned whether a complete scheme for providing the
money necessary for the struggle could have been passed through
Congress, or rendered effective with capitalists. The needs of
each crisis were supplied as each arose. Congress did not try to
look far into the future. It exerted itself to give daily bread
to the armies of the Union, to provide munitions of war, to build
and equip the navy.
NATIONAL FINANCES IN 1861.
The first receipts into the Treasury in 1861, other than from the
ordinary revenues under preceding statutes, came from the loan of
February 5, which authorized the issue of bonds bearing six per
cent. interest, payable within not less than ten, or more than
twenty years. The amount authorized was $25,000,000, and the
secretary was able to negotiate $18,415,000 at the average rate of
eighty-nine and three one-hundredths (89.03) per cent.
The Congress which closed its session of the 4th of March, 1861,
among its final acts provided for a loan of $10,000,000 in bonds,
or the issue of a like sum in Treasury notes; and the President
was also empowered to issue Treasury notes for any part of loans
previously authorized. Under this statute, notes were issued to
the amount of $12,896,350, payable sixty days after date, and
$22,468,100 payable in two years. This measure indicated the
disposition to provide for pressing exigencies by devices which
covered only the present hour, and left heavier responsibilities
to the future. An incident of this period was the settlement of
the debt incurred in the war in Oregon against the Indians, by
giving to the claimants or their representatives six per cent.
bonds redeemable in twenty years. The bonds were taken to the
amount of $1,090,850, showing that such securities were welcome to
claimants even at par.
The chief dependence of the United States for revenue had always
been upon customs. But no real test had ever been made of the sum
that might be collected from this source. The aim had been to see
with how small an amount the National Government could be supported,
not how large an amount might be collected. The time was now upon
us when this critical experiment was to be tried, and the initial
step in that direction was the Morrill Tariff which went into effect
on the first day of April. It radically changed the policy of our
customs duties from the legislation of 1846 and 1857, and put the
nation in the attitude of self-support in manufactures. Although
introduced before secession attained its threatening proportions,
it was well adapted to the condition in which the country was placed
at the time of its enactment. It was a measure carefully elaborated,
and based upon principles which were applied with studious accuracy
to all its parts. Under it the imposts which had averaged about
nineteen per cent. on dutiable articles, and fifteen per cent. on
the total importations, mounted to thirty-six per cent. on dutiable
articles, and to twenty-eight per cent. on the total importations.
Thus, although the goods brought into the country fell off unavoidably
by reason of the war, and especially of the difficulties encountered
by our vessels from the rebel privateers, the customs duties rather
increased than diminished, and something was thus secured in the
way of a basis of credit for the immense loans which became necessary.
The measure, Mr. Sherman of Ohio stated, would in ordinary times
produce an income of $65,000,000 a year to the Treasury.
The Morrill Tariff was found to meet the exigencies of the situation
to such a degree that when Congress came together in response to
the call of President Lincoln, Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, as head of
the committee charged with the subject, informed the House that it
had been determined not to enter upon a general revision. He
reported a measure to extend the schedule of dutiable articles with
the view of adding immediately to the revenue about $22,250,000
annually. After disagreement with the Senate his bill with slight
alteration was enacted and became the tariff on Aug. 5, 1861. In
Dec. 24, 1861, the duties on tea, coffee, and sugar were increased
directly as a war measure. During the consideration of this bill,
Mr. Morrill presented estimates showing that the revenue would be
increased by about $7,000,000, and Mr. Vallandigham of Ohio took
occasion to dwell on the falling off of importations, asking, "How
are you to have revenue from imports when nothing is imported?
Your expenditures are $500,000,000, your income but $50,000,000."
He was much nearer the actual figures than political rhetoric is
apt to be. Mr. Morrill's response was only to hope that the
gentleman from Ohio had some proposition to offer more acceptable
than the pending bill. That bill was indeed a reasonable, and, so
far as it went, an effective measure, and Mr. Vallandigham had no
substitute to offer.
NATIONAL FINANCES IN 1861.
In his annual report as Secretary of the Treasury, Howell Cobb had,
on the 4th of December, 1860, estimated that the receipts of the
Treasury for the fiscal year ending with June, 1862, would amount
to $64,495,891, while he reckoned that the expenditures would be
$68,363,726. With the prospect of peace and national unity he
predicted a deficiency of $3,867,834 for that year. His figures
were so preposterously incorrect as to justify the suspicion of
intentional misstatement. The deficiency for the four years of
Mr. Buchanan's administration had been, according to a statement
by Mr. Sherman of Ohio in the House of Representatives, almost
exactly $20,000,000 a year. This deficiency had been met by
continual borrowing. On the 11th of February Secretary Dix reported
to the Committee of Ways and Means that provision must be made
before the 4th of March for a final deficiency of $9,901,118. This
necessity was provided for by a clause in the Morrill Tariff Act;
and the authority to issue Treasury notes to the full amount of
loans previously permitted, gave to the administration of President
Lincoln the means to start upon its difficult career.
With a revenue which no one estimated beyond $5,000,000 a month,
with a credit at the low ebb which the sales of its bonds had
already exhibited, the nation was to prepare for a war of untold
magnitude. Mr. Chase, as Secretary of the Treasury, began to try
the fruitfulness of the loan laws under which he must proceed.
April 2, 1861, he offered $8,000,000, but the prices were not
satisfactory to him, and he sold only $3,099,000 at the rate of
94.01. Nine days later he received bids for $1,000,000 of Treasury
notes bearing six per cent. interest, and with considerable exertion
he secured the increase of this sum to $5,000,000 at par. A
committee of the New-York Chamber of Commerce led in a movement,
representing the banks of some of the chief cities, to assist the
Treasury in borrowing the means required for its pressing exigencies.
By this co-operation Mr. Chase raised in May $7,310,000 on bonds
at rates from eighty-five to ninety-three per cent. and $1,684,000
by Treasury notes at par.
When Congress met in special session under the call of Mr. Lincoln
July 4, Secretary Chase found it necessary to declare that while
the laws still permitted loans amounting to $21,393,450, the
authority was unavailable because of the limitation that the
securities, whether bonds or Treasury notes, should be issued only
at par, on the basis of six per cent. interest. Practically
therefore no power existed to borrow money. While, on the first
of the month then current, there was a nominal balance in the
Treasury of $2,355,635, charges by reason of appropriations for
the account of the preceding fiscal year were outstanding to the
extent of $20,121,880. The short loans already made, constituted
also an immediate claim, and these amounted to $12,639,861. All
these burdens were to be borne in addition to the demands of the
year, which, as already demonstrated, would be one of extended
military operations and of costly preparations and movements at
sea. The total for which the secretary asked that Congress might
provide resources, reached according to his estimates the sum of
$318,519,581 for the fiscal year. Far-seeing men believed that
even this enormous aggregate would fall short of the actual demand.
Mr. Chase proposed that $80,000,000 be raised by taxation, and
$240,000,000 by loans. The suggestion was already urged that even
a larger proportion of the money needed, should be raised by
taxation. But unwillingness to create friction and opposition
doubtless entered into the considerations which determined the
recommendations of the secretary. He proposed to rely upon the
tariff for a large share of the basis of credit, and, while adding
to its provisions, to impose a direct tax, and to levy duties upon
stills and distilled liquors, on ale and beer, on tobacco, spring-
carriages, bank-notes, silver ware, jewellery, and legacies.
Congress made haste to consider and substantially to carry out the
recommendations of Secretary Chase. The legislators were not
inclined to go farther than the head of the Treasury suggested.
No practical proposition was made for a broader scheme of taxation.
The tariff, as has been indicated, was enlarged. A bill was passed,
levying a direct tax of $20,000,000, to be apportioned among all
the States, of which the sum of $12,000,000 was apportioned among
the States which had not seceded from the Union. Instead of the
scheme of internal taxes which Mr. Chase had proposed, an income
tax was substituted, to be collected on the results of the year
ending April 1, 1862, and assessed at three per cent. on all incomes
in excess of $800; but before any collections were made under it,
the broader internal-revenue system went into effect. Direct taxes
had been tried in 1800 and again in 1814, but the receipts had
always been disappointing. The results under Secretary Chase's
proposition were altogether unsatisfactory; and on the 1st of July,
1862, an Act was passed limiting the tax to one levy previous to
April 1, 1865, when the law should have full force. The estimates
of collections were set at $12,000,000 annually, or very near that
sum. For four years, 1862-1865 inclusive, the receipts were only
$4,956,657: in 1867 they became $4,200,233, and then dribbled away.
THE NATIONAL LOAN ACT OF JULY, 1861.
Inadequate as is now seen to be the legislation of 1861 with
reference to actual revenue, the receipts fell far below the
calculations of experts. For the fiscal year 1862 the customs
amounted to only $49,056,397, and the direct tax to $1,795,331;
and the total receipts, excluding loans, were only $51,919,261
instead of $80,000,000, as expected under the estimates of the
Treasury. The plea may perhaps be pressed in defense of Congress,
that financial legislation, laggard as it was, ran before popular
readiness to raise money by taxes. There was a wide-spread opposition
among the strongest advocates of the war, to all measures which
would, at an early stage, render the contest pecuniarily oppressive,
and hence make it unpopular.
President Lincoln in his message at the opening of the special
session had called upon Congress for $400,000,000 in money, and
400,000 men. Mr. Chase's figures were $320,000,000. He doubtless
deemed it wise to ask for no more than Congress would promptly
grant. As the struggle proceeded, it was demonstrated that those
calculated most justly who relied most completely on the popular
purpose to make every sacrifice to maintain the national integrity.
This was however the period of depression after the first battle
of Bull Run, of hesitation before casting every thing into the
scale for patriotism.
The eloquent fact about the Loan Bill is that Congress made haste
to enact it. It was introduced into the House of Representatives
on the 9th of July. On the next day Mr. Stevens, chairman of the
Ways and Means Committee, called up the bill, and, upon going into
committee of the whole, induced the House to limit general debate
to one hour. In the committee the entire time was occupied by Mr.
Vallandigham of Ohio, in criticism on the President's message and
on the general questions involved in the prosecution of the war.
Mr. Holman of Indiana addressed to the gentleman from Ohio two
inquiries bearing on the purpose of the latter to aid in maintaining
the Union. No response was made to the speech of Mr. Vallandigham.
The committee rose, and the bill was passed by a vote of 105 to 5.
In the Senate no discussion took place, certain amendments looking
to the perfection of the measure were adopted, and the bill was
passed without division. The House at once concurred in the Senate
amendments, and the act was consummated by which the first of the
great war loans was authorized.
This Act became law on the 17th of July. Its provisions created
a system by which the Secretary of the Treasury might offer bonds
not exceeding $250,000,000 in the aggregate at seven per cent.
interest, redeemable after twenty years; or he might issue Treasury
notes payable three years after date, and bearing seven and three-
tenths per cent. interest,--the notes not to be of less denomination
than fifty dollars. A separate section permitted the secretary to
offer not more than $100,000,000 abroad, payable in the United
States or in Europe. The same Act authorized for a part of the
sum not exceeding $50,000,000, the exchange for coin or the use in
payment of salaries or other dues, of notes of less denomination
than fifty dollars but not less than ten dollars, and bearing
interest at the rate of three and sixty-five one-hundredths per
cent. payable in one year; or these might be payable on demand and
without interest. This loan might therefore be in bonds for sale
in this country or in a different form for sale abroad; or, second,
it might be in Treasury notes of not less than fifty dollars each,
bearing seven and three-tenths per cent. interest; or, third, a
part of the loan not exceeding $50,000,000 might be in notes of
even as low denomination as ten dollars at three and sixty-five
one-hundredths per cent.; and, finally, this latter part might be
in notes without interest payable on demand. The bonds were to
run at least twenty years; the seven-thirties three years; and the
three-sixty-fives were payable in one year, and exchangeable into
seven-thirties at the pleasure of the holder. A supplementary Act
was passed Aug. 5, 1861, which permitted the secretary to issue
six per cent. bonds, payable at the pleasure of the United States
after twenty years, and the holders of seven-thirty notes were
allowed to exchange their notes for such bonds. The minimum of
the denominations of Treasury notes was reduced to five dollars,
and all the demand notes of less denomination then fifty dollars
were receivable for payment of public dues. By Act of Feb. 12,
1862, the limit of demand notes was raised to $60,000,000. In this
modified form the statute directed the movements of the Treasury
during the autumn of the first year of the Rebellion.
SECRETARY CHASE'S REPORT, 1861.
In his report, dated December 9, 1861, the Secretary of the Treasury
related the steps which he had taken to raise money under these
laws. Mr. Chase informed Congress that "his reflections led him
to the conclusion that the safest, surest, and most beneficial plan
would be to engage the banking institutions of the three chief
commercial cities of the seaboard to advance the amounts needed
for disbursement in the form of loans for three years' seven-thirty
bonds, to be reimbursed, as far as practicable, from the proceeds
of similar bonds, subscribed for by the people through the agencies
of the national loan; using, meanwhile, himself, to a limited
extent, in aid of these advances, the power to issue notes of
smaller denominations than fifty dollars, payable on demand."
Representatives of the banks of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia
united to give moneyed support to the government. The secretary
opened books of subscription throughout the country. The banks
subscribed promptly for $50,000,000, paying $5,000,000 at once in
coin, and agreeing the pay the balance, also in coin, as needed by
the government. For this loan the banks received seven-thirty
notes, and the proceeds of the popular loan were transferred to
them. The sales to the public amounted to little more than half
that sum; but the banks, when called upon, made a second advance
of $50,000,000. By these and other agencies, Mr. Chase was able
to present an encouraging summary of the Treasury operations.
He stated that "there were paid to creditors, or exchanged for coin
at par, at different dates, in July and August, six per cent. two
years' notes, to the amount of $14,019,034.66; there was borrowed
at par. in the same months, upon sixty days' six per cent. notes,
the sum of $12,877,750; there were borrowed at par, on the 19th of
August, under three years' seven-thirty bonds, issued for the most
part to subscribers to the national loan, $50,000,000; there were
borrowed at par for seven per cent., on the 10th of November, upon
twenty years' six per cent. bonds, reduced to the equivalent of
sevens, including interest, $45,795,478.48; there have been issued,
and were in circulation and on deposit with the treasurer on the
30th of November, of United-States notes payable on demand,
$24,550,325,--making an aggregate realized from loans in various
forms of $197,242,588.14." The loan operations had therefore been
fairly successful, for they were still in progress; and President
Lincoln was justified in stating in his message that "the expenditures
made necessary by the Rebellion are not beyond the resources of
the loyal people, and the same patriotism which has thus far
sustained the government will continue to sustain it, till peace
and union shall yet bless the land."
But the shadows were growing thick, and the situation was very
serious. Mr. Chase was compelled to report that his estimates of
revenue must be reduced below the figures which he gave in July by
$25,447,334: at the same time the expenditures must be reckoned at
an increase of $213,904,427. Predictions as to the speedy close
of the war had ceased. Provision must be made, not only for the
deficiencies presented, but for the ensuing year, during which the
secretary estimated that the expenditures would be $475,331,245.
He proposed to amend the direct tax law, so as to collect under it
$20,000,000; to establish a system of internal revenue as he had
suggested in July, and to increase some of the customs duties.
From these sources, united with the receipts from the public lands,
the revenue would be $95,800,000. With this basis, reliance must
be placed on loans for the enormous sum of $654,980,920, and under
existing laws he could borrow only $75,449,675.
The sale of public lands had furnished some part of the resources
of the nation from an early day. The annual product had not been
large as a rule. In 1834 and 1835 the sales had been abnormal,
amounting in the latter year to $24,877,179, and only about
$10,000,000 less in the preceding year. They were $11,497,049 in
1855, but they had fallen until they were less than $2,000,000 in
1859. It was natural to consider whether any help could be derived
from this quarter in the hour of national necessity. A forced sale
of lands was impossible to any such extent as to affect the receipts
of the Treasury in the ratio of its demands. The pledge of the
domain as security for loans was suggested only to be rejected.
As was natural, purchases of the public domain ceased almost entirely
while the young men of the country were summoned to the national
defense, and the better strength went into the field of battle.
From the public lands therefore the Treasury could hope for little,
and very little was in fact received from them during the Rebellion.
Secretary Chase had estimated in July that $3,000,000 might be
annually derived from this source; but the receipts from the sales
of lands never reached even $1,000,000 a year until two years after
the Rebellion had been suppressed. Practically the public lands
passed out of consideration as a source of revenue. Unfortunately
also the attempt to levy a direct tax was received by the people
with grave manifestations of disapproval. Its enforcement was
likely to prove mischievous. The close of the year 1861 was
therefore heavy with discouragement to the government. The military
reverses at Bull Run and Ball's Bluff had outweighed in the popular
mind the advantages we had gained elsewhere; the surrender of
Slidell and Mason, though on every consideration expedient, had
wounded the national pride; and now the report of the Secretary of
the Treasury tended to damp the ardor of those who had with sanguine
temperament looked forward to an easy victory over the Rebellion.
SUSPENSION OF SPECIE PAYMENT.
It was felt by all that the National credit, which had been partially
restored under Mr. Chase's administration of the Treasury, could
not be maintained except from the pockets of the people, and that
every man must expect to contribute of his substance to the support
of the government in the great task it had assumed. Happily all
considerate and reflecting men saw that, desperate as the struggle
might be, it must be accepted with all its cost and all its woe.
They could at least measure it and therefore could face it. On
the side of defeat they could not look. That was a calamity so
great as to be immeasurable, and it left to the loyal millions no
choice. If the struggle then in progress had been with a foreign
power, popular opinion would have overthrown any administration
that would not at once make peace. But peace on the basis of a
dissevered Union, a disintegrated people, a dishonored nationality,
could not be accepted and would not be endured.
The discouragement in financial circles produced by the Treasury
report of Mr. Chase, hastened if it did not cause the suspension
of specie payment by the banks of New-York City. Many country
banks had ceased to pay specie some time before; indeed, many had
been only on a nominal basis of coin since the financial crisis of
1857. So long however as the specie standard was upheld by the
New-York banks, the business of the country was securely maintained
on the basis of coin. It was therefore a matter of serious moment
and still more serious portent that the financial pressure became
so strong in the last days of the year 1861 as to force the banks
of the metropolis to confess that they could no longer maintain a
specie standard. It had been many years since the government had
paid any thing but coin over its counters, but Treasury notes had
just been issued payable on demand, and many millions were already
in circulation. They would now be presented for redemption, and
if promptly met, the Treasury would be rapidly drained of its
specie. There were twenty-five millions less of gold coin in the
government vaults than Secretary Chase had expected. This fact of
itself enforced a larger issue of demand notes than would otherwise
have been called for, and had thus doubly complicated the financial
situation. The Treasury had disbursed a large amount of demand
notes and received a smaller amount of gold coin than the well
considered estimates of the secretary had anticipated.
The presumption was in favor of our being much stronger in coin
than we were found to be. The discovery of gold in California had
resulted in an enormous product,--surpassing any thing known in
the history of mining. But we had been encouraging the importation
of goods from Europe which were confessedly somewhat cheaper than
our own fabrics, and in amount largely in excess of our export of
cotton and cereals. We were therefore constantly paying the
difference in coin. The political economists who had been in
control of our finances insisted upon treating our gold as an
ordinary product, to be exported in the same manner that we exported
wheat and pork. The consequence was that during the decade preceding
the war our exports of specie and bullion exceeded our imports of
the same by the enormous aggregate of four hundred and fifty millions
of dollars. For that whole period there had been a steady shipment
of our precious metals to Europe at a rate which averaged nearly
four millions of dollars per month.
Advocates of protection had found the drain of our specie the
proximate cause of the financial panic of 1857. They now believed
that the same cause had produced a suspension of coin payment at
a much earlier date than the war pressure alone would have brought
it about. They did not lose the opportunity of demonstrating that
a system of protection which would have manufactured more and
imported less, and which would thus have retained many millions of
our specie at home, would have enabled us to meet the trials of
the war with greater strength and confidence. If the Morrill Tariff
had been enacted four years before, it would have been impossible
for Secretary Cobb to stab the national credit. He would have been
dealing constantly with a surplus instead of a deficit, and could
not have put the nation to shame by forcing it to hawk its paper
in the money markets at the usurious rate of one per cent. a month.
One of the wisest financiers in the United States has expressed
the belief that two hundred millions of coin, which might easily
have been saved to the country by a protective tariff between 1850
and 1860, would have kept the National debt a thousand millions
below the point which it reached. Of all the arguments with which
protectionists have arraigned free-traders, perhaps the most
difficult to answer is that which holds them responsible for the
weak financial condition of 1860-61 in that they had deliberately
driven our specie from the country for the ten preceding years.
CHAPTER XIX.
The Legal-tender Bill.--National Finances at the Opening of the
Year 1862.--A Threefold Contest.--The Country thrown upon its own
Resources.--A Good Currency demanded.--Government takes Control of
the Question.--Authorizes the Issue of $150,000,000 of Legal-tender
Notes.--Mr. Spaulding the Author of the Measure.--His Speech.--
Opposed by Mr. Pendleton.--Position of Secretary Chase.--Urges the
Measure upon Congress.--Speeches by Thaddeus Stevens, Mr. Vallandigham,
Mr. V. B. Horton, Mr. Lovejoy, Mr. Conkling, Mr. Hooper, Mr. Morrill,
Mr. Bingham, Mr. Shellabarger, Mr. Pike and Others.--Spirited and
Able Debate.--Bill passes the House.--Its Consideration by the
Senate.--Speeches by Mr. Fessenden, Mr. Sherman, Mr. Sumner, Mr.
Bayard, Mr. Collamer and Others.--Bill passes the Senate.--Its
Weighty Provisions.--Secretary Chase on State Banks.--Policy of
the Legal-tender Bill.--Its Effect upon the Business and Prosperity
of the Country.--Internal Revenue Act.--Necessity of Large Sums
from Taxation.--Public Credit dependent on it.--Constitutional
Provisions.--Financial Policy of Alexander Hamilton.--Excises
Unpopular.--Whiskey Insurrection.--Resistance by Law.--Supreme
Court Decision.--Case of Hylton.--Provisions of New Act.--Searching
Character.--Great Revenue desired.--Credit due to Secretary Chase.
At the opening of the year 1862, from causes narrated in the
preceding chapter, the government finances were in an embarrassed
and critical situation. In Europe the general opinion--founded in
many influential quarters on the wish--was that the Union would be
dissolved; that with the success of the South, there would be still
further division between the East and the West; and that the only
compact power would be the Confederacy founded on slavery, with
the world's great staples as the basis of its wealth and its assured
development. We had but recently and narrowly escaped war with
England on account of the Trent affair, and in the crafty and
adventurous Emperor of France we had a secret enemy who saw in our
downfall the possible extension of his power and the strengthening
of his throne. Confederate bonds were more popular in England that
the bonds of the United States. The world's treasures were closed
against us. The bankers of Europe, with the Rothschilds in the
lead, would not touch our securities. Their united clientage
included the investors of Great Britain and the Continent, and a
popular loan could not be effected without their aid and co-operation.
We were engaged therefore in a threefold contest,--a military one
with the Confederacy, and diplomatic and moral one with the
governments of England and France, a financial one with the money
power of Europe.
These causes threw us upon our own resources. The problem to be
solved was the utilization of our wealth without the aid which
comes from the power to borrow foreign money. Congress had obviously
failed at the extra session of July to use the taxing power to the
extent which financial wisdom demanded, and though it was now
willing to correct the error, there was not enough time to wait
the slow process of enactment, assessment, and collection. Our
need was instant and pressing. The banks of the country, many of
them in reckless, speculative hands, were freed by the suspension
of specie payment from their just responsibility, and might flood
the country with worthless paper which would entail great distress
upon the people. The Treasury notes not being paid in coin on
demand, as promised on their face, became discredited to such a
degree that the banks of the leading commercial cities would receive
them only as a special deposit, and not as money of account. So
entirely were these notes distrusted in the opening month of 1862
that in more than one instance State banks exchanged their own
bills for them as an act of patriotism, in order that the bounty
due to soldiers just recruited might be paid before they left their
State rendezvous to join the armies in the field. Troops already
in the service had seen more than one pay-day go by without sight
of the paymaster, and tens of millions were overdue to them.
Discontent in all the camps was the natural result.
With no power to exchange our bonds for coin except at such rates
as would destroy national credit, with only a hundred millions of
coin in all our banks when the war began, and a hundred and fifty
millions hoarded among the people, with the lavish products of our
mines transferred to Europe to pay for articles which it would have
been wiser to manufacture at home, our situation was not merely
one of anxiety but of peril. Never in the history of national
progress through trials and crises, were wise statesmanship and
financial sagacity more imperatively demanded. The Rebels might
fight without money, for they had no national credit to protect;
but to the Union, bankruptcy meant final and hopeless ruin.
LEGAL-TENDER CURRENCY PROPOSED.
The first thing to be secured was a currency. That was demanded
to pay the debt of honor due to the soldiers; to remove stagnation
in business; to put the people in heart and hope. It had been
demonstrated that Treasury notes, without punctual and regular
redemption, would not circulate. When A paid them to B in satisfaction
of a debt, B had no assurance that he might in turn cancel an
obligation by paying them to C. It would perhaps occur to C, that
for a lawful debt he had the right to demand gold or silver; for
the law told him in explicit terms that nothing else constituted
a legal-tender. It was obviously impossible to conduct the business
of the country and to carry on the war, in coin payments, with the
small amount of coin at command. Few would insist upon coin, but
as the power to insist upon it was a legal right, it was a continuing
menace to the confidence of trade.
In the opinion of the majority, the one imperative duty was that
the government should take control of the currency, issue its own
paper as a circulating medium, and make it equal and alike to all,
by declaring it to be a legal-tender in the payment of debts. It
was the most momentous financial step ever taken by Congress,--as
it is the one concerning which the most pronounced and even
exasperating difference of opinion was manifested at the time, has
since continued, and will probably never entirely subside so long
as the government keeps one legal-tender note in circulation. It
was admitted to be a doubtful if not dangerous exercise of power;
but the law of necessity overrides all other laws, and asserts its
right to govern. All doubts were decided in favor of the nation,
in the belief that dangers which were remote and contingent could
be more easily dealt with than those which were certain and
imminent.
Relief came promptly. On the 22d of January, 1862, Mr. E. G.
Spaulding of New York reported the legal-tender bill to the House.
It had been maturely considered by the Committee of Ways and Means,
--a committee made up of very able men. Mr. Spaulding is entitled
to rank as the author of the measure. It is difficult to assign
absolute originality in any case where so many minds are at work
in the same field of investigation, and where, with an approximate
identity of date, there is a general similarity of conclusion.
But the formal proposition and the public advocacy belong to Mr.
Spaulding. He had been all his life engaged in financial affairs,
was a banker of recognized ability in the city of Buffalo, and
enjoyed a high reputation throughout the State of New York for
intelligence and probity. He had not waited for advice or even
for consultation, but on the thirtieth day of December, 1861,--the
day on which the banks of New York suspended specie payment,--he
introduced the original legal-tender bill in the House of
Representatives.
The first provision of the bill now reported, was for the issue of
$150,000,000 of Treasury notes, differing from those previously
authorized by being declared a legal-tender for all obligations,
public and private, except duties on imports and interest on the
public debt. The notes were also to be exchangeable into six per
cent. bonds, redeemable at the pleasure of the United States after
five years. In reporting the bill, Mr. Spaulding called it "a war
measure, a measure of necessity not of choice, to meet the most
pressing demands upon the Treasury, to sustain the army and navy
until they can make a vigorous advance upon the traitors and crush
out the Rebellion." He argued, "These notes will find their way
into all the channels of trade among the people; and as they
accumulate in the hands of capitalists, they will exchange them
for the six per cent. twenty years' bonds:" the notes will "be
equally as good, and in many cases better, than the present
irredeemable circulation issued by the banks." Mr. Spaulding argued
that the Constitution justified such legislation in the emergency,
and he declared that by this plan "the government will be able to
get along with its immediate and pressing necessities without being
obliged to force its bonds on the market at ruinous rates of
discount: the people under heavy taxation will be shielded against
high rates of interest, and capitalists will be afforded fair
compensation for the use of their money during the pending struggle
for national existence."
Mr. Spaulding admitted that "a suspension of specie payment is
greatly to be deplored," but he contended that "it is not a fatal
step in an exigency like the present. The British Government and
the Bank of England remained under suspension from 1797 to 1821-
22, a period of twenty-five years. During this time England
successfully resisted the power of the Emperor Napoleon, and
preserved her own imperiled existence. As a measure of necessity,
she made the Bank of England notes virtually a legal-tender by
suspending the specie restriction. Throughout this period the
people of Great Britain advanced in wealth, population, and
resources." Mr. Spaulding maintained that "gold is not as valuable
as the production of the farmer and the mechanic, for it is not as
indispensable as are food and raiment. Our army and navy must have
what is far more valuable to them than gold or silver. They must
have food, clothing, and the material of war. Treasury notes,
issued by the government on the faith of the whole people, will
purchase these indispensable articles."
MR. CHASE FAVORS LEGAL-TENDER.
When the bill was taken up for consideration on the 29th of January,
the objections which had been raised in the public press were elaborated
in the Committee of the Whole. Mr. Pendleton of Ohio was the first
in opposition. In beginning a long argument, he insisted that "the
feature of this bill which first strikes every thinking man, even
in these days of novelties, is the proposition that these notes
shall be made a legal-tender in discharge of all pecuniary obligations,
as well those which have accrued in virtue of contracts already
made as those which are yet to accrue in pursuance of contracts
which shall hereafter be made. Do gentlemen appreciate the full
import and meaning of that clause? Do they realize the full extent
to which it will carry them? Every contract for the purchase of
money is in legal contemplation a contract for the payment of gold
and silver coin. Every promissory note, every bill of exchange,
every lease reserving rent, every loan of money reserving interest,
every bond issued by this government, is a contract to which the
faith of the obligor is pledged, that the amount, whether rent,
interest, or principal, shall be paid in the gold and silver coin
of the country." Mr. Pendleton deemed it a very serious matter
that "the provisions of this bill contemplate impairing the obligation
of every contract of that kind, and disturbing the basis upon which
every judgment and decree and verdict have been entered." He
concluded by referring to the depreciated paper of the French
Revolution, to the long suspension of specie currency in England,
and the throes attending return to it in 1822. Quoting Daniel
Webster's words that "gold and silver currency is the law of the
land at home, the law of the world abroad: there can, in the present
condition of the world, be no other currency," Mr. Pendleton made
an earnest appeal to the House "to heed this lesson of wisdom."
Repeated declarations were made during the debate that the Secretary
of the Treasury had not given his approval of the pending measure.
This impression was seriously impeding the progress of the bill,
and, if it had been confirmed, would probably have defeated it.
A belief was prevalent that Mr. Chase would be glad to have the
advantage of the measure in the management of the Treasury without
assuming the responsibility of its recommendation. But it was soon
evident that he could not remain in a passive and receptive position
without defeating the bill. Its real opponents took advantage of
the rumors; and its supporters, annoyed if not angered, by the
suggestion of hostility on the part of the Treasury, were determined
that Secretary Chase should take open ground. The embarrassment
was relieved by a letter from the Secretary to the Committee of
Ways and Means, dated Jan. 29, and read in the House on the 4th of
February by Mr. Spaulding. The letter had great influence on
Congress. Without it, the measure would probably have been
defeated.
Mr. Chase, assuming that "the provision making United-States notes
a legal-tender has doubtless been well considered by the committee,"
deemed it his duty to say that "in respect to the provision his
reflections had conducted him to the same conclusions the committee
had reached." He did not wish to conceal that he felt "a great
aversion to making any thing but coin a legal-tender in payment of
debts." He had been anxious "to avoid the necessity of such
legislation." He found it however "impossible, in consequence of
the large expenditures entailed by the war and the suspension of
the banks, to procure sufficient coin for disbursements." He
declared therefore that it "had become indispensably necessary that
we should resort to the issue of United-States notes. Making them
a legal-tender might however still be avoided, if the willingness
manifested by the people generally, by railroad companies, and by
many of the banking institutions, to receive and pay them as money
in all transactions were absolutely or practically universal; but
unfortunately there are some persons and some institutions that
refuse to receive and pay them, and their action tends, not merely
to the unnecessary depreciation of the notes, but to establish
discriminations in business against those, who, in this matter,
give a cordial support to the government, and in favor of those
who do not. Such discrimination should if possible be prevented;
and the provision making the notes a legal-tender, in a great
measure at least, prevents it by putting all citizens in this
respect on the same level, both of rights and duties." In addition
to this official communication, Mr. Spaulding felt justified in
reading a personal note from Mr. Chase, in which he said that he
"came with reluctance to the conclusion that the legal-tender clause
is a necessity," but that he "came to it decidedly and supported
it earnestly."
THADDEUS STEVENS IN THE DEBATE.
Thaddeus Stevens threw the whole weight of his influence in favor
of the measure. To alternative propositions which had been submitted,
he made strenuous objection. Certain bankers of New York had
suggested that the immediate wants of the government might be
supplied by pledging seven and three-tenths per cent. bonds with
a liberal margin, payable in one year, to the banks, which would
advance a portion in gold and the rest in currency. Mr. Stevens
argued that "the effect of this would be that the government would
pay out to its creditors the depreciated notes of non-specie-paying
banks. And as there is no possibility that the pledges would be
redeemed when due, they would be thrown into the market and sold
for whatever the banks might choose to pay for them. The folly of
this scheme needs no illustration." Another proposition, pressed
very earnestly, was to strike out the legal-tender clause, and make
the notes receivable for all taxes and public dues, but not to make
any provision for redeeming them in coin on demand. Mr. Stevens
did not "believe that such notes would circulate anywhere except
at a ruinous discount. Notes not redeemable on demand, and not
made a legal-tender, have never been kept at par." Even those who
could use them for taxes and duties would, in Mr. Stevens's opinion,
"discredit them that they might get them low." He was convinced
that "if soldiers, mechanics, contractors, and farmers were compelled
to take them from the government, they must submit to a heavy shave
before they could use them. The knowledge that they were provided
for by taxation, and would surely be paid twenty years hence, would
not sustain them."
To two prominent amendments which had been submitted, Mr. Stevens
manifested earnest opposition. He said "the one moved by the
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Vallandigham) proposes the same issue of
notes, but objects to legal-tender, and does not provide for their
redemption in coin. He fears our notes would depreciate. Let him
who is sharp enough, instruct the House how notes that every man
must take can be less valuable than the same notes that no man need
take and few would, since they are irredeemable on demand." As to
the constitutionality of the bill, he thought that whoever "admits
our power to emit bills of credit, nowhere expressly authorized by
the Constitution, is an unreasonable doubter when he denies the
power to make them a legal-tender." "The proposition of the
gentleman from New York" (Mr. Roscoe Conkling), continued Mr.
Stevens, "authorizes the issuing of seven per cent. bonds, payable
in thirty-one years, to be sold ($250,000,000 of it) or exchanged
for the currency of the banks of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.
This suggestion seems to lack every element of wise legislation.
Make a loan payable in irredeemable currency, and pay that in its
depreciated condition to our contractors, soldiers, and creditors
generally! The banks would issue unlimited amounts of what would
become trash, and buy good hard-money bonds of the nation. Was
there ever such a temptation to swindle? The gentleman from New
York further proposes to issue $200,000,000 United-States notes,
redeemable in coin in one year. Does he not know that such notes
must be dishonored, and the plighted faith of the government be
broken? If we are to use suspended notes to pay our expenses, why
not use our own?"
The minority of the Ways and Means Committee, through Mr. V. B.
Horton of Ohio, had submitted a plan, as Mr. Stevens characterized
it, "to issue United-States notes, not a legal-tender, bearing an
interest of three and sixty-five hundredths per cent., and fundable
in seven and three-tenths per cent. bonds, not payable on demand,
but at the pleasure of the United States. This gives one and three-
tenths per cent. higher interest than our loan, and, not being
redeemable on demand, would share the fate of all non specie-paying
notes not a legal-tender." Mr. Stevens believed that the government
was reduced to a narrow choice. It must either throw bonds at six
or seven per cent. on the market within a few months in amount
sufficient to raise at least $600,000,000 in money,--$557,000,000
being already appropriated,--or it must issue United-States notes,
not redeemable in coin, but fundable in specie-paying bonds at
twenty years; such notes either to be made a legal-tender, or to
take their chance of circulation by the voluntary act of the people.
The sturdy chairman of Ways and Means maintained that "the highest
rate at which we could sell our bonds would be seventy-five per
cent., payable in currency, itself at a discount, entailing a loss
which no nation or individual doing a large business could stand
for a single year." He contended that "such issue, without being
made legal-tender, must immediately depreciate, and would go on
from bad to worse. If made a legal-tender, and not issued in excess
of the legitimate demand, the notes will remain at par, and pass
in all transactions, great and small, at the full value of their
face; we shall have one currency for all sections of the country,
and for every class of people, the poor as well as the rich."
MR. LOVEJOY AND MR. CONKLING.
Mr. Owen Lovejoy of Illinois on the other hand marked out a very
different plan. He advocated as the first step, "adequate taxation,
if need be to the extent of $200,000,000." In the next place, he
would so legislate as to "compel all banking institutions to do
business on a specie basis. Every piece of paper that claimed to
be money but was not, he would chase back to the man or corporation
that forged it, and visit upon the criminal the penalties of the
law. He would not allow a bank note to circulate that was not
constantly, conveniently, and certainly convertible into specie."
In the third place, he would issue interest-paying bonds of the
United States, and "go into the market and borrow money and pay
the obligations of the government. This would be honest, business-
like, and in the end economical. This could be done. Other channels
of investment are blocked up, and capital would seek the bonds as
an investment." As contrasted with the measure proposed by the
Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Lovejoy intimated that his represented
"the health and vigor of the athlete;" the other, "the bloated
flesh of the beer-guzzler."
Mr. Roscoe Conkling of New York expressed hearty agreement with
Mr. Lovejoy. He agreed "with some other gentleman who said that
his bill was a legislative declaration of national bankruptcy."
He agreed "with still another gentleman who said that we were
following at an humble and disgraceful distance the Confederate
Government, as it is called, which has set up the example of making
paper a legal-tender, and punishing with death those who deny the
propriety of the proposition." Mr. Conkling declared that "insolvency
is ruin and dissolution;" and he believed that "in passing this
bill, as was said by the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Thomas],
we are to realize the French proposition about virtue,--that it is
the first step that costs. Another and another and another
$100,000,000 of this issue will follow. We are plunging into an
abyss from which there are to be no resuscitation and no resurrection."
Mr. Conkling thought "it right to learn of an enemy," and already
"the _London Times_ hails this $150,000,000 legal-tender bill as
the dawn of American bankruptcy, the downfall of American credit."
The public debt by the first of the ensuing July, within less than
a year from the first battle of the war, was already estimated at
$806,000,000. "Who can credit these figures," said Mr. Conkling,
"when he remembers that the world's greatest tragedian closed his
bloody drama at St. Helena leaving the public debt of France less
than seventy million of pounds?" He believed that "all the money
needed can be provided by means of unquestionable legality and
safety." He believed the substitute he had offered would effect
that result.
Mr. Hooper of Massachusetts, a man of large experience in financial
and commercial affairs, spoke ably in support of the legal-tender
clause. "No one," said he, "supposes for one moment that government
notes will be sold for coined money, or that coined money will be
borrowed on them. It is fair to suppose that the opponents of the
administration well understand that this would be the effect of
accepting the amendment to strike out the legal-tender clause from
the bill; and that their object, while they talk about coined money
to deceive some of our friends, is to oblige the government to give
up the sub-treasury, and to use for its payment the depreciated
bills of the suspended banks; thereby flooding the whole country
with these irredeemable notes, and producing, in time, a state of
financial confusion and distress that would ruin any administration.
The proposed issue of government notes guards against this effect
of inflating the currency by the provision to convert them into
government bonds, the principal and interest of which, as before
stated, are payable in specie."
Mr. Morrill of Vermont supported the bill proposed by the minority
of the Ways and Means Committee. He described the legal-tender
features as "not blessed by one sound precedent, but damned by
all." As a war measure he thought "it was not waged against the
enemy, but might well make him grin with delight." He would as
soon provide "Chinese wooden guns for the army as paper money alone
for the Treasury." Mr. Morrill declared that there never was a
greater fallacy than to pretend that as "the whole United States
are holden for the redemption of these notes, they will, if made
a legal-tender, pass at par." He contended that, as currency, "no
more of them can be used than enough to fill the demands of commerce."
He directed attention to the fact that of the Treasury notes already
issued, payable in specie on demand, "the government succeeded in
circulating but $27,000,000 of the $50,000,000 authorized, and of
these the banks had held $7,000,000." The sanguine feeling in
regard to the length of the war was disclosed by Mr. Morrill.
Speaking on the 4th of February, 1862, he ridiculed the suggestion
that "the war would be prolonged until July 1, 1863." He declared
that "we could close the war by the thirtieth day of July next, as
well as in thirty years.' This opinion was the one commonly accepted
at the time in Congressional circles, though discountenanced by
the wisest among those holding important commands in the army.
Mr. Bingham of Ohio spoke earnestly in favor of the bill. He could
not "keep silent" when he saw "efforts made to lay the power of
the American people to control their currency, a power essential
to their interest, at the feet of brokers and of city bankers who
have not a tittle of authority save by the assent of forbearance
of the people to deal in their paper issues as money." Mr. Bingham
argued that as there "is not a line or word or syllable in the
Constitution which makes any thing a legal-tender,--gold or silver
or any thing else,--it follows that Congress, having 'the power to
regulate commerce,' may determine what shall be a lawful tender in
the discharge of obligations payable in money only." The "limitation
of the power to impair the obligation of contracts," as Mr. Bingham
pointed out, was "a limitation upon the States only, and did not
restrain the action of Congress."
Mr. Sheffield of Rhode Island argued earnestly against the bill,
and predicted the same fate for it, if enacted, that overcame a
similar attempt in his State during the Revolutionary war "to make
paper a legal-tender." The people would not submit to it, and "the
courts set it aside as an unlawful exercise of legislative power."
ABLE SPEECH BY MR. PIKE.
Mr. Frederick A. Pike of Maine made one of the clearest and ablest
speeches delivered in the House in favor of the bill. He regarded
it as an experiment forced upon the country by necessity. "We
issue $150,000,000," said Mr. Pike, "on a venture." We measure it
"with population and wealth and existing currency. We compare it
with the action of the past." The issue of Continental notes had
reached $20,000,000 by the month of April, 1777, besides a large
amount of currency by the States. "And yet," said Mr. Pike, "no
marked signs of depreciation had appeared." The whole property of
the country did not at that time in his judgment "exceed five
hundred millions." From these facts he deduced our ability to
stand the proposed issue of paper. Mr. Pike had little faith in
the infallibility of any one's judgment as to the ultimate result
of financial experiments. He recalled the circumstance that Sir
Robert Peel's famous bank bill was introduced in Parliament in 1844
with the confident declaration by Her Majesty's Government that
"inquiry had been exhausted." But in the "first mercantile pinch"
the measure which was "the embodiment of financial wisdom" did not
work favorably, and "the government was compelled to interpose on
behalf of the bank and of the business community." "Tax, fight,
and emancipate," Mr. Pike declared to be "the Trinity of our
situation."
Mr. Valentine B. Horton of Ohio was opposed to giving the legal-
tender quality to government paper. He said "the country was never
so wealthy as to-day; never was so little due to foreign countries;
never were the people so free from embarrassment. The one drawback
is that the Treasury wants money to an immense amount." He believed
that an appeal to the capitalists would call forth "gold in the
utmost abundance." To pass the legal-tender bill would, in his
judgment, be "a legislative declaration that the administration is
not equal to the occasion for which it was elected." He thought
"the time for oracular utterances about a great movement," by which
bankers had been inspired with undue hope, had passed by, and that
something practical and actual would soon be accomplished.
Mr. John B. Alley supported the bill by arguments which came from
his own wide experience in business. The choice, he said, was
between notes of the government and "an irredeemable bank currency,
a great deal of which will be found, as it was after the war of
1812, utterly worthless."
Mr. Charles W. Walton of Maine spoke briefly but ably on the
constitutional power of Congress to pass the bill. He contended
that the authority to declare a legal-tender "was an implied and
not a direct power;" that, admitting it to belong to the Government,
it exists "without limitation." The question before the House,
therefore, is "one of expediency only," and on that ground he
earnestly supported the measure.
Mr. Shellabarger of Ohio answered the "charges of bad faith and
injustice" which had been brought against the bill by its opponents.
The cry of ruin to the country he compared with similar fears for
England on the part of her economists, and showed how, in every
case, they had been disproved by the rising power and growing wealth
of that kingdom. He said the legal-tender notes would be "borne
up by all the faith and all the property of the people, and they
will have all the value which that faith untarnished and that
property inestimable can given them."
Mr. John Hickman of Pennsylvania, having no doubt as to the power
of Congress to pass the bill, supported it as a governmental
necessity.
MR. FESSENDEN OPPOSES LEGAL-TENDER.
The debate in the House was able and spirited throughout. Judging
by the tone and number of the Republicans who spoke against the
bill, a serious party division seemed to be impending. The measure
came to a vote on the 6th of February, the interest in the discussion
continuing to the last. Mr. Owen Lovejoy sought occasion to give
the measure a parting malediction, declared that "there is no
precipice, no chasm, no yawning bottomless gulf before this nation,
so terrible, so appalling, so ruinous, as the bill before the
House," and Mr. Roscoe Conkling sought the floor to say that he
concurred "in every word" Mr. Lovejoy had spoken. Mr. Conkling
said the debate had been allowed to close "without pretext of solid
argument by any member in favor of the constitutionality of the
one feature of the bill."
The essential difference between the plan of the minority and that
of the committee had reference to the legal-tender clause. In fact
the other details of the Loan Bill could have been agreed upon in
a single day's discussion, and the delay was occasioned solely by
the one feature of legal-tender. On substituting the measure of
the minority the vote was 55 yeas to 95 nays. The bill was then
passed by a vote of 93 to 59. The yeas were all Republican. Among
the nays--principally Democrats--were found some of the ablest and
most influential members of the Republican party. Valentine B.
Horton of Ohio, Justin S. Morrill of Vermont, Roscoe Conkling, F.
A. Conkling, and Theodore M. Pomeroy of New York, Albert G. Porter
of Indiana, Owen Lovejoy of Illinois, William H. Wadsworth of
Kentucky, Benjamin F. Thomas of Massachusetts, and Edward H. Rollins
of New Hampshire, were conspicuous for their hostility to the legal-
tender clause.
The Senate received the bill on the next day, and on the 10th it
was reported from the Finance Committee for immediate action. Mr.
Fessenden explained the amendments which the committee had embodied
in the House Bill. In the first section they provided that the
interest on the national debt should be paid in coin. Upon this
point Mr. Fessenden considered that the public credit, in large
degree, depended. As to the legal-tender feature of the notes, he
could not make up his mind to support it. "Will your legal-tender
clause," he inquired, "make your notes any better? Do you imagine
that because you force people to take these notes they are to be
worth the money, and that no injury is to follow? What is the
consequence? Does not property rise? You say you are injuring
the soldier if you compel him to take a note without its being a
legal-tender; but will not the sutler put as much more on his goods?
And if the soldier sends the notes to his wife to be passed at a
country store for necessaries for his family, what will be the
result? The goods that are sold are purchased in New York; the
price is put on in New York; a profit is added in the country; and
thus the soldier loses just as much. You are not saving any thing
for any body."
Mr. Fessenden then inquired, "What do we offer without the legal-
tender clause? We are offering notes, with the interest secured
beyond a question if the amendments proposed by the Committee on
Finance of the Senate are adopted, based on the national faith,
and with the power to deposit and receive five per cent. interest
in any sub-treasury, and the power of the government to sell the
stock at any price, to meet whatever it may be necessary to meet.
Will notes of this kind stand better when going out, if you put
the confession upon their face, that they are discarded by you,
and that you know they ought not to be received, and would not be,
unless their reception is compelled by legal enactment?"
The argument against this view, according to Mr. Fessenden, "is
simply that the banks will not take the notes unless they are made
a legal-tender, and therefore they will be discredited. It was
thus reduced to a contest between the government and the banks;
and the question is whether the banks have the will and the power
to discredit the notes of the United-States Treasury." With all
his objections to the legal-tender feature,--and they were very
grave,--Mr. Fessenden intimated his willingness to vote for it if
it were demonstrated to be a necessity. On the constitutional
question involved he did not touch. He preferred, he said, "to
have his own mind uninstructed" upon that aspect of the case.
In illustration of the doubt and diversity of opinion prevailing,
Mr. Fessenden stated that on a certain day he was advised very
strongly by a leading financial man that he must at all events
oppose the legal-tender clause, which he described as utterly
destructive. On the same day he received a note from another
friend, assuring him that the legal-tender bill was an absolute
necessity to the government and the people. The next day the first
gentleman telegraphed that he had changed his mind, and now thought
the legal-tender bill peremptorily demanded by public exigency.
On the ensuing day the second gentleman wrote that he had changed
his mind, and now saw clearly that the legal-tender bill would ruin
the country. There can be no harm in stating that the authors of
these grotesque contradictions were Mr. James Gallatin and Mr. Morris
Ketchum of New York.
MR. COLLAMER AND MR. SHERMAN.
Mr. Collamer of Vermont followed Mr. Fessenden in an exhaustive
argument against the bill as a violation of the Constitution. He
believed "in the power of the government to sustain itself in the
strife physically and pecuniarily." He was not willing to say to
a man," Here is my note: if I do not pay it, you must steal the
amount from the first man you come to, and give him this note in
payment." He would not be governed in this matter, as Mr. Fessenden
intimated he might be, "by necessity." He had taken an oath to
support the Constitution, and he believed this bill violated it.
He "would not overthrow the Constitution in the Senate Chamber
while the rebels are endeavoring to overthrow it by war."
Senator Wilson looked upon the contest as one "between the men who
speculate in stocks, and the productive, toiling men of the country."
He believed "the sentiment of the nation approaches unanimity in
favor of this legal-tender clause." He had received letters from
large commercial houses in Massachusetts, representing millions of
capital, and "they declare that they do not know a merchant in the
city of Boston engaged in active business who is not for the legal-
tender bill."
Senator Sherman of Ohio urged the adoption of the measure, because
"all the organs of financial opinion in this country agree that
there is a majority" for it; and he cited the New-York Chamber of
Commerce, the Committee on Public Safety in New York, and the
Chambers of Commerce of Boston and Philadelphia, as taking that
ground. He proceeded "to show the necessity of it from reason."
He stated that the government must "raise and pay out of the Treasury
of the United States before the first day of July next, according
to the estimate of the Committee of Ways and Means, the sum of
$343,235,000. Of this sum $100,000,000 is now due and payable to
soldiers, contractors, to the men who have furnished provisions
and clothing for the army; to officers, judges, and civil magistrates."
Mr. Sherman argued that "a question of hard necessity presses upon
the government. This money cannot be obtained from the banks.
With a patriotic feeling not usually attributed to money corporations,
the banks have already exhausted their means. The aggregate capital
of the banks of the three principal cities of the United States is
but $105,000,000, and they have taken more than their capital in
bonds of the United States." It was, therefore, idle to look to
the banks for relief. "They have," continued the senator, "already
tied up their whole capital in the public securities. They ask
this currency to enable them to assist further in carrying on the
government. Among others, the cashier of the Bank of Commerce,
the largest bank corporation in the United States and one that has
done much to sustain the government, appeared before the Committee
on Finance, and stated explicitly that his bank, as well as other
banks of New York, could not further aid the government, unless
its currency was stamped by, and invested with, the legal form and
authority of lawful money, which they could pay to others as well
as receive themselves."
Senator James A. Bayard of Delaware argued that the proposed measure
violated the Constitution. "No one," said he, "can deny the fact
that in the contracts between man and man, and in government
contracts to pay money, the obligation is to pay intrinsic value.
If you violate that by this bill, which you certainly do, how can
you expect that the faith of the community will be given to the
law which you now pass, in which you say that you will pay hereafter
the interest on your debt in coin? Why should they give credit to
that declaration? If you can violate the Constitution of the United
States, in the face of your oaths, in the face of its palpable
provision, what security do you offer to the lender of money?"
Senator Sumner did not join his colleague in enthusiastic support
of the bill. He was indeed much troubled by its provisions. "Is
it necessary," he inquired, "to incur all the unquestionable evils
of inconvertible paper, forced into circulation by Act of Congress,
to suffer the stain upon our national faith, to bear the stigma of
a seeming repudiation, to lose for the present that credit which
in itself is a treasury, and to teach debtors everywhere that
contracts may be varied at the will of the stronger? Surely there
is much in these inquiries which may make us pause. If our country
were poor or feeble, without population and without resources; if
it were already drained by a long war; if the enemy had succeeded
in depriving us of the means of livelihood,--then we should not
even pause. But our country is rich and powerful, with a numerous
population, busy, honest, and determined, and with unparalleled
resources of all kinds, agricultural, mineral, industrial, and
commercial. It is yet undrained by the war in which we are engaged,
nor has the enemy succeeded in depriving us of any of the means of
livelihood." But he concluded, "whatever may be the national
resources, they are not now within reach except by summary process."
He consented "reluctantly, painfully, that the process should
issue." He could not however "give such a vote without warning
the government against the danger of such an experiment. The
medicine of the Constitution must not become its daily bread."
SENATE VOTES ON LEGAL-TENDER.
The bill came to a vote in the Senate on the 13th of February.
The government exigency was so pressing that the Senate discussion
was limited to four days. On the motion of Mr. Collamer to strike
out the legal-tender clause, the vote stood 17 yeas to 23 nays.
Anthony of Rhode Island, Collamer and Foot of Vermont, Fessenden
of Maine, King of New York, Cowan of Pennsylvania, Foster of
Connecticut, and Willey of Virginia, among the Republicans, voted
to strike out. The vote to retain the legal-tender feature was
Republican, with the exception of Garrett Davis of Kentucky,
McDougall of California, Rice of Minnesota, and Wilson of Missouri.
This question being settled, the bill, with the legal-tender clause
embodied, passed by a vote fo 30 to 7. Mr. Anthony of Rhode Island
stated that, having voted against the legal-tender provision, he
"could not take the responsibility of voting against the only
measure which is proposed by the government, and which has already
passed the House of Representatives." Three Republicans, Collamer,
Cowan, and King, and four Democrats, Kennedy, Pearce, Powell, and
Saulsbury, were the senators who voted against the bill on its
final passage.
The bill was returned to the House of Representatives the next day.
The Senate amendments were taken up on the 19th. Mr. Spaulding
objected to them generally, and especially to the provisions for
selling the bonds at the market price and for paying the interest
in coin. Mr. Pomeroy of New York advocated concurrence in the
amendments of the Senate, as did Mr. Morrill of Vermont. Upon the
amendment to pay interest in coin, the House divided, with 88 ayes
to 56 noes. Upon the clause allowing the secretary to sell bonds
at the market value, there were 72 ayes to 66 noes. A conference
on the points of difference between the two Houses was managed by
Senators Fessenden, Sherman, and Carlile, and Representatives
Stevens, Horton, and Sedgwick. The report of the Conferees was
agreed to in both Houses, and the Act was approved and became a
law on the 25th of February. Its leading provisions were for the
issue of legal-tender notes, on which the debate chiefly turned,
and of coupon or registered bonds not to exceed $500,000,000 in
the aggregate, bearing six per cent. interest, redeemable at the
pleasure of the United States after five years, and payable twenty
years after date. The bonds were to be sold at their market value
for coin or Treasury notes, and the notes to be exchangeable into
them in sums of fifty dollars, or any multiple of fifty. These
securities became widely known and popular as the five-twenties of
1862. The fourth section allowed deposits of United-States notes
with designated depositories to draw interest at five per cent.,
and to be paid after ten days' notice, but the total of such deposits
was not to exceed $25,000,000 at any time. By the fifth section,
duties on imported goods were required to be paid in coin, and the
proceeds were pledged, first, to the payment in coin of the interest
on the bonds of the United States; and second, to a sinking-fund
of one per cent. of the entire debt for its ultimate payment.
Certificates of indebtedness were authorized by Act of Congress
passed without debate and approved on the first day of March.
These could be granted to any creditor whose claim had been audited,
and they drew six per cent. interest, payable at first in coin,
but by Act of March 3, 1863, lawful money was substituted for
interest. By Act of March 17, 1862, these certificates could be
given in discharge of checks drawn by disbursing officers, if the
holders of the latter chose to accept them. The secretary was
clothed with power by the Act of March 17, 1862, to buy coin with
any bonds or notes on such terms as he might deem advantageous.
The same Act gave legal-tender value to the demand notes previously
authorized. The limitation upon temporary deposits was also raised
to $50,000,000.
Mr. Chase, by a communication of June 7 (1862), asked for a further
issue of legal-tender notes to the amount of $150,000,000, and he
urged that the limit of five dollars be removed, and denominations
as low as a single dollar be permitted. He declared that it was
impossible to obtain coin necessary to pay the soldiers, and that
the plan proposed would remove from disbursing officers the temptation
to exchange coin for small bank notes. A reserve of one-third of
the temporary deposits would take $34,000,000, and the replacement
of the demand notes $56,500,000 more, so that for immediate use
the Treasury would get only $59,500,000 of the sum asked for. Mr.
Spaulding of New York on the 17th of June presented the measure as
reported from the Ways and Means Committee. He argued that this
form of loan was "so popular with the people and so advantageous
to the government, that it should be extended so far as it could
be done safely." Objections such as were offered to the original
policy were presented to the additional notes. It was already
suggested to authorize notes for fractions of a dollar, but the
majority decided against it. The bill passed the House of
Representatives on the 24th of June. In the Senate, Mr. Sherman
of Ohio attempted to add a clause for the taxation of the circulation
of banks, but it was not received with favor. With certain amendments
the bill passed the Senate on the 2d of July. On a disagreement
which ensued, the conferees were Senators Fessenden, Sherman, and
Wright, and Representatives Stevens, Spaulding, and Phelps of
Missouri. By their action the volume of notes of denominations
less than five dollars was restricted to $35,000,000, and the
reserve for meeting deposits was fixed at $75,000,000. While
exchangeable into six per cent. bonds, the notes might also be paid
in coin under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury. The
report was accepted by the Senate on the 7th of July, and by the
House on the 8th. It became a law by the President's approval on
the 11th of July.
SECRETARY CHASE ON THE BANKS.
On the 14th of July, Secretary Chase called the attention of Congress
to the great evils arising from the issue by non specie-paying
banks and unauthorized persons of depreciated currency, and the
consequent disappearance of small coin. As a remedy an Act was
passed, and approved July 17, for the use of postage and other
stamps in payment of fractional parts of a dollar. These stamps
were made exchangeable by assistant treasurers for United-States
notes in sums not less than five dollars. Banks and persons were
forbidden, from the first day of the ensuing August, to make or
issue any note or token for a less sum than one dollar, intended
to be used as money, under the penalty of a fine not exceeding
$500, or imprisonment not exceeding six months, or both. "Shinplasters"
had become almost like the frogs of Egypt for multitude. They were
in every man's hand and were of all degrees of value. They were
sometimes issued for purposes of fraud. Silver had become lost to
view, and business houses resorted to the use of their own notes
as a convenience. The government stamps were not well adapted to
circulate as currency, and they soon gave way to notes of handsome
design which came into universal use as the "small change" of the
country.
The proper order of the leading measures of finance has always been
a subject of contention. Grave differences of opinion exist, even
to this day, concerning the necessity and expediency of the legal-
tender provision. The judgment of many whose financial sagacity
is entitled to respect is, that if the internal tax had been first
levied, and the policy adopted of drawing directly upon the banks
from the Treasury for the amounts of any loans in their hands, the
resort by the government to irredeemable paper might at least have
been postponed and possibly prevented. The premium on gold became
the measure of the depreciation of the government credit, and
practically such premiums were the charge made for every loan
negotiated. In his report of December, 1862, Secretary Chase
justified the legal-tender policy. He explained that by the
suspension of specie payments the banks had rendered their currency
undesirable for government operations, and consequently no course
other than that adopted was open. Mr. Chase declared that the
measures of general legislation had worked well. "For the fiscal
year ending with June," he said, "every audited and settled claim
on the government and every quartermaster's check for supplies
furnished, which had reached the Treasury, had been met." For the
subsequent months, the secretary "was enabled to provide, if not
fully, yet almost fully, for the constantly increasing disbursements."
The political effects of the legal-tender bill were of large
consequence to the Administration and to the successful conduct of
the war. If it had been practicable to adhere rigidly to the specie
standard, the national expenditure might have been materially
reduced; but the exactions of the war would have been all the time
grating on the nerves of the people and oppressing them with
remorseless taxation. Added to the discouragement caused by our
military reverses, a heavy financial burden might have proved
disastrous. The Administration narrowly escaped a damaging defeat
in 1862, and but for the relief to business which came from the
circulation of legal-tender notes, the political struggle might
have been hopeless. But as trade revived under the stimulus of an
expanding circulation, as the market for every species of product
was constantly enlarging and prices were steadily rising, the
support of the war policy became a far more cheerful duty to the
mass of our people.
This condition of affairs doubtless carried with it many elements
of demoralization, but the engagement of the people in schemes of
money-making proved a great support to the war policy of the
government. We saw the reproduction among us of the same causes
and the same effects which prevailed in England during her prolonged
contest with Napoleon. Money was superabundant, speculation was
rife, the government was a lavish buyer, a prodigal consumer.
Every man who could work was employed at high wages; every man who
had commodities to sell was sure of high prices. The whole community
came to regard the prevalent prosperity as the outgrowth of the
war. The ranks of the army could be filled by paying extravagant
bounty after the ardor of volunteering was past, and the hardship
of the struggle was thus in large measure concealed if not abated.
Considerate men knew that a day of reckoning would come, but they
believed it would be postponed until after the war was ended and
the Union victorious.
The policy of the legal-tender measure cannot therefore be properly
determined if we exclude from view that which may well be termed
its political and moral influence upon the mass of our people. It
was this which subsequently gave to that form of currency a strong
hold upon the minds of many who fancied that its stimulating effect
upon business and trade could be reproduced under utterly different
circumstances. Argument and experience have demonstrated the
fallacy of this conception, and averted the evils which might have
flowed from it. But in the judgment of a large and intelligent
majority of those who were contemporary with the war and gave
careful study to its progress, the legal-tender bill was a most
effective and powerful auxiliary in its successful prosecution.
THE INTERNAL-REVENUE SYSTEM.
Grateful as was the relief to the people from legal-tender notes,
it was apparent to Congress that a government cannot, any more than
an individual, maintain a state of solvency by the continuous
issuing of irredeemable paper. Money must not merely be promised,
it must be paid. The Government therefore required a strong,
efficient system of taxation--one that would promptly return large
sums to the Treasury. From customs, an increasing revenue was
already enriching the Government vaults, but the amount derivable
from that source was limited by the ability of the people to consume
foreign goods, and wise economists did not desire an enlarged
revenue the collection of which was at war with so many domestic
interests. The country therefore turned by common instinct to a
system of internal duties,--to incomes, to excise, to stamps. In
the extra session of the preceding year, Congress had, by the Act
of August 5, 1861, laid the foundation for a system of internal
revenue by providing for a direct tax of twenty millions of dollars
on the real estate of the country, and for an income tax of three
per cent. on all incomes in excess of eight hundred dollars per
annum. But the appointment of assessors and collectors under the
bill had been postponed "until after the second Tuesday of February,
1862," which was practically remanding the whole subject to the
further consideration of Congress before any man should be asked
to pay a dollar of tax under the law. The intervening months had
not decreased but had on the contrary largely developed the
necessities of the National Treasury, and enhanced the necessity
of a stable revenue system. The exigency had become so great that
Congress was compelled for the first time in our history, to resort
to the issue of government notes as a legal-tender currency.
Promptness and decision were essential to the preservation of the
National credit. The sources, the extent, the limitations of the
taxing power were closely examined by Secretary Chase in his report
and the subject was remanded to Congress for determination.
The Constitution gives to Congress to power to levy imposts, and
prohibits it to the States. It gives also to Congress the power
to levy internal taxes and excises, leaving to the States the right
to do the same. It is one of the traditions of the Convention
which met in Philadelphia in 1787 to frame the Federal Constitution,
that Mr. Hamilton remarked in a conference of its leading members
that if the power to levy impost and excise should be given to the
new government, it would prove strong and successful. If the power
were not to be given he did not desire to waste his time in repeating
the failure of the old Confederation, and should return at once to
New York. It was undoubtedly his influence which secured the wide
and absolute field of taxation to the General Government. He well
knew that direct taxes are onerous, and as the majority insisted
on levying them in proportion to population, as in the old
Confederation, their use as a resource to the General Government
was practically nullified. Such a system involved the absurdity
that men taken _per capita_ average the same in respect to wealth,
and that one hundred thousand people in New York should pay no more
tax than the same number in Arkansas. Statesmen and financiers
saw from the first that the direct tax clause in the Constitution
would be valuable only in forcing the use of the excise. But for
the dread of this, the States would not have yielded all the sources
of indirect taxation to the National Government.
When appointed Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Hamilton insisted
upon the prompt levy of excises. He induced the first Congress to
lay a tax on all distilled spirits. If made from molasses or sugar
or other foreign substance, the tax should be from eleven to thirty
cents per gallon according to the percentage above or below proof.
If made from domestic products, the tax should be from nine to
twenty-five cents per gallon. The first was practically a tax on
rum, the second on whiskey. This excise was followed in subsequent
years by duties on carriages, on snuff, on property sold at auction,
on refined sugar, and by the sale of stamps. Other articles were
in after years added to the list, and to aid the Treasury during
the period of the second war with Great Britain, a heavy imposition
of internal duties was resorted to as the most prompt and efficient
mode of replenishing the hard pressed Treasury.
THE INTERNAL-REVENUE SYSTEM.
The excise was from the first unpopular. The men who insisted that
"black quart-bottles" should be admitted free of duty when the
first tariff bill was passed, did not relish the levying of a heavy
tax on the whiskey that was to fill them. The exciseman was to
their view precisely what Dr. Johnson had defined him in his
dictionary: "an odious wretch, employed to collect an unjust tax."
Revolutionary proceedings had been inaugurated by resistance to a
tax on tea. But tea at that day was looked upon as a luxury in
which only a few could indulge, while whiskey was regarded as a
necessity, of universal consumption. Resistance went so far as to
organize an insurrection in Western Pennsylvania against the official
authority which attempted to collect the tax. The outbreak was
promptly suppressed by the power of the General Government but the
result of the agitation was a deep-seated prejudice against the
Federal party. Pennsylvania sympathized with the more liberal
views of Jefferson, and in the Presidential election of 1796 gave
him fourteen of her fifteen electoral votes. John Adams received
the other vote, and as he was chosen by a majority of one, his
Pennsylvania support, small as it was, proved timely and valuable.
Resistance to internal duties was tried by legal methods. A heavy
duty had been laid on carriages--two dollars per year for those of
simplest form and fifteen dollars for the most costly. The tax
applied to all carriages for the conveyance of persons, whether
kept for private use or for public hire. One Daniel Lawrence Hylton
of Virginia resisted the payment of the tax and the case was
ultimately heard before the Supreme Court in the February term of
1796. Mr. Hamilton who had resigned from the Treasury Department
the preceding year, argued the case for the Government in conjunction
with the Attorney-General, Charles Lee. Mr. Campbell, Attorney
for the Virginia District and Mr. Ingersoll, the Attorney-General
of Pennsylvania, appeared for the plaintiff. The case turned wholly
upon the point whether the tax, on carriages kept for private use,
was a direct tax. If not a direct tax, it was admitted to be
properly levied according to that clause in the Constitution which
declares that "all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform
throughout the United States." If a direct tax it was wrongfully
levied because the Constitution declares that "no capitation or
other direct tax shall be laid unless in proportion to the census
or enumeration of the inhabitants of the United States."
The well-known decision of the court, delivered by Judge Samuel
Chase, pronounced the tax to be constitutional. Justice James
Wilson who concurred in the decision had taken a very prominent
part as a delegate from Pennsylvania in the convention which framed
the Constitution, and ranked at that time as one of the ablest
lawyers in the Union. The opinion of the judges seemed to be,
though no formal decision was rendered to that effect, that a tax
on land, and a capitation or poll tax, are the only levies which
within the terms of the Constitution are to be considered _direct_
taxes. The decision was one of extraordinary interest to the
Government, as, had it been the other way, one great resource for
the raising of money, indeed the greatest resource, would have been
taken from the Federal Government. The appearance of Mr. Hamilton
was an indication of the dignity and importance which were attached
to the case by Washington's Administration.
A singular feature of the proceedings was the allegation by Mr.
Hylton that he "owned, possessed, and kept one hundred and twenty-
five chariots for the conveyance of persons--exclusively for his
own separate use and not to let out to hire, or for the conveyance
of persons for hire." What particular necessity a Virginia gentleman
of the last century had for that number of chariots "for his own
separate use" is nowhere explained. It may have been the mere
filling of the blanks in a legal declaration in which the declarant
was permitted a free use of figures, but as it stands in the reports
of Supreme Court decisions, it seems to be one of the odd incidents
that make up the humor of the Law.
The system of internal duties and excises continued in various
forms for thirty years, practically disappearing at last in 1821.
But for the financial demands precipitated by the war of 1812 and
the period of depression which ensued, the system would have been
abolished at an earlier date. During the period of their existence,
from 1790 to 1820, the internal taxes had yielded to the Government
the gross sum of $22,000,000, an average of a little more than
$700,000 per annum. It thus proved a very valuable resource to
the Republic in the period of its early financial troubles.
COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM OF TAXES.
Congress now determined under the recommendation of Secretary Chase
to use this great source of revenue to the fullest practicable
extent. Immediately after the passage of the Legal-tender Act the
subject of internal revenue was taken up, elaborately investigated
by committees, exhaustively discussed in both Senate and House.
The final result was the enactment of a bill "to provide internal
revenue to support the Government and to pay interest on the public
debt," which received the President's approval on the first day of
July (1862). It was one of the most searching, thorough, comprehensive
systems of taxation ever devised by any Government. Spiritous and
malt liquors and tobacco were relied upon for a very large share
of revenue; a considerable sum was expected from stamps; and three
per cent. was exacted from all annual incomes over six hundred
dollars and less than ten thousand, and five per cent.--afterwards
increased to ten per cent.--on all incomes exceeding ten thousand
dollars. Manufactures of cotton, wool, flax, hemp, iron, steel,
wood, stone, earth, and every other material were taxed three per
cent. Banks, insurance and railroad companies, telegraph companies,
and all other corporations were made to pay tribute. The butcher
paid thirty cents for every beef slaughtered, ten cents for every
hog, five cents for every sheep. Carriages, billiard-tables,
yachts, gold and silver place, and all other articles of luxury
were levied on heavily. Every profession and every calling, except
the ministry of religion, was included within the far-reaching
provisions of the law and subjected to tax for license. Bankers
and pawnbrokers, lawyers and horse-dealers, physicians and
confectioners, commercial brokers and peddlers, proprietors of
theatres and jugglers on the street, were indiscriminately summoned
to aid the National Treasury. The law was so extended and so minute
that it required thirty printed pages of royal octavo and more than
twenty thousand words to express its provisions.
Sydney Smith's striking summary of English taxation was originally
included in a warning to the United States after the war of 1812
against indulging a marital spirit or being inflamed with a desire
for naval renown. "Taxes," said the witty essayist in the _Edinburgh
Review_, "are the inevitable consequences of being too fond of
glory." He bade us beware of Essex, Porter, and Stephen Decatur.
Even in the second year of the civil war in which we were struggling
for life rather than for glory, we had come to realize every exaction
ascribed to the British system. We were levying "taxes upon every
article which enters into the mouth or covers the back or is placed
under the foot; taxes on every thing which it is pleasant to see,
hear, feel, smell, or taste; taxes upon warmth, light, and locomotion;
taxes on every thing on earth and the waters under the earth; taxes
on every thing that comes from abroad or is grown at home; on the
sauce which pampers man's appetite and on the drug that restores
him to health; on the ermine which decorates the judge and the rope
which hangs the criminal; on the poor man's salt and the rich man's
spice; on the brass nails of the coffin and the ribbons of the
bride."
The system of internal revenue of which the foregoing is no
exaggeration proved in all respects effective. Congress rendered
the taxes more palatable and less oppressive to the producers by
largely increasing the duties on imports by the Tariff Act of July
14, 1862, thus shutting out still more conclusively all competition
from foreign fabrics. The increased cost was charged to the
consumer, and taxes of fabulous amount were paid promptly and with
apparent cheerfulness by the people. The internal revenue was
bounteous from the first, and in a short period increased to a
million of dollars per day for every secular day of the year. The
amount paid on incomes for a single year reached seventy-three
millions of dollars, the leading merchant of New York paying in
one check a tax of four hundred thousand dollars on an income of
four millions. Mr. Webster said that "Hamilton smote the rock of
the National resources and abundant streams of revenue gushed
forth." But Hamilton's Funding Bill was not more powerful in
establishing the credit of the young Republic after the Revolution
than was the Internal-revenue Act in imparting strength to the
finances of the matured Nation in the throes and agonies of civil
war. It was the crowning glory of Secretary Chase's policy, and
its scope and boldness entitle him to rank with the great financiers
of the world.
CHAPTER XX.
Elections of 1862.--Mr. Lincoln advances to Aggressive Position on
Slavery.--Second Session of Thirty-seventh Congress adjourns.--
Democratic Hostility to Administration.--Democratic State Conventions.
--Platforms in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.--Nomination
of Horatio Seymour for Governor of New York.--The President prepares
for a Serious Political Contest.--The Issue shall be the Union or
Slavery.--Conversation with Mr. Boutwell.--Proclamation of
Emancipation.--Meeting of Governors at Altoona.--Compensated
Emancipation proposed for Border States.--Declined by their Senators
and Representatives.--Anti-slavery Policy apparently Disastrous
for a Time.--October Elections Discouraging.--General James S.
Wadsworth nominated against Mr. Seymour.--Illinois votes against
the President.--Five Leading States against the President.--
Administration saved in Part by Border States.--Last Session of
Thirty-seventh Congress.--President urges Compensated Emancipation
again.--Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863.--Long Controversy
over Question of Compensation for Slaves.--Test Case of Missouri.
--Fourteen Million Dollars offered her.--General Pope's Campaign.
--Army of the Potomac.--Battle of Antietam.--McClellan removed.--
Burnside succeeds him.--Defeat at Fredericksburg.--Hooker succeeds
Burnside.--General Situation.--Arming of Slaves.--Habeas Corpus.--
Conscription Law.--Depressed and Depressing Period.
Popular interest in the summer of 1862 was divided between events
in the field and the election of Representatives to the Thirty-
eighth Congress. A year before, the line of partisan division had
been practically obliterated in the Loyal States--the whole people
uniting in support of the war. The progress of events had to a
large extent changed this auspicious unanimity, and the Administration
was now subjected to a fight for its life while it was fighting
for the life of the Nation.
The conservatism which Mr. Lincoln had maintained on the Slavery
question had undoubtedly been the means of bringing to the support
of the war policy of his Administration many whom a more radical
course at the outset would have driven into hostility. As he
advanced however towards a more aggressive position, political
divisions became at each step more pronounced. The vote on the
question of abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia had been
strictly on the line of party, and the same is true of the proposition
for compensated emancipation in the Border States, and of the Act
confiscating the property of Rebels. Not a single Democrat in the
Senate or House sustained one of these measures. They were all
passed by Republican votes alone, the Democratic minority protesting
each time with increasing earnestness and warmth.
The second session of the Thirty-seventh Congress adjourned on the
17th of July, 1862, but long before that date the excitement
prevailing in Congress had extended to the people, and political
divisions were every day growing more earnest, partisan leaders
every day more active, their followers every day more excited.
The Slavery question was the source of the agitation, and by a
common instinct throughout the free States, the Democrats joined
in the cry against an Abolition war. They were as ready, they
declared, as on the day after the firing on Sumter, to uphold all
measures necessary for the defense of the Government and the
maintenance of the Union, and they demanded that the Republicans
should restrict the war to its legitimate ends--as defined by the
supporters of the Administration in July, 1861, by the unanimous
adoption of the Crittenden Resolution. They would not listen to
any change of action based on change of circumstances, and they
prepared to enforce at the ballot-box their opinions touching the
new departure of Congress and the President.
The Democratic State Conventions in Pennsylvania and Ohio, both
held on the 4th of July, reflected the feeling which so largely
pervaded the ranks of the party throughout the North. In Pennsylvania
the Convention unanimously declared that "the party of fanaticism
or crime, whichever it may be called, that seeks to turn loose the
slaves of the Southern States to overrun the North and to enter
into competition with the white laboring masses, thus degrading
their manhood by placing them on an equality with negroes, is
insulting to our race and merits our most emphatic and unqualified
condemnation." They further declared that "this is a government
of white men and was established exclusively for the white race";
that "the negroes are not entitled to and ought not to be admitted
to political and social equality with the white race."
DEMOCRATIC PLATFORMS IN 1862.
The Democratic Convention of Ohio made an equally open appeal to
race prejudice. They avowed their belief that the Emancipation
policy of the Republican party if successful "would throw upon the
Border free States an immense number of negroes to compete with
and under-work the white laborers and to constitute in various ways
an unbearable nuisance"; and that "it would be unjust to our gallant
soldiers to compel them to free the negroes of the South, and
thereby fill Ohio with a degraded population to compete with these
same soldiers upon their return to the peaceful avocations of life."
It was not by mere chance that the Democratic party of these two
great States held their conventions on the National Anniversary.
It had been carefully pre-arranged with the view of creating a
serious impression against the Administration.
The Democrats of Indiana went beyond their brethren of Ohio and
Pennsylvania in the vigor with which they denounced the anti-slavery
policy of the President. Their convention was held a month later,
and unanimously demanded that "the public authorities of Indiana
should see that the constitution and laws of the State are enforced
against the entrance of free negroes and mulattoes," declaring that
"when the people of Indiana adopted the negro exclusion clause in
their constitution by a majority of ninety-four thousand votes they
meant that the honest laboring white man should have no competitor
in the black race; that the soil of Indiana should belong to the
white man, and that he alone was suited to the form of her
institutions." In Illinois the Democratic party adopted substantially
the same platform as that proclaimed in Indiana. They made the
distinct and unmistakable issue that a war for the abolition of
slavery could not have their support; that the Government of the
United States was made for white men, and that negroes could not
be admitted to terms of equality in civil rights.
The most important election of the year was that to be held in New
York, not merely because of the prestige and power of the State,
but on account of the peculiar elements that entered into the
contest. The Democratic party proceeded in the selection of
candidates and in the definition of issues with great circumspection.
They avoided the rancorous expressions used in Pennsylvania and
Ohio, declared that they would continue to render the government
their sincere and united support in the use of all legitimate means
to suppress the rebellion, and cited the Crittenden Resolution,
unanimously passed by Congress in July, 1861, as embodying the
principles upon which they appealed for popular support. They
expressed their "willingness to withhold their views upon all
questions not rendered imperative by the imperiled condition of
the country." The had not one word to say on the subject of slavery,
and they avowed their readiness to act in the coming election with
any class of loyal citizens who agreed with them in the principles
embodied in their platform. This last clause related to a third
party, the remnant of those who had supported Mr. Bell in 1860 and
who had just held a convention at Troy. They had comprised their
entire platform in "the Constitution, the Union and the enforcement
of the laws," and had nominated Horatio Seymour for governor.
It was not difficult to see that politically the case was well
managed, and that the most partisan of partisans in the person of
Mr. Seymour, was enabled to appear before the voters of New York
in the attitude of one who could graciously correct the errors of
the Administration, and direct the course of the war in channels
of patriotism that would harmonize the entire people. The nomination
of Mr. Seymour was made with great enthusiasm by the Democracy,
and the policy of the National Administration was thus challenged
in the leading State of the Union. Mr. Lincoln looked upon the
situation as one of exceeding gravity. The loss to the Administration,
of the House of Representatives in the Thirty-eighth Congress,
would place the control of the war in the hands of its opponents,
and, as the President believed, would imperil the fate of the
National struggle. The power of the purse controls the power of
the sword. The armies in the field required a vast and constant
expenditure, and to secure the money a rigorous system of taxation
must be enforced. A House of Representatives controlling the power
to tax and the power to appropriate could, if hostile to the war,
neutralize and destroy all the efforts of the Executive.
The President measured the extent of the danger and prepared to
meet it. He clearly read the signs of the times. He saw that the
anti-slavery policy of Congress had gone far enough to arouse the
bitter hostility of all Democrats who were not thoroughly committed
to the war, and yet not far enough to deal an effective blow against
the institution. He saw that as the Administration was committed
to the partial policy which involved all the danger of a re-action
and a retreat, it would be wise to commit it to the bold, far-
reaching, radical and aggressive policy from which it would be
impossible to turn without deliberately resolving to sacrifice our
nationality. He determined therefore to lay before the people a
choice between the Union and Slavery. He would persuade them that
both could not be saved and that they must choose the one which
they regarded as the more worthy of preservation. Slavery was not
only the inciting cause of the rebellion but was its chief strength
and support in the South and at the same time a weakening element
to the Union cause in the Loyal States. No man had looked at the
question in all its bearings so closely as Mr. Lincoln. He had
studied the consequences of every step and had proceeded with the
utmost caution.
THE PRESIDENT'S MONITORY PROCLAMATION.
The President kept his own counsels so closely, and relied so
confidently upon his own conclusions, that it is not possible to
say when he first seriously entertained the thought of general
emancipation as a war measure. Mr. George S. Boutwell of Massachusetts
who enjoyed Mr. Lincoln's confidence and who at this period of the
contest was appointed Commissioner of Internal Revenue, is authority
for some interesting statements. About the time that the anti-
slavery legislation now under discussion was in progress Mr. Lincoln
received a letter written by a loyal citizen of Louisiana, containing
a strong argument against emancipation. He depicted in vivid colors
the bad results to flow from it and appealed earnestly to the
President not to take so dangerous a step. Without combating in
detail the arguments of his correspondent who personally enjoyed
his confidence, Mr. Lincoln said, "You must not expect me to give
up this government without playing my last card."
During an interview with Mr. Lincoln after the adjournment of
Congress in July, and when military disasters were falling thick
and fast upon us, Mr. Boutwell suggested to the President that we
could not hope to succeed until the slaves were emancipated. To
which Mr. Lincoln answered, "You would not have it done now, would
you? Had we not better wait for something like a victory?" The
statement, widely made in the autumn of 1862, that Mr. Lincoln had
been frightened or driven into the issuing of the proclamation by
the meeting of the governors of the Loyal States at Altoona, had
no foundation in fact. When the President's attention was called
to it, he said, "The truth is, I never thought of the meeting of
the governors at all. When Lee came over the Potomac I made a
resolve that if McClellan drove him back I would send the proclamation
after him. The battle of Antietam was fought Wednesday, but I
could not find out until Saturday whether we had won a victory or
lost a battle. It was then too late to issue it that day, and on
Sunday I fixed it up a little, and on Monday I let them have it."
This colloquial style was characteristic of Mr. Lincoln, and the
frankness with which it was spoken disposes utterly of the claims
made in behalf of Mr. Chase and Mr. Sumner that they contributed
to the text of the Monitory Proclamation of 1862.
Two months before issuing the Proclamation Mr. Lincoln had urgently
requested the senators and representatives of the Border States to
give their effective co-operation in aid of compensated emancipation.
In his letter of July 12 he said "Before leaving the Capitol,
consider and discuss this subject among yourselves. You are patriots
and statesmen, and as such I pray you to consider this proposition
and at least commend it to the consideration of your States and
people. As you would perpetuate popular government, I beseech you
that you do in no wise omit this. Our common country is in great
peril, demanding the loftiest views and boldest action to bring a
speedy relief. Once relieved, its form of government is saved to
the world, its beloved history and cherished memories are vindicated,
its happy future assured and rendered inconceivably grand. To you
more than to any others the privilege is given to assure that
happiness, to swell that grandeur, to link your own names therewith
forever."
The majority of the senators and representatives from the Border
States did not concur with Mr. Lincoln's views and did not respond
favorably to his earnest appeal. The Maryland delegation in
Congress, the Kentucky delegation with one exception, and the
Missouri delegation with one exception, entered into a long argument
dissenting from the conclusions of the President. The West Virginia
men (with the exception of Mr. Carlile), Mr. Casey of Kentucky,
Mr. John W. Noell of Missouri, Mr. George P. Fisher of Delaware,
together with Mr. Horace Maynard and Mr. A. J. Clements from
Tennessee (not a Border State), expressed their readiness to co-
operate with Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Maynard wrote a separate letter
distinguished by breadth of view and strength of expression. It
is impossible to comprehend the determination of the Border State
men at that crisis. Having resisted in vain the aggressive
legislation of Congress already accomplished, they could hardly
fail to see that the institution of slavery was threatened with
utter destruction. It seems absolutely incredible that, standing
on the edge of the crater, they made no effort to escape from the
upheaval of the volcano, already visible to those who stood afar
off.
THE PRESIDENT'S ANTI-SLAVERY POLICY.
The Monitory Proclamation of Emancipation was issued on the 22d of
September. It gave public notice that on the first day of January,
1863--just one hundred days distant--"all persons held as slaves
within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof
shall be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then
thenceforward and forever free." It was a final tribute to those
engaged in rebellion that every agency, every instrumentality would
be employed by the government in its struggle for self-preservation.
It brought--as Mr. Lincoln intended it should bring--the seriousness
of the contest to the hearts and consciences of the people in the
Loyal States. He plainly warned them that every thing was at stake
and that if they were unwilling to meet the trial with the courage
and the sacrifice demanded, they were foredoomed to disaster, to
defeat, to dishonor. He knew that the policy would at first
encounter the disapproval of many who had supported him for the
Presidency, and that it would be violently opposed by the great
mass of the Democratic party. But his faith was strong. He believed
that the destruction of slavery was essential to the safety of the
Union, and he trusted with composure to the discerning judgment
and ultimate decision of the people. If the Administration was to
be defeated, he was determined that defeat should come upon an
issue which involved the whole controversy. If the purse of the
Nation was to be handed over to the control of those who were not
ready to use the last dollar in the war for the preservation of
the Union, the President was resolved that every voter in the Loyal
States should be made to comprehend the deadly significance of such
a decision.
The effect of the policy was for a time apparently disastrous to
the Administration. The most sagacious among political leaders
trembled for the result. Only the radical anti-slavery men of the
type of Sumner and Stevens and Lovejoy were strong and unyielding
in faith. They could not doubt, they would not doubt the result.
For many weeks the elections in the North promised nothing but
adversity. Maine voted a few days before the Proclamation was
issued. Ever since the repeal of the Missouri Compromise the
majorities against the Democrats in that State had varied from ten
to nineteen thousand. Under the pressure of military reverses and
the cry of an abolition war, the majority for Abner Coburn, the
Republican candidate for governor, was a little over four thousand;
and for the first time in ten years one of the districts returned
a Democratic representative to Congress in the person of L. D. M.
Sweat. Vermont, contrary to the tide of opinion elsewhere, increased
her majority for the Administration--an event due in large part to
the loyal position taken by Paul Dillingham who had been the leader
of the Democratic party in the State.
The October elections were utterly discouraging. In Ohio the
Democrats prevailed in fourteen of the Congressional districts,
leaving the Republicans but five,--registering at the same time a
popular majority of some seven thousand against the Administration.
The extent of this reverse may be measured by the fact that in the
preceding Congressional election Republican representatives had
been chosen in thirteen districts. In Indiana the result was
overwhelming against the President. The Republicans had held their
convention early in the summer and had re-affirmed the Crittenden
Resolution as embodying their platform of principles. They were
not in position therefore to withstand the furious onslaught made
by the Democrats on the Slavery question. Of the eleven Congressional
districts the Republicans secured but three, and the Democrats had
a large majority on the popular vote.--In Pennsylvania whose election
was usually accepted as the index to the average public opinion of
the country, the Democrats secured a majority of four thousand,
and elected one-half the delegation to Congress. In November,
1860, Mr. Lincoln had received a majority of sixty thousand in
Pennsylvania, and this change marked the ebb of popular favor
created by the anti-slavery policy of the Administration.
Against the candidacy of Mr. Seymour for the governorship of New
York, the Republicans nominated James S. Wadsworth, formerly a
partisan of Mr. Van Buren and Silas Wright. He was a gentleman of
the highest character, of large landed estate which he had inherited,
and of wide personal popularity. He had volunteered for the war and
was then in the service, with the rank of Brigadier-General. The
convention which nominated him assembled after Mr. Lincoln's decisive
action. They hailed "with the profoundest satisfaction the recent
proclamation of the President declaring his intention to emancipate
the slaves of all rebels who did not return to their allegiance by
the 1st of January, 1863," and they urged upon the National Government
"to use all the means that the God of battles had placed in its
power against a revolt so malignant and so pernicious." Lyman
Tremaine, a distinguished citizen who had been theretofore connected
with the Democratic party, was nominated for Lieutenant-Governor.
The contest was extremely animated, enlisting the interest of the
entire country. The result was a victory for Mr. Seymour. His
majority over General Wadsworth was nearly ten thousand. His vote
almost equaled the total of all the Democratic factions in the
Presidential election of 1860, while Mr. Wadsworth fell nearly
seventy thousand behind the vote given to Mr. Lincoln. The
discrepancy could be well accounted for by the greater number of
Republicans who had gone to the war, and for whose voting outside
the State no provision had been made. No result could have been
more distasteful to the Administration than the triumph of Mr.
Seymour, and the experience of after years did not diminish the
regret with which they had seen him elevated to a position of power
at a time when the utmost harmony was needed between the National
and State Governments.
REPUBLICAN DEFEAT IN ILLINOIS.
To the President the most mortifying event of the year was the
overwhelming defeat in Illinois. Great efforts were made by the
Republican party to save the State. Personal pride entered into
the contest almost as much as political principle, but against all
that could be done the Democrats secured a popular majority of
seventeen thousand, and out of the fourteen representatives in
Congress they left but three to the Republicans. They chose a
Democratic Legislature, which returned William A. Richardson to
the Senate for the unexpired term of Mr. Douglas,--filled since
his death by O. H. Browning who had been appointed by the Governor.
The crushing defeat of Mr. Lincoln in his own State had a depressing
effect upon the party elsewhere, and but for the assurance in which
the Administration found comfort and cheer, that the Democrats were
at home to vote while the Republicans were in the field to fight,
the result would have proved seriously discouraging to the country
and utterly destructive of the policy of emancipation as proclaimed
by the President.
In the five leading free States, the Administration had thus met
with a decisive defeat. The Democratic representatives chosen to
Congress numbered in the aggregate fifty-nine, while those favorable
to the Administration were only forty. In some other States the
results were nearly as depressing. New Jersey, which had given
half its electoral vote to Mr. Lincoln two years before, now elected
a Democratic governor by nearly fifteen thousand majority, and of
her five representatives in Congress only one was friendly to the
policy of the Administration. Michigan, which had been Republican
by twenty thousand in 1860, now gave the Administration but six
thousand majority, though Senator Chandler made almost superhuman
efforts to bring out the full vote of the party. Wisconsin, which
had given Mr. Lincoln a large popular majority, now gave a majority
of two thousand for the Democrats, dividing the Congressional
delegation equally between the two parties.
If this ratio had been maintained in all the States, the defeat of
the war party and of the anti-slavery policy would have been
complete. But relief came and the Administration was saved. The
New-England States which voted in November stood firmly by their
principles, though with diminished majorities. The contest in
Massachusetts resulted in the decisive victory of Governor Andrew
over General Charles Devens, who ran as a Coalition candidate of
the Democrats and Independents against the emancipation policy of
the Administration. New Hampshire which voted the ensuing spring
had the benefit of a Loyal re-action and sustained the Administration.
In the West, Iowa, Kansas and Minnesota cheered the Administration
with unanimous Republican delegations to Congress, and on the
Pacific coast California and Oregon stood firmly by the President.
The result in the Border slave States amply vindicated the sagacity
and wisdom of the President in so constantly and carefully nurturing
their loyalty and defending them against the inroads of the
Confederates. They responded nobly, and in great part repaired
the injury inflicted by States which were presumptively more loyal
to the Administration, and which had a far larger stake in the
struggle for the Union. Delaware's one representative was Republican,
Missouri elected a decisive majority of friends to the Administration,
and in the ensuing year Kentucky, West Virginia, and Maryland
materially increased the strength of the government. The Administration
was finally assured that it would be able to command a majority of
about twenty in the House. But for the aid of the Border slave
States the anti-slavery position of Mr. Lincoln might have been
overthrown by a hostile House of Representatives. It is true
therefore in a very striking sense that the five slave States which
Mr. Lincoln's policy had held to their loyalty, were most effectively
used by him in overpowering the eleven slave States which had
revolted against the Union.
COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION URGED.
The third and last session of the Thirty-seventh Congress assembled
four weeks after the close of the exciting contest for the control
of the next House of Representatives. The message of Mr. Lincoln
made no reference whatever to the political contest in the country,
and unlike his previous communications to Congress gave no special
summary of the achievements by our forces either upon the land or
the sea. He contended himself with stating that he transmitted
the reports of the Secretaries of War and of the Navy, and referred
Congress to them for full information. He dwelt a length upon the
total inadequacy of Disunion as a remedy for the differences between
the people of the two sections, and quoted with evident satisfaction
the declarations he had made in his Inaugural address upon that
point. In his judgment "there is no line, straight or crooked,
suitable for a National boundary upon which to divide. Trace it
through from east to west upon the line between the free and the
slave country, and we shall find a little more than one-third of
its length are rivers easy to be crossed; and populated, or soon
to be populated, thickly on both sides, while nearly all its
remaining length are merely surveyor's lines over which people may
walk back and forth without any consciousness of their presence.
No part of this line can be made any more difficult to pass by
writing it down on paper or parchment as a National boundary." In
the President's view "a nation may be said to consist of its
territory, its people, and its laws. The territory is the only
part which is of certain durability. That portion of the earth's
surface which is inhabited by the people of the United States is
well adapted for the home of one National family, but it is not
well adapted for two or more."
Mr. Lincoln was still anxious that the Loyal slave States should
secure the advantage of compensated emancipation which he had
already urged, and he recommended an amendment to the Constitution
whereby a certain amount should be paid by the United States to
each State that would abolish slavery before the first day of
January, A. D. 1900. The amount was to be paid in bonds of the
United States on which interest was to begin from the time of actual
delivery to the States. The amendment was further to declare, that
"all slaves who enjoyed actual freedom by the chances of war at
any time before the end of the rebellion shall be forever free,"
but the individual owners, if loyal, shall be compensated at the
same rate that may be paid to those in States abolishing slavery.
The amendment also proposed to give to "Congress the right to
appropriate money for the colonization of the emancipated slaves,
with their own consent, at any place outside of the United States."
Congress had scarcely time to consider this grave proposition when
the President issued on the first day of the new year (1863) his
formal Proclamation abolishing slavery in all the States in rebellion
against the Government, with the exception of Tennessee, and of
certain parishes in Louisiana and certain counties in Virginia
whose population was considered loyal to the Government. Tennessee
was excepted from the operation of the Proclamation at the urgent
request of Andrew Johnson who, after the fall of Nashville in the
preceding spring, had resigned from the Senate to accept the
appointment of military governor of his State. His service in the
Senate, with his State in flagrant rebellion, was felt to be somewhat
anomalous and he was glad to accept a position in which he could
be more directly helpful to the loyal cause. He possessed the
unbounded confidence of Mr. Lincoln who yielded to his views
respecting the best mode of restoring Tennessee to the Union, and
her inhabitants to their duty to the National Government. There
is good reason for believing that both Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Johnson
afterwards regarded the omission of Tennessee from the Proclamation
of Emancipation as a mistake, honestly made in the first place by
Governor Johnson and too readily acceded to by the President.
The recommendation of Mr. Lincoln for a system of compensated
emancipation was taken up promptly and cordially by the Republican
members of both branches of Congress. The House appointed a special
committee on the subject. With but little delay a bill was passed
appropriating to Missouri, the first State considered, ten millions
of dollars with the restriction that the money should be paid only
to the loyal slave-holders. The Senate increased the amount to
fifteen millions of dollars and returned it to the House for
concurrence in the amendment. The measure had been thus passed in
both branches but with stubborn opposition on the part of some
prominent Democratic leaders from Missouri. John B. Henderson in
the Senate and John W. Noell in the House labored earnestly to
secure the compensation for their State, but the bill was finally
defeated in the House. By factious resistance, by dilatory motions
and hostile points of order, the Democratic members from Missouri
were able to force the bill from its position of parliamentary
advantage, and to prevent its consideration within the period in
which a majority of the House could control its fate. The just
responsibility for depriving Missouri of the fifteen millions of
dollars must be charged in an especial degree to Thomas L. Price,
Elijah H. Norton, and William A. Hall, representatives from that
State, who on the 25th of February, 1863, by the use of objectionable
tactics deprived the House of the opportunity even to consider a
bill of such value and consequence to their constituents. A large
majority stood ready to pass it, but the determined hostility of
the Democratic members from Missouri defeated the kindly and generous
intentions of Congress towards their own State. At a later period
in the session the attempt was made to pass the bill by a suspension
of the Rules, but this motion though it received the support of a
majority was defeated for the lack of two-thirds of the votes as
required. The Democratic members of Missouri were again active in
resisting the boon which was offered to their State and so earnestly
pressed by the Republicans of the House.
MISTAKE OF BORDER STATE MEN.
The course of the Missouri representatives was sustained by the
solid vote of the Democratic members from the free States, and
received the co-operation of a majority of representatives from
the Border slave States. If the bill for Missouri had passed, a
similar relief would have been offered to Kentucky, West Virginia,
Maryland and Delaware. Mr. Crittenden whose influence with the
representatives from these States was deservedly great could not
be persuaded to adopt the President's policy. The consideration
which influenced him and other Border State men to the course which
subsequent events proved to be unwise, was their distrust of the
success of the Union arms. The prospect had grown steadily
discouraging ever since the adjournment of Congress in the preceding
July, and with the exception of General McClellan's success at
Antietam there had been nothing to lighten the gloom which deeply
beclouded the military situation. The daily expenditures of the
nation were enormous, and the Secretary of the Treasury had at the
opening of the season estimated that the National debt at the close
of the current fiscal year would exceed seventeen hundred millions
of dollars. The Border State men chose therefore to maintain
possession of their four hundred thousand slaves, even with the
title somewhat shaken by war, rather than to part with them for
the bonds of a Government whose ability to pay they considered
extremely doubtful.
They could readily have secured, indeed they were urged to accept,
fifty millions of dollars, the equivalent of gold coin, in securities
which became in a few years the favorite investment of the wisest
capitalists in the world. Such opportunities are never repeated.
The magnanimous policy of the President and the wise liberality of
the Republican party were precisely adapted, if the Border State
men could have seen it, to the critical situation of the hour.
Subsequent events prevented the repetition of the offer, and the
slave-holders were left to thank themselves and their representatives
for the loss of the munificent compensation proffered by the
Government. They could not believe Mr. Lincoln when at the pressing
moment he pleaded with them so earnestly to accept the terms, and
flavored his appeal with the humorous remark to Mr. Crittenden:
"You Southern men will soon reach the point where bonds will be a
more valuable possession than bondsmen. Nothing is more uncertain
now than two-legged property."
After the unfortunate issue of the Peninsular campaign and in the
fear that Lee might turn directly upon Washington, a new army was
organized on the 27th of June, 1862, and placed under the command
of Major-General John Pope. It included the forces which had been
serving under Frémont, Banks and McDowell, and was divided into
three corps with these officers respectively in command. General
Frémont considering the designation below his rank asked to be
relieved from the service, and his corps was assigned to General
Rufus King, and soon after to General Sigel. General Pope took
the field on the 14th of July with a formidable force. General
McClellan was still within twenty-five miles of Richmond, and with
Pope in front of Washington, the Confederate authorities were at
a standstill and could not tell which way to advance with hope of
success or even with safety.
If the army of Lee should move towards Washington he might be
compelled to fight General Pope protected by the extensive
fortifications on the south side of the Potomac, leaving Richmond
at the same time uncovered, with the possibility that McClellan,
re-enforced by Burnside's corps which lay at Fortress Monroe, would
renew his attack with an army of ninety thousand men. But as soon
as the Confederates ascertained that McClellan was ordered back to
the Potomac, they saw their opportunity and made haste to attack
Pope. Fault was found with the slowness of McClellan's movements.
His judgment as a military man was decidedly against the transfer
of his army from the point it occupied near Richmond, and it cannot
be said that he obeyed the distasteful order with the alacrity with
which he would have responded to one that agreed with his own
judgment.
AGGRESSIVE COURSE OF THE CONFEDERATES.
No reason can be assigned why if the Army of the Potomac was to be
brought back in front of Washington it should not have been
transferred in season to re-enforce General Pope and give a crushing
blow to Lee. General McClellan was directed on the third day of
August to withdraw his whole army to Acquia Creek, and as General
Halleck declares, "in order to make the movement as rapidly as
possible General McClellan was authorized to assume control of all
the vessels in the James River and Chesapeake Bay, of which there
was then a vast fleet." General McClellan did not begin the
evacuation of Harrison's Landing until the 14th of August--eleven
days after it was ordered. General Burnside's corps was ordered
on the 1st of August to move from Newport News to Acquia Creek,
and an estimate of the transportation facilities at command of
General McClellan, may be formed from the fact that Burnside's
whole corps reached their destination in forty-eight hours. General
Lee knew at once by this movement that it was not the design to
attack Richmond, and he made haste to throw his army on Pope before
the slow moving army from Harrison's Landing could re-enforce him.
General McClellan did not himself reach Acquia Creek until the 24th
of August. The disasters sustained by General Pope in the month
of August could not have occurred if the forces of the Union,
readily at command, had been brought seasonably to his aid. It
was at this crisis that the unfortunate movements were made, the
full responsibility for which, perhaps the exact character of which,
may never be determined, but the sorrowful result of which was that
the Union forces, much larger in the aggregate than Lee's, were
divided and continually outnumbered on the field of battle.
Flushed with success the Confederate authorities pushed their
fortunes with great boldness. General Bragg invaded Kentucky with
a large army and General Lee prepared to invade Pennsylvania. The
cruel defeat of General Pope disabled him for the time as a commander,
and the Administration, fearing for the safety of Washington, and
yielding somewhat to the obvious wishes of the soldiers, ordered
General McClellan on September 2 to assume command of all troops
for the defense of the Capital. General Lee avoiding the fortifications
of Washington, passed over to Maryland, and prepared to invade
Pennsylvania with a force formidable in numbers and with the added
strength of a supreme confidence in its invincibility. General
McClellan moved promptly westward to cut off Lee's progress northward.
After preliminary engagements the main battle of Antietam was fought
on the 17th of September, resulting in a Union victory. Lee was
severely repulsed and retreated across the Potomac.
General McClellan fought the battle of Antietam under extraordinary
embarrassment caused by the surrender of Harper's Ferry to the
Confederates on the 13th, with a loss to the Union army of more
than twelve thousand men. Could he have had the advantage of this
force on the battle-field, under a competent commander, at the
critical moment, his victory over Lee might have been still more
decisive. His success however was of overwhelming importance to
the National Government and put a stop to an invasion of Pennsylvania
which might have been disastrous in the extreme. He was blamed
severely, perhaps unjustly, for not following Lee on his retreat
and reaping the fruits of his victory. He had the misfortune to
fall into a controversy once more with the authorities at Washington.
After a correspondence with the War Department he was peremptorily
ordered by the General-in-Chief Halleck on the 6th of October in
these words: "The President directs that you cross the Potomac
and give battle to the enemy or drive him south. Your army must
move now while the roads are good. . . . I am directed to add that
the Secretary of War and the General-in-Chief fully concur with
the President in these instructions." The order was not promptly
obeyed. The Army of the Potomac--as those who spoke for General
McClellan maintained--had been for six months engaged in a laborious
campaign in which they had fought many battles and experienced much
hardship. They needed rest, recruitment, clothes, shoes, and a
general supply of war material before setting out on what would
prove a winter march. The authorities at Washington asserted, and
apparently proved on the testimony of Quartermaster-General Meigs,
a most accomplished, able, and honorable officer, that the Army of
the Potomac, when it received its first orders to move in October,
was thoroughly and completely equipped. General McClellan thought
however that if intrusted with the command of the army he should
be allowed to direct its movements. He crossed the Potomac near
Harper's Ferry in the last week of October, and began an advance
through Virginia which effectually covered Washington. He had
reached Warrenton, and, before the plan of his campaign was developed,
received at midnight, on the 7th of November, a direct order from
President Lincoln to "surrender the command of the army to General
Burnside, and to report himself immediately at Trenton, the capital
of New Jersey."
GENERAL McCLELLAN'S MILITARY CAREER.
The reasons for this sudden and peremptory order were not given,
and if expressed would probably have been only an assertion of the
utter impossibility that the War Department and General McClellan
should harmoniously co-operate in the great military movements
which devolved upon the Army of the Potomac. But the time of
removal was not opportunely selected by the Administration. After
General McClellan's failure on the Peninsula, a large proportion
of the Northern people clamored for his deposition from command,
and it would have been quietly acquiesced in by all. At the end
of those disastrous days when he was falling back on the line of
the James River, General McClellan had telegraphed the Secretary
of War "If I save this army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no
thanks to you or to any persons in Washington. You have done your
best to sacrifice this army." Perhaps no such dispatch was ever
before sent by a military officer to the Commander-in-Chief of the
army--to the ruler of the nation. In any other country it would
have been followed with instant cashiering. Mr. Lincoln, with his
great magnanimity, had however condoned the offense, and after the
defeat of Pope the Administration had enlarged the command of
McClellan and trusted the fortunes of the country to his generalship.
The trust had not been in vain. He had rolled back the tide of
invasion by a great battle in which for the first time the army of
Lee had been beaten. He was now marching forward with his army
strengthened for another conflict, and without explanation to the
country or to himself was deprived of his command. A large part
of the people and of the public press and an overwhelming majority
in the army were dissatisfied with the act, and believed that it
would entail evil consequences.
This ended the military career of General McClellan which throughout
its whole period had been a subject of constant discussion--a
discussion which has not yet closed. The opinion of a majority of
intelligent observers, both civil and military, is that he was a
man of high professional training, admirably skilled in the science
of war, capable of commanding a large army with success, but at
the same time not original in plan, not fertile in resource, and
lacking the energy, the alertness, the daring, the readiness to
take great risks for great ends, which distinguish the military
leaders of the world. For a commander of armies, in an offensive
campaign, his caution was too largely developed. He possessed in
too great a degree what the French term the _defensive instinct of
the engineer_, and was apparently incapable of doing from his own
volition what he did so well on the bloody field of Antietam, when
under the pressure of an overwhelming necessity.
General Burnside assumed the command with diffidence. After a
consultation with General Halleck he moved down the Rappahannock
opposite Fredericksburg where he confronted General Lee's army on
the 13th of December, and made an attack upon it under great
disadvantages and with the legitimate result of a great defeat.
The total loss of killed and wounded of the Union army exceeded
ten thousand men. The public mind was deeply affected throughout
the North by this untoward event. All the prestige which Lee had
lost at Antietam had been regained, all the advantage we had secured
on that field was sacrificed by the disaster on the still bloodier
field of Fredericksburg. It added immeasurably to the gloom of a
gloomy winter, and in the rank and file of the army it caused a
dissatisfaction somewhat akin to mutiny. So pronounced did this
feeling become and so plainly was it manifested that the subject
attracted the attention of Congress and led to some results which,
despite the seriousness of the situation, were irresistibly amusing.
On the 23d of January Mr. Wilson of Massachusetts offered a somewhat
extraordinary resolution,--instructing the Committee on the Conduct
of the War to "inquire whether Major-General Burnside has since
the battle of Fredericksburg formed any plans for the movement of
the Army of the Potomac or any portion of the same, and if so
whether any subordinate generals of said army have written to or
visited Washington, to oppose or interfere with the execution of
such movements, and whether such proposed movements have been
arrested or interfered with, and if so by what authority." The
consideration of the resolution was postponed under the rule, and
three days later it was called up by Mr. Anthony of Rhode Island
and its adoption urged "with the view of finding out whether officers
were coming up here from the Army of the Potomac to interfere with
the plans of General Burnside." There was indeed no doubt that
some of the general officers connected with the army had been in
Washington, and confidentially informed the President of the
dispirited and depressed condition of the whole force.
GENERAL BURNSIDE AND GENERAL HOOKER.
General Burnside's character was one of great frankness, truth,
and fidelity. He was full of courage and of manliness, and he
conceived from circumstances within his knowledge, that certain
officers in his command were gradually undermining and destroying
him in the confidence of the army and of the public. He had not
desired the position to which the President called him as the
successor of General McClellan. He did not feel himself indeed
quite competent to the task of commanding an army of one hundred
thousand men. But there as in every other position in life he
would try to do his best. He failed and failed decisively. It
would probably have been wise for him to resign his command
immediately after the defeat at Fredericksburg. On January 23,
the Friday before the Senate resolution was adopted, General
Burnside, highly incensed by the injury which he thought had been
done him, wrote an order peremptorily "dismissing, subject to the
approval of the President, Major-General Joseph E. Hooker from the
Army of the United States, for having been guilty of unjust and
unnecessary criticism of his superior officers, and for having by
the general tone of his conversation endeavored to create distrust
in the minds of officers who have associated with him, and for
having habitually spoken in disparaging terms of other officers."
The order declared that General Hooker was dismissed "as a man
unfit to hold an important commission during a crisis like the
present when so much patience, charity, confidence, consideration,
and patriotism is due from every person in the field." The same
order dismissed Brigadier-General John Newton and Brigadier-General
John Cochrane for going to the President with criticisms on the
plans of the commanding officer, and relieved Major-General William
B. Franklin, Major-General W. F. Smith, Brigadier-General Sturgis
and several others from further service in the Army of the Potomac.
The outcome of this extraordinary proceeding was very singular.
General Burnside took the order, before its publication, to the
President who instead of approving it, very good-naturedly found
a command for the General in the West, and on the very day that
the Senate passed the resolution of inquiry, two orders were read
at the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac,--one from General
Burnside announcing that Major-General Joseph E. Hooker was assigned
to the command of the Army of the Potomac and asking the army to
"give to the brave and skillful General, who is now to command you,
your full and cordial support and co-operation;" the other from
General Hooker assuming command of the Army of the Potomac by
direction of the President and conveying to the late commander,
General Burnside, "the most cordial good wishes of the whole army."
In the South-West where General Grant, General Sherman, and General
Rosecrans were stubbornly contesting the ground, no decisive results
were attained. The army went into winter quarters, with a general
feeling of discouragement pervading the country. A substantial
advantage was gained by General Buell's army in driving Bragg out
of Kentucky, and a very signal and helpful encouragement came to
the Government from the fact that the public manifestations in
Kentucky were decisively adverse to the Confederates, and that
Lee's army in Maryland met no welcome from any portion of the
population. General McClellan's army was cheered everywhere in
Maryland as it marched to the field of Antietam; and as Bragg
retreated through the mountain sections of Kentucky his stragglers
were fired upon by the people, and the women along the route
upbraided the officers with bitter maledictions. Perhaps the
feature of the two invasions most discouraging to the Confederates
was the condition of the popular mind which they found in the Border
States. They had expected to arouse fresh revolt, but they met a
people tired of conflict and longing for repose under the flag of
the Nation.
Congress felt that the situation was one of uncertainty if not of
positive adversity. They did not however abate one jot or tittle
of earnest effort in providing for a renewal of the contest in the
ensuing spring. They appropriated some seven hundred and forty
millions of dollars for the army and some seventy-five millions
for the navy, and they took the very decisive step of authorizing
"the President to enroll, arm, equip, and receive into the land
and naval service of the United States such number of volunteers
of African descent as he may deem useful to suppress the present
Rebellion for such term of service as he may prescribe, not exceeding
five years." The enactment of this bill was angrily resisted by
the Democratic party and by the Union men of the Border States.
But the Republicans were able to consolidate their ranks in support
of it. In the popular opinion it was a radical measure, and therein
lay its chief merit. Aside from the substantial strength which
the accession of these colored men to the ranks would give to the
Union army, was the moral effect which would be produced on the
minds of Southern men by the open demonstration that the President
did not regard the Proclamation of Emancipation as _brutum fulmen_,
but intended to enforce it by turning the strong arm of the slave
against the person of the master. It was a policy that required
great moral courage, and it was abundantly rewarded by successful
results. It signalized to the whole world the depth of the
earnestness with which the Administration was defending the Union,
and the desperate extent to which the contest would be carried
before American nationality should be surrendered. The measure
had long been demanded by the aggressive sentiment of the North,
and its enactment was hailed by the mass of people in the Loyal
States as a great step forward.
SUSPENSION OF HABEAS CORPUS.
A subject of striking interest at this session of Congress was the
passage of the "Act relating to _habeas corpus_, and regulating
judicial proceedings in certain cases." The President had ordered
for the public safety, and as an act necessary to the successful
prosecution of the war, the arrest and confinement of certain
persons charged with disloyal practices. No punishment was attempted
or designed except that of confinement in a military fortress of
the United States. It became a matter of argument not only in
Congress but throughout the country, whether the President was
authorized by the Constitution to suspend the writ of _habeas
corpus_. In order to set the question at rest it was now proposed
to pass an Act of indemnity for past acts to all officers engaged
in making arrests, and also to confirm to the President by law the
right which he had of his own power been exercising. The bill
declared that "during the present Rebellion the President of the
United States, whenever in his judgment the public safety may
require it, is authorized to suspend the privilege of the writ of
_habeas corpus_ in any case throughout the United States or any
part thereof; and wherever the said writ shall be suspended no
military or other officer shall be compelled, in answer to any writ
of _habeas corpus_, to return the body of any person or persons
detained by him by authority of the President."
The bill was stubbornly resisted by the Democratic party, and after
its passage by the House thirty-six Democratic representatives
asked leave to enter upon the Journal a solemn protest against its
enactment. They recited at length their grounds of objection, the
principal of which was "the giving to the President the right to
suspend the writ of _habeas corpus_ throughout the limits of the
United States, whereas by the Constitution the power to suspend
the privilege of that writ is confided to the discretion of Congress
alone and is limited to the place threatened by the dangers of
invasion or insurrection," and also because "the bill purports to
confirm and make valid by act of Congress arrests and imprisonments
which were not only not warranted by the Constitution of the United
States but were in palpable violation of its express prohibitions."
Mr. Thaddeus Stevens peremptorily moved to lay the request on the
table, and on a call of the ayes and noes the motion prevailed by
a vote of 75 to 41. The division in the House by this time amounted
to a strict line, on one side of which was the war party and on
the other side the anti-war party.
The crowning achievement of the session in aid of the Union was
the passage of an "Act for enrolling and calling out the National
forces and for other purposes." By its terms all able-bodied
citizens of the United States between the ages of twenty and forty-
five years, with a few exemptions which were explicitly stated,
were declared to "constitute the National forces and shall be
employed to perform military duty in the service of the United
States when called on by the President for that purpose." Volunteering
was not to be relied upon as the sole means of recruiting the army,
but the entire population within the arms-bearing age was now to
be devoted to the contest. Taken in connection with other legislation
already adverted to--the enormous appropriations for the forthcoming
campaign, the organization of African regiments, the suspension of
the writ of _habeas corpus_ at the President's discretion--this
last measure was the conclusive proof of the serious determination
with which Congress and the people would continue the contest.
The spirit with which the President and Congress proceeded in that
depressing and depressed period proved invaluable to the country.
The situation had so many elements of a discouraging character that
the slightest hesitation or faltering among those controlling the
administration of the Government would have been followed by distrust
and dismay among the people.
CHAPTER XXI.
The President's Border-State Policy.--Loyal Government erected in
Virginia.--Recognized by Congress and Senators admitted.--Desire
for a New State.--The Long Dissatisfaction of the People of Western
Virginia.--The Character of the People and of their Section.--Their
Opportunity had come.--Organization of the Pierpont Government.--
State Convention and Constitution.--Application to Congress for
Admission.--Anti-slavery Amendment.--Senate Debate: Sumner, Wade,
Powell, Willey, and Others.--House Debate: Stevens, Conway, Bingham,
Segar.--Passage of Bill in Both Branches.--Heavy Blow to the Old
State.--Her Claims deserve Consideration.--Should be treated as
generously at least as Mexico.
The great importance attached by Mr. Lincoln to the preservation
of Loyalty in the line of slave States which bordered upon the free
States was everywhere recognized. As Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky,
and Missouri had been promptly placed under the control of governments
friendly to the Union, there remained of the States in rebellion
only Virginia with territory adjacent to the Loyal States. Virginia
bordered on the Ohio River for two hundred and fifty miles; she
was adjacent to Pennsylvania for a distance of one hundred and
twenty miles, half on the southern, half on the western line of
that State. Her extreme point stretched to the northward of
Pittsburg, and was within twenty-five miles of the parallel of
latitude that marks the southern boundary of New England. The
continued exercise of even a nominal jurisdiction so far North, by
the State which contained the capital of the Rebel Confederacy,
would be a serious impeachment of the power of the National
Government, and would detract from its respect at home and its
prestige abroad. But the National Government was of itself capable
only of enforcing military occupation and proclaiming the jurisdiction
of the sword. What the President desired was the establishment of
civil government by a loyal people, with the reign of law and order
everywhere recognized. Happily the disposition of the inhabitants
was in harmony with the wishes of the Administration and the
necessities of the Union.
After the adoption of the Secession Ordinance by the Virginia
Convention on the 17th of April, the loyal people of the Western
section of the State were prompt to act. As early as the 13th of
May--a fortnight before the day appointed for the popular vote on
the Secession Ordinance in Virginia--five hundred staunch Union
men came together in a Convention at Wheeling, denounced the
Ordinance of Secession and pledged their loyalty to the National
Government and their obedience to its laws. If the Ordinance should
be approved by the popular vote of Virginia, this preliminary
conference requested the people in all the counties represented,
to appoint delegates on the fourth day of June to a General Convention
to assemble in Wheeling on the 11th of the same month. These Union-
loving men were energetic and zealous. They realized that with
the secession of Virginia, completed and proclaimed, they must do
one of two things--either proceed at once to organize a State
government which would be faithful to the National Constitution,
or drift helplessly into anarchy and thus contribute to the success
of the rebellion. Their prompt and intelligent action is a remarkable
illustration of the trained and disciplined ability of Americans
for the duties of self-government.
The members of the Convention which was organized on the 11th of
June were even more determined than those who had assembled the
preceding month. Without delay they declared the State offices of
Virginia vacant because of the treason and disloyalty of those who
had been elected to hold them, and they proceeded to fill them and
form a regular State organization of which Francis H. Pierpont was
appointed the executive head. They did not assume to represent a
mere section of the State, but in the belief that the loyal people
were entitled to speak for the whole State they declared that their
government was the Government of Virginia. This Western movement
was subsequently strengthened by the accession of delegates from
Alexandria and Fairfax Counties in Middle Virginia and from Accomac
and Northampton Counties on the Eastern Shore. Thus organized,
the Government of the State was acknowledged by Congress as the
Government of Virginia and her senators and representatives were
admitted to seats.
Notwithstanding the compliance with all the outward forms and
requirements, notwithstanding the recognition by Congress of the
new government, it was seen to be essentially and really the
Government of West Virginia. It was only nominally and by construction
the Government of the State of Virginia. It did not represent the
political power or the majority of the people of the entire State.
That power was wielded in aid of the rebellion. The senators and
representatives of Virginia were in the Confederate Congress. The
strength of her people was in the Confederate Army, of which a
distinguished Virginian was the commander. The situation was
anomalous, though the friends of the Union justified the irregularity
of recognizing the framework of government in the hands of loyal
men as the actual civil administration of the State of Virginia.
CHARACTER OF WEST VIRGINIA.
The people of the Western section of Virginia realized that the
position was unnatural,--one which they could not sustain by popular
power within the limits of the State they assumed to govern, except
for the protection afforded by the military power of the National
Government. Between the two sections of the State there had long
been serious antagonisms. Indeed from the very origin of the
settlement of West Virginia, which had made but little progress
when the Federal Constitution was adopted, its citizens were in
large degree alienated from the Eastern and older section of the
State. The men of the West were hardy frontiersmen, a majority of
them soldiers of the Revolution and their immediate descendants,
without estates, with little but the honorable record of patriotic
service and their own strong arms, for their fortunes. They had
few slaves. They had their land patents, which were certificates
of patriotic service in the Revolutionary war, and they depended
upon their own labor for a new home in the wilderness. A population
thus originating, a community thus founded, were naturally uncongenial
to the aristocratic element of the Old Dominion. They had no trade
relations, no social intercourse, with the tide-water section of
the State. Formidable mountain ranges separated the two sections,
and the inhabitants saw little of each other. The business interests
of the Western region led the people to the Valley of the Ohio and
not to the shores of the Chesapeake. The waters of the Monongahela
connected them with Pennsylvania and carried them to Pittsburg.
All the rivers of the western slope flowed into the Ohio and gave
to the people the markets of Cincinnati and Louisville. Their
commercial intercourse depended on the navigation of Western waters,
and a far larger number had visited St. Louis and New Orleans than
had ever seen Richmond or Norfolk. The West-Virginians were aware
of the splendid resources of their section and were constantly
irritated by the neglect of the parent State to aid in their
development. They enjoyed a climate as genial as that of the
Italians who dwell on the slopes of the Apennines; they had forests
more valuable than those that skirt the upper Rhine; they had
mineral wealth as great as that which has given England her precedence
in the manufacturing progress of the world. They were anxious for
self-government. Their trustworthy senator, Waitman T. Willey,
declared that the people west of the Alleghany range had for sixty
years "desired separation." The two sections, he said, had been
time and again on the eve of an outbreak and the Western people
could with difficulty be held back from insurrection. Criminations
and recriminations had been exchanged at every session of the
Legislature for forty years and threats of violence had been hurled
by one section at the other.
The opportunity for a new State had now come. Its organization
and admission to the Union would complete the chain of loyal
Commonwealths on the south side of Mason and Dixon's line, and
would drive back the jurisdiction of rebellious Virginia beyond
the chain of mountains and interpose that barrier to the progress
of the insurrectionary forces Westward and Northward. The provision
in the Federal Constitution that no new State shall be formed within
the jurisdiction of any other State without the consent of the
Legislature of the State as well as of Congress, had always been
the stumbling-block in the way of West Virginia's independence.
Despite the hostilities and antagonisms of the two populations,
Virginia would insist on retaining this valuable section of country
within her own jurisdiction. But now, by the chances of war, the
same men who desired to create the new State were wielding the
entire political power of Virginia, and they would naturally grant
permission to themselves to erect a State that would be entirely
free from the objectionable jurisdiction which for the time they
represented. They were not slow to avail themselves of their
opportunity.
ADMISSION OF WEST VIRGINIA TO THE UNION.
The Pierpont Government, as it was now popularly termed, adopted
an Ordinance on the 20th of August, 1861, providing "for the
formation of a new State out of a portion of the territory of this
State." The Ordinance was approved by a vote of the people on the
fourth Thursday of October, and on the 26th of November the Convention
assembled in Wheeling to frame a constitution for the new government.
The work was satisfactorily performed, and on the first Thursday
of April, 1862, the people approved the constitution by a vote fo
18,862 in favor of it with only 514 against it. The work of the
representatives of the projected new State being thus ratified,
the Governor called the Legislature of Virginia together on the
sixth day of May, and on the 13th of the same moth that body gave
its consent, with due regularity, to "the formation of a new State
within the jurisdiction of the said State of Virginia." A fortnight
later, on the 28th of May, Senator Willey introduced the subject
in Congress by presenting a memorial from the Legislature of Virginia
together with a certified copy of the proceedings of the Constitutional
Convention and the vote of the people.
The constitution was referred to the Committee on Territories and
a bill favorable to admission was promptly reported by Senator Wade
of Ohio. The measure was discussed at different periods, largely
with reference to the effect it would have upon the institution of
slavery, and Congress insisted upon inserting a provision that "the
children of slaves, born in the State after the fourth day of July,
1863, shall be free; all slaves within the said State who shall at
that time be under the age of ten years shall be free when they
arrive at the age of twenty-one years; all slaves over ten and
under twenty-one shall be free at the age of twenty-five years;
and no slave shall be permitted to come into the State for permanent
residence therein." This condition was to be ratified by the
Convention which framed the constitution, and by the people at an
election held for the purpose, and, upon due certification of the
approval of the condition to the President of the United States,
he was authorized to issue his proclamation declaring West Virginia
to be a State of the Union.
Mr. Sumner was not satisfied with a condition which left West
Virginia with any form of slavery whatever. He said there were
"twelve thousand human beings now held in bondage in that State,
and all who are over a certain age are to be kept so for their
natural lives." He desired to strike out the provision which
permitted this and to insert on in lieu thereof, declaring that
"within the limits of the said State there shall be neither slavery
nor involuntary servitude otherwise than in the punishment of crime
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." Mr. Sumner's
amendment was opposed by some of the most radical anti-slavery men
in the Senate, notably by Collamer and Foot of Vermont, by Wade of
Ohio, and by Howe of Wisconsin. They believed that the convictions
of the people of West Virginia had developed to the point embodied
in the bill, and that to attempt the immediate extirpation of
slavery might lead to re-action and possibly to the rejection of
the constitution. Mr. Sumner's amendment was therefore defeated
by 24 votes against 11. Of the 24 votes 17 were given by Republican
senators.
Mr. Powell of Kentucky vigorously opposed the bill in all its parts.
He contended that "if the cities of New York and Brooklyn, with
the counties in which they are located, were to get up a little
bogus Legislature and say they were the State of New York, and ask
to be admitted and cut off from the rest of the State, I would just
as soon vote for their admission as to vote for the pending bill."
No senator, he said, could pretend to claim that "even a third part
of the people of Virginia have ever had any thing to do with
rendering their assent to the making of this new State within the
territorial limits of that ancient Commonwealth." He declared this
to be "a dangerous precedent which overthrows the Constitution and
may be fraught with direful consequences." "Out of the one hundred
and sixty counties that compose the State of Virginia," he continued,
"less than one-fourth have assumed to act for the entire State;
and even within the boundaries of the new State more than half the
voters have declined to take part in the elections."
Mr. Willey argued that the Legislature represented the almost
unanimous will of all the loyal people of West Virginia. He said
that "besides the 19,000 votes cast, there were 10,100 men absent
in the Union army, and that, the conclusion being foregone, the
people had not been careful to come out to vote, knowing that the
constitution would be overwhelmingly adopted." On the 14th of
July, three days before Congress adjourned, the bill passed the
Senate by a vote of 23 to 17. Mr. Rice of Minnesota was the only
Democrat who favored the admission of the new State. The other
Democratic senators voted against it. Mr. Chandler and Mr. Howard
of Michigan voted in the negative because the State had voluntarily
done nothing towards providing for the emancipation of slaves; Mr.
Sumner and Mr. Wilson, because the State had rejected the anti-
slavery amendment; Mr. Trumbull and Mr. Cowan, because of the
irregularity of the whole proceeding.
ADMISSION OF WEST VIRGINIA TO THE UNION.
The bill was not considered in the House until the next session.
It was taken up on the 9th of December and was vigorously attacked
by Mr. Conway of Kansas. He questioned the validity of the Pierpont
Government and asked whether the law which gave him his warrant of
authority had come from "a mob or from a mass-meeting." He said
he had "serious reason to believe that it is the intention of the
President to encourage the formation of State organizations in all
the seceded States, and that a few individuals are to assume State
powers wherever a military encampment can be effected in any of
the rebellious districts." Mr. Conway denounced this scheme as
"utterly and flagrantly unconstitutional, as radically revolutionary
in character and deserving the reprobation of every loyal citizen."
It aimed, he said, at "an utter subversion of our constitutional
system and will consolidate all power in the hands of the Executive."
He was answered with spirit by Mr. Colfax of Indiana, who reviewed
the successive steps by which the legality of the Virginia government
had been recognized by the President and by all the departments of
the executive government. He argued that West Virginia had taken
every step regularly and complied with every requirement of the
Constitution.
Mr. Crittenden of Kentucky said the Wheeling government could be
regarded as the government of the whole State of Virginia "only by
a mere fiction. We _know_ the fact to be otherwise." He said it
was the party applying for admission that consented to the admission,
and that was the whole of it. When the war should cease and the
National authority should be re-established he wanted the Union as
it was. This would be "a new-made Union--the old majestic body
cut and slashed by passion, by war, coming to form another government,
another Union. The Constitution gives us no power to do what we
are asked to do." Mr. Maynard said there were "two governors and
two Legislatures assuming authority over Virginia simultaneously.
The question here is which shall the Government of the United States
recognize as the true and lawful Legislature of Virginia?" He
contended that it had already been settled, by the admission of
members of both branches of Congress under the Pierpont Government.
Mr. Dawes affirmed that "nobody has given his consent to the division
of the State of Virginia and the erection of a new State who does
not reside within the new State itself." He contended therefore
that "this bill does not comply with the spirit of the Constitution.
If the remaining portions of Virginia are under duress while this
consent is given, it is a mere mockery of the Constitution." Mr.
Brown of Virginia, from that part which was to be included in the
new State, corrected Mr. Dawes, but the latter maintained that
while a member of the Legislature "was picked up in Fairfax and
two or three gentlemen in other parts of the State, they protested
themselves that they did not pretend to represent the counties from
which they hailed."
Mr. Thaddeus Stevens said he did not desire to be understood as
"sharing the delusion that we are admitting West Virginia in
pursuance of any provision of the Constitution." He could "find
no provision justifying it, and the argument in favor of it originates
with those who either honestly entertain an erroneous opinion, or
who desire to justify by a forced construction an act which they
have predetermined to do." He maintained that it was "but mockery
to say that the Legislature of Virginia has ever consented to the
division. Only two hundred thousand out of a million and a quarter
of people have participated in the proceedings." He contended that
"the State of Virginia has a regular organization, and by a large
majority of the people it has changed its relations to the Federal
Government." He knew that this was treason in the individuals who
participated in it; but so far as the State was concerned, it was
a valid act. Our government, he argued, "does not act upon a State.
The State, as a separate distinct body, is the State of a majority
of the people of Virginia, whether rebel or loyal, whether convict
or free men. The majority of the people of Virginia is the State
of Virginia, although individuals have committed treason." "Governor
Pierpont," continued Mr. Stevens, "is an excellent man, and I wish
he were the Governor elected by the people of Virginia. But
according to my principles operating at the present time I can vote
for the admission of West Virginia without any compunctions of
conscience--only with some doubt about the policy of it. None of
the States now in rebellion are entitled to the protection of the
Constitution. These proceedings are in virtue of the laws of war.
We may admit West Virginia as a new State, not by virtue of any
provision of the Constitution but under our absolute power which
the laws of war give us in the circumstances in which we are placed.
I shall vote for this bill upon that theory, and upon that alone.
I will not stultify myself by supposing that we have any warrant
in the Constitution for this proceeding."
ADMISSION OF WEST VIRGINIA TO THE UNION.
Mr. Bingham of Ohio made an able argument principally devoted to
rebutting the somewhat mischievous ground assumed by Mr. Stevens.
He affirmed that "the minority of the people of the State cannot
be deprived of their rights because the majority have committed
treason." He argued that, the majority of the people of Virginia
having become rebels, the State was in the hands of the loyal
minority, who in that event had a right to administer the laws,
maintain the authority of the State government, and elect a State
Legislature and a Governor, through whom they might call upon the
Federal Government for protection against domestic violence,
according to the express guaranty of the Constitution. "To deny
this proposition," continued Mr. Bingham, "is to say that when the
majority in any State revolt against the laws, the State government
can never be re-organized nor the rights of the minority protected
so long as the majority are in revolt." He contended that the
doctrine he advocated was not a new one, that it was as old as the
Constitution, and he called attention to the remarkable letter of
"The Federalist," addressed by Mr. Madison to the American people
in which "he who is called the author of the Constitution" asked:
"Why may not illicit combinations for purposes of violence be formed
as well by a majority of a State as by a majority of a county or
district of the same State? And if the authority of the State
ought in the latter case to protect the local magistrate, ought
not the Federal authority in the former case to support the State
authority?"
Mr. Segar, who represented the district including Fortress Monroe,
pleaded very earnestly against the dismemberment of his State and
he argued, as Mr. Powell had argued in the Senate, that there was
no evidence that a majority of the people within the counties which
were to compose the new State had ever given their assent to its
formation. The ordinary vote of those counties he said was 48,000
while on the new State question the entire vote cast was only
19,000. He named ten counties included in the new State organization
in which not a single vote had been cast on either side of the
question at the special election. Though loyal to the Union and
grieving over the rebellious course of Virginia he begged that this
humiliation might be spared her. "Let there not be two Virginias;
let us remain one and united. Do not break up the rich cluster of
glorious memories and associations which gather over the name and
the history of this ancient and once glorious Commonwealth."
On the passage of the bill the ayes were 96 and the noes were 55.
The ayes were wholly from the Republican party, though several
prominent Republicans opposed the measure. Almost the entire
Massachusetts delegation voted in the negative, as did also Mr.
Roscoe Conkling, Mr. Conway of Kansas and Mr. Francis Thomas of
Maryland. The wide difference of opinion concerning this act was
not unnatural. But the cause of the Union was aided by the addition
of another loyal commonwealth, and substantial justice was done to
the brave people of the new State who by their loyalty had earned
the right to be freed from the domination which had fretted them
and from the association which was uncongenial to them.
To the old State of Virginia the blow was a heavy one. In the
years following the war it added seriously to her financial
embarrassment, and it has in many ways obstructed her prosperity.
As a punitive measure, for the chastening of Virginia, it cannot
be defended. Assuredly there was no ground for distressing Virginia
by penal enactments that did not apply equally to every other State
of the Confederacy. Common justice revolts at the selection of
one man for punishment from eleven who have all been guilty of the
same offense. If punishment had been designed there was equal
reason for stripping Texas of her vast domain and for withdrawing
the numerous land grants which had been generously made by the
National Government to many of the States in rebellion. But Texas
was allowed to emerge from the contest without the forfeiture of
an acre, and Congress, so far from withdrawing the land grants by
which other Southern States were to be enriched, took pains to
renew them in the years succeeding the war. The autonomy of Virginia
alone was disturbed. Upon Virginia alone fell the penalty, which
if due to any was due to all.
THE PUBLIC DEBT OF VIRGINIA.
Another consideration is of great weight. An innocent third party
was involved. Virginia owed a large debt, held in great part by
loyal citizens of the North and by subjects of foreign countries.
The burden was already as heavy as she could bear in her entirety,
and dismemberment so crippled her that she could not meet her
obligations. The United States might well have relieved Virginia
and have done justice to her creditors by making some allowance
for the division of her territory. Regarding her only as entitled
to the rights of a public enemy so long as she warred upon the
Union, we may confidently maintain that she is entitled at least
to as just and magnanimous treatment as the National Government
extends to a foreign foe. In our war with Mexico it became our
interest to acquire a large part of the territory owned by that
republic. We had conquered her armies and were in possession of
her capital. She was helpless in our hands. But the high sense
of justice which has always distinguished the United States in her
public policies would not permit the despoilment of Mexico. We
negotiated therefore for the territory needed, and paid for it a
larger price than would have been given by any other nation in the
world. The American Government went still farther. Many of our
citizens held large claims against Mexico, and the failure to pay
them had been one of the causes that precipitated hostilities.
Our government in addition to the money consideration of fifteen
millions of dollars which we paid for territory, agreed to exonerate
Mexico from all demands of our citizens, and to pay them from our
own Treasury. This supplementary agreement cost the National
Treasury nearly four million dollars.
If the United State were willing to place Virginia on the basis on
which they magnanimously placed Mexico after the conquest of that
Republic, a sufficient allowance would be made to her to compensate
at least for that part of her public debt which might presumptively
be represented by the territory taken from her. If it be said in
answer to such a suggestion that it would be fairer for West Virginia
to assume the proportional obligation thus indicated, the prompt
rejoinder is that in equity her people are not held to such
obligation. The public improvements for which the debt was in
large part incurred had not been so far completed as to benefit
West Virginia when the civil war began,--their advantages being
mainly confined to the Tide-water and Piedmont sections of the
State. There is indeed neither moral nor legal responsibility
resting upon West Virginia for any part of the debt of the old
State.
In determining the relative obligations of the National Government
and of the government of West Virginia, concerning the debt, it is
of the first importance to remember that the new State was not
primarily organized and admitted to the Union for the benefit of
her own people, but in far larger degree for the benefit of the
people of the whole Union. The organic law would not have been
strained, legal fictions would not have been invented, contradictory
theories would not have been indulged, if a great national interest
had not demanded the creation of West Virginia. If it had not been
apparent that the organization of West Virginia was an advantage
to the loyal cause; if the border-State policy of Mr. Lincoln, so
rigidly adhered to throughout the contest, had not required this
link for the completion of its chain,--the wishes of the people
most directly involved would never have had the slightest attention
from the Congress of the United States. Strong and equitable as
was the case of West Virginia, irritating and undesirable as her
relations to the older State might be, advantageous to the people
as the new government might prove, these considerations would not
of themselves have offered sufficient inducement to engage the
attention of Congress for an hour at that critical period. They
would have been brushed aside and disregarded with that cool
indifference by which all great legislative bodies prove how easy
it is to endure the misery of other people. West Virginia indeed
got only what was equitably due, and what she was entitled to claim
by the natural right of self-government. The war brought good
fortune to her as conspicuously as it brought ill fortune to the
older State from which she was wrenched. West Virginia is to be
congratulated, and her creditable career and untiring enterprise
since she assumed the responsibilities of self-government show how
well she deserved the boon. But the wounds inflicted on the mother
State by her separation will never be healed until Virginia is
relieved from the odium of having been specially selected from the
eleven seceding States for the punishment that struck at once
against her prosperity and against her pride of empire.
Nor should it be forgotten that the State of Virginia before the
war might well be regarded as the creditor and not the debtor of
the National Government. One of her earliest acts of patriotism as
an independent State was the cession to the General Government of
her superb domain on the north side of the Ohio River, from the
sale of which more than one hundred millions of dollars have been
paid into the National Treasury. A suggestive contrast is presented
to-day between the condition of Virginia and the condition of Texas
and Florida. It was the aggressive disunionism of the two latter
States which aided powerfully in dragging Virginia into rebellion.
But for the urgency of the seven original Confederate States, in
which Texas and Florida were numbered, Virginia Loyalists would
have been able to hold their State firm in her National allegiance.
Since the war Texas has traveled the highway to wealth and power,
founded on the ownership of her public lands, of which the National
Government could have deprived her with as little difficulty as was
found in dividing Virginia. Florida has likewise enjoyed general
prosperity, and secured rapid development from the resources of
land which the National Government had generously given her before
the war and of which she was not deprived for her acts of rebellion.
True-hearted Americans rejoice in the prosperity of these States
which adorn the southern border of the Republic; but they cannot
help seeing, and seeing with regret, how differently the ancient
Commonwealth of Virginia has fared at the hands of the National
Government.
EQUITABLE CONSIDERATIONS INVOLVED.
If the hurt to Virginia were of a general character, which could
not be specified or defined, her case might be passed over with
the plea of _damnum absque injurid_. But, unfortunately,--or it
may be fortunately,--the detriment to her public credit can be
stated with substantial precision, and can be traced directly to
her despoilment. That took from her the power to pay her debt.
If the harm resulting therefrom were confined to the State and to
the holders of her securities, the National Government might the
more easily disregard the equities of the case. But Virginia's
embarrassment is of wide-spread concern, and injuriously affects
the public credit of other States. Nor can it be said that the
precedent of aiding Virginia could be quoted for aid to every State
that might get into financial trouble. It could be quoted only
for the case--which will perhaps never again occur--where the
National Government shall strip the State of a large and valuable
part of her territory, and thus take from her the ability to meet
her obligations. The precedent might then be quoted, and should
be unhesitatingly followed.
In the formal and necessarily austere administration of public
affairs there is little room for the interposition of sentiment.
Yet sentiment has its place. We stimulate the ardor of patriotism
by the mere display of a flag which has no material force, but
which is emblematic of all material force, and typifies the glory
of the Nation. We stir the ambition of the living by rearing costly
monuments to the heroic dead. It may surely be pardoned if Americans
shall feel a deep personal interest in the good name and good
fortune of a State so closely identified with the early renown of
the Republic,--a State with whose soil is mingled the dust of those
to whom all States and all generations are debtors,--the Father of
his Country, the author of the Declaration of Independence, the
chief projector of the National Constitution.
CHAPTER XXII.
National Currency and State Bank Currency.--In Competition.--Legal-
tender Bill tended to expand State Bank Circulation.--Secretary
Chase's Recommendation.--Favorably received.--State Bank Circulation,
$150,000,000.--Preliminary Bill to establish National Banks.--
Fessenden.--Sherman.--Hooper.--National Bank System in 1862.--
Discussed among the People.--Recommended by the President.--Mr.
Chase urges it.--Bill introduced and discussed in Senate.--Discussion
in the House.--Bill passed.--Hugh McCulloch of Indiana appointed
Comptroller of the Currency.--Amended Bank Act.--To remedy Defects,
Circulation limited to $500,000,000.--National Power.--State Rights.
--Taxation.--Renewed Debate in Senate and House.--Bill passed.--
Merits of the System.--Former Systems.--First Bank of the United
States.--Charters of United-States banks, 1791-1816.--National
Banks compared with United-States Banks.--One Defective Element.--
Founded on National Debt.
The Secretary of the Treasury had not failed to see that a constant
conflict and damaging competition must ensue between the currency
of the Nation and the currency of the State banks. It was the
course of the banks more than any other agency that had discredited
the "demand notes" and demonstrated to the Treasury Department and
to Congress the absolute necessity of imparting the legal-tender
quality to the paper issued by the government. As this paper took
the place of gold and silver in the payment of every obligation,
both corporate and individual,--except duties on imports and interest
on the National debt,--it was made easy for the State banks to
extend their circulation. It was quite practicable for them to
keep a sufficient amount of legal-tender paper in their vaults to
meet all the probable requirements of redemption, and they were
thus tempted to expand their loans and issue their own bills to a
dangerous extent. It was indeed hardly necessary to provide legal-
tender notes to redeem their own bills. One kind of paper money,
to a large proportion of the public, was practically as good as
another. Coin redemption being abandoned, the banks in a certain
sense lost all moral and legal restraint. The enactment of the
Legal-tender Bill had not therefore given the control of the currency
to the government. It had only increased the dangers of inflation
by the stimulus it imparted and the protection it afforded to the
circulation of State bank notes.
SECRETARY CHASE'S RECOMMENDATION.
Secretary Chase had grasped the situation earlier than the experienced
financiers who assumed to be his special advisers, and while he
was, in the opinion of unjust critics, completely in the hands of
the State banks, he surprised the country by recommending in his
report of December, 1861, the establishment of a National system
that should give the General Government complete control of the
currency. The State bank circulation in the loyal States he
estimated at $150,000,000. "The whole of it," he regarded as "a
loan without interest from the people to the banks." The secretary
thought "it deserves consideration whether sound policy does not
require that the advantages of this loan be transferred from the
banks, representing the interest of stockholders, to the government
representing the aggregate interest of the whole people." Attention
was called to the fact that "the existing circulation depends on
the laws of thirty-four States and the character of some sixteen
hundred private corporations." It was somewhat startling to learn
that "the circulation is usually furnished in greatest proportion
by institutions of least actual capital and is commonly in the
inverse ratio of solvency."
The bold and comprehensive recommendation of Mr. Chase was favorably
received by many of the leading men in Congress and by many of the
ablest financiers of the country. The committees of both Senate
and House were well disposed, but preferred time for consultation
and deliberation. The Secretary of the Treasury, with the aid of
Mr. E. G. Spaulding, Mr. Sherman, and Mr. Samuel Hooper, engaged
in the preparation of a bank bill which in due time was submitted
to the Committee of Ways and Means. The committee was at that
moment engaged on the Internal-revenue Bill, the important character
of which absorbed the attention of Congress. The adjustment of
the tariff duties to the excise taxes was also a serious labor
which left no adequate time to mature a bank bill in season for
its consideration at that session. Indeed the committee was not
able to report the bill to the House until the 12th of July, 1862,
when five thousand extra copies were printed for distribution among
the financial institutions of the country. It was deemed wise to
give the people time to consider so important a measure, and with
that end in view all further action was postponed to the next
session.
Meanwhile the bill was published in the leading papers of the loyal
States and elicited the most diverse opinion. It was however
received with favor by the public. Those interested in the State
banks were at first exceedingly hostile to it. The proposition to
tax their circulation two per cent. in addition to the three per
cent. imposed upon incomes by the new law was considered harsh and
unjust. The object was to compel the retirement of the State bank
circulation. In no other way could a national system be at once
generally instituted. The courts had repeatedly held the authority
of the States to charter banks with power to issue and circulate
notes as money, to be constitutional. Congress could not abridge
this right in any way by direct legislation. Its power to tax was
however undoubted. The friends of the State bank system claimed
that the indirect method of destroying the institution by taxing
its notes out of existence was an arbitrary exercise of questionable
power.
The advocates of a uniform and stable system of banking to cure
the manifold evils then prevailing, admitted that the prerogative
of the States could not be questioned, but urged that the exercise
of it had invariably increased and often produced the financial
troubles which had afflicted the country in the past. If the States
would not surrender their prerogative, the National Government
would be compelled to exercise its larger prerogative embodied in
the power to tax. The right of the nation to do this had been
asserted by the head of the Treasury under a Democratic administration
some years before. Recognizing as he did the necessity of a reform
in the system of banking, Secretary Guthrie in his report to Congress
in 1855 declared that "if the States shall continue the charter
and multiplication of banks with authority to issue and circulate
notes as money, and fail to apply any adequate remedy to the
increasing evil, and also fail to invest Congress with the necessary
power to prohibit the same, Congress may be justified in the exercise
of the power to levy an excise upon them, and thus render the
authority to issue and circulate them valueless."
THE SYSTEM OF NATIONAL BANKS.
During the autumn of 1862 the bank question was subjected to a
thorough discussion among the people. The legal-tender notes had
already become popular, and were evidently preferred by the public
to the notes of local banks. The depression naturally incident to
continued reverses in the field led to the defeat of the Administration
in many of the State elections, but despite the operation of all
adverse causes the general trade of the country was good. The
crops had been abundant and prices were remunerative. All that
had been claimed for the legal-tender bill by its most sanguine
advocates had been realized in the business of the country. The
one disappointment was their failure to keep at par with gold; but
even this, in the general prosperity among the people, did not
create discouragement. The Internal-revenue system had but just
gone into operation, and the only feature embarrassing to the people
was the requirement that the taxes should be paid in the legal-
tender paper of the government. No provision of law could have
operated so powerfully for a system of National banks. The people
were subjected to annoyance and often to expense in exchanging the
notes of their local banks for the government medium. The internal
fiscal machinery of the government evidently required places of
deposit. The tax-collectors could not intrust the funds in their
hands to State banks except at their own risk. The money of the
government was thus liable to loss from the absence of responsible
agencies under the control of National power. The fact that the
bills of State banks were not receivable for taxes tended constantly
to bring them into disrepute. The refusal of the government to
trust its funds in the keeping of the State banks was nothing less
than the requirement of the Sub-treasury Act, but to the popular
apprehension it was a manifestation of distrust which did the banks
great harm. The total revenue of the National Government had before
the war been collected at a few custom-houses on the coast, and
the public had not been generally familiar with the mode of its
safe-keeping. The system of internal taxes now reached the interior,
and the people were made daily witnesses of the fact that the
government would not trust a dollar of its money in the vaults of
a State bank.
Under the influences thus at work, the friends of the State banks
plainly saw that the National system was growing in favor, and they
began to admit that its creation might facilitate the financial
operations of the country. Many of them were willing to give it
a fair trial. The advocates of the National system constantly
pressed their cause among the people. The five-twenty six per
cent. bonds, into which the legal tenders were convertible, offered,
as they explained, an excellent basis for banking. Their absorption
for that purpose would create not only a market for that class of
securities but inevitably cause them to appreciate in value. The
government would thus be largely benefitted, and its cause would
be strengthened by the silent influence of self-interest which
would certainly be developed by the general distribution of its
bonds as the basis of a national currency. It was also urged that
the existing banks could with great facility and without sacrifice
re-organize under the proposed national law.
The popular mind having been thus favorably turned towards the
system of national banks, the President specifically approved it
in his message to Congress in December, 1862. Expressing his doubts
"whether a circulation of United-States notes, payable in coin,
and sufficiently large for the wants of the people, can be permanently,
usefully, and safely maintained," Mr. Lincoln asked if there was
"any other mode by which necessary provision for the public wants
can be made, and the great advantage of a safe and uniform currency
secured?" He declared that he knew of none "which promises so
certain results, and is at the same time so unobjectionable, as
the organization of banking associations under a general law of
Congress well guarded in its provisions." Mr. Chase elaborated
his recommendation of the preceding year to the same effect. He
asked that "a tax might be imposed on the notes of existing banks
such as would practically exclude them from circulation." In their
stead the legal-tender notes would be used, but he preferred "a
circulation furnished by the government but issued by banking
associations organized under a general Act of Congress."
Mr. Chase said "the central idea of the proposed measure is the
establishment of one uniform circulation, of equal value throughout
the country, upon the foundation of national credit combined with
private capital." He suggested that "these associations be entirely
voluntary. Any persons desirous of employing real capital in
sufficient amounts, can, if the plan be adopted, unite together
under proper articles, and having contributed the requisite capital
can invest such part of it, not less than a fixed minimum, in United-
States bonds, and having deposited these bonds with the proper
officer of the United States can receive United-States notes in
such denominations as may be desired, and employ them as money in
discounts and exchanges." As a further inducement, the secretary
said "the stockholders of any existing banks can in like manner
organize under the Act, and transfer, by such degrees as may be
found convenient, the capital of the old to the use of the new
associations. The notes thus put into circulation will be payable
until resumption in United-States notes, and after resumption in
specie, by the association which issues them, on demand, and if
not so paid will be redeemable at the Treasury of the United States
from the proceeds of the bonds pledged in security." The secretary
thought it would be "difficult to conceive of a note circulation
which will combine higher local and general credit than this.
After a few years no other circulation would be used, nor could
the issues of the national circulation be easily increased beyond
the legitimate demands of business. Every dollar of circulation
would represent real capital actually invested in national stocks,
and the total amount issued could at all times be easily and quickly
ascertained from the books of the Treasury."
SENATE DISCUSSES THE BANKING SYSTEM.
The bill to carry out these suggestions was introduced in the Senate
on the 26th of January, 1863, by Mr. Sherman, and was reported from
the Finance Committee on the 2d of February. On the 9th the Senate
took it up for consideration. Mr. Sherman advocated the proposed
system in an elaborate argument on several distinct grounds: "The
banks would furnish a market for United-States bonds; they would
absorb the circulation of the State banks gradually and without
harsh measures; they would create a community of interest between
the stockholders of the banks, the people, and the government,
where now there existed a great contrariety of opinion and a great
diversity of interests; adequate safeguards would be established
against counterfeiting; the currency proposed would be uniform and
would take the place of the notes of sixteen hundred banks, differing
in style, and so easily imitated and altered that while notes of
one-sixth of the existing banks had been counterfeited, 1,861 kinds
of imitations were afloat, and 3,039 alterations, in addition to
1,685 spurious notes, in which hardly any care had been taken to
show any resemblance to the genuine." The national banks would be
depositories of public moneys and their notes would be receivable
for taxes. He concluded by declaring that "we cannot maintain our
nationality unless we establish a sound and stable financial system,
and as the basis of it we must have a uniform national currency."
Accordingly he deemed the passage of the pending bill "more important
than any other measure now pending either in Senate or House."
--Mr. Henderson of Missouri sought to limit the system to banks
with a capital not less then $300,000, and thought "it would be
infinitely better that all the banks should be established in New
York, Philadelphia, Boston, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and such cities
as those." He said "they had had some experience in the West with
banking laws which permitted the organization of banks in out-of-
the-way places, obscure villages, and unknown cross-roads."
--Mr. Powell of Kentucky, who was most persistent in his advocacy
of a currency based on gold and silver coin, moved to "strike from
the bill the words which prevented the acceptance of the National
bank notes for duties on imports." These duties were payable in
coin in order to secure gold with which to pay the interest on the
public debt. In supporting his amendment, Senator Powell said that
if the bill became a law the fact that they could not be received
for customs would tend to depreciate the notes, and he wanted the
credit of the paper money kept up if the country was to have no
other. His motion was defeated.
--Mr. Ira Harris of New York secured the adoption of three sections,
to be added at the end of the bill, which would enable State banks
to accept its provisions and become National institutions more
readily and more easily. He said that he was not opposed to a fair
trial of the new system, but he doubted very much whether the banks
of New York could be induced to abandon their State charters. "The
banking system of New York was the best in the world. The banks
enjoyed privileges which they could not be induced to surrender
and the people would be reluctant to trust any others."
--Mr. John Carlile of West Virginia voted against all amendment
because he wanted the bill to kill itself, which would happen if
it were not improved. He voted against Senator Henderson's amendment
to limit charters to banks with $300,000 capital. If the bill
passed as it came from the Finance Committee there "will be banks
established at every cross-road in the country. The State banks
will be destroyed, and widows and orphans whose all is invested in
the stock of these institutions will be impoverished."
--Mr. Clark of New Hampshire thought the proposed system might be
improved by providing "that there shall be a visitation on the part
of the States." He thought it would give confidence to the banks
if the States "had the right to know how they stood."
--Mr. Pomeroy of Kansas thought the right to organize with a capital
as low as $50,000 was a good provision and would "tend to popularize
and extend the National banks throughout the country."
SENATE DISCUSSES THE BANKING SYSTEM.
--Mr. Howard of Michigan opposed the bill because he thought its
effect would be to "wage a very unnecessary and dangerous war upon
the State institutions," and also because he deplored "the contest
which will probably arise out of it in our local politics."
--Mr. Garrett Davis, avowing himself an advocate of the old United-
States Bank which President Jackson destroyed, was opposed to the
pending bill because "it does not provide for the convertibility
of its paper into coin." The "system is based on government bonds,
and they sold in New York yesterday at a discount of fifty-three
percent."
--Mr. Chandler of Michigan corrected Mr. Davis. "Gold sold at
fifty-three per cent. premium, but that did not mean a discount of
fifty-three per cent. on the bonds."
--Mr. Wilson of Massachusetts pertinently asked Mr. Davis "if the
credit of the government is not good enough, where is there left
in the country any thing good enough to bank on? If the government
goes down, there is not a considerable bank in America that does
not go down with it."
--Mr. Doolittle of Wisconsin regarded it as "a necessity that the
government should take control of the paper currency of the country.
In some way we must restrain the issues of State banks. If we
permit these banks to flood the channels of circulation, we destroy
ourselves."
--Mr. Collamer of Vermont denied the right to tax the State banks
out of existence, and to establish corporations in the State and
Territories. Independently of the power of visitation by those
States and Territories, he objected to making the government
responsible for the ultimate redemption of the bills by the securities
deposited. He inquired in what respect the promises of the National
banks would be better than the notes of the government, and why
should they be substituted for them?
--Mr. Chandler of Michigan claimed that when the whole system was
in operation the government would borrow $300,000,000 at four per
cent. per annum, because, while the bonds deposited with the banks
would draw six per cent., the tax would bring back two per cent.
He did not know how far the bill would go, but "all that is in it
is good."
The bill came to a vote in the Senate on the 12th of February, and
narrowly escaped defeat. The yeas were twenty-three, the nays
twenty-one. The senators from Oregon, Nesmith and Harding, were
the only Democrats who voted in the affirmative. Nine Republican
senators voted against it.
The House of Representatives received the bill on the 19th. Mr.
Spaulding of New York advocated it very earnestly. He stated that
its principle was based on the free banking law of New York, which
had been in successful operation since 1838. He dwelt upon the
national character of the proposed notes, on their use in payment
of taxes, and on the advantage to accrue from the exemption of the
banking associations from State and United-States taxation.
--Mr. Fenton of New York expressed the belief that the measure
would aid in extricating the government from the financial difficulties
in which it was involved, and pronounced it "one of the most potent
means by which the representatives could strengthen the government
and the people in the struggle to put down the enemies of the
country, and give hope and courage to the hearts of those brave
men who have gone forth to battle." Considerable opposition was
offered, chiefly on details and by amendments. But the House
sustained the measure as it came from the Senate, and passed it on
the 20th of February, by the close vote of 78 to 64, on the call
of the ayes and noes. It was approved by the President on the 25th.
The Currency Bureau of the Treasury Department provided for in the
National Banking Act was organized by the appointment of Hugh
McCulloch, who was then at the head of one of the largest State
banking institutions in Indiana. He was recognized as possessing
executive capacity and large experience in financial affairs. He
had originally been opposed, as were many others interested in
State banks, to the National Banking Act, but, as he says, the more
he examined "the system" the more it "grew into favor with him day
by day." This appears to have been the result with all who gave
the question a fair and candid consideration, even when biased by
personal interests or political prejudice. The law was defective
in many particulars and some of its provisions made it difficult
for existing State banks to accept charters under it. The first
annual report of the comptroller of the currency shows that by Nov.
28, 1863, 134 banks had been organized under the Act. Fourteen of
these were in the New-England States, sixteen in New York, twenty
in Pennsylvania, twenty in Indiana, thirty-eight in Ohio; New
Jersey, the District of Columbia, and Kentucky each had one; Illinois
seven, Iowa six, Michigan and Wisconsin four each, and Missouri
two. Their total capital was $7,184,715. The bonds deposited with
the Treasurer of the United States were $3,925,275, their deposits
$7,467,059, and their loans and discounts $5,413,963.
THE AMENDED BANK BILL OF 1864.
In his report Mr. McCulloch pointed out defects of the law which
had become apparent by the test of experience, and made many
suggestions for its improvement. The whole subject was taken into
consideration by the Ways and Means Committee of the House at the
first session of the Thirty-eighth Congress. An amended bill,
which repealed the Act of February 25, 1863, and supplied its place,
was reported from the committee March 14, 1864. It was carefully
considered in the committee of the whole, section by section, and
against the protest of its advocates an amendment was ingrafted
upon it giving to the States the right to impose taxes on the bank
shares for State and municipal purposes to the same degree that
taxes were imposed upon the property of other moneyed corporations.
This bill was reported to the House from the committee of the whole
on the 16th of April, when Mr. Stevens moved a substitute in which
the tax amendment was left out. The substitute was defeated, and
thereupon the immediate friends of the bill united with the opposition
and laid the whole subject on the table. Mr. Stevens was totally
opposed to the exercise of any power whatever by the States over
banks established by National authority.
In the height of the war excitement, when men's minds were inflamed
by a just resentment toward the Southern theory of States' rights,
there was a tendency to go to extremes in the other direction.
Some of the Republican leaders, notably Mr. Stevens, were very
radical in their views in this respect, and would scarcely have
hesitated at the abolition of all the checks upon Federal power
which the Constitution wisely gives to the States. But apart from
considerations of this character it was believed by many of the
friends of the national banking system that the imposition of State
taxes, in addition to those to be imposed by the General Government,
would defeat the object of the bill. Others in their anxiety to
strengthen the National Government were anxious to reserve to it
exclusively the largest possible scope of taxation. It soon became
apparent however that some concession must be made to those of both
political parties who believed that the States could not constitutionally
be deprived of the right to levy uniform taxes on property within
their jurisdiction. To meet the views of these gentlemen the Ways
and Means Committee reported a bill with a provision intended to
reconcile all differences of opinion. This gave to the State the
power to tax the capital stock, circulation, dividends, or business
of national banks at no higher rate than was imposed upon the same
amount of moneyed capital in the hands of individual citizens of
the State, provided no tax was imposed upon that part of the capital
invested in United-States bonds. This was adopted by a vote of 70
to 60 on the 18th of April, 1864.
The opposition to the bill in all other respects save this question
of taxation was confined mainly to the Democratic members of the
House. The measure was by this time regarded favorably by all
Republicans. It was considered to be a part of the Administration
policy, and one that would contribute largely to strengthen the
government in its struggle. Its success thus far had demonstrated
that under a perfected law it would soon become the general and
popular banking system of the country. It was daily growing in
favor with business men, and there was no longer doubt that a large
proportion of the surplus capital of the nation would be invested
in United-States bonds and in the stock of National banks. In the
debate in the House which was prolonged, two speeches of particular
interest were elicited. Mr. James Brooks of New York, as the leader
of the Democratic minority on the question, ably summarized the
objections of his party. He was a man of education and great
intelligence. He had traveled extensively and was a close observer.
He had been a writer for the metropolitan press for many years,
and was familiar with the political and financial history of the
country from an early period. He was an effective speaker. On
the occasion he was in large part supplied with facts by Mr. James
Gallatin, who as president of one of the principal banks of New-
York City had unsuccessfully attempted to dictate the financial
policy of the government in 1861. Mr. Gallatin had conceived an
intense hostility to Mr. Chase, and inspired Mr. Brooks to make in
the course of the debate on the bank bill some unfounded charges
against the Secretary. The speech of Mr. Brooks was a general
attack upon the financial policy of the administration directed
principally against the Legal-tender Act, and at the same time a
qualified defense of the State bank system. He asserted that the
government could have successfully carried on the war upon a specie
basis, but his authority for this claim was Mr. Gallatin. Mr.
Samuel Hooper at the close of the debate defended the financial
policy of the Administration and disposed of the argument of Mr.
Brooks. He asserted that Mr. Gallatin had induced the banks of
New-York City on December 30, 1861, to suspend specie payments,
and briefly related his presumptuous attempt to dictate to the
Secretary of the Treasury the financial policy of the Nation. He
declared that the issue of legal-tender notes was the only resource
left to the government, and "was wise as well as necessary." In
his review of the financial history of the country he dealt
unsparingly with the old State-bank system, and exposed in a masterly
manner its inherent defects even in those States where the greatest
care had been exercised by the Legislative power to hedge it about
with limitations.
THE AMENDED BANK BILL OF 1864.
In the Senate the debate on the House bill was chiefly confined to
amendments proposed by the Finance Committee. The provision
incorporated by the House in regard to taxation was amplified so
as to make it more specific and definite. Considerable opposition
was shown to this action, but Mr. Fessenden, chairman of Finance,
defended the recommendation of his committee and successfully
replied to the arguments against it. An efforts was made by Senators
Doolittle, Henderson, and Trumbull on the Republican side to prevent
the establishment of any more banks under this law than were in
existence in May, 1864, unless they redeemed their notes in coin.
The banks then organized, possessed an aggregate capital of about
$36,000,000, with bonds deposited to secure circulation to the
extent of a little more than $33,000,000. The argument was that
this addition to the legal-tender notes already in circulation
supplied an ample currency for the business of the country. The
issue of the whole $300,000,000 of National bank notes authorized
by the bill, these senators claimed, would be such an expansion of
the currency as would sink its value to almost nothing. They
proposed also to compel the State banks to retire their circulation,
but permitted them to organize on the specie basis as National
banks. Mr. John P. Hale of New Hampshire thought that "it would
be much simpler to incorporate in the bill a provision abolishing
all such instruments as had previously been known as State
constitutions." Senator Collamer proposed to require the banks to
retain in their vaults one-fourth of all the gold they received as
interest on their bonds deposited to secure circulation until the
resumption of specie payments.
These amendments were voted down, and the bill finally passed the
Senate on the 10th of May by a vote of 30 to 9, ten senators being
absent or not voting. A conference committee of the two Houses
agreed upon the points of difference. The report was adopted and
the bill was approved by the President on the 3d of June, 1864.
By the end of November 584 National banks had been organized, with
an aggregate capital of $108,964,597.28, holding $81,961,450 of
the bonds of the United States to secure a circulation of $65,864,650.
These banks at once became agencies for the sale of the government's
securities, and their officers being usually the men of most
experience in financial affairs in their respective communities,
gave encouragement and confidence to their neighbors who had money
to invest. The sale of government bonds was in this way largely
increased. The National banks thus became at once an effective
aid to the government. By the close of the fiscal year 1864
$367,602,529 of bonds were disposed of by the banks. During the
fiscal year 1865 bonds to the amount of $335,266,617 were sold over
their counters. On the 1st of October, 1865, there were in existence
1,513 National banks, with an aggregate capital of $395,729,597.83,
with $276,219,950 of bonds deposited with the Treasurer of the
United States to secure circulation.
Experience has justified the authors and promoters of the national
banking system. Originally the circulation was limited to a total
volume of $300,000,000, apportioned, one-half according to
representative population, and the remainder by the Secretary of
the Treasury among associations with "due regard to the existing
banking capital, resources, and business of the respective States,
Districts, and Territories." Complaint arose that by such limitation
and apportionment injustice was done and monopolies created. After
the war this restriction was removed and banking under the national
system became entirely free. The advantages of uniform circulation
on a basis of undoubted strength and availability have won almost
universal favor among business men and prudent thinkers. The
restoration of the multiform State system, with notes of varying
value and banks of doubtful solvency, would receive no support
among the people.
The National bank system with all its merits has not escaped serious
opposition. The Bank of the United States, as twice established,
incurred the hostility of the Democratic party,--their two greatest
leaders, Jefferson and Jackson, regarding the creation of such an
institution as not warranted by the Constitution. A persistent
attempt has been made by certain partisans to persuade the people
that the national banks of to-day are as objectionable as those
which encountered serious hostility at earlier periods in our
history. An examination into the constitution of the banks formerly
organized by direct authority of the General Government will show
how wide is the difference between them and the present system of
national banks. It will show that the feature of the earlier banks
which evoked such serious opposition and ultimately destroyed them
is not to be found in the present system and could not be incorporated
in it. It was from the first inapplicable and practically
impossible.
THE BANK OF NORTH AMERICA.
The most important financial institution established in the United
States before the adoption of the Constitution was the Bank of
North America, still doing business in Philadelphia, with unbroken
career through all the mutations of the eventful century which has
passed since it was called into existence. It had its origin in
1780, when certain patriotic citizens of Philadelphia resolved to
"open a security subscription of three hundred thousand pounds _in
real money_," the object being to procure supplies for the army,
"then on the point of mutiny for lack of the common necessaries of
life." The enterprising men who had the matter in hand addressed
themselves to the task of providing three million rations and three
hundred hogsheads of rum for the famished troops. The Continental
Congress recognized their patriotic conduct and pledged "the faith
of the government for the effectual reimbursement of the amount
advanced." It fell to Robert Morris, Superintendent of Finance
for the government, to organize the bank which owed its origin to
these circumstances. While engaged in this arduous task he received
two letters of advice from an anonymous source, ably written, and
displaying considerable knowledge of the science of banking, then
almost unknown in America. Indeed the methods of banking--it might
be proper to say its secrets--were jealously guarded by the
capitalists who monopolized it in the financial centres of Europe.
Mr. Morris was struck by the ability and originality of his unknown
correspondent, and was amazed to find that Alexander Hamilton, then
but twenty-three years of age, was the author of the letters. It
was the first exhibition of that mastery of finance which gave Mr.
Hamilton his enduring fame.
When Mr. Hamilton assumed control of the Treasury Department under
the Presidency of Washington he found that the Bank of North America
had accepted a State charter from Pennsylvania and was not therefore
in a position to fulfil the functions of a National bank which he
desired to establish as an aid to the financial operations of the
government. After his funding of the Revolutionary debt he applied
to Congress for the charter of a National bank, with a capital of
$10,000,000, twenty-five per cent. of which must be paid in coin
and the remainder in the bonds of the United States. The government
was to own $2,000,000 of the stock of the bank and was obviously
to become its largest borrower. The measure encountered the
determined opposition of the Secretary of State, Jefferson, and
the Attorney-General, Edmund Randolph, and it finally became an
almost distinctly sectional issue--the Northern members of Congress
with few exceptions sustaining it; the Southern members under the
lead of Mr. Madison almost wholly opposing it. It became a law on
the 25th of February, 1791.
When the charter of the bank--which was granted for twenty years--
expired in 1811 the administration of Mr. Madison favored its
renewal. The eminent financier, Albert Gallatin, then Secretary
of the Treasury, informed Congress that the bank had been "wisely
and skillfully managed." The hostility to it originated in political
considerations. It was regarded as an aristocratic institution,
was violently opposed by the State banks which by this time had
become numerous, and notwithstanding the change of Mr. Madison in
its favor, the bill to re-charter was defeated. The contest however
was severe. In the House the opponents of the bill had but one
majority, and there being a tie in the Senate the re-charter was
defeated by the casting vote of George Clinton the Vice-President.
By this course Congress gave to the State banks a monopoly of the
circulating medium. The war of 1812 followed, and in the sweep of
its disastrous influence a large majority of these banks were
destroyed, their notes never redeemed, and great distress consequently
inflicted upon the people.
It was this result which disposed Congress, as soon as the war was
over, to establish for the second time a Bank of the United States.
The charter was drawn by Alexander J. Dallas who had succeeded Mr.
Gallatin at the Treasury. In the main it followed the provisions
of the first bank, but owing to the growth of the country the
capital stock was enlarged to twenty-five millions, of which the
government subscribed for one-fifth, payable wholly in its own
bonds. Individual subscribers were required to pay one-fourth in
coin and three-fourths in government bonds. The charter was again
limited to twenty years. It was this bank which encountered the
bitter opposition of President Jackson, and which was seriously
injured by his order to the Secretary of the Treasury, Roger B.
Taney, in 1834, to withhold the deposit of government funds from
its vaults. The act of President Jackson is usually referred to
as "a removal of the deposits." This is incorrect. The government
deposits were not removed from the United-States Bank, except in
the ordinary course of business for the needs of the Treasury.
But the order of the President prevented further deposits of
government money being made, and thus destroyed one of the principal
resources upon which the bank had been organized. A short time
before the charter of the United-States Bank expired, a State
charter was obtained from the Legislature of Pennsylvania, under
which the bank continued business until 1841, when its affairs were
wound up with heavy loss to the stockholders.
THE UNITED-STATES BANKS,--1791-1816.
These brief outlines of the charters of the United-States banks of
1791 and 1816 show how entirely dissimilar they were in many
essentials from the system of national banks established under the
Acts of 1863 and 1864. In the first the government was a large
stockholder and the officers of the Treasury practically directed
all the operations and all the details of the bank. In the system
now prevailing the government cannot be a stockholder, and takes
no part in the management of banks except to see that the laws are
complied with and that the safeguards for the public are rigidly
maintained. An especially odious feature in the United-States Bank
was the favoritism shown in its loans, by which it constantly tended
to debauch the public service. Political friends of the institution
were too often accommodated on easy terms, and legitimate banking
was thus rendered impossible. No such abuse is practicable under
the present system. Indeed there is such an entire absence of it
that the opponents of the National banks have not even brought the
accusation.
There was special care taken to place the Currency Bureau entirely
beyond partisan influence. The misfortunes which had come upon
the United-States Bank from its connection with party interests
were fully appreciated by the wise legislators who drafted the
National Bank Act. They determined to guard against the recurrence
of the calamities which destroyed the former system. The original
Act of 1863, organizing the National system, provided that the
Comptroller of the Currency should be appointed by the President
upon the nomination of the Secretary of the Treasury, and, unlike
any other Federal officer at that time, his term was fixed at five
years. This period of service was established in order that it
should not come to an end with the Presidential term. It was also
specifically provided, long in advance of the tenure-of-office Act,
that the President could not remove the Comptroller unless with
the advice and consent of the Senate. The Comptroller was thus
excepted by statute from that long list of officers who were for
many years subjected to change upon the incoming of each Administration.
From the organization of the National Banking system to this time
(1884) there have been four Comptrollers,--three of whom voluntarily
resigned. The present incumbent of the office, Mr. John Jay Knox,
has discharged his important duties with great satisfaction for
twelve years, and with his predecessors has conclusively established
in practice the non-partisan character which is indispensable to
the successful administration of the Bureau.
The division and distribution of bank capital under the National
system do not merely carry its advantages to every community, but
they afford the most complete guaranty against every abuse which
may spring from a large aggregation of capital. The Bank of the
United States in 1816 had a capital of thirty-five millions of
dollars. If a similar institution were established to-day, bearing
a like proportion to the wealth of the country, it would require
a capital of at least six hundred millions of dollars--many fold
larger than the combined wealth of the Bank of England and the Bank
of France. It is hardly conceivable that such a power as this
could ever be intrusted to the management of a Secretary of the
Treasury or to a single board of directors, with the temptations
which would beset them. It is the contemplation of such an enormous
power placed in the hands of any body of men that gives a more
correct appreciation of the conduct and motives of General Jackson
in his determined contest with the United-States Bank. His instincts
were correct. He saw that such an institution increasing with the
growth of the country would surely lead to corruption, and by its
unlimited power would interfere with the independence of Congress
and with the just liberty of the people.
MERITS OF NATIONAL BANK SYSTEM.
The single feature of resemblance between the Bank of the United
States and the system of National banks is found in the fact that
Government bonds constitute the foundation of each. But the use
to which the bonds are devoted in the new system in entirely
different from that of the old. The United-States Bank retained
its bonds in its own vaults, liable to all the defalcation and
mismanagement which might affect the other assets. In the present
system the National Bank deposits its bonds with the Treasury
Department, where they are held as special security for the redemption
of the bills which the bank puts in circulation. The United-States
Bank circulated its bills according to its own discretion, and
there was no assurance to the holder against an over-issue and no
certainty of ultimate redemption. The National Bank can issue no
bills except those furnished by the Treasury Department in exchange
for the bonds deposited to secure prompt redemption. In the former
case there was no protection to the people who trusted the bank by
taking its bills. In the case of the National Bank, the government
holds the security in its own hands and protects the public from
the possibility of loss.
The one defective element in the National bank system is that it
requires the permanence of National debt as the basis of its
existence. In a Republican government the people naturally oppose
a perpetual debt, and could with difficulty be persuaded to consent
to it for any incidental purpose however desirable. But so long
as a National debt exists no use has been found for it more conducive
to the general prosperity than making it the basis of a banking
system in which flexibility and safety are combined to a degree
never before enjoyed in this country and never excelled in any
other. In no other system of banking have the bills had such wide
circulation and such absolute credit. They are not limited to the
United States. They are current in almost every part of the American
continent, and are readily exchangeable for coin in all the marts
of Europe.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Depression among the People in 1863.--Military Situation.--Hostility
to the Administration.--Determination to break it down.--Vallandigham's
Disloyal Speech.--Two Rebellions threatened.--General Burnside
takes Command of the Department of the Ohio.--Arrests Vallandigham.
--Tries him by Military Commission.--His Sentence commuted by Mr.
Lincoln.--Habeas Corpus refused.--Democratic Party protests.--
Meeting in Albany.--Letter of Governor Seymour.--Ohio Democrats
send a Committee to Washington.--Mr. Lincoln's Replies to Albany
Meeting and to the Ohio Committee.--Effect of his Words upon the
Country.--Army of the Potomac.--General Hooker's Defeat at
Chancellorsville.--Gloom in the Country.--The President's Letters
to General Hooker.--General Meade succeeds Hooker in Command of
the Army.--Battle of Gettysburg.--Important Victory for the Union.
--Relief to the Country.--General Grant's Victory at Vicksburg.--
Fourth of July.--Notable Coincidence.--State Elections favorable
to the Administration.--Meeting of Thirty-eighth Congress.--Schuyler
Colfax elected Speaker.--Prominent New Members in Each Branch.--E.
D. Morgan, Alexander Ramsey, John Conness, Reverdy Johnson, Thomas
A. Hendricks, Henry Winter Davis, Robert C. Schenck, James A.
Garfield, William B. Allison.--President's Message.--Thirteenth
Amendment to the Constitution.--First proposed by James M. Ashley.
--John B. Henderson proposes Amendment which passes the Senate.--
Debate in Both Branches.--Aid to the Pacific Railroads.--Lieutenant-
General Grant.
At no time during the war was the depression among the people of
the North so great as in the spring of 1863. When the Thirty-
seventh Congress came to its close on the 3d of March, partisan
feeling was so bitter that a contest of most dangerous character
was foreshadowed in the Loyal States. The anti-slavery policy of
the President was to be attacked as tending to a fatal division
among the people; the conduct of the war was to be arraigned as
impotent, and leading only to disaster. Circumstances favored an
assault upon the Administration. The project of freeing the slaves
had encountered many bitter prejudices among the masses in the
Loyal States, and reverses in the field had created a dread of
impending conscriptions which would send additional thousands to
be wasted in fruitless assaults upon impregnable fortifications.
General Hooker had succeeded to the command of the Army of the
Potomac, still sore under the cruel sacrifice of its brave men in
the previous December. General Grant was besieging Vicksburg,
which had been fortified with all the strength that military science
could impart, and was defended by a very strong force under the
command of J. C. Pemberton, a graduate of West Point, and a lieutenant-
general in the Confederate army.
CRUSADE AGAINST THE PRESIDENT.
The opponents of the Administration intended to press the attack,
to destroy the prestige of Mr. Lincoln, to bring hostilities in
the field to an end, to force a compromise which should give
humiliating guaranties for the protection of Slavery, to bring the
South back in triumph, and to re-instate the Democratic party in
the Presidential election of the ensuing year for a long and peaceful
rule over a Union in which radicalism had been stamped out and
Abolitionists placed under the ban. Such was the flattering prospect
which opened to the view of the party that had so determinedly
resisted and so completely defeated the Administration in the great
States of the Union the preceding year. The new crusade against
the President was begun by Mr. Vallandigham, who if not the ablest
was the frankest and boldest member of his party. He took the
stump soon after the adjournment of the Thirty-seventh Congress.
It was an unusual time of the year to begin a political contest;
but the ends sought were extraordinary, and the means adopted might
well be of the same character. On the first day of May Mr.
Vallandigham made a peculiarly offensive, mischievous, disloyal
speech at Mount Vernon, Ohio, which was published throughout the
State and widely copied elsewhere. It was perfectly apparent that
the bold agitator was to have many followers and imitators, and
that in the rapidly developing sentiment which he represented, the
Administration would have as bitter an enemy in the rear as it was
encountering at the front. The case was therefore critical. Mr.
Lincoln saw plainly that the Administration was not equal to the
task of subduing two rebellions. While confronting the power of
a solid South he must continue to wield the power of a solid North.
After General Burnside had been relieved from the command of the
Army of the Potomac he was sent to command the Department of Ohio.
He established his headquarters at Cincinnati in April (1863). He
undoubtedly had confidential instructions in regard to the mode of
dealing with the rising tide of disloyalty which, beginning in
Ohio, was sweeping over the West. The Mount-Vernon speech of Mr.
Vallandigham would inevitably lead to similar demonstrations
elsewhere, and General Burnside determined to deal with its author.
On Monday evening the 4th of May he sent a detachment of soldiers
to Mr. Vallandigham's residence in Dayton, arrested him, carried
him to Cincinnati, and tried him by a military commission of which
a distinguished officer, General Robert B. Potter, was president.
Mr. Vallandigham resisted the whole proceeding as a violation of
his rights as a citizen of the United States, and entered a protest
declaring that he was arrested without due process of law and
without warrant from any judicial officer, that he was not in either
the land or naval forces of the United States nor in the militia
in actual service, and therefore was not triable by a court-martial
or military commission, but was subject only, by the express terms
of the Constitution, to be tried on an indictment or presentment
of a grand jury. Of the offense charged against him there was no
doubt, and scarcely a denial; and the commission, brushing aside
his pleas, convicted him, and sentenced him to be placed in close
confinement, during the continuance of the war, in some fortress
of the United States--the fortress to be designated by the commanding
officer of the department. General Burnside approved the proceeding,
and designated Fort Warren in the harbor of Boston as the place of
Mr. Vallandigham's detention.
THE ARREST OF VALLANDIGHAM.
The President, with that sagacity which was intuitive and unfailing
in all matters of moment, disapproved the sentence, and commuted
it to one sending Mr. Vallandigham beyond our military lines to
his friends of the Southern Confederacy. The estimable and venerable
Judge Leavett of the United-States District Court was applied to
for a writ of _habeas corpus_, but he refused to issue it. The
judge declared that the power of the President undoubtedly implies
the right to arrest persons who by their mischievous acts of
disloyalty impede or hinder the military operations of the government.
The Democratic party throughout the Union took up the case with
intemperate and ill-tempered zeal. Meetings were held in various
places to denounce it, and to demand the right of Vallandigham to
return from the rebel lines within which he had been sent. Governor
Seymour of New York in a public letter denounced the arrest as "an
act which had brought dishonor upon our country, and is full of
danger to our persons and our homes. If this proceeding is approved
by the government and sanctioned by the people it is not merely a
step towards revolution, it is revolution; it will not only lead
to military despotism, it establishes military despotism. In this
respect it must be accepted, or in this respect it must be rejected.
If it is upheld our liberties are overthrown." Waxing still bolder
Governor Seymour said "the people of this country now wait with
the deepest anxiety the decision of the Administration upon these
acts. Having given it a generous support in the conduct of the
war, we now pause to see what kind of government it is for which
we are asked to pour out our blood and our treasure. The action
of the Administration will determine, in the minds of more than
one-half of the people of the Loyal States, whether this war is
waged to put down rebellion in the South or to destroy free
institutions at the North."
The evil effect upon the public opinion of the North of such language
from a man of Governor Seymour's high personal character and
commanding influence with his party can hardly be exaggerated. It
came at a time when the Administration was sorely pressed and when
it could not stand an exasperating division in the North. The
governor's letter was publicly read at a large meeting of the
Democratic party in Albany, presided over by Erastus Corning, and
called to consider the act of the Administration. A long series
of resolutions denouncing Vallandigham's arrest were adopted and
forwarded to the President. But Mr. Lincoln rose to the occasion
as if inspired, and his letter of June 12 to the Albany Committee
turned the popular tide powerfully in favor of the Administration.
One of the points presented made a deep impression upon the
understanding and profoundly stirred the hearts of the people.
"Mr. Vallandigham was not arrested," said the President, "because
he was damaging the political prospects of the Administration or
the personal interests of the commanding general, but because he
was damaging the army, upon the existence and vigor of which the
life of this Nation depends. . . . If Mr. Vallandigham was not
damaging the military power of the country, then his arrest was
made on mistake of facts, which I would be glad to correct on
reasonable, satisfactory evidence. I understand the meeting whose
resolutions I am considering, to be in favor of suppressing the
Rebellion by military force--by armies. Long experience has shown
that armies cannot be maintained unless desertion shall be punished
by the severe penalty of death. The case requires, and the law
and the Constitution sanction, this punishment. Must I shoot a
simple-minded soldier-boy who deserts, while I must not touch a
hair of the wily agitator who induces him to desert? This is none
the less injurious when effected by getting father or brother or
friend into a public meeting, and there working upon his feelings
until he is persuaded to write the soldier-boy that he is fighting
in a bad cause, for a wicked Administration of a contemptible
government, too weak to arrest and punish him if he shall desert.
I think that in such a case to silence the agitator and to save
the boy is not only constitutional, but is withal a great mercy."
No other man in our history has so fully possessed the power of
presenting an argument in concrete form, overthrowing all the logic
of assailants, and touching the chords of public feeling with a
tenderness which becomes an irresistible force.
The Democrats of Ohio took up the arrest of Vallandigham with
especial earnestness, and were guilty of the unspeakable folly of
nominating him as their candidate for governor. They appointed an
imposing committee--one from each Congressional district of the
State--to communicate with the President in regard to the sentence
of banishment. They arrived in Washington about the last of June,
and addressed a long communication to Mr. Lincoln, demanding the
release and return of Mr. Vallandigham. They argued the case with
ability. No less than eleven of the committee were or had been
members of Congress, with George H. Pendleton at their head. Mr.
Lincoln's reply under date of June 29 to their communication was
as felicitous, as conclusive, as his reply to the Albany Committee.
He expressed his willingness in answer to their request, to release
Mr. Vallandigham without asking pledge, promise, or retraction from
him, and with only one simple condition. That condition was that
"the gentlemen of the committee themselves, representing as they
do the character and power of the Ohio Democracy, will subscribe
to three propositions: _First_, That there is now a rebellion in
the United States, the object and tendency of which are to destroy
the National Union, and that in your opinion an army and navy are
constitutional means for suppressing that rebellion. _Second_,
That no one of you will do any thing which in his own judgment will
tend to hinder the increase or favor the decrease or lessen the
efficiency of the army and navy while engaged in the effort to
suppress that rebellion. And _Third_, That each of you will in
his sphere do all he can to have the officers, soldiers, and seamen
of the army and navy, while engaged in the effort to suppress the
Rebellion, paid, fed, clad, and otherwise well provided for and
supported."
Mr. Lincoln sent duplicates of these three conditions to the
committee, one of which was to be returned to him indorsed with
their names as evidence of their agreement thereto, the publication
of which indorsement should be of itself a revocation of the order
in relation to Mr. Vallandigham. If the Ohio gentlemen subscribed
to these conditions as essential and obligatory, they thereby
justified the arrest of Vallandigham for resisting each and every
one of them. If they would not subscribe to them they placed
themselves before the people of Ohio in an attitude of hostility
to the vigorous and successful conduct of the war, on which the
fate of the Union depended. The committee made a very lame rejoinder
to the President. He had in truth placed them in a dilemma, from
which they could not extricate themselves, and they naturally fell
under popular condemnation. Mr. Lincoln's hit had indeed been so
palpable that its victims were laughed at by the public, and their
party was foredoomed by their course to political annihilation in
the coming election.
THE BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE.
While these interesting events were in progress the military exigency
was engaging the attention of the people with an interest almost
painfully intense. There was an urgent demand for an early movement
by the Army of the Potomac. Mr. Lincoln realized that prompt
success was imperatively required. The repetition of the disasters
of 1862 might fatally affect our financial credit, and end with
the humiliation of an intervention by European Powers. General
Hooker was impressed by Mr. Lincoln with the absolute necessity of
an early and energetic movement of the Army of the Potomac. On
the 2d and 3d of May he fought the battle of Chancellorsville. He
had as large a force as the Union army mustered on a single battle-
field during the war,--not less perhaps than one hundred and twenty
thousand men. He made a lamentable failure. Without bringing more
than one-third of his troops into action he allowed himself to be
driven across the Rappahannock by Lee, who, on the 7th of May,
issued a highly congratulatory and boastful order detailing his
victory.
In the issuing of orders General Hooker was one day in advance of
Lee. He tendered to the soldiers his "congratulations on the
achievements of the past seven days," and assured them that "if
all has not been accomplished that was expected, the reasons are
well known to the army." He further declared that "in withdrawing
from the south bank of the Rappahannock before delivering a general
battle to our adversaries, the army has given renewed evidence of
its confidence in itself and its fidelity to the principles it
represents. Profoundly loyal and conscious of its strength," the
General continued, "the Army of the Potomac will give or decline
battle whenever its interest or its honor may demand." The General
thought "the events of the past week may swell with pride the heart
of every officer and soldier in the army. By your celerity and
secrecy of movement our advance was undisputed; and on our withdrawal,
not a rebel ventured to follow." The questionable character of
these compliments exposed General Hooker to ridicule, and increased
the public sense of his unfitness for high command, though he was
a gallant and brave soldier and admirably fitted for a division or
a corps. The Union loss was serious. The killed and wounded
exceeded eleven thousand. The year thus opened very inauspiciously.
The gloom of 1862 was not dispelled. The shadows had not lifted.
The weightiest anxiety oppressed both the government and the people.
The Confederacy had sustained a heavy loss in the death of Stonewall
Jackson. He had a genius for war, and in a purely military point
of view it would perhaps have been better for the Confederates to
lose the battle than to lose the most aggressive officer in their
Army.
The spirit of the Confederates rose high. They believed they would
be able to hold the line of the Mississippi against the army of
Grant, and in the defeat and demoralization of the army of the
Potomac they saw their way clear to an invasion of Pennsylvania,
for which General Lee began his preparations with leisure and
completed them with thoroughness. After General Hooker's failure
at Chancellorsville, and his remarkable order which followed it,
he evidently lost the confidence of the President. Some of the
hasty notes and telegrams sent to General Hooker after his defeat
are in Mr. Lincoln's most characteristic vein. June 5 the President
wrote, "If you find Lee coming to the north of the Rappahannock,
I would by no means cross to the south of it. . . . In one word,
I would not take any risk of being entangled up on the _river like
an ox jumped half over a fence, liable to be torn by dogs, front
and rear, without a fair chance to gore one way or kick the other_."
Later, on June 10, the President wrote, "Lee's Army and not Richmond
is your true objective point. If he comes towards the upper Potomac,
follow on his flank on the inside track, shortening your lines
while he lengthens his. Fight him when opportunity offers. If he
stays where he is _fret him and fret him_."* Lee was, by the date
of this note, well on his way towards the North, and the military
situation grew every hour more critical.
THE THREE DAYS' BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG.
The indispensable requisite to Union success was a commander for
the Army of the Potomac in whose competency the Administration,
the people, and most of all the soldiers would have confidence.
In the judgment of military men it was idle to intrust another
battle to the generalship of Hooker; and as the army moved across
Maryland to meet Lee on the soil of Pennsylvania, General Hooker
was relieved and the command of the army assigned to General George
G. Meade. This change of commanders was made by order of the
President on the 28th of June, only two days before the opening
engagement of the great battle of Gettysburg. By the middle of
June the advance guard of Lee's army had reached the upper Potomac,
and on its way had literally destroyed the division of the Union
army commanded by General Milroy and stationed at Winchester. The
agitation throughout the country was profound. On the 15th of June
as the magnitude of Lee's movement became more apparent, the
President issued a proclamation stating that "Maryland, West
Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio were threatened with invasion and
required an immediate addition to the military forces." He called
therefore for one hundred thousand militia from these four States
to serve for six months; ten thousand each from Maryland and West
Virginia, thirty thousand from Ohio, and fifty thousand from
Pennsylvania. All the surrounding States were aroused. Governor
Seymour sent fifteen thousand extra men from New York. Governor
Parker sent a valuable contingent from New Jersey. Western Maryland
was occupied at various points as early as the 20th of June, and
during the last week of that month rebel detachments were in the
southern counties of Pennsylvania committing depredations and
exacting tribute,--in York, Cumberland, Franklin, Fulton and Adams.
The two armies finally converged at Gettysburg, and on the 1st,
2d, and 3d of July the battle was fought which in many of its
aspects was the most critical and important of the war. The
Confederates began with the self-assurance of victory; and with
victory they confidently counted upon the occupation of Philadelphia
by Lee's army, upon the surrender of Baltimore, upon the flight of
the President and his Cabinet from Washington. It was within the
extravagant and poetic dreams of the expectant conquerors to proclaim
the success of the Confederacy from the steps of Independence Hall,
and to make a treaty with the fugitive Government of the United
States for half the territory of the Republic. But it was not so
fated. The army under Meade proved unconquerable. In conflicts
on Virginia soil the army of Lee had been victorious. Its invasion
of the North the preceding year had been checked by McClellan before
it reached the border of the free States. It was now fighting on
ground where the spirit which had nerved it in Virginia was
transferred to the soldiers of the Union. With men of the North
the struggle was now for home first, for conquest afterwards, and
the tenacity and courage with which they held their ground for
those three bloody days attest the magnificent impulse which the
defense of the fireside imparts to the heart and to the arm of the
soldier.
General Meade had not been widely known before the battle, but he
was at once elevated to the highest rank in the esteem and love of
the people. The tide of invasion had been rolled back after the
bloodiest and most stubbornly contested field of the war. The
numbers on each side differed but little from the numbers engaged
at Waterloo, and the tenacity with which the soldiers of the British
Isles stood that day against the hosts of Napoleon, was rivaled on
the field of Gettysburg by men of the same blood, fighting in the
ranks of both armies.
The relief which the victory brought to the North is indescribable.
On the morning of the Fourth of July a brief Executive order was
telegraphed from the Executive mansion to all the free States,
announcing the triumph, for which "the President especially desires
that on this day, He whose will, not ours, should ever be done, be
everywhere remembered and reverenced with the profoundest gratitude."
By one of those coincidences that have more than once happened in
our history, the Fourth of July of this year was made especially
memorable. Rejoicings over the result at Gettysburg had scarcely
begun when word came from General Grant that the Confederate forces
at Vicksburg had surrendered, and that at ten o'clock of the Fourth,
the very hour when Mr. Lincoln issued the bulletin proclaiming the
victory of Gettysburg, General Pemberton's forces marched out and
stacked arms in front of their works, prisoners of war to General
Grant. The city of Vicksburg was immediately occupied by the Union
troops, the first division of which was commanded by General John
A. Logan. Jackson, the Capital of Mississippi, defended by General
Joseph E. Johnston, capitulated a few days later to General Sherman,
and the Confederate forces at Port Hudson surrendered to the army
of General Banks. This was the last obstruction to the navigation
of the Mississippi, and the great river flowed unvexed to the sea.
The entire situation was changed by these important victories.
Heart and spirit were given to the people, hope grew into confidence,
the strength of the Government was vastly increased, the prestige
of the Administration was greatly heightened. Could the election
for the Thirty-eighth Congress have taken place in the autumn of
1863, and not in the autumn of 1862, instead of being a close
struggle it would have been an overwhelming triumph for the war
policy which had wrought out such splendid results. The popular
re-action was attested in every State where an election gave
opportunity. Governor Curtin was re-chosen by a large majority in
Pennsylvania over Judge George W. Woodward, who had pronounced a
judicial decision against the constitutionality of the proscription
law; the course of Governor Seymour was rebuked in New York by the
thirty thousand majority given to the Republican State ticket,
which was headed by the brilliant Chauncey M. Depew, then but twenty-
nine years of age; while in Ohio the Democratic party was overwhelmed
by an avalanche of popular indignation which responded to the
nomination of Vallandigham with a majority of a hundred and one
thousand for the Administration.
MEETING OF THIRTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.
The Thirty-eighth Congress met on the first Monday of December,
1863. The House was promptly organized by the election of Schuyler
Colfax to the Speakership. He received 101 votes; all other
candidates 81. Mr. Samuel S. Cox received 42 votes, the highest
given to any candidate of the opposition. The vote for Mr. Colfax
was the distinctive Republican strength in the House. On issues
directly relating to the war the Administration was stronger than
these figures indicate, being always able to command the support
of Mr. Stebbins, Mr. Odell, and Mr. Griswold of New York, and of
several members from the Border States.
Schuyler Colfax was especially fitted for the duties of the Chair.
He had been a member of the House for eight years, having been
chosen directly after the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. He
came from good Revolutionary stock in New Jersey, but had been
reared in the West; had learned the trade of a printer, and had
edited a successful journal at South Bend. He was a paragon of
industry, with keen, quick, bright intellect. He mingled freely
and creditably in the debates. With a wisdom in which many able
members seem deficient, he had given studious attention to the
Rules of the House, and was master of their complexities. Kindly
and cordial by nature it was easy for him to cultivate the art of
popularity, which he did with tact and constancy. He came to the
Chair with absolute good will from both sides of the House, and as
a presiding officer proved himself able, prompt, fair-minded, and
just in all his rulings.
The political re-action of 1862 had seriously affected the membership
of the House. Many of those most conspicuous and influential in
the preceding Congress had either been defeated or had prudently
declined a renomination. E. G. Spaulding, Charles B. Sedgwick,
Roscoe Conkling, and A. B. Olin did not return from New York; John
A. Bingham and Samuel Shellabarger were defeated in Ohio; Galusha
A. Grow was not re-elected in Pennsylvania, and lost in consequence
a second term as Speaker; Albert G. Porter and McKee Dunn gave way
to Democratic successors in Indiana. In the delegations of all
the large States radical changes were visible, and the narrow escape
of the Administration from total defeat in the preceding year was
demonstrated afresh by the roll-call of the House.
MEMBERS OF THIRTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.
But the loss of prominent members was counterbalanced by the
character and ability of some of the new accessions. Henry Winter
Davis took his seat as representative from one of the districts of
the city of Baltimore. He had been originally elected to the House
as a member of the American party in 1854, and had been re-elected
in 1856 and 1858. He had not co-operated with the Republican party
before the war, and had supported Mr. Bell for the Presidency in
1860. He was always opposed to the Democratic party, and was under
all circumstances a devoted friend of the Union, an arch-enemy of
the Secessionists. Born a Southern man, he spoke for the South,--
for its duty to the Federal Government, for its best and highest
destiny. To him before and above all other men is due the maintenance
of loyalty in Maryland. His course was censured by the Democratic
Legislature of his State in the winter preceding the Rebellion.
He replied through an address "to the voters of Maryland," which
for eloquence of expression, force, and conclusiveness of reasoning
is entitled to rank in the political classics of America as the
Address to the Electors of Bristol ranks in the political classics
of England. As a debater in the House Mr. Davis may well be cited
as an exemplar. He had no boastful reliance upon intuition or
inspiration or the spur of the moment, though no man excelled him
in extempore speech. He made elaborate preparation by the study
of all public questions, and spoke from a full mind with complete
command of premise and conclusion. In all that pertained to the
graces of oratory he was unrivaled. He died at forty-eight. Had
he been blessed with length of days, the friends who best knew his
ability and his ambition believed that he would have left the most
brilliant name in the Parliamentary annals of America.
Robert C. Schenck was an invaluable addition to the House. He had
been serving in the field since the outbreak of the war, but had
been induced to contest the return of Vallandigham to Congress.
His canvass was so able and spirited that though in other parts of
the State the Democrats captured eight Republican districts, he
defeated Vallandigham in a Democratic district. Mr. Schenck had
originally entered Congress in 1843 at thirty-four years of age,
and after a distinguished service of eight years was sent by
President Fillmore as Minister-Plenipotentiary to Brazil. After
his return he had taken no part in political affairs until now.
His re-appearance in Congress was therefore significant. He was
at once placed at the head of the Committee on Military Affairs,
then of superlative importance, and subsequently was made chairman
of Ways and Means, succeeding Mr. Stevens in the undoubted leadership
of the House. He was admirably fitted for the arduous and difficult
duty. His perceptions were keen, his analysis was extraordinarily
rapid, his power of expression remarkable. On his feet, as the
phrase went, he had no equal in the House. In the five-minute
discussion in Committee of the Whole he was an intellectual marvel.
The compactness and clearness of his statement, the facts and
arguments which he could marshal in that brief time, were a constant
surprise and delight to his hearers. No man in Congress during
the present generation has rivaled his singular power in this
respect. He was able in every form of discussion, but his peculiar
gift was in leading and controlling the Committee of the Whole.**
MEMBERS OF THIRTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.
Several new members entered the Thirty-eighth Congress who were
destined to long service and varying degrees of prominence. James
A. Garfield came from Ohio with a valuable reputation acquired in
the Legislature of his State and with a good military record,
established in the war and recognized by the conferment of a Major-
General's commission which he had won on the field. William B.
Allison, John A. Kasson and Hiram Price of Iowa, John A. J. Creswell
of Maryland, Glenni W. Scofield of Pennsylvania, all earned honorable
distinction in after years. George S. Boutwell entered from
Massachusetts at forty-five years of age. Twelve years before, as
a radical Democrat and Free-Soiler, he had been chosen governor of
his State. James G. Blaine entered from Maine at thirty-three
years of age. Among the new members on the Democratic side of the
House were Samuel J. Randall, with the reputation of conspicuous
service in the Pennsylvania Legislature, and William R. Morrison,
fresh from his duty in the field as colonel of an Illinois regiment,
and, though still young, old enough to have served with credit in
the Mexican war. Fernando Wood, who had been elected a member of
the House in 1840, and had served one term, now entered again.
Francis Kernan appeared in public life for the first time, having
defeated Roscoe Conkling in the Utica district. Charles A. Eldridge
of Wisconsin became one of the ablest parliamentarians of the House.
In the Senate some important changes were made. Governor Morgan
entered from New York as the successor of Preston King; Governor
Sprague came from Rhode Island, and Governor Ramsey from Minnesota.
These elections were all made in direct recognition of the valuable
service which these Republican War-Governors had rendered the
country. John Conness, a follower of Douglas, who had done much
for the cause of the Union on the Pacific coast, now bore the
credentials of California. B. Gratz Brown came from Missouri as
pledge of the radical regeneration of that State.
To the Democratic side of the chamber three able men were added.
Reverdy Johnson of Maryland succeeded to the seat made vacant the
preceding autumn by the death of James Alfred Pearce. Mr. Johnson
had long been eminent at the Bar of the Supreme Court. He was a
warm supporter of Mr. Clay, and was chosen to the Senate as a Whig
in 1845. He was attorney-general in the Cabinet of President
Taylor, and after the defeat of the Whigs in 1852 had co-operated
with the Democrats. He had stood firmly by the Union, and his re-
appearance in the Senate added largely to the ability and learning
of that body. Thomas A. Hendricks entered from Indiana as the
successor of Jesse D. Bright, who had been expelled upon a charge
of disloyalty. Mr. Hendricks had served in the House of Representatives
from 1851 to 1855. He was but thirty-one years of age when first
chosen and his record in the House had not prepared the public to
expect the strength and ability which he displayed as senator. He
was in the full maturity of his powers when he took his seat, and
he proved able, watchful, and acute in the discharge of his public
duties. He was always at his post, was well prepared on all
questions, debated with ability, and rapidly gained respect and
consideration in the Senate. Charles R. Buckalew of Pennsylvania
succeeded David Wilmot. Both he and Mr. Hendricks were fruits of
the violent re-action against the Administration the preceding
year. Mr. Buckalew came with high reputation, but did not gain so
prominent a position in the Senate as his friends had anticipated.
He did not seem ambitious, was not in firm health, and though his
ability was recognized, his service did not strengthen his party
either in the Senate or in his State. A Democrat from Pennsylvania
is somewhat out of harmony with the members of his party elsewhere,
on account of the advocacy of the Protective system to which he is
forced by the prevailing opinion among his constituents.
THE MESSAGE OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.
Congress assembled in December, 1863, in very different spirit from
that which prevailed either at the opening or at the adjournment
of the preceding session. The President in his annual message
recognized the great change for which "our renewed and profoundest
gratitude to God is due." Referring to the depressing period of
the year before, he said "The tone of public feeling at home and
abroad was not satisfactory. With other signs the popular elections
then just passed indicated uneasiness among ourselves, while amid
much that was cold and menacing, the kindest words coming from
Europe were uttered in accents of pity, that we were too blind to
surrender a hopeless cause. Our commerce was suffering greatly by
a few armed vessels built upon and furnished from foreign shores,
and we were threatened with such additions from the same quarter
as would sweep our trade from the sea and raise the blockade. We
had failed to elicit from European governments any thing hopeful
on this subject. . . .
"We are now permitted to take another view. The rebel borders are
pressed still further back, and by the complete opening of the
Mississippi the country, dominated by the Rebellion, is divided
into distinct parts with no practical communication between them.
Tennessee and Arkansas have been substantially cleared of insurgent
control, and influential citizens in each,--owners of slaves and
advocates of slavery at the beginning of the Rebellion,--now declare
openly for emancipation in their respective States. Of those States
not included in the Emancipation Proclamation, Maryland and Missouri,
neither of which three years ago would tolerate any restraint upon
the extension of slavery into new territories, only now dispute as
to the best mode of removing it within their own limits." The
President dwelt with much satisfaction upon the good behavior of
the slave population. "Full one hundred thousand of them are now
in the United-States military service, about one-half of which
number actually bear arms in the ranks, thus giving a double
advantage,--of taking so much labor from the insurgents' cause,
and supplying the places which otherwise might be filled with so
many white men. So far as tested it is difficult to say that they
are not as good soldiers as any. No servile insurrection or tendency
to cruelty has marked the measures of emancipation and the arming
of the blacks. . . . Thus we have a new reckoning. The crisis
which threatened to divide the friends of the Union is past."
The Thirty-seventh Congress was distinguished for its effective
legislation on all subjects relating to the finances and to the
recruitment of a great army. It was reserved to the Thirty-eighth
Congress to take steps for the final abolition of slavery by the
submission to the States of a Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
The course of events had prepared the public mind for the most
radical measures. In the short space of three years, by the
operation of war, under the dread of national destruction, a great
change had been wrought in the opinions of the people of the Loyal
States. When the war began not one-tenth of the citizens of those
States were in favor of immediate and unconditional emancipation.
It is very doubtful whether in September, 1862, the proclamation
of the President would have been sustained by the majority of the
Northern people. In every instance the measures of Congress were
in advance of public opinion, but not so far in advance as to invite
a calamity through re-action. The President was throughout more
conservative than Congress. He had surprised every one with the
Emancipation Proclamation, but he was so anxious for some arrangement
to be made for compensating the Border States for their loss of
slaves, that he did not at once recommend the utter destruction of
the institution by an amendment to the Fundamental Law of the
Republic. He left Congress to take the lead.
Mr. James M. Ashley of Ohio is entitled to the credit of having
made the first proposition to Congress to amend the Constitution
so as to prohibit slavery throughout the United States. During
the entire contest Mr. Ashley devoted himself with unswerving
fidelity and untiring zeal to the accomplishment of this object.
He submitted his proposition on the fourteenth day of December.
Mr. Holman of Indiana objected to the second reading of the bill,
but the speaker overruled the objection and the bill was referred
to the Committee on the Judiciary. Mr. Wilson of Iowa, chairman
of the Judiciary Committee, and Mr. Arnold of Illinois subsequently
introduced joint resolutions proposing a like amendment to the
Constitution. Mr. Holman moved to lay the resolution of Mr. Arnold
on the table. The motion failed by a vote of 79 nays to 58 ayes.
The vote thus disclosed was so far from the two-thirds necessary
to carry the constitutional amendment as to be discouraging to the
supporters of the measure.
AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION.
On the thirteenth day of January, 1864, Mr. Henderson of Missouri
introduced in the Senate a joint resolution proposing a complete
abolition of slavery by an amendment to the Constitution, and on
the tenth day of February Mr. Trumbull, chairman of the Judiciary
Committee, reported the proposition to the Senate in these words:
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except as a punishment
for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall
exist in the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
Mr. Garrett Davis of Kentucky proposed to amend the resolution so
as to exclude the descendants of negroes on the maternal side from
all places of office and trust under the government of the United
States. Mr. Davis betrayed by this motion his apprehension that
freedom to the negro would be followed by the enjoyment of civil
rights and the exercise of political power. Mr. Davis proposed at
the same time to amend the Constitution so as to consolidate New
England into two States to be called East New England and West New
England, the evident attempt being to avenge the overthrow of the
slave system by the degradation of that section of the country in
which the anti-slavery sentiment had originated and received its
chief support.
--It fell to Mr. Trumbull, as the senator who had reported the
resolution, to open the debate. He charged the war and all its
manifold horrors upon the system of slavery. He stated with
clearness the views of the opposition in regard to the legal effect
of the proclamation of emancipation, and with eloquent force of
logic he portrayed the necessity of universal freedom as the chief
means of ending not only the controversy on the battle-field, but
the controversy of opinion.--Mr. Willard Saulsbury of Delaware on
the 31st of March replied to Mr. Trumbull, and discussed the subject
of slavery historically, citing the authority of the old and the
new dispensations in its support.--Mr. Hendricks of Indiana objected
to a proposition to amend the Constitution while eleven States of
the Union were unable to take part in the proceedings. He wished
a constitution for Louisiana as well as for Indiana, for Florida
as well as for New Hampshire.--Mr. Clark of New Hampshire criticised
the Constitution, and traced the woes which the country was then
enduring to the recognition of slavery in that instrument. From
the twenty-eighth day of March until the eighth day of April, when
the final vote was taken, the attention of the Senate was given to
the debate, with only unimportant interruptions. Upon the passage
of the resolution, the yeas were 38, and the nays 6. The nays were
Messrs. Garrett Davis, Hendricks, McDougall, Powell, Riddle, and
Saulsbury. Upon the announcement of the vote, Mr. Saulsbury said,
"I bid farewell to all hope for the reconstruction of the American
Union."
When the joint resolution, passed by the Senate, was read in the
House, Mr. Holman objected to the second reading, and on the
question, "Shall the joint resolution be rejected?" the yeas were
55 and the nays 76, an even more discouraging vote than the first.
With 55 members opposed to the amendment, it would require 110 to
carry it, or 34 more than the roll-call had disclosed. The debate
was opened by Mr. Morris of New York who treated the abolition of
slavery as a necessary preliminary to the reconstruction of the
Union.
--Mr. Fernando Wood denounced the movement as "unjust in itself,
a breach of good faith utterly irreconcilable with expediency."
--Mr. Ebon C. Ingersoll of Illinois made a strong and eloquent
appeal for the passage of the amendment and the liberation of the
slave. With the accomplishment of that grand end, said he, "our
voices will ascend to Heaven over a country re-united, over a people
disinthralled, and God will bless us."
--Mr. Samuel J. Randall of Pennsylvania argued earnestly against
the amendment. He regarded it as the beginning of radical changes
in our Constitution, and the forerunner of usurpation. The policy
pursued was uniting the South and dividing the North.
--Mr. Arnold of Illinois said, "in view of the long catalogue of
wrongs which it has inflicted upon the country, I demand to-day
the death of African slavery."
--Mr. Mallory of Kentucky maintained that Mr. Lincoln had been
forced to issue the Proclamation of Emancipation by the governors
who met at Altoona. He was answered by Mr. Boutwell of Massachusetts,
who most effectively disproved the charge.
--Mr. Pendleton of Ohio maintained that three-fourths of the States
possessed neither the power to establish nor to abolish slavery in
all the States. He contended that the power to amend did not carry
with it the power to revolutionize and subvert the form and spirit
of the government.
The vote on the passage of the amendment was taken on the fifteenth
day of June. The yeas were 93, the nays were 65. The yeas were
27 short of the necessary two-thirds. Mr. Ashley of Ohio, who had
by common consent assumed parliamentary charge of the measure,
voted in the negative, and in the exercise of his right under the
rules, entered upon the journal a motion to reconsider the vote.
This ended the contest in the first session of the Thirty-eighth
Congress. Mr. Ashley gave notice that the question would go to
the country, and that upon the re-assembling of Congress in December
he should press the motion to reconsider, and he expected that the
amendment would be adopted. This result forced the question into
the Presidential canvass of 1864, and upon the decision of that
election depended the question of abolishing slavery. The issue
thus had the advantage of a direct submission to the votes of the
people before it should go to the State Legislatures for ultimate
decision.
PUBLIC AID TO THE PACIFIC RAILROAD.
In the previous Congress an Act had been passed which was approved
by the President on the first day of July, 1862, to aid in the
construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri
River to the Pacific Ocean, and to secure to the government the
use of the same for postal, military, and other purposes. The
company authorized to build it was to receive a grant of public
land amounting to five alternate sections per mile on each side of
the road. In addition to the lands the Government granted the
direct aid of $16,000 per mile in its own bonds, payable upon the
completion of each forty miles of the road. The bill was passed
by a vote which in the main but not absolutely was divided on the
line of party. The necessity of communication with our Pacific
possessions was so generally recognized that Congress was willing
to extend generous aid to any company which was ready to complete
the enterprise. The association of gentlemen who had organized
under the provisions of the Act, were unable, as they reported, to
construct the road upon the conditions prescribed and the aid
tendered. It was impossible to realize money from the lands under
the grant, as they were too remote for settlement, and $16,000 per
mile was declared insufficient to secure the means requisite for
the construction of the road across trackless plains, and through
rugged passes of the Rocky Mountains.
The corporators had accordingly returned to Congress in 1864 for
further help, and such was the anxiety in the public mind to promote
the connection with the Pacific that enlarged and most generous
provision was made for the completion of the road. The land-grant
was doubled in amount; the Government for certain difficult portions
of the road allowed $32,000 per mile, and for certain mountainous
sections $48,000 per mile. The whole of this munificent grant was
then subordinated as a second mortgage upon the road and its
franchise, and the company was empowered to issue a first mortgage
for the same amount for each mile--for $16,000, $32,000 and $48,000,
according to the character of the country through which the road
was to pass. Mr. Washburne of Illinois and Mr. Holman of Indian
made an earnest fight against the provisions of the bill as needlessly
extravagant, and as especially censurable in time of war when our
resources were needed in the struggle for our national life. Mr.
Washburne had sustained the original bill granting the aid of lands
and of bonds. He alleged, and produced a tabular statement in
support of the assertion, that the Government was granting $95,000,000
to the enterprise, besides half of the land in a strip twenty miles
wide from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean.
PUBLIC AID TO THE PACIFIC RAILROAD.
So earnest however was the desire of the Government to secure the
construction of the road that the opponents of the bill were unable
to make any impression upon the House. On an amendment by Mr.
Holman declaring that "the roads constructed under the Act shall
be public highways and shall transport the property and the troops
of the United States, when transportation thereof shall be required,
free of toll or other charge," there could be secured but 39 votes
in the affirmative. On an amendment by Mr. Washburne to strike
out the section which subordinated the government mortgage to that
of the railroad company on the lands and the road, but 38 voted in
the affirmative and the bill passed without a call of the yeas and
nays. In the Senate there were only five votes against the bill.
Mr. Ten Eyck of New Jersey was the only Republican senator who
voted in the negative. Whatever may have subsequently occurred to
suggest that the grant was larger than was needed for the construction
of the highway to the Pacific, there can be no doubt that an
overwhelming sentiment, not only in Congress but among the people,
was in favor of the bountiful aid which was granted. The terrible
struggle to retain the Southern States in the Union had persuaded
the Administration and the Government that no pains should be spared
and no expenditure stinted to insure the connection which might
quicken the sympathy and more directly combine the interests of
the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States. A more
careful circumspection might perhaps have secured the same work
with less expenditure; but even with this munificent aid a full
year passed before construction began from the eastern end of the
road, and for a considerable period it was felt that the men who
embarked their money in the enterprise were taking a very hazardous
task on their hands. Many capitalists who afterwards indulged in
denunciations of Congress for the extravagance of the grants, were
urged at the time to take a share in the scheme, but declined
because of the great risk involved.
Two organizations, composed of powerful men, were formed to prosecute
the work. The California Company, with Governor Leland Stanford
and the indomitable C. P. Huntington at the head, constructed the
thousand miles stretching from the Bay of San Francisco to Salt
Lake, and a company headed by Oakes Ames and Oliver Ames, two
Massachusetts men noted for strong business capacity, industry,
and integrity, constructed the thousand miles from the Missouri
River to the point of junction. In the history of great enterprises,
no parallel can be found to the ability and energy displayed in
the completion of this great work. With all the aids and adjuncts
of surrounding civilization, there had never been two thousand
miles of rail laid so rapidly as this was across trackless plains,
over five rugged ranges of mountains, through a country without
inhabitants, or inhabited only by wild Indians who offered obstruction
and not help.
On the first day of the session, December 7, 1863, Mr. Elihu B.
Washburne of Illinois introduced a bill to empower the President
to appoint a Lieutenant-General for all our forces. It was avowedly
intended for General Grant who had already been appointed a Major-
General in the Regular Army. Some opposition was shown to the
measure, when it was formally reported from the Military Committee
by Mr. Farnsworth of Illinois who ably supported it. Mr. Thaddeus
Stevens indicated his intention to oppose it and was followed by
Mr. Garfield who thought the action premature. Mr. Schenck also
intimated that it might be difficult at that moment to say who
would in the end command precedence among our generals. Eighteen
months before, McClellan would have been chosen; after Gettysburg
Meade would have been selected; at one time in the midst of his
successes in the South-West Rosecrans might have been appointed.
As a matter of course Grant would now be selected. Mr. Schenck
however announced his intention to support the measure.
Mr. Washburne closed the debate with an impressive plea for the
bill. He avowed that it meant General Grant who had been "successful
in every fight from Belmont to Lookout Mountain. The people of
this country want a fighting general to lead their armies, and
General Grant is the man upon whom we must depend to fight out this
rebellion in the end." Mr. Washburne gave a unique description of
General Grant in the critical campaign below Vicksburg: "General
Grant did not take with him the trappings and paraphernalia so
common to many military men. As all depended on celerity of movement
it was important to be encumbered with as little baggage as possible.
General Grant took with him neither a horse nor an orderly nor a
servant nor a camp-chest nor an overcoat nor a blanket nor even a
clean shirt. His entire baggage for six days--I was with him at
the time--was a tooth-brush. He fared like the commonest soldier
in his command, partaking of his rations and sleeping upon the
ground with no covering except the canopy of heaven." The speech
of Mr. Washburne was very earnest and very effective, and, the vote
coming at its conclusion, the House passed the bill by 96 yeas to
41 nays. It was not strictly a party vote. Randall of Pennsylvania,
Morrison of Illinois, Eldridge of Wisconsin, Voorhees of Indiana
and several other Democratic partisans supported the measure, while
Thaddeus Stevens, Winter Davis, Garfield, Broomall of Pennsylvania
and others among the Republicans opposed it.
The bill was desired by the President who approved it on the 29th
of February, 1864, and immediately nominated Ulysses S. Grant to
be Lieutenant-General. Mr. Lincoln saw the obvious advantage of
placing a man of General Grant's ability in command of all the
armies. The General was ordered to Washington at once, and arrived
at the capital on the eighth day of March. Mr. Lincoln had never
before seen him, though both were citizens of Illinois and General
Grant had been distinguished in the field for more than two years.
A new era opened in our military operations and abundant vigor was
anticipated and realized. General Sherman was left in command of
the great army in the West. He had up to this time been serving
with General Grant but was now to assume command of an enormous
force and to engage in one of the most arduous, heroic, and successful
campaigns in the military history of the country. The march from
Vicksburg to Chattanooga, thence to Atlanta, to Savannah, and
Northward to the Potomac, is one of the longest ever made by an
army. From Vicksburg to Chattanooga the army was under command of
General Grant, but the entire march of the same body of troops must
have exceeded two thousand miles through the very heart of the
insurrectionary country. But the great operations of both Grant
and Sherman were incomplete when Congress adjourned on the Fourth
of July. Its members returned home to engage in a canvass of
extraordinary interest and critical importance.
CHARACTER OF GENERAL SHERMAN.
The character and ability of General Sherman were not fully
appreciated until the second year of the war. He had not aimed to
startle the country at the outset of his military career with any
of the brilliant performances attempted by many officers who were
heard of for a day and never afterwards. With the true instinct
and discipline of a soldier, he faithfully and skillfully did the
work assigned to him, and he gained steadily, rapidly, and enduringly
on the confidence and admiration of the people. He shared in the
successful campaigns of General Grant in the South-West, and earned
his way to the great command with which he was now intrusted,--a
command which in one sense involved the prompt success of all the
military operations of the Government. Disaster for his army did
not of course mean the triumph of the Rebellion, but it meant fresh
levies of troops, the prolongation of the struggle, and a serious
increase to the heavy task that General Grant had assumed in
Virginia.
General Sherman was a graduate of West Point, and while still a
young man had served with marked credit for some twelve years in
the army. But he had more than a military education. Through a
checkered career in civil life, he had enlarged his knowledge of
the country, his acquaintance with men, his experience in affairs.
He had been a banker in California, a lawyer in Kansas, President
of a college in Louisiana, and, when the war began, he was about
to take charge of a railroad in Missouri. It would be difficult,
if not impossible to find a man who has so thorough, so minute a
knowledge of every State and Territory of the Union. He has made
a special study of the geography and products of the country. Some
one has said of him, that if we should suddenly lose all the maps
of the United States, we need not wait for fresh surveys to make
new ones, because General Sherman could reproduce a perfect map in
twenty-four hours. That this is a pardonable exaggeration would
be admitted by any one who had conversed with General Sherman in
regard to the topography and resources of the country from Maine
to Arizona.
General Sherman's appearance is strongly indicative of his descent.
Born in the West, he is altogether of Puritan stock, his father
and mother having emigrated from Connecticut where his family
resided for nearly two centuries. All the characteristics of that
remarkable class of men re-appear in General Sherman. In grim,
determined visage, in commanding courage, in mental grasp, in
sternness of principle, he is an Ironside Officer of the Army of
Cromwell, modified by the impulsive mercurial temperament which
eight generations of American descent, with Western birth and
rearing, have impressed upon his character.
[* The Italicized words were underscored in the original letters
of the President.]
[** THIRTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.
REPUBLICANS IN ROMAN; DEMOCRATS IN ITALIC.
The Senate was composed of same members as in Thirty-seventh Congress
(given on pp. ----), with the following exceptions:--
ILLINOIS.--_William A. Richardson_ succeeded O. H. Browning.
INDIANA.--_Thomas A. Hendricks_ succeeded _David Turpie_.
MAINE.--Nathan A. Farwell succeeded William Pitt Fessenden.
MARYLAND.--_Reverdy Johnson_ succeeded _James Alfred Pearce_.
MINNESOTA.--Alexander Ramsey succeeded _Henry M. Rice_.
MISSOURI.--B. Gratz Brown succeeded _Robert Wilson_.
NEW JERSEY.--_William Wright_ succeeded _James W. Wall_.
NEW YORK.--Edwin D. Morgan succeeded Preston King.
PENNSYLVANIA.--_Charles R. Buckalew_ succeeded David Wilmot.
RHODE ISLAND.--William Sprague succeeded Samuel G. Arnold.
»Waitman T. Willey and Peter G. Van Winkle were admitted as the
first senators from West Virginia. Lemuel J. Bowden took Mr.
Willey's place as senator from Virginia, and colleague of John
Carlile. The political power of West Virginia was thus actually
represented at one time by four senators.
»James W. Nye and William M. Stewart took their seats Feb. 1, 1865,
as senators from the new State of Nevada.
»Ten States were unrepresented.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
CALIFORNIA.--Cornelius Cole, William Higby, Thomas B. Shannon.
CONNECTICUT.--Augustus Brandegee, Henry C. Deming, _James E.
English_, John H. Hubbard.
DELAWARE.--Nathaniel B. Smithers.
ILLINOIS.--_James C. Allen; William J. Allen_; Isaac N. Arnold;
_John R. Eden_; John F. Farnsworth; _Charles M. Harris_; Ebon C.
Ingersoll, elected in place of Owen Lovejoy, deceased; _Anthony L.
Knapp_; Owen Lovejoy, died March 25, 1864; _William R. Morrison;
Jesse O. Norton; James C. Robinson; Lewis W. Ross; John T. Stuart_;
Elihu B. Washburne.
INDIANA.--Schuyler Colfax, _James A. Cravens_, Ebenezer Dumont,
_Joseph K. Edgerton, Henry W. Harrington, William S. Holman_, George
W. Julian, _John Law, James F. McDowell_, Godlove S. Orth, _Daniel
W. Voorhees_.
IOWA.--William B. Allison, Joseph B. Grinnell, Asahel W. Hubbard,
John A. Kasson, Hiram Price, James F. Wilson.
KANSAS.--A. Carter Wilder.
KENTUCKY.--Lucien Anderson, Brutus J. Clay, Henry Grider, Aaron
Harding, Robert Mallory, William H. Randall, Green Clay Smith,
_William H. Wadsworth_, George H. Yeaman.
MAINE.--James G. Blaine, Sidney Perham, Frederick A. Pike, John H.
Rice, _Lorenzo D. M. Sweat_.
MARYLAND.--John A. J. Creswell, Henry Winter Davis, _Benjamin G.
Harris_, Francis Thomas, Edwin H. Webster.
MASSACHUSETTS.--John R. Alley, Oakes Ames, John D. Baldwin, George
S. Boutwell, Henry L. Dawes, Thomas D. Eliot, Daniel W. Gooch,
Samuel Hooper, Alexander H. Rice, William B. Washburn.
MICHIGAN.--Augustus C. Baldwin, Fernando C. Beaman, John F. Driggs,
Fracis W. Kellogg, John W. Longyear, Charles Upson.
MINNESOTA.--Ignatius Donnelly, William Windom.
MISSOURI.--Francis P. Blair, Jr., seat successfully contested by
Samuel Knox; Henry T. Blow, Sempronius H. Boyd; _William A. Hall;
Austin A. King_; Samuel Knox, seated in place of Mr. Blair, June
15, 1864; Benjamin Loan; Joseph W. McClurg; James S. Rollins, _John
G. Scott_.
NEVADA.--Henry G. Worthington, seated Dec. 21, 1864.
NEW HAMPSHIRE.--_Daniel Marcy_, James W. Patterson, Edward H.
Rollins.
NEW JERSEY.--_George Middleton, Nehemiah Perry, Andrew J. Rogers_,
John F. Starr, _William G. Steele_.
NEW YORK.--_James Brooks; John W. Chanler_; Ambrose W. Clark;
Freeman Clarke; Thomas T. Davis; Reuben E. Fenton, resigned Dec.
10, 1864; Augustus Frank; _John Ganson_; John A. Griswold; _Anson
Herrick_; Giles W. Hotchkiss; Calvin T. Hulburd; _Martin Kalbfleisch_;
Orlando Kellogg; _Francis Kernan_; De Witt C. Littlejohn; James M.
Marvin; Samuel F. Miller; Daniel Morris; _Homer A. Nelson; Moses
F. Odell_; Theodore M. Pomeroy; _John V. L. Pruyn; William Radford;
Henry G. Stebbins_, resigned 1864; _John B. Steele; Dwight Townsend_,
elected in place of Mr. Stebbins; Robert B. Van Valkenburgh; _Elijah
Ward; Charles H. Winfield; Benjamin Wood; Fernando Wood_.
OHIO.--James M. Ashley, _George Bliss, Samuel S. Cox_, Ephraim B.
Eckley, _William E. Finck_, James A. Garfield, _Wells A. Hutchins,
William Johnson, Francis C. LeBlond, Alexander Long, John F.
McKinney, James R. Morris, Warren P. Noble, John O'Neill, George
H. Pendleton_, Robert C. Schenck, Rufus P. Spaulding, _Chilton A.
White, Joseph W. White_.
OREGON.--John R. McBride.
PENNSYLVANIA.--_Sydenham E. Ancona, Joseph Baily_, John M. Broomall,
_Alexander H. Coffroth, John L. Dawson, Charles Denison, James T.
Hale, Philip Johnson_, William D. Kelley, _Jesse Lazear, Archibald
McAllister, William H. Miller_, James K. Moorhead, Amos Myers,
Leonard Myers, Charles O'Neill, _Samuel J. Randall_, Glenni W.
Scofield, Thaddeus Stevens, _John D. Stiles, Myer Strouse_, M.
Russell Thayer, Henry W. Tracy, Thomas Williams.
RHODE ISLAND.--Nathan F. Dixon, Thomas A. Jenckes.
VERMONT.--Portus Baxter, Justin S. Morrill, Fred. E. Woodbridge.
WEST VIRGINIA.--Jacob B. Blair, William G. Brown, Killian V. Whaley.
WISCONSIN.--_James T. Brown_, Amasa Cobb, _Charles A. Eldridge_,
Walter D. McIndoe, Ithamar C. Sloan, _Ezra Wheeler_.
TERRITORIAL DELEGATES.
ARIZONA.--Charles D. Poston.
COLORADO.--Hiram P. Bennett.
DAKOTA.--William Jayne, _John B. S. Todd_.
IDAHO.--William H. Wallace.
MONTANA.--_Samuel McLean_, seated June 6, 1865.
NEBRASKA.--Samuel G. Daily.
NEVADA.--Gordon N. Mott.
NEW MEXICO.--Francisco Perea.
UTAH.--John F. Kenney.
WASHINGTON.--_George E. Cole_.]
CHAPTER XXIV.
Presidential Election of 1864.--Preliminary Movements.--General
Sentiment favors Mr. Lincoln.--Some Opposition to his Renomination.
--Secretary Chase a Candidate.--The "Pomeroy Circular."--Mr. Chase
withdraws.--Republican National Convention.--Baltimore, June 7.--
Frémont and Cochrane nominated.--Speech of Dr. Robert J. Breckinridge.
--Mr. Lincoln renominated.--Candidates for Vice-President.--Andrew
Johnson of Tennessee nominated.--Democratic National Convention.--
Chicago, August 29.--Military Situation discouraging.--Character
of the Convention.--Peace Party prevails.--Speeches of Belmont,
Bigler, Hunt, Long, Seymour.--Nomination of General McClellan for
President.--George H. Pendleton for Vice-President.--Platform.--
Suits Vallandigham.--General McClellan accepts, but evades the
Platform.--General Frémont withdraws.--Success of the Union Army.
--Mr. Lincoln's Popularity.--General McClellan steadily loses
Ground.--Sheridan's Brilliant Victories.--General McClellan receives
the Votes of only Three States.--Governor Seymour defeated in New
York.
The Presidential election of 1864 was approaching, with marked
political fluctuations and varying personal prospects. The tide
of public feeling ebbed or flowed with the disasters or the victories
of the war. The brilliant military triumphs of the summer of 1863
had quelled political opposition, and brought overwhelming success
to the Republican party. This period of heroic achievement and
popular enthusiasm was followed in the winter of 1863-64 by a
dormant campaign, a constant waste, and an occasional reverse which
produced a corresponding measure of doubt and despondency. The
war had been prolonged beyond the expectation of the country; the
loss of blood and of treasure had been prodigious; the rebels still
flaunted their flag along the Tennessee and the Rappahannock; the
public debt was growing to enormous proportions; new levies of
troops were necessary; the end could not yet be seen; and all these
trials and sacrifices and uncertainties had their natural effect
upon the temper of the public and upon the fortunes of the war.
The preliminary movements connected with the Presidential canvass
began in this period of doubt. The prevailing judgment of the
Union-Republican party, with full trust in the President's sagacity
and clear recognition of the injurious construction that would be
put upon a change, pointed unmistakably to the renomination of Mr.
Lincoln. But this predominant sentiment encountered some vigorous
opposition. A part of the hostility was due to a sincere though
mistaken impatience with Mr. Lincoln's slow and conservative methods,
and a part was due to political resentments and ambitions. The
more radical element of the party was not content with the President's
cautious and moderate policy, but insisted that he should proceed
to extreme measures or give way to some bolder leader who would
meet this demand. Other individuals had been aggrieved by personal
disappointments, and the spirit of faction could not be altogether
extinguished even amid the agonies of war. There were civil as
well as military offices to be filled, and the selection among
candidates put forward in various interests could not be made
without leaving a sense of discomfiture in many breasts.
These various elements of discontent and opposition clustered about
Secretary Chase, and found in him their natural leader. He was
the head of the radical forces in the Cabinet, as Mr. Seward was
the exponent of the conservative policy. He had been one of the
earliest and most zealous chiefs of the Free-soil party, and ranked
among the brightest stars in that small galaxy of anti-slavery
senators who bore so memorable a part in the Congressional struggles
before the war. He was justly distinguished as a political leader
and an able and a versatile statesman. For the part he was now
desired and expected to play he had a decided inclination and not
a few advantages. Keenly ambitious, he was justified by his talents,
however mistaken his time and his methods, in aspiring to the
highest place. His sympathies were well understood. By his
unconcealed views and his direct expressions he had encouraged the
movement against Mr. Lincoln. A year in advance of the Presidential
election he had announced his conviction that no President should
be re-elected, and had added the opinion that a man of different
qualities from those of Mr. Lincoln would be needed for the next
four years.
MR. CHASE A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE.
Apart from the influence of his known attitude and of his recognized
leadership, the opponents of Mr. Lincoln were naturally attracted
to Mr. Chase by the fact that he was at the head of the department
which was most potential in the distribution of patronage. If the
purpose was not avowed, the inference was suggested that no man
could do more to help himself. There had been sharp contention
over the important Treasury offices in New York, in which Mr. Chase
appeared on the one side and the rival influences in the Administration
on the other, and this contest was interpreted as a part of the
political and Presidential struggle. Mr. Chase having consented
to the use of his name as a candidate, his friends began active
work on his behalf. Early in the winter of 1863-64 what was known
as the "Pomeroy circular" was sent out, ostensibly as a confidential
paper, but promptly finding its way into print. It derived its
name from the Kansas senator who was prominent in the advocacy of
Mr. Chase's nomination. The circular represented that Mr. Lincoln's
re-election was impossible; that his "manifest tendency toward
compromises and temporary expedients of policy" rendered it
undesirable; that Mr. Chase united more of the qualities needed in
a President for the next four years than were combined in any other
available candidate; and that steps should be taken at once to
effect a general organization to promote his nomination.
But the effort met with small response. It aroused no popular
sympathy. Its chief effect indeed was to call forth the always
constant if sometimes latent attachment of the people to Mr. Lincoln,
and to develop an irresistible desire for his re-election. A few
days after the issue of the "Pomeroy circular" the Republican
members of the Ohio Legislature passed a resolution in favor of
Mr. Lincoln's renomination, and Mr. Chase availed himself of this
unmistakable action in his own State to withdraw his name as a
candidate. The signal failure of the movement however did not
entirely arrest the effort to prevent Mr. Lincoln's renomination.
Restless spirits still persisted in an opposition as destitute of
valid reason as it was abortive in result. With the view of promptly
settling the disturbing question of candidates and presenting an
undivided front to the common foe, the Republican National Convention
had been called to meet on the 7th of June. The selection of this
early date, though inspired by the most patriotic motives, was made
an additional pretext for factious warfare. An address was issued
inviting the "radical men of the nation" to meet at Cleveland on
the 31st of May, with the undisguised design of menacing and
constraining the Republican Convention. This call passionately
denounced Mr. Lincoln by implication as prostituting his position
to perpetuate his own power; it virulently assailed the Baltimore
Convention, though not yet held, as resting wholly on patronage;
it challenged the rightful title of that authoritative tribunal of
the party, and declared for the principle of one term. There had
been no election of delegates to this Cleveland assemblage, and it
possessed no representative character. It was simply a mass
convention, and numbered about a hundred and fifty persons claiming
to come from fifteen different States.
The platform adopted by the Convention was brief, and in some
directions extreme. It demanded that the rebellion be suppressed
without compromise, and that the right of _habeas corpus_ and the
privilege of asylum be held inviolate; declared for the Monroe
doctrine and for constitutional amendments prohibiting the re-
establishment of Slavery and providing for the election of President
for one term only and by direct vote of the people; and finally
advocated the confiscation of the lands of rebels and their
distribution among the soldiers and actual settlers. General
Frémont was selected as the candidate for President, and General
John Cochrane of New York for Vice-President. General Frémont
hurried forward his letter of acceptance, which was dated only four
days after his nomination and three days before the Baltimore
Convention. It repudiated the proposed confiscation, but approved
the remainder of the platform. It was chiefly devoted to a vehement
attack upon Mr. Lincoln's Administration, which was charged with
incapacity and with infidelity to the principles it was pledged to
maintain. General Frémont further hinted that if the Baltimore
Convention would select some candidate other than Mr. Lincoln he
would retire from the contest, but plainly declared that if the
President were renominated there would be no alternative but to
organize every element of opposition against him.
Three days before the Baltimore Convention, a mass meeting was held
in New York to give public voice to the gratitude of the country
to General Grant and his command, for their patriotic and successful
services. While this was the avowed object of the demonstration,
there was a suspicion that it had a political design and that its
real purpose was to present General Grant as a Presidential candidate.
If such were the intent, it was effectually frustrated both by the
emphatic refusal of General Grant to countenance the use of his
name, and by the admirable and impressive letter of Mr. Lincoln.
Paying a warm tribute to the heroic commander of the army, the
President said appealingly, "He and his brave soldiers are now in
the midst of their great trial, and I trust that at your meeting
you will so shape your good words that they may turn to men and
guns, moving to his and their support." This patriotic singleness
of thought for the country's safety defeated and scattered all more
political plans, and the hearts of the people turned more and more
to Mr. Lincoln. He had been steadily growing in the esteem of his
countrymen. The patience, wisdom, and fidelity with which he had
guided the government during its unprecedented trials and dangers
had won the profound respect and affection of the people. Besides
this deepening sentiment of personal devotion and confidence, there
was a wide conviction that, in his own expressive phrase, "it is
not wise to swap horses while crossing the stream."
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION.
Under these circumstances the Union-Republican National Convention
met in Baltimore. The feeling with which it convened was one of
patriotic and exultant confidence. The doubts prevailing a few
months before had been dissipated. The accession of General Grant
to the command of all our armies, and the forward movement both in
the East and in the West, inspired faith in the speedy and complete
triumph of the Union cause. Many eminent men were included in the
roll of delegates to the Convention. Not less than five of the
leading War Governors were chosen to participate in its councils.
Vermont sent Solomon Foot who had stood faithful in the Senate
during the struggles before the war. Massachusetts had commissioned
her eloquent Governor John A. Andrew; the delegation from New York
embraced Henry J. Raymond; Daniel S. Dickinson, who was to be
prominently named for Vice-President; and Lyman Tremain who, like
Dickinson, was one of the able war Democrats that had joined the
Republican party. New Jersey and Ohio each sent two ex-governors
--Marcus L. Ward and William A. Newell from the former, and William
Dennison and David Tod from the latter. Simon Cameron, Thaddeus
Stevens, and Ex-Speaker Grow of Pennsylvania; Governor Blair and
Omer D. Conger of Michigan; Angus Cameron of Wisconsin and George
W. McCrary of Iowa were among the other delegates who have since
been identified with public affairs and have occupied positions of
responsibility.
In calling the Convention to order Governor Morgan of New York made
a brief speech advocating a constitutional amendment abolishing
slavery. Dr. Robert J. Breckinridge of Kentucky was chosen temporary
chairman. The appearance on the platform of this venerable and
venerated divine was in itself an event of great interest. By
birth and association he was connected with the aristocratic class
which furnished the pillars of the Confederacy; he belonged to a
family conspicuously identified with the rebellion; yet among his
own order he was the strongest and sturdiest champion of the Union
cause south of the Ohio. His pointed eloquence was equaled by his
indomitable courage. The aggressive qualities of his staunch Scotch
ancestry shone in his own resolute and unyielding character, and
he was distinguished both in Church and in State as an able and
uncompromising controversialist. His years and his history inspired
a general feeling of reverence; and as he was conducted to the
chair of the Convention, his tall figure, strong face, and patriarchal
beard imparted to him something of personal majesty. His speech
well illustrated his rugged attributes of character. It was sharp,
sinewy, and defiant. At the beginning he hurled out the declaration
that "the nation shall not be destroyed;" and referring to the plea
which treated the Constitution as the sacred shield of the system
that was waging war on the Union and which insisted that it must
remain untouched, he proclaimed that "we shall change the Constitution
if it suits us to do so." He solemnly affirmed "that the only
enduring, the only imperishable cement of all free institutions
has been the blood of traitors." He alluded to the fact that he
had lived amid the surroundings of slavery, and had been among
those who sustained and upheld the system; but, recognizing that
it was this institution which had lifted the sword against the
Union, he aroused the enthusiasm of his vast audience by his
unhesitating declaration that we must "use all power to exterminate
and extinguish it." Next to the official platform itself, the
speech of Dr. Breckinridge was the most inspiring utterance of the
Convention.
When the question of calling the roll of the Southern States and
of receiving their delegates was reached, Thaddeus Stevens objected
on the ground that such an act might be regarded as recognizing
the right of States in rebellion to participate in the Electoral
College. The Convention decided however to call the roll of all
the States, and to refer the question of admitting their delegates
to the Committee on Credentials. Ex-Governor Dennison of Ohio was
elected permanent president. Preston King of New York from the
Committee on Credentials reported in favor of admitting the Radical
Union delegation from Missouri, and excluding the Conservative
Union or Blair delegation. It was proposed to amend by admitting
both delegations to seats; but the recognition of the Radical Union
delegation was urged on the ground not only that they were regularly
elected, but that it was the duty of the Convention to strengthen
the advanced Union sentiment of the South, and that their admission
would be the practical adhesion of the national party to the broad
anti-slavery policy which was essential to the salvation of the
country. This view prevailed by a vote of 440 to 4. The admission
of the delegations from Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana was a
question of no less interest. It involved the effect of the
rebellion upon the relation of the rebelling States to the Union.
Could they have a voice in public affairs without specific measures
of restoration, or were the acts of secession a nullity without
influence upon their legal status? The committee reported in favor
of admitting the delegations from these States, without the right
to vote. The chairman, Mr. King, was the only member who dissented,
and he moved to amend by admitting them on the same footing as all
the other delegates. The question was first taken on Tennessee,
and the amendment was carried by a vote of 310 to 153--a decision
which had an important bearing on the subsequent nomination for
Vice-President. The delegates from Arkansas and Louisiana were
given the right to vote by 307 to 167. The Territories of Colorado,
Nebraska, and Nevada were soon to enter the Union as States, and
their delegates were allowed to vote. The remaining Territories
and the States of Virginia and Florida were admitted without the
right to vote.
THE PLATFORM AND THE CANDIDATE.
With the completion of the organization the Committee on Resolutions
made their report through Mr. Henry J. Raymond. The platform upon
which it had unanimously agreed was a trenchant and powerful
declaration of policy. Its tone was elevated, its expression was
direct and unequivocal. It pledged every effort to aid the Government
in quelling by force of arms the rebellion against its authority;
it approved "the determination of the government not to compromise
with rebels nor to offer them any terms of peace except such as
may be based upon an unconditional surrender of their hostility
and a return to their just allegiance to the Constitution and laws
of the United States;" and it called upon the government to prosecute
the war with the utmost possible vigor to the complete suppression
of the Rebellion. It resolved that "as slavery was the cause and
now constitutes the strength of this Rebellion, and as it must be
always and everywhere hostile to the principles of Republican
government, justice and the national safety demand its utter and
complete extirpation from the soil of the Republic;" and it declared
for "such an amendment to the Constitution as shall terminate and
forever prohibit the existence of slavery within the limits or
jurisdiction of the United States." The heroism of the soldiers
and sailors of the Republic was gratefully acknowledged. The
wisdom, patriotism, and fidelity of President Lincoln, and his
measures for the defense of the nation were approved. A general
expression that harmony should prevail in the national councils
was interpreted as contemplating a possible reconstruction of the
Cabinet. Declarations for the encouragement of foreign immigration
by a liberal policy, for the speedy construction of a Pacific
railroad, for the inviolability of the National faith, and for the
re-assertion of the Monroe doctrine, completed a platform which in
all its parts was pervaded by the most vigorous spirit. Its
commanding feature was its explicit demand for the abolition of
slavery. The President's Proclamation of Emancipation had been
issued more than a year before, but this was the first National
assemblage with power to make it the fixed policy of a party. The
Baltimore platform, which was adopted by acclamation, made this
the paramount issue, and from that hour Freedom and the Union were
inseparably associated.
The nomination for President being in order, there was a strife
for the honor of naming Mr. Lincoln. General Simon Cameron offered
a resolution declaring Abraham Lincoln the choice of the Union
party for President, and Hannibal Hamlin its candidate for Vice-
President. To this proposition the immediate objection was made that
it might be open to the misconstruction of not permitting a free
vote, and that it complicated the selection for the first place
with a contest over the second. After some discussion General
Cameron withdrew his resolution, and on a general demand, in order
to remove all ground for the charge that the nomination was forced,
the roll of the Convention was called. Abraham Lincoln was named
by 497 delegates,--all of the Convention except the 22 from Missouri,
who under instructions voted for General Grant. Amid great enthusiasm
Mr. Lincoln's nomination was then declared to be unanimous.
CANDIDATES FOR THE VICE-PRESIDENT.
The Vice-Presidency had excited an animated contest. While many
felt that the old ticket should remain unbroken, and that Mr. Hamlin
should continue to be associated with Mr. Lincoln, there was a wide
sentiment in favor of recognizing the war Democrats, who had acted
with the Union party, by selecting one of their number for the
second place. Two prominent representatives of this class were
suggested,--Daniel S. Dickinson of New York and Andrew Johnson of
Tennessee. One was identified with the patriotic Democrats of the
North and the other with the sturdy and intrepid Unionists of the
South. Mr. Dickinson, by reason both of his earnest loyalty and
of his coming from the important State of New York, was regarded
in many quarters with special favor. The Massachusetts delegation
early declared their preference, and sent a message to the New-York
delegation announcing their purpose to vote for him if New York
would present him as a candidate. Had New York given him a united
support his nomination would not have been doubtful. But the very
reasons which commended him in other sections excited jealousy in
his own State, and prompted an opposition which led to his defeat.
Mr. Dickinson's career had been long and honorable. He had been
chosen to the State Senate in 1837, and quickly attained a leading
place. After serving as lieutenant-governor, he was in 1844
appointed United-States senator by Governor Bouck to fill a vacancy,
and was subsequently elected by the Legislature for a full term.
Appearing in the Senate at the important juncture when the annexation
of Texas and the Mexican war were agitating the country, he soon
took an active part in the discussions. He was particularly
distinguished for his aptness in repartee, and for his keen and
incisive humor. Politically he belonged to the conservative or
_Hunker_ wing of the Democracy. Entering the Senate just as Silas
Wright was leaving it to assume the Governor's chair, he joined
Secretary Marcy and the influences that moulded Polk's Administration,
against the able and powerful statesman who had so long held sway
over the Democratic party in New York. Mr. Dickinson's talent made
him the leader of the Hunkers, and in 1852 he was one of their
candidates for President. When the war came, he declared himself
unreservedly on the side of the Government, and rendered valuable
service to the Union party. He was especially effective on the
stump. His sharp wit, his rich fund of anecdotes, his sparkling
humor, his singular felicity and aptness of biblical illustration,
which had earned for him the popular name of "Scripture Dick,"
served to give him wonderful command over an audience, and the
effect was heightened by his personal appearance, which his long,
flowing silvery locks made strikingly impressive.
The suggestion of Mr. Dickinson's name for Vice-President was
cordially received by many delegates. But some of the controlling
influences among the New-York Republicans were not well disposed
towards the advancement of those who came from the Democratic ranks.
They feared, besides, that if the candidate from Vice-President
were taken from New York, it might prejudice her claims for the
Cabinet, and might endanger Mr. Seward's position as Secretary of
State. For these reasons their influence was thrown against Mr.
Dickinson's nomination. On a test-vote in the New-York delegation,
Dickinson received 28, Johnson 22, and Hamlin 6. This result was
fatal to Mr. Dickinson's chances, and brought Mr. Johnson prominently
forward. His record and character had much to attract the patriotic
respect of the country. The vigor and boldness with which, though
a Southern senator, he had denounced secession at the beginning of
the outbreak, had taken strong hold of the popular heart. The
firmness and unyielding loyalty he had displayed as Military Governor
of Tennessee greatly deepened the favorable impression. The
delegates from his own and other Southern States had been admitted
to the Convention as an evidence that the Republican party honored
the tried and faithful loyalists of the South, and many felt that
the nomination of Mr. Johnson would emphasize this sentiment, and
free the party from the imputation of sectional passion and purpose.
The ballot for Vice-President gave Johnson 200; Dickinson 113;
Hamlin 145; General B. F. Butler 26; General L. H. Rousseau 21;
with a few scattering votes. Before the final announcement, several
delegations changed to Johnson, until as declared the ballot stood,
Johnson 492; Dickinson 17; Hamlin 9. Mr. Johnson was then unanimously
nominated. The Convention had completed its work, and the results
were hailed with satisfaction throughout the country.
The Republicans had been compelled in 1856 and 1860 to nominate
their candidates both for President and Vice-President from the
North. This was contrary to the patriotic traditions of the country
with which a single exception had in all parties divided the
candidates between the two great sections of the country. Strangely
enough both parties violated the practice in the exciting canvass
of 1828, when Jackson and Calhoun were the candidates of the
Democratic party and Adams and Rush were the candidates of the
National Republican party. The nomination now of Andrew Johnson
from the South tended, in the phrase of the day, to _nationalize_
the Republican party, and this consideration gave it popularity
throughout the North. It was nevertheless felt by many of Mr.
Hamlin's friends to be an injustice to him. But it did him no
injury. He accepted the result in a cordial manner and worked
earnestly for the success of the nominees. The whole country saw
that the grounds upon which Mr. Hamlin was superseded were not in
derogation of the honorable record he had made in his long and
faithful public career.
DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION, 1864.
The Democratic National Convention was held nearly three months
after the Republican Convention had renominated Mr. Lincoln, and
only two months prior to the election. It had originally been
called to meet in Chicago on the 4th of July; but as the time
approached, the brighter military prospects and the rekindled
national hopes left a darker Democratic outlook, and the assembling
of the Convention had been delayed to the 29th of August. Several
reasons had combined to secure the selection of this unusually late
day. It gave longer opportunity to observe the course of the
military campaign, and to take advantage of any unfavorable
exigencies; it allowed more time to compose Democratic dissensions;
and it furnished more scope for the party, whose chances rested
solely upon the degree of popular discontent, to seize upon any
disturbed state of the public mind, and turn it to account.
The delay of nearly two months had been accompanied by a marked
change in the situation. The advance of the Union cause which had
depressed Democratic expectations in the spring, had been succeeded
by inactivity and doubts which revived Democratic hopes in August.
The postponement which had been ordered that they might avail
themselves of any unfavorable course of affairs, thus deluded them
into a bold abandonment of all reserve. Changes in the military
situation were sometimes sudden and swift. Had the Convention been
postponed another week, its tone and action might have been
essentially different; for its tumultuous session had scarcely
closed before the clouds that hung over the country during the
summer were scattered, and our armies entered upon the most brilliant
movements and triumphs of the war--triumphs which did not cease
until the surrender at Appomattox.
But the Convention assembled at a time of uncertainty if not of
gloom and depression. The issue of the great struggle was not yet
clear. General Grant, with his unquailing resolution "to fight it
out on this line," had cut his way through the Wilderness over the
bloody field of Spotsylvania, and against the deadly lines of Cold
Harbor. He had fastened his iron grip upon Petersburg, and there
the opposing armies were still halting in their trenches. In the
Shenandoah Valley, Early was defiant and aggressive. In the West,
the delay at Kennesaw, the fall of the heroic McPherson, and other
reverses had marked a campaign of slow advances. The assaults upon
Mr. Lincoln's Administration had been renewed with increased venom
and persistence. Mistaken and abortive peace negotiations with
pretended rebel commissioners at Niagara Falls had provoked much
criticism and given rise to unfounded charges. The loyal spirit
and purpose of the people were unshaken; but there was some degree
of popular impatience with the lack of progress, and it was the
expectation of the Democratic managers that the restive feeling
might be turned into the channel of opposition to the Administration.
The Convention included among its delegates many of the most
distinguished leaders of the Democratic party. Massachusetts sent
Josiah G. Abbott and George Lunt. The credentials of Connecticut
were borne by the positive and aggressive William W. Eaton. Among
the representatives of New York were the accomplished Governor
Seymour; the acute Dean Richmond; Samuel J. Tilden, who had not
yet achieved his national distinction; Sanford E. Church, who
afterwards became chief judge of the Court of Appeals; and Ex-
Governor Washington Hunt, whose Silver-Gray conservatism had carried
him into the Democratic party. Ohio counted on the roll of her
delegates William Allen, who had been the contemporary of Webster
and Clay in the Senate; George H. Pendleton and Allen G. Thurman,
who were yet to take high rank in that body; and Clement L.
Vallandigham, just then more prominent with a doubtful celebrity
than any one of his abler colleagues. Pennsylvania contributed Ex-
Governor Bigler, and William A. Wallace already showing the political
talent which afterwards gave him a leading position. The Indiana
delegation was led by Joseph E. McDonald, and the Kentucky delegation
by Governor Powell, James Guthrie, and by Ex-Governor Wickliffe who
had been driven by Mr. Lincoln's anti-slavery policy into the ranks
of his most bitter opponents. In ability and leadership the
Convention fairly represented the great party whose principles and
policy it had met to declare. Besides the accredited delegates,
it brought together a large number of the active and ruling members
of the Democratic organization. The opposition to the war was
stronger in the West than in the East, and the presence of the
Convention in the heart of the region where disloyal societies were
rife, gathered about it a large and positive representation of the
Peace party, which manifested itself in public meetings and in
inflammatory utterances.
DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION, 1864.
The representatives inside and outside of the Convention were united
in opposing the War and in demanding Peace. But there were different
shades of the Peace sentiment. One portion of the Convention, led
chiefly by the adroit New-York managers, arraigned the whole conduct
and policy of the Administration, and insisted upon a cessation of
hostilities, but at the same time modified the force and effect of
this attitude by urging the nomination of General McClellan for
President. They concurred in the demand for an armistice, but made
a reservation in favor of continuing the war in case the rebels
refused to accept it. Another portion sought to make the declaration
against the war so broad and emphatic that neither General McClellan
nor any man who had been identified with the struggle for the Union
could become the candidate. Both divisions agreed in denouncing
the war measures of the Administration, in resisting emancipation,
in calling for immediate cessation of military movements, and in
opposing the requirement of any conditions from the Southern States.
They differed only in the degree of their hostility to the war.
The faction peculiarly distinguished as the Peace party was led by
Mr. Vallandigham of Ohio, who was the central figure of the
Convention. He had been conspicuous in Congress as the most vehement
and violent opponent of every measure for the prosecution of the
war. Subsequent events had increased his notoriety, and given
explicit significance to his participation in the National Convention
of his party.
The Convention, meeting in the same city where Abraham Lincoln had
first been nominated four years before, struck its keynote in
opposition to his Administration. Mr. August Belmont, Chairman of
the National Committee, opened the proceedings with a violent
speech. "Four years of misrule," he said, "by a sectional, fanatical,
and corrupt party have brought our country to the very verge of
ruin. . . . The past and present are sufficient warnings of the
disastrous consequences which would befall us if Mr. Lincoln's re-
election should be made possible by our want of patriotism and
unity." In still more explicit terms he went on to picture the
direful effects of that catastrophe. "The inevitable results of
such a calamity," he said, "must be the utter disintegration of
our whole political and social system amid bloodshed and anarchy,
with the great problems of liberal progress and self-government
jeopardized for generations to come."
Ex-Governor Bigler of Pennsylvania was made temporary chairman,
and followed in a speech which expressed similar sentiments in more
discreet and temperate language than Mr. Belmont had used. He
contented himself with general utterances, and was not betrayed
into personal reflections or prophecies of ruin. The organization
was promptly completed, and the character of the platform was
foreshadowed when it was known that Mr. Vallandigham was a ruling
spirit in the Committee on Resolutions. It was a suggestive incident
that Ex-Governor Wickliffe of Kentucky presented letters from two
delegates chosen to represent that State, explaining their absence
by the fact that they were imprisoned by the Union Government,
without cause, as they alleged, but presumably for disloyal conduct.
Various individual propositions were then brought forward. The
temper and purpose of the Convention may be judged from the offer
of a resolution by so conservative and moderate a man as Ex-Governor
Hunt of New York, declaring in favor of an armistice and of a
convention of States "to review and amend the Constitution so as
to insure to each State the enjoyment of all its rights and the
constitutional control of its domestic concerns,"--meaning in
plainer words the perpetuation and protection of slavery. This
policy aimed to stop the Rebellion by conceding what the rebels
fought for. Then came a characteristic proposition from Alexander
Long of Ohio. Mr. Long was a member of Congress, and next to Mr.
Vallandigham had been most active in resisting war measures. For
a speech which was treasonable in tone he had been publicly censured
by the House. His proposition provided for the appointment of a
committee to proceed at once to Washington, and urge President
Lincoln to stop the draft until the people could decide the question
of peace or war. These various propositions, following the usual
course, were referred to the Committee on Resolutions.
THE PEACE POLICY PROCLAIMED.
Governor Horatio Seymour of New York was chosen president, and on
taking the chair made the most elaborate and important address of
the Convention. He was exceedingly popular with his party, and
was justly recognized as among the ablest defenders of its views.
By virtue both of his official position and of his personal strength
he was looked to more than any other leader for the exposition of
Democratic policy. Singularly prepossessing in manner, endowed
with a rare gift of polished and persuasive speech, he put in more
plausible form the extreme and virulent utterances of intemperate
partisans. He was skilled in dialectics, and his rhetorical
dexterity had more than once served him and his friends in good
stead. He was well-nigh the idol of his party, and no other man
could so effectively rally its strength or direct its policy. His
address as presiding officer was intended to be free from the
menacing tone which marked most of the speeches of the Convention,
but it veiled the same sentiment in more subtle and specious phrase.
He charged both the cause and the continuance of the war upon the
Republican party. "Four years ago," he said, "a convention met in
this city when our country was peaceful, prosperous, and united.
Its delegates did not mean to destroy our government, to overwhelm
us with debt, or to drench our land with blood; but they were
animated by intolerance and fanaticism, and blinded by an ignorance
of the spirit of our institutions, the character of our people,
and the condition of our land. They thought they might safely
indulge their passions, and they concluded to do so. Their passions
have wrought out their natural results." Governor Seymour had no
criticism for those who had drawn the sword against the government;
he did not impute to them any responsibility for the war; but he
charged the wrong upon those who were defending the Union. In
advocating an armistice which would involve a practical surrender
of the contest he said: "The Administration will not let the
shedding of blood cease, even for a little time, to see if Christian
charity or the wisdom of statesmanship may not work out a method
to save our country. Nay, more, they will not listen to a proposal
for peace which does not offer that which this government has no
right to ask." It was the abolition of slavery which "this government
has no right to ask." As he advanced towards his conclusion
Governor Seymour grew more pronounced and less discreet. "But as
for us," he said, "we are resolved that the party which has made
the history of our country since its advent to power seem like some
unnatural and terrible dream, shall be overthrown. We have forborne
much because those who are now charged with the conduct of public
affairs know but little about the principles of our government."
The entire speech was able, adroit, and mischievous.
In the preparation of the platform the champions of the peace policy
had their own way. The friends of General McClellan were so
anxious to secure his nomination and to conciliate the opposition
that they studiously avoided provoking any conflict with the
predominant peace sentiment. The substance and vital spirit of
the platform were contained in the second resolution as follows:
"That this Convention does explicitly declare as the sense of the
American people, that after four years of failure to restore the
Union by the experiment of war, during which under the pretense of
a military necessity of a war power higher than the Constitution,
the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and
public liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the material
prosperity of the country essentially impaired, justice, humanity,
liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be
made for a cessation of hostilities with a view to an ultimate
convention of all the States, or other peaceable means, to the end
that at the earliest practicable moment peace may be restored on
the basis of the Federal Union of the States." The few remaining
resolutions pledged fidelity to the Union, condemned the alleged
interference of the military authority with certain State elections,
denounced what were recited as arbitrary acts of Administrative
usurpation, reprobated "the shameful disregard of the Administration
of its duty in respect to our fellow-citizens who now are and long
have been prisoners of war," and declared the sympathy of the
Democratic party with the soldiers of the Republic.
The extreme Peace party having carried the platform, the less
radical section of the Convention secured the candidate for President.
But General McClellan was not nominated without a vehement protest.
The presentation of his name was the signal for a stormy debate.
Mr. Harris of Maryland passionately declared that one man named as
a candidate "was a tyrant." "He it was," continued the speaker,
"who first initiated the policy by which our rights and liberties
were stricken down. That man is George B. McClellan. Maryland
which has suffered so much at the hands of that man will not submit
in silence to his nomination." This attack produced great confusion,
and to justify his course Mr. Harris read General McClellan's order
for the arrest of the Maryland Legislature. He proceeded, "All the
charges of usurpation and tyranny that can be brought against
Lincoln and Butler can be made and substantiated against McClellan.
He is the assassin of State rights, the usurper of liberty, and if
nominated will be beaten everywhere, as he was at Antietam."
General Morgan of Ohio warmly defended McClellan. He declared that
there was a treasonable conspiracy in Maryland to pass an ordinance
of secession, and that McClellan had thwarted it. Mr. Long espoused
the other side. "You have arraigned Lincoln," he said, "as being
guilty of interfering with the freedom of speech, the freedom of
elections, and of arbitrary arrests, and yet you propose to nominate
a man who has gone even farther than Lincoln has gone in the
perpetration of similar tyrannical measures. McClellan is guilty
of the arrest of the Legislature of a sovereign State. He has
suspended the writ of _habeas corpus_, and helped to enforce the
odious Emancipation Proclamation of Lincoln, the wiling instrument
of a corrupt and tyrannical administration. He has aided while
possessing military power all its efforts to strip American freemen
of their liberties."
The heated debate lasted till darkness forced an adjournment, and
on re-assembling in the morning a ballot was immediately taken.
General McClellan received 162 votes, and 64 votes were divided
among Horatio Seymour, Thomas H. Seymour of Connecticut and others;
but before the result was announced several changes were made, and
the vote as finally declared as 202½ for McClellan and 23½ for
Thomas H. Seymour. For Vice-President two ballots were taken. On
the first, James Guthrie of Kentucky had 65½ votes; George H.
Pendleton of Ohio, 54½; Governor Powell of Kentucky, 32½; George
W. Cass of Pennsylvania, 26. Mr. Guthrie had been identified with
the war party; Mr. Pendleton as a member of Congress had opposed
the war and was the favorite of the Peace party; and on the second
ballot Mr. Guthrie's name was withdrawn and Mr. Pendleton unanimously
nominated. This act completed the work of the Convention.
RE-ACTION AGAINST THE DEMOCRACY.
The response of the country to the action of the Democratic
representatives was an immediate outburst of indignant rebuke.
There were thousands of patriotic Democrats who deeply resented
the hostility of the Convention to the loyal sentiment of the
people, and who felt that it was as fatal as it was offensive.
The general expression of condemnation, and the manifestations on
all sides foreshadowed the doom of the Chicago ticket. General
McClellan and his friends felt the necessity of doing something to
placate the aroused sentiment which they could not resist, and he
vainly sought to make his letter of acceptance neutralize the
baneful effect of the Democratic platform.
In truth General McClellan practically disavowed the platform. He
ignored the demand for a cessation of hostilities and the declaration
that the war was a failure. "The re-establishment of the Union,"
he said, "in all its integrity is and must continue to be the
indispensable condition in any settlement. So soon as it as clear,
or even probable, that our present adversaries are ready for peace
upon the basis of the Union, we should exhaust all the resources
of statesmanship practiced by civilized nations and taught by the
traditions of the American people, consistent with the honor and
interests of the country, to secure such peace, re-establish the
Union, and guarantee for the future the constitutional rights of
every State. The Union is the one condition of peace. We ask no
more." While thus proposing to "exhaust the resources of statesmanship"
to secure peace, he indicated that if such efforts were unavailing
the responsibility for consequences would fall upon those who
remained in arms against the Union. But the letter failed to attain
its object. Its dissent from the dangerous and obnoxious propositions
of the platform was too guarded and reserved to be satisfactory.
The people felt moreover that the deliberate declarations of the
Convention and not the individual expressions of the candidate
defined the policy of the party.
One of the first results of the Democratic position was the withdrawal
of General Frémont from the canvass. As a loyal man he could not
fail to see that his position was entirely untenable. Either Mr.
Lincoln or General McClellan would be the next President and his
duty was made so plain that he could not hesitate. The argument
for Mr. Lincoln's re-election addressed itself with irresistible
force to the patriotic sentiment and sober judgment of the country.
Apart from every consideration growing out of the disloyal attitude
of the Democratic Convention, it was felt that the rejection of
Mr. Lincoln would be regarded by the rebels as the condemnation of
the war policy and would encourage them to renewed, prolonged, and
more desperate resistance. This conviction appealed to patriotic
men of all parties. Mere political feeling largely subsided, and
the people were actuated by a higher sense of public duty. Especially
was every effort made to remove all grounds of difference which
had divided members of the Union party. The Baltimore platform
indicated some dissatisfaction with the Cabinet, and, acting upon
this suggestion, the President requested and received the resignation
of Postmaster-General Blair. It is but just to Mr. Blair to say
that he gave to Mr. Lincoln his earnest and faithful support in
the election.
From the hour of the Chicago Convention the whole course of events
steadily strengthened the canvass for Mr. Lincoln. The turn of
the political tide came with sudden and overpowering force. The
news of the capture of Fort Morgan burst upon the Democratic
Convention while it was declaring the war a failure, and the day
after its adjournment brought the still more inspiring intelligence
that Sherman had taken Atalanta. The swift successes of Farragut
in Mobile Bay, following the fall of the rebel stronghold in the
South, filled the country with joy. Within two days from the hour
when the Chicago delegates separated with the demand for a practical
surrender to the rebellion, President Lincoln was able to issue a
proclamation for thanksgiving in all the churches for the great
Union triumphs; and this was followed by national salutes from
every navy-yard and arsenal and from all military headquarters.
The political effect of the victories was instantaneous and
overwhelming. As Secretary Seward expressed it in a public speech,
"Sherman and Farragut have knocked the planks out of the Chicago
platform."
GREAT VICTORY FOR MR. LINCOLN.
The tide of victory swept on. While Grant was holding Lee as in
a vise at Petersburg, and Sherman was breaking the shell of the
Confederacy at Atlanta, Sheridan was dashing through the Shenandoah
Valley. Three striking victories crowned his bold and brilliant
progress. The battles of Winchester and Fisher's Hill came within
three weeks of Atlanta and within three days of each other. The
third exploit at Cedar Creek was still more dramatic and thrilling.
The succession of matchless triumphs was the theme of every journal
and every orator, and the North was aflame with the enthusiasm it
kindled. In the light of the answer flashed back from a score of
battle-fields, the Chicago declaration that the war was a failure
was not only seen to be unpatriotic and mischievous but was made
contemptible by universal ridicule and obloquy.
The political effect of these victories was precisely what Mr.
Lincoln had foreseen and foretold. Speaking of the issue to a
friend, he said, "With reverses in the field the case is doubtful
at the polls. With victory in the field the election will take
care of itself." And so it was. Vermont and Maine in September,
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana in October, registered in advance
the edict of the people in regard to the Presidency. The result
in November was an overwhelming triumph for Mr. Lincoln. Of the
twenty-two States participating in the election, General McClellan
received the electoral vote of but three. It is perhaps a still
stronger statement to say that of the eighteen free States he
received the vote of but one. New Jersey gave him her electors,
and Kentucky and Delaware, angered by the impending destruction of
Slavery, turned against the Administration and against the prosecution
of the war. Maryland had escaped from all influences connected
with Slavery by its abolition the preceding October, and now cast
her vote for Mr. Lincoln. Missouri and West Virginia, the only
other slave States loyal to the Union, stood firmly by the President.
Mr. Lincoln received two hundred and twelve electoral votes and
General McClellan received twenty-one.
The chief interest of the whole country for the last month of the
campaign had centred in New York. As nearly as Mr. Lincoln was
willing to regard a political contest as personal to himself, he
had so regarded the contest between Mr. Seymour and Mr. Fenton.
Governor Seymour's speech in the Chicago Convention had been an
indictment of a most malignant type against the Administration.
The President felt that he was himself wholly wrong or Governor
Seymour was wholly wrong, and the people of New York were to decide
which. They rendered their verdict in the election of Reuben E.
Fenton to the Governorship by a majority of thousands over Mr.
Seymour. Without that result Mr. Lincoln's triumph would have been
incomplete. For its accomplishment great credit was awarded to
the Republican candidate for the admirable thoroughness of his
canvass and for the judicious direction of public thought to the
necessity of vindicating the President against the aspersions of
Mr. Seymour. The victory in the Nation was the most complete ever
achieved in an election that was seriously contested.
CHAPTER XXV.
President's Message, December, 1864.--General Sherman's March.--
Compensated Emancipation abandoned.--Thirteenth Amendment.--Earnestly
recommended by the President.--He appeals to the Democratic Members.
--Mr. Ashley's Energetic Work.--Democratic Opportunity.--Unwisely
neglected.--Mr. Pendleton's Argument.--Final Vote.--Amendment
adopted.--Cases arising under it.--Supreme Court.--Change of Judges
at Different Periods.--Peace Conference at Fortress Monroe.--
Secretary Chase resigns.--Mr. Fessenden succeeds him.--Mr. Fessenden's
Report.--Surrender of Lee.--General Grant's Military Character.--
Assassination of President Lincoln.--His Characteristics.--Cost of
the War.--Compared with Wars of Other Nations.--Our Navy.--Created
during the War.--Effective Blockade.--Its Effect upon the South.--
Its Influence upon the Struggle.--Relative Numbers in Loyal and
Disloyal States.--Comparison of Union and Confederate Armies.--
Confederate Army at the Close of the War.--Union Armies compared
with Armies of Foreign Countries.--Area of the War.--Its Effect
upon the Cost.--Character of Edwin M. Stanton.
Sustained by so emphatic a vote of popular confidence, President
Lincoln greeted Congress on the first Monday of December, 1864,
with a hopeful and cheerful message. He reported that our armies,
holding all the lines and positions gained, "have steadily advanced,
thus liberating the regions left in the rear." The President
regarded "General Sherman's march of three hundred miles directly
through an insurgent country" as the "most remarkable feature in
the military operations of the year." It was in progress when the
President delivered his message, and "the result not yet being
known, conjecture in regard to it cannot be here indulged." The
President reported that the actual disbursements in money from the
Treasury for the past fiscal year were $865,234,087.86.
Mr. Lincoln had finally abandoned the project of compensating the
Border States for their loss of property in slaves. The people of
those States had, through their representatives, blindly and
willfully rejected the offer when it was urged upon them by the
Administration, and had defeated the bill embodying the proposition
on the eve of its passage in the House when it had already passed
the Senate. The situation was now entirely changed. Maryland,
without waiting for National action and regardless of compensation,
had in the preceding October taken the matter under her own control
and deliberately abolished slavery. Mr. Lincoln now announced the
State as "secure to liberty and union for all the future. The
genius of rebellion will no longer claim Maryland. Like another
foul spirit being driven out, it may seek to tear her, but it will
woo her no more." There was no reason why the other Border States
should not follow her example--and there was the strongest argument
against compensating another State for doing what Maryland had done
of her own free will and from an instinct of patriotism, as the
one act which would conclusively separate her from all possibility
of sympathy with the rebellion.
Freed thus from what he may have regarded as the obligations of
his Border-State policy and upheld by the great popular majority
which he had received in the election, the President warmly
recommended to Congress the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment
to the Constitution. He called attention to the fact that it had
already received the sanction of the Senate, but failed in the
House for lack of the requisite two-thirds vote. There was no
doubt that the large Republican majority, already elected to the
Thirty-ninth Congress, would adopt the Amendment, but such adoption
implied postponement for a whole year, with loss of the moral
influence which would be gained by prompter action. It implied
also that the Amendment would depend solely upon Republican votes,
and the President was especially anxious that it should receive
Democratic support. Still another reason wrought upon the President's
mind. He believed the rebellion to be near its end, and no man
could tell how soon a proposition might come for the surrender of
the Confederate Armies and the return of the Rebel States to their
National allegiance. If such a proposition should be made, Mr.
Lincoln knew that there would be a wild desire among the loyal
people to accept it, and that in the forgiving joy of re-union they
would not insist upon the conditions which he believed essential
to the future safety and strength of the National Government.
Slavery had been abolished in the District of Columbia by a law of
Congress, and in Maryland by her own action. It still existed in
the other Border States and in Tennessee, and its abolition in the
remaining States of the Confederacy depended upon the validity of
the President's Proclamation of Emancipation.
THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT.
Without discussing the validity of the Proclamation Mr. Lincoln
incidentally assumed it, with an emphatic assertion of his own
position, which came nearer the language of threat than his habitual
prudence and moderation had ever permitted him to indulge. "In
presenting the abandonment of armed resistance on the part of the
insurgents as the only indispensable condition to ending the war,"
said the President, "I retract nothing heretofore said as to slavery.
. . . While I remain in my present position I shall not attempt to
retract or modify the Emancipation Proclamation. Nor shall I return
to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that Proclamation
or by any of the Acts of Congress. _If the people should, by
whatever mode or means, make it an Executive duty to re-enslave
such persons, another, and not I, must be their instrument to
perform it._." This was fair notice by Mr. Lincoln to all the
world that so long as he was President the absolute validity of
the Proclamation would be maintained at all hazards.
This position enabled the President to plead effectively with
Congress for the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment and the
consequent avoidance of all possible conflicts between different
departments of the Government touching the legal character of the
Proclamation. Recognizing the fact that he was addressing the same
House of Representatives which had already rejected the anti-slavery
amendment, he made a special appeal, though without using partisan
names, to the Democratic members. "Without questioning the wisdom
or patriotism of those who stood in opposition," said the President,
"I venture to recommend the reconsideration and passage of the
measure at the present session. Of course the abstract question
is not changed, but an intervening election shows almost certainly
that the next Congress will pass the measure if this Congress does
not. Hence there is only a question of time as to when the proposed
amendment will go to the States for their action, and as it is to
go at all events, may we not agree that the sooner the better?"
He urged the argument still more closely upon the Democratic members.
"In a great national crisis like ours, unanimity of action among
those seeking a common end is very desirable, almost indispensable,
and yet no approach to such unanimity is attainable unless some
deference shall be paid to the will of the majority." Mr. Lincoln
found much encouragement in the fact that in the national election
"no candidate for any office whatever, high or low, ventured to
seek votes on the avowal that he was in favor of giving up the
Union. . . . In the distinct issue of Union or no Union the
politicians have shown their instinctive knowledge that there is
no diversity among the people."
The proposed Constitutional amendment was brought before the House
on the 6th of January by Mr. Ashley of Ohio, upon whose motion to
reconsider the adverse vote of the preceding session, the question
continued to have a parliamentary status. He made a forcible speech
in support of the amendment, but the chief value of his work did
not consist in speaking, but in his watchful care of the measure,
in the quick and intuitive judgment with which he discerned every
man on the Democratic side of the House who felt anxious as to the
vote he should give on the momentous question, and in the pressure
which he brought to bear upon him from the best and most influential
of his constituents. The issue presented was one that might well
make thoughtful men pause and consider. The instant restoration
to four millions of human beings of the God-given right of freedom
so long denied them, depended upon the vote of the House of
Representatives. It addressed itself to the enlightened judgment
and to the Christian philanthropy of every member. Each one had
to decide for himself whether so far as lay in the power of his
own vote he would give liberty to the slave, or forge his fetters
anew. The constitutional duty of not interfering with slavery in
the States could not be pleaded at the bar of conscience for an
adverse vote. There was no doubt that under the terms of the
Constitution such interference was unwarranted. But this was a
question of changing the Constitution itself so as to confer upon
Congress the express power to enlarge the field of personal liberty
and make the Republic free indeed. It came therefore as an original
and a distinct question whether millions of people with their
descendants for all time should be doomed to slavery or gifted with
freedom.
It was a singular opportunity for the Democratic party. Its members
had always professed to be endued with a broader spirit of liberty
than their opponents who under various organizations had confronted
them in the political contests of the preceding half-century. In
their evangelization of Liberty the Democrats had halted at the
color-line, but, as they alleged, only because the solemn obligations
of the Constitution forbade a step beyond. Here by the converging
exigencies of war it became of vast interest to the white race that
slavery should be smitten and destroyed. Its destruction was indeed
the deadliest blow that could be given to the Rebellion which was
threatening destruction to the Republic. It was not unfair to say,
as was said by many during the crisis, that it was brought to every
man's conscience to decide whether he would continue to imperil
the fate of the Union by refusing the enfranchise the slave.
THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT.
It fell to Mr. George H. Pendleton to play an important part in
this crisis. His leadership on the Democratic side of the House
had been confirmed by the popular voice of his party in the nomination
for the Vice-Presidency, and though he had been defeated in the
election he returned to the House with increased prestige among
his own political associates. The argument he had made the preceding
session was now repeated with earnest spirit and in plausible form.
He maintained that "three-fourths of the States do not possess the
constitutional power to pass this amendment." A colleague from
Ohio (Mr. S. S. Cox) had made a radical argument in the other
direction, asserting that "three-fourths of the States have the
right to amend the Constitution in every particular except the two
specified in the instrument; they have the right to do any thing,
even to erect a monarchy!" Without carrying the argument so far,
Mr. Cox might well have reminded his colleague that four years
before, in the winter of compromise preceding the war, the one
point sought to be gained by all who asked additional guaranties
for slavery was that the power to abolish the institution by
constitutional amendment should be taken from the States. It would
have been a precious consolation at the time to Mr. Pendleton's
Southern friends, to hear from him the argument that no such power
existed and that slavery was in no danger from its attempted
exercise. Such action by the Federal Government was the one thing
which the South had especially dreaded and which all the amendments
to the Constitution proposed by the Peace Congress of 1861 aimed
to prevent. Mr. Pendleton omitted his argument therefore at the
most pertinent time for its submission, but he made it now with
freshness and vigor and with evident effect upon his political
associates.
Mr. Pendleton was very effectively answered by many members on the
Republican side of the House; by General Garfield elaborately, by
Mr. Boutwell briefly but most pointedly. The debate was prolonged
and able. At least one-third of the entire House took part in it.
The ground was somewhat beaten, but many of the arguments were of
permanent historic interest. Among the most valuable were the
speeches of Mr. Glenni W. Scofield of Pennsylvania, Mr. John A.
Kasson of Iowa, and Mr. James S. Rollins of Missouri. As the
representative of a slave-holding constituency the argument and
vote of Mr. Rollins were of special weight. The tone and temper
of the speeches exhibited assurance on one side and failing confidence
on the other. The moral pressure was steadily for the Amendment
and its strength grew rapidly both in Congress and the country.
It had been borne into the minds of the people that slavery had
produced the war, and it seemed a righteous retribution that slavery
should end with the war. It had drawn the sword; let it perish by
the sword.
When the hour arrived for the final struggle, on Tuesday, January
31, 1865, the galleries of the House were filled in every part,
largely no doubt by friends of the measure. There were eight
absentees, without pairs. They were all Democrats. It may be
assumed that they assented to the amendment, but that they were
not prepared to give it positive support. This list comprised
Jesse Lazear of Pennsylvania, John F. McKinney and Francis C. Le
Blond of Ohio, Daniel W. Voorhees and James F. McDowell of Indiana,
George Middleton and A. J. Rogers of New Jersey, and Daniel Marcy
of New Hampshire. The members of the Democratic party who gave
their votes for the amendment, and thus secured its passage by the
Thirty-eighth Congress, were James E. English of Connecticut, Anson
Herrick, William Radford, Homer A. Nelson, John B. Steele and John
Ganson of New York, A. H. Coffroth and Archibald McAllister of
Pennsylvania, Wells A. Hutchins of Ohio, and Augustus C. Baldwin
of Michigan. Mr. Nelson had not voted at the first session, but
all the others are recorded against the proposition. With the aid
of these eleven, the vote was 119 yeas to 56 nays--more than the
constitutional two-thirds. When the announcement was made, the
Speaker became powerless to preserve order. The members upon the
Republican side sprang upon their seats cheering, shouting, and
waving hands, hats, and canes, while the spectators upon the floor
and in the galleries joined heartily in the demonstration. Upon
the restoration of order Mr. Ingersoll of Illinois rose and said,
"Mr. Speaker, in honor of this immortal and sublime event, I move
that this House do now adjourn." The Speaker declared the motion
carried, but Mr. Harris of Maryland demanded the ayes and noes,
and the House adjourned by a vote of 121 to 24.
The great act of Liberation, so far as Congress could control it,
was complete. The amendment was at once submitted to the States,
and by official proclamation of December 18, 1865,--less than eleven
months after Congress had spoken,--the Secretary of State announced
that it had been ratified by the Legislatures of twenty-seven States
and was a part of the Constitution. The result was attained by
the united action of one party and the aid of a minority of the
other party. The co-operation of the Democratic members had gained
for the cause of emancipation a whole year. The action was of
transcendent importance,--lofty in conception, masterful in execution.
Slavery in the United States was dead. To succeeding and not
distant generations its existence in a Republic, for three-quarters
of a century, will be an increasing marvel.
THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT IN COURT.
The language of the Thirteenth Amendment is so comprehensive and
absolute that vital questions of law are not likely at any time to
arise under it. The Article is in two parts. _First_, "Neither
slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within
the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
_Second_, Congres shall have power to enforce this Article by
appropriate legislation." By this Amendment the relation between
the National and State Governments, respecting the question of
Human Liberty, was radically changed. Before its adoption slavery
could be established or abolished in any State at the will of the
majority. The National prohibition now extended everywhere that
the flag floated; freedom of the person became thenceforth a matter
of National concern. The power of the State was subordinated to
the continuing and supreme authority of the Nation.
The Supreme Court has had occasion in a few cases only to deal with
the Thirteenth Amendment, and in those cases the questions raised
did not touch the validity or scope of the Article. In the case
of _White_ v. _Hart_, reported in 13 _Wallace_, the Court held that
a note given for slaves at a time prior to emancipation was a valid
contract and could be enforced. This judgment was rendered in the
face of the fact that the Reconstructed Constitution of the State
of Georgia, where the contract was made, contained a provision that
no Court should have or take "jurisdiction in any case of debt the
consideration of which was a slave or the hire thereof." The Court
held that the provision in the Georgia Constitution was invalid as
to all agreements made prior to its adoption, upon the ground that
it was a violation of the Constitution of the United States which
provides that no State shall make any law "impairing the obligation
of contracts." In the case of _Osborne_ v. _Nicholson_, 13 _Wallace_,
where the cause of action was a note given for a slave in Arkansas,
March 20, 1861, the Court held that the Thirteenth Amendment did
not constitute a bar to the claim. These cases serve to show the
narrow and restricted character of the issues made under the Article
--issues long since passed by the limitation of time.
One point in the adoption of the Amendment caused much speculation
at the time, not unaccompanied with anxiety. The whole number of
States was thirty-six. The assent of three-fourths of that number
was required to amend the Constitution. Twenty-seven States voted
through their Legislatures in favor of the Amendment--precisely
the requisite number. But of these, nine had been in rebellion
and had not at the time been restored to the enjoyment of their
rights as States in the Union. They had not been re-admitted to
representation either in the House or the Senate. The majority of
these States were not considered to be entitled to representation
in Congress for three years after they had given their formal assent
to the Thirteenth Amendment. The question as to whether they could
give valid assent to an amendment to the Constitution was one which
might possibly be raised. If they were not in condition to enjoy
representation in Congress, it might be asked how they could be in
condition to perform a much higher function. If they could not
participate in the enactment of Statute Law, how could they
participate in the far weightier duty of framing the Organic Law
of the Republic?
If the same judges who pronounced the Dred Scott decision had been
still on the Bench, serious trouble might have arisen. But there
had been a radical change in the Judicial Department, not simply
in the _personnel_ of the judges but in the views they entertained
touching the functions, powers, and duties of the Federal Government.
It fell to Mr. Lincoln's lot to appoint a majority of the judges
and thus practically to constitute a new Court. Washington, the
elder Adams, and Jackson were the only Presidents before him who
had appointed a Chief Justice, and when he nominated Mr. Chase,
there had been only one other chief justice named for sixty-three
years. He appointed as associate justices Noah Swayne of Ohio,
Samuel F. Miller of Iowa, David Davis of Illinois, all in 1862,
and Stephen J. Field of California the year following. Mr. Lincoln's
sound judgment was apparent in this as in other great duties.
There are single judges in our history who, in point of learning,
rank higher in the estimation of the legal profession, but perhaps
never a majority of the court who were superior in all the qualities
which adorn the Judicial character.
THE JUDGES OF THE SUPREME COURT.
Considering that the tenure is for life, it seemed as if an
extraordinary number of Judicial appointments fell to one President.
But as the eminence which fits a man for the high station is not
attained until past the middle period of life, the changes are
necessarily somewhat rapid. Washington in his Presidency of eight
years nominated, for a Court of six members, eleven judges who
served, besides one who declined and one who was rejected. Down
to this period in our history (1884) it has fallen to the lot of
each of our twenty-one Presidents except Harrison, Tyler, and
Johnson, to nominate at least one associate justice. Under Jackson
and Van Buren the entire Court was revolutionized. A Chief Justice
and six associates were appointed, selected exclusively from their
political supporters. From that time onward until the Administration
of Mr. Lincoln, every judge was selected from the Democratic party,
with the exception of Benjamin R. Curtis who was appointed by
President Fillmore. When Mr. Lincoln entered upon his official
duties, the Judicial Department of the Government differenced in
every conceivable way from his construction of the Constitution in
so far as the question of slavery was involved. But one judge
could be expected to look with favor upon the course he would
pursue. The venerable John McLean, though placed on the Bench by
Jackson, had changed his political views and relations, and he
alone of all the justices sympathized with Mr. Lincoln.
The Southern States prior to 1860 had secured a large majority of
appointments on the Supreme Bench. In originally constituting the
Court Washington had equally divided the judges between the slave
States and the free States. After his Administration and until
the incoming of President Lincoln, the Court uniformly contained
a majority of Southern men. From the beginning of the Government
until the election of Mr. Lincoln, there had been eighteen associate
justices appointed from the slave States, and but fifteen from the
free States. The average term of service of the judges from the
South had been about fourteen years; from the North about twelve
years. From 1789 to 1860, the Chief Justice had been from the
South during the whole period with the exception of twelve years.
It is a fact worth noting that neither the elder nor the younger
Adams appointed a Northern man to the Bench. They appointed three
from the South. It is not among the least of the honors belonging
to the elder Adams that he gave to the country the illustrious
Chief Justice Marshall.
Directly after the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment came a wide-
spread rumor that negotiations for peace were in progress which
might interfere with the anti-slavery action of Congress. On the
8th of February Mr. Thaddeus Stevens moved and the House unanimously
adopted a resolution requesting "the President to communicate to
the House such information as he may deem not incompatible with
the public interest relative to the recent conference between
himself and the Secretary of State and Messrs. Alexander H. Stephens,
Robert M. T. Hunter, and John A. Campbell in Hampton Roads." Mr.
Lincoln replied at once, giving in detail every step which had led
to the conference, and all that was accomplished by it. It was
brought about by the elder Francis P. Blair, who under a flag of
truce had visited Richmond early in January. Mr. Lincoln had
steadily insisted on three preliminary conditions: First, the
absolute restoration of the national authority in all the States;
second, no receding from the positions taken on the slavery question;
third, no cessation of military operations on the part of the
Government till the hostile forces surrendered and disbanded. On
these conditions the Confederate agents could not treat, and the
conference came to no agreement. In his message Mr. Lincoln made
one significant remark. "By the other party it was not said that
in any event or on any condition they would ever consent to re-
union; and yet they equally omitted to declare that they would not
so consent." The proceedings left no special interest, except one
characteristic anecdote of Mr. Lincoln. The Confederate agents
desired the recognition of the power of "President" Davis to make
a treaty. Mr. Lincoln would not consent to this, would not in any
event or in any way recognize another "President" within the
territory of the United States. Mr. Hunter cited the example of
Charles I. treating with rebels in his own kingdom. Mr. Lincoln
replied that his only distinct recollection of that matter was that
Charles lost his head!
MR. FESSENDEN IN THE TREASURY.
Soon after the Baltimore Convention, Mr. Chase resigned his position
as Secretary of the Treasury. The relations between himself and
the President had become personally somewhat unpleasant, but that
there had been no loss of confidence or respect was proven by the
President's nomination of Mr. Chase to be Chief Justice of the
United States as the successor of the venerable Roger B. Taney,
who died on the 12th of October (1864). William Pitt Fessenden
succeeded Mr. Chase in the Treasury, and entered upon his duties
on the fifth day of July. He was admirably fitted by every mental
and moral quality for the position, but he did not possess the
physical strength necessary for the arduous labor which it imposed.
He consented in response to the very earnest request of Mr. Lincoln
to accept the trust for a brief period. It was of great importance
to the country, to the Administration, and to Mr. Lincoln personally
that Mr. Chase should be succeeded by a man of no less eminent
character.
In his report of December 6, 1864, Mr. Fessenden discussed the
financial situation with comprehensive ability. He urged additional
taxation, some plan for making the public lands available as a
source of revenue, and arrangements for carrying out the laws for
a sinking-fund. He opposed the suggestion of resorting to foreign
loans for any part of the money needed. He said, "This nation has
been able thus far to conduct a domestic war of unparalleled
magnitude and cost without appealing for aid to any foreign people.
It has chosen to demonstrate its power to put down insurrection by
its own strength, and furnish no pretense for doubt of its entire
ability to do so, either to domestic or foreign foes. The people
of the United States have felt a just pride in this position before
the world. In the judgment of the secretary it may well be doubted
whether the national credit abroad has not been strengthened and
sustained by the fact that foreign investments in our securities
have not been sought by us, and whether we have not found a pecuniary
advantage in self-reliance." Reciting the steps which he had taken
for placing loans, he declared; "These negotiations have afforded
satisfactory evidence not only of the ability of the people to
furnish at a short notice such sums as may be required but of the
entire confidence felt in the national securities. After nearly
four years of a most expensive and wasting war, the means to continue
it seem apparently undiminished, while the determination to prosecute
it with vigor to the end is unabated."
Liberal response was made by Congress to Mr. Fessenden's request
for enlarged power to borrow money. The internal revenue was made
more stringent, the tariff was amended and made still more protective,
and to facilitate the raising of troops the Conscription Act was
made more severe and exacting. Congress proceeded as if the war
were still to continue for years. Nothing was neglected, nothing
relaxed. But every one could see that the Confederacy was tottering
to its fall. Sherman's magnificent march across Georgia, to which
the President referred as in progress when he sent his message to
Congress, had been completed with entire success, with an _éclat_
indeed which startled Europe as well as America. He had captured
Savannah, and was marching North driving the army of General Joseph
E. Johnston before him. General Grant meanwhile was tightening
his hold on Richmond and on the army of General Lee. From his camp
on the James he was directing military operations over an area of
vast extent. The great victory which General Thomas had won over
Hood's army in the preceding December at Nashville had effectually
destroyed the military power of the Confederacy in the South-West,
and when Congress adjourned on the day of Mr. Lincoln's second
inauguration there was in the mind of the people everywhere a
conviction that the end was near.
The President himself spoke guardedly in his Inaugural address.
He simply said that "the progress of our armies is reasonably
satisfactory and encouraging. With high hope for the future, no
prediction in regard to it is ventured." The tone of the address,
so far from being jubilant as the mass of his hearers felt, was
ineffably sad. It seemed to bear the wail of an oppressed spirit.
The thought and the language were as majestic as those of the
ancient prophets. As if in agony of soul the President cried out:
"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray that this mighty scourge
of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue
until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty
years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of
blood drawn with the lash shall be paid with another drawn with
the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must
be said that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous
altogether."
The fall of the military power of the rebellion was in the end more
rapid and more complete than the most sanguine had dared to expect.
The month of March was one of great activity with our military
forces. Three weeks after his inauguration the President went to
City Point, Virginia, partly to escape the pressure of duty at
Washington and party to be near the scene of the final triumph to
settle any important questions that might arise, if an offer of
surrender should be made by the Confederate commander. On the day
before his inauguration he had directed the Secretary of War to
say to General Grant that he wished him to "have no conference with
General Lee unless for the capitulation of his army or for some
purely military matter." The President did "not wish General Grant
to decide, discuss or confer upon any political question." He
would not submit such questions "to military conferences or
conventions." He returned to Washington on the 8th of April and
on the succeeding day the Army of Lee surrendered to General Grant.
THE SURRENDER OF GENERAL LEE.
The rejoicing throughout the Loyal States cannot be pictured.
Congratulation was universal. The end had come. Sympathy with
the South in her exhausted and impoverished condition mingled
largely with the exultant joy over a restored Union, a triumphant
flag, an assured future of National progress. Admiration was not
withheld from the soldiers of the Confederacy, who had borne their
banner so bravely against every discouragement on a hundred fields
of battle. The bearing of General Grant and General Lee at the
final surrender was marked by a spirit of chivalric dignity which
was an instructive lesson to all their countrymen--alike to the
victor and to the vanquished.
General Grant's active service in the field closed with the surrender
of Lee. All the commanders of Confederate forces followed the
example of their General-in-Chief, and before the end of the month
the armed enemies of the Union had practically ceased to exist.
The fame of General Grant was full. He had entered the service
with no factitious advantage, and his promotion, from the first to
the last, had been based on merit alone,--without the aid of
political influence, without the interposition of personal friends.
Criticism of military skill is but idle chatter in the face of an
unbroken career of victory. General Grant's campaigns were varied
in their requirements and, but for the fertility of his resources
and his unbending will, might often have ended in disaster. Courage
is as contagious as fear, and General Grant possessed in the highest
degree that faculty which is essential to all great commanders,--
the faculty of imparting throughout the rank and file of his army
the same determination to win with which he was himself always
inspired.
One peculiarity of General Grant's military career was his constant
readiness to fight. He wished for no long periods of preparation,
lost no opportunity which promptness could turn to advantage. He
always accepted, without cavil or question, the position to which
he might be assigned. He never troubled the War Department with
requests or complaints, and when injustice was inflicted upon him,
he submitted silently, and did a soldier's duty. Few men in any
service would have acquiesced so quietly as did General Grant, when
at the close of the remarkable campaign beginning at Fort Henry
and ending at Shiloh, he found himself superseded by General Halleck,
and assigned to a subordinate command in an army whose glory was
inseparably associated with his own name. Self-control is the
first requisite for him who aims to control others. In that
indispensable form of mental discipline General Grant exhibited
perfection.
When he was appointed Lieutenant-General, and placed in command of
all the armies of the Union, he exercised military control over a
greater number of men than has any general since the invention of
fire-arms. In the campaigns of 1864 and 1865, the armies of the
Union contained in the aggregate not less than a million of men.
The movements of all the vast forces were kept in harmony by his
comprehensive mind, and in the grand consummation which insured
Union and Liberty, his name became inseparably associated with the
true glory of his country.
Six days after the surrender of Lee, the Nation was thrown into
the deepest grief by the assassination of the President. The gloom
which enshrouded the country was as thick darkness. The people
had come, through many alterations of fear and hope, to repose the
most absolute trust in Mr. Lincoln. They realized that he had seen
clearly where they were blind, that he had known fully where they
were ignorant. He had been patient, faithful, and far-seeing.
Religious people regarded him as one divinely appointed, like the
prophets of old, to a great work, and they found comfort in the
parallel which they saw in his death with that of the leader of
Israel. He too had reached the mountain's top, and had seen the
land redeemed unto the utmost sea, and had then died.
CHARACTER OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.
Mr. Lincoln had been some time in the Presidency before the public
estimate of him was correct or appreciative. The people did not
at first understand him. In the glamour of the Presidential canvass
they had idealized him,--attributing to him some traits above and
many below his essential qualities. After his election and before
his inauguration there was a general disposition to depreciate him.
He became associated in the popular mind with an impending calamity,
and tens of thousands who had voted for him, heartily repented the
act and inwardly execrated the day that committed the destinies of
the Union to his keeping. The first strong test brought upon Mr.
Lincoln was this depressing re-action among so many of his supporters.
A man with less resolute purpose would have been cast down by it,
but Mr. Lincoln preserved the _mens aequa in arduis_. Through the
gloom of the weeks preceding his inauguration he held his even way.
Perhaps in the more terrible crises through which he was afterwards
called to pass, a firmer nerve was required, but not so rare a
combination of qualities as he had shown in the dismal months with
which the year 1861 opened.
Mr. Lincoln united firmness and gentleness in a singular degree.
He rarely spoke a harsh word. Ready to hear argument and always
open to conviction, he adhered tenaciously to the conclusions which
he had finally reached. Altogether modest, he had confidence in
himself, trusted to the reasoning of his own mind, believed in the
correctness of his own judgment. Many of the popular conceptions
concerning him are erroneous. No man was farther than he from the
easy, familiar, jocose character in which he is often painted.
While he paid little attention to form or ceremony he was not a
men with whom liberties could be taken. There was but one person
in Illinois outside of his own household who ventured to address
him by his first name. There was no one in Washington who ever
attempted it. Appreciating wit and humor, he relished a good story,
especially if it illustrated a truth or strengthened an argument,
and he had a vast fund of illustrative anecdote which he used with
the happiest effect. But the long list of vulgar, salacious stories
attributed to him, were retailed only by those who never enjoyed
the privilege of exchanging a word with him. His life was altogether
a serious one--inspired by the noblest spirit, devoted to the
highest aims. Humor was but an incident with him, a partial relief
to the melancholy which tinged all his years.
He presented an extraordinary combination of mental and moral
qualities. As a statesman he had the loftiest ideal, and it fell
to his lot to inaugurate measures which changed the fate of millions
of living men, of tens of millions yet to be born. As a manager
of political issues and master of the art of presenting them, he
has had no rival in this country unless one be found in Jefferson.
The complete discomfiture of his most formidable assailants in
1863, especially of those who sought to prejudice him before the
people on account of the arrest of Vallandigham, cannot easily be
paralleled for shrewdness of treatment and for keen appreciation
of the reactionary influences which are certain to control public
opinion. Mr. Van Buren stands without rival in the use of partisan
tactics. He operated altogether on men, and believed in self-
interest as the mainspring of human action. Mr. Lincoln's ability
was of a far higher and broader character. There was never the
slightest lack of candor or fairness in his methods. He sought to
control men through their reason and their conscience. The only
art the employed was that of presenting his views so convincingly
as to force conviction on the minds of his hearers and his readers.
The Executive talent of Mr. Lincoln was remarkable. He was
emphatically the head of his own Administration, ultimate judge at
all points and on all occasions where questions of weight were to
be decided. An unwise eulogist of Mr. Seward attributes to him
the origination and enforcement of the great policies which
distinguished the Administration. So far is this from the truth
that in more than one instance the most momentous steps were taken
against the judgment and contrary to the advice of the Secretary
of State. The position of control and command so firmly held by
Mr. Lincoln was strikingly shown when the Peace Conference was
about to assemble at Fortress Monroe. He dispatched Mr. Seward to
the place of meeting in advance of his own departure from Washington,
giving him the most explicit instructions as to his mode of action,
--prescribing carefully the limitations he should observe, and
concluding with these words: "_You will hear all they may choose
to say, and report it to me. You will not assume to definitely
consummate any thing_." Assuredly this is not the language of
deference. It does not stop short of being the language of command.
It is indeed the expression of one who realized that he was clothed
with all the power belonging to his great office. No one had a
more sincere admiration of Mr. Seward's large qualities than the
President; no one more thoroughly appreciated his matchless powers.
But Mr. Lincoln had not only full trust in his own capacity, but
a deep sense of his own responsibility--a responsibility which
could not be transferred and for which he felt answerable to his
conscience and to God.
CHARACTER OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.
There has been discussion as to Mr. Lincoln's religious belief.
He was silent as to his own preference among creeds. Prejudice
against any particular denomination he did not entertain. Allied
all his life with Protestant Christianity, he thankfully availed
himself of the services of an eminent Catholic prelate--Archbishop
Hughes of New York--in a personal mission to England, of great
importance, at a crisis when the relations between the two countries
were disturbed and threatening. Throughout the whole period of
the war he constantly directed the attention of the nation to
dependence on God. It may indeed be doubted whether he omitted
this in a single state paper. In every message to Congress, in
eery proclamation to the people, he made it prominent. In July,
1863, after the battle of Gettysburg he called upon the people to
give thanks because "it had pleased Almighty God to hearken to the
supplications and prayers of an afflicted people and to vouchsafe
signal and effective victories to the Army and Navy of the United
States," and he asked the people "to render homage to the Divine
Majesty and to invoke the influence of his Holy Spirit to subdue
the anger which has produced and so long sustained a needless and
cruel rebellion." On another occasion, recounting the blessings
which had come to the Union, he said, "No human counsel hath devised,
nor hath any mortal hand worked out, these great things. They are
the gracious gifts of the Most High God who, while dealing with us
in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy."
Throughout his entire official career,--attended at all times with
exacting duty and painful responsibility,--he never forgot his own
dependence, or the dependence of the people, upon a Higher Power.
In his last public address, delivered to an immense crowd assembled
at the White House on the 11th of April, to congratulate him on
the victories of the Union, the President, standing as he unconsciously
was in the very shadow of death, said reverently to his hearers,
"In the midst of your joyous expression, He from whom all blessings
flow must first be remembered"!
Not only in life but in treasure the cost of the war was enormous.
In addition to the large revenues of the Government which had been
currently absorbed, the public debt at the close of the struggle
was $2,808,549,437.55. The incidental losses were innumerable in
kind, incalculable in amount. Mention is made here only of the
actual expenditure of money--estimated by the standard of gold.
The outlay was indeed principally made in paper, but the faith of
the United States was given for redemption in coin--a faith which
has never been tarnished, and which in this instance has been
signally vindicated by the steady determination of the people.
Never, in the same space of time, has there been a National
expenditure so great.
Other nations have made costly sacrifices in struggles affecting
their existence or their master passions. In the memorable campaigns
of the French in 1794, when the Republic was putting forth its most
gigantic energies, the expenses rose to 200,000,000 francs a month,
or about $450,000,000 a year. For the three years of the rebellion,
after the first year, our War Department alone expended $603,314,411.82,
$690,391,048.66, and $1,030,690,400 respectively. The French
Directory broke down under its expenditures by its lavish issue of
_assignats_ and the French Republic became bankrupt. Our Government
was saved by its rigorous system of taxation imposed upon the people
by themselves. Under Napoleon, in addition to the impositions on
conquered countries, the budgets hardly exceeded in francs the
charges of the United States for the rebellion, in dollars. Thus
in 1805 the French budget exhibited total expenditures of 666,155,139
francs, including 69,140,000 francs for interest on the debt. In
the same year the minister stated to the Chambers that income was
derived from Italy of 30,000,000 francs, and from Germany and
Holland 100,000,000, leaving 588,998,705 to be collected from
France. In 1813 the French expenditures had risen to 953,658,772
francs, and the total receipts from French revenue were 780,959,847
francs. The French national debt has been measured since 1797 by
the interest paid, fixed at that time at five per cent. From 1800
to 1814, the period of the Consulate and the Empire, this interest
was increased by 23,091,635 francs, indicating an addition of twenty
times that sum to the principal of the debt. The Government of
the Restoration added in 1815, 101,260,635 francs to the annual
interest. Thus the cost of the Napoleonic wars to France may be
stated at about $487,000,000 added to the principal of the debt,
or less than one-fifth of the increment of our national obligations
on account of the rebellion. The French burdens were extended over
the whole period from 1800 to 1814. Our own were concentrated into
the space of four years.
NATIONAL EXPENDITURES IN THE WAR.
The total expenditures of Great Britain during the French Revolution
and the career of Napoleon were £1,490,000,888, or nearly five
times that sum in dollars. The largest expenditures in any single
year were in 1815, £130,305,958, or in dollars, $631,976,894.
After 1862 our expenditures were not so low as that in any year,
and they were more than double that sum in the closing year of the
war when the great armies were mustered out of service and final
payment was made to all.
The British expenditures in the war against the French during the
period of the Revolution were a little more than £490,000,000 and
against Napoleon a little less than £1,000,000,000; or $4,850,000,000
in the aggregate, for twenty-three years. The total outlay was
therefore larger than our payments on account of the rebellion.
But there was no period of ten years in her wars with the French,
in which Great Britain expended so much as the United States expended
in four years. The loss of Great Britain by discounts in raising
money or by the use of depreciated paper was greater than that
incurred by the United States. A leading English authority says
that of the vast burden up to 1816, the "artificial enhancements
due to discounts in raising money were so great that for every £100
received into the treasury a national debt of £173 was created."
No other wars than those of England and France can be compared with
ours in point of expenditure. For the war between France and
Germany in 1870 the indemnity demanded by the conqueror was
5,000,000,000 francs, equivalent in American money to $930,000,000.
This sum was much in excess of the outlay of Germany. The expenses
of France on her own account in that contest were 1,873,238,000
francs, or $348,432,068, and this is only from one-half to one-
third of the annual outlay of the United States during the rebellion.
France added to the interest charge at this time 349,637,116 francs,
indicating that the whole sum of the indemnity and other war
expenditures has passed into the principal of the permanent debt
of the country.
The one grand feature of this lavish expenditure of wealth by the
Government of the United States is that it was directed and enforced
by the people themselves. No imperial power commanded it, no kingly
prerogative controlled it. It was the free, unbiased, unchangeable
will of the Sovereign People. They declared at the ballot-box, by
untrammeled popular suffrage, that the war must go on. "The American
people,"--said Henry Winter Davis in the House of Representatives
at one of the most exciting periods of the struggle,--"the American
people, rising to the height of the occasion, dedicate this generation
to the sword, and, pouring out the blood of their children, demand
that there be no compromise; that ruin to the Republic or ruin to
the Rebel Confederacy are the only alternatives; that no peace
shall be made except under the banner of Victory. Standing on this
great resolve to accept nothing but Victory or ruin, Victory is
ours!"
At the outbreak of hostilities the Government discovered that it
had no Navy at its command. The Secretary, Mr. Welles, found upon
entering his office but a single ship in a Northern port fitted to
engage in aggressive operations. In the beginning of the great
contest which was at once to be waged upon the seas, wherein the
Government proposed to close Southern ports, and the South to
destroy Northern commerce, the advantage was clearly with the South.
From Cape Henry to the Rio Grande the Navy of the United States
was called upon to create an effective blockade against all ingress
and egress. The conformation of the coast, which along great
distances prevented the entrance and exit of ocean-going vessels,
materially aided in the task, but it was still such a one as had
never before been attempted in the naval history of the world.
The line to be subjected to blockade was as long as the line from
the Bay of Biscay to the Golden Horn and in many respects it was
far more difficult to control.
This blockade was an absolute necessity imposed on the United
States. The South relied with implicit faith upon its ability to
secure by the sale of cotton the means of carrying on the war.
The Confederate Government did not believe that the United States
would hazard a conflict with the manufacturing nations of Europe,
by attempting a blockade that would prevent the export of the
staple; or if they did believe it, they looked upon it as the
fatuous step on the part of the National Government that would
promptly induce intervention by the combined power of England and
France. This reliance was explicitly stated in advance by Mr.
Hammond of South Carolina, who three years before the inauguration
of Mr. Lincoln, on the fourth day of March, 1858, made this
declaration in the United-States Senate:--
"Without firing a gun, without drawing a sword, should the North
make war on us, we could bring the whole world to our feet. What
would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years? I will
not stop to depict what every one can imagine, but this is certain,
England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world
with her. No, you dare not make war on cotton. No Power on earth
dares to make war upon cotton. _Cotton is King_."
EFFECTIVENESS OF THE BLOCKADE.
Boastful and impotent as the declaration of Mr. Hammond now seems,
it had a better basis of fact to stand upon than many of the fiery
predictions in which Southern statesmen were wont to indulge. The
importance of cotton to the civilized world could hardly be
exaggerated, and yet it was this very importance that forced the
United States to the course which was pursued. The National
Government could not permit the export of cotton without constantly
aggrandizing the power of the rebellion, and it could not prevent
its export without tempting the manufacturing nations of Europe to
raise the blockade. The Administration wisely prepared to enforce
the blockade and to meet all the consequences.
To accomplish its undertaking, the energy of the Nation was devoted
to the creation of a navy. By the end of the year 1863 the government
had six hundred vessels of war which were increased to seven hundred
before the rebellion was subdued. Of the total number at least
seventy-five were ironclad. It may be instanced with laudable
pride that one enterprising man, honorably distinguished as a
scientific engineer, constructed in less than a hundred days an
armored squadron of eight ships, in the aggregate of five thousand
tons burden, capable of steaming nine knots per hour and destined
for effective service upon the rivers of the South-West. When the
contractor, Mr. James B. Eads of St. Louis, agreed to furnish these
steamers to the Government, the timber from which they were to be
built was still standing in the forest and the machinery with which
the armor was to be rolled was not constructed.
A year after the first battle was fought the naval force of the
United States had practically interdicted all legitimate commerce
with the Southern States. No more effective method of warfare
could have been devised. At the outbreak of the war the States in
rebellion were able to manufacture but few of the articles
indispensable to the ordinary life of a people. Their wealth was
purely agricultural. Cotton and tobacco were their only exports.
For a supply of manufactures the South had depended wholly upon
its trade with the North and with Europe. The natural effect of
the war was greatly to lessen production, and the blockade made it
impossible to find a market for any large portion of the diminished
product of cotton. As a striking evidence of the prosperity in
the South at the time it complained of oppression, the largest
cotton crop which had ever been grown was that of 1860. It numbered
more than five million two hundred thousand bales, nearly four and
a half millions of which had found a ready market in Europe and
the North before the outbreak of the war. The crop of 1861 was
little more than one-half that of the preceding year. Of the three
and a half millions which remained available for export at the end
of 1861 it was estimated that up to August, 1862, not more than
fifty thousand bales had been carried to England, the principal
foreign consumer.
The demand for food created by the Southern army caused a majority
of the plantations to raise corn, and the cotton crop of 1862 did
not amount to more than one million bales, very little of which
found a foreign market; and the supply and exportation diminished
from this time onward. Cotton which sold in December, 1861, in
Liverpool for 11¾_d_. per pound had risen in December, 1862, to
24½_d_. per pound, and as a result, half a million persons in
England, dependent for their daily bread upon this manufacturing
industry, were thrown out of employment and reduced to beggary.
So great was the distress that by April, 1863, nearly two million
pounds sterling had been expended for their relief, and this sum
does not include the vast amounts expended in local volunteer
charities. English manufacturers saw that the supply of the raw
product from America could no longer be depended upon, and efforts
were made to introduce the manufacture of the inferior staple from
India, but the experiment proved in the main unsatisfactory and
unprofitable.
The stringency of the blockade which prevented the exportation of
cotton, prevented also the importation of manufactured articles.
While compelled to acknowledge this fact, the Confederate Secretary
of State, Mr. Benjamin, attempted very cleverly to turn it to
account by showing the advantages which would accrue to the commercial
and manufacturing classes of England by the speedy triumph of the
rebellion. Writing to Mr. Mason, who represented the Confederacy
in England, Mr. Benjamin said, "The almost total cessation of
external commerce for the last two years has produced the complete
exhaustion of all articles of foreign growth and manufacture, and
it is but a moderate computation to estimate the imports into the
Confederacy at three hundred millions of dollars for the first six
months which will ensue after the treaty of peace." The unexpressed
part of the proposition which this statement covered was the most
interesting. The merchants and ship-owners of England were to
understand that the sale and transportation of this vast amount of
fabrics would fall into the hands of England if the Confederacy
should succeed, and that if it should fail, the domestic trade of
the United States would absorb the whole of it. It was a shrewd
appeal to a nation whose foreign policy has always been largely
influenced by considerations of trade.
EFFECTIVENESS OF THE BLOCKADE.
The economic condition of the South at this time may be compared
to that of a man with full purse, lost in a desert. Southern cotton
would easily sell in the markets of New York or Liverpool for four
times its price in Charleston, while the manufactures of Manchester
or of Lowell were worth in Charleston four times the price in
Liverpool or New York. Exchange was rendered by the blockade
practically impossible. When the profits of a successful voyage
from Liverpool to Charleston and return, would more than repay the
expense of the construction of the best steamer and of the voyage,
the temptation to evade the blockade was altogether too strong to
be resisted by the merchants and manufacturers of England. Blockade-
running became a regular business with them, and the extent to
which it was carried may be inferred from the fact that during the
war the American fleet captured or sunk more than seven hundred
vessels bound from British ports to ports of the Confederacy. How
many vessels escaped our navy and safely ran the blockade may never
be known, but for three years it was a steady contest between the
navy of the United States and the blockade-runners of England.
The persistent course of the latter was stimulated both by cupidity
and by ill will to this country. They were anxious to make pecuniary
gains for themselves and to aid the Confederacy at the same time.
They were checked only by the extra-hazardous character imparted
to the trade by the alertness and superior vigilance of our cruisers
which sent many millions of English ventures to less profitable
markets and many millions to the adjudication of our own Prize-
courts.
The establishment and maintenance of a blockade is not accounted
by naval officers as the most brilliant service to which in the
line of their profession they may be deputed, but it was a service
of inestimable value to the cause of the Union, and it was performed
with a skill and thoroughness never surpassed. The blockade required
an enormous force of men. In addition to the marines, to the large
body of soldiers transferred from time to time to the navy, and to
the rebel prisoners that joined in the service, there were 121,807
men specially enlisted in the navy during the war. But for the
aid thus rendered by the navy, the hard fight would have been longer
and more sanguinary. Had not the South been thus deprived of the
munitions of war, of clothing and of all manner of supplies which
England and France were eager to furnish her, we should not have
seen the end of the civil war in 1865, and we should have been
subjected to all the hazards implied by the indefinite continuance
of the struggle.
The census of 1860 shows that the thirty-three States and seven
Territories, which at that time composed the United States, contained
a population of 31,443,791. Fifteen of these States with 12,140,296
inhabitants were slave-holding, more than four millions of the
population being slaves; eighteen with an aggregate population of
19,303,494 were classed as free. Four of the fifteen slave States,
Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky, whose people numbered
three and one-half millions, constituted what were known as the
Border slave States--West Virginia being added to the list in 1862.
Though a considerable proportion of the inhabitants of these States,
from association and interest, sympathized with the South, they
contributed to the Union cause an army equal to two hundred thousand
men enlisted for three years, and throughout the war they were
loyal to the National Government. Many of the inhabitants of these
States fought in the Confederate Army, but this loss was more than
compensated by the effective aid rendered by the loyal men who
joined the Union Army from the rebellious States. Tennessee
furnished more than thirty thousand men to the armies of the Union,
and from almost every State which formed a portion of the Confederacy
men enlisted in the loyal forces. It may with reasonable precision
be affirmed that the encouragement which the Confederacy received
from the slave States that remained true to the Union, was more
than offset by the effective aid rendered by loyal men residing
within the limits of the rebellious States.
STRENGTH OF THE CONFEDERATE ARMY.
As the source of supply for an army the Southern Confederacy had
eleven States with an aggregate population of nine millions. It
is difficult to estimate with accuracy the numerical strength of
the army which they organized at the beginning of the war. In a
semi-official publication it was asserted that the army numbered
more than five hundred thousand men, but as twenty thousand of this
army were credited to Maryland and thirty-five thousand to Missouri,
the number given was evidently a gross exaggeration. The statement
was probably made for effect upon the North rather than in the
interest of truth. A member of the Confederate Congress from North
Carolina stated in debate in 1864 that the Confederate muster-roll
numbered more than four hundred thousand men, "of whom probably
one-half were not there." During the entire period of the war it
is probable that eleven hundred thousand men were embodied in the
Confederate Army, though its effective strength did not at any time
consist of more than one-half that number. But this force was
obtained by the South at great sacrifice. The necessity of a
stringent conscription act was felt as early as April 16, 1862, at
which time the first Enrolment Act was passed by the Confederate
Congress. Under this Act, which was amended on the 27th of September
of the same year, Mr. Davis issued on the 15th of July, 1863, his
first conscription proclamation which called into the service of
the Confederacy all white men between the ages of eighteen and
forty-five who were not legally exempted from military service.
The date of the proclamation shows that it was forced upon the
Confederates by Lee's abortive invasion of Pennsylvania, and was
intended to fill the ranks of the army which had been shattered
and beaten on the field of Gettysburg. Further legislation by the
Confederate Congress in February, 1864, extended the enrolment so
as to include all white male residents of the Confederate States
between the ages of seventeen and fifty. In February, 1865, Mr.
Davis estimated that more than one hundred and fifty thousand men
were added to the Confederate armies by this forced conscription.
Comparing the strength of the Confederate Army with the population
from which it was recruited, and taking into account the absolute
lack of provision made for the comfort of the Southern soldier,
the insufficient provision made for his sustenance and clothing,
and the consequent desertion which made it imperative to repair
diminished strength, it is evident that the conscription legislation
bore with fearful severity upon the people of the South. Comprehensive
as was the Enrolment Act, which rendered liable to military duty
the entire male population between the ages of seventeen and fifty,
the South was compelled to overstep its self-imposed limit. The
forces which Lee and Johnston surrendered contained so many boys
unfitted by youth and so many men unfitted by age for military
service, that a Northern General epigrammatically remarked that
for its armies the Confederacy had been compelled in the end to
rob alike the cradle and the grave.
Grave misstatements however have been made in regard to the diminished
forces of the Confederacy at the cessation of the war. The astounding
assertion has crept into statements intended to be historical that
Lee surrendered an army of only ten thousand men, and Johnston an
army of most insignificant numbers in comparison with that of
Sherman. An accurate count made of the forces surrendered by the
Confederacy and paroled by the North at the conclusion of the war,
shows that the following numbers were embodied in the various
Southern armies and were rendering active service in the field:--
The army of Virginia under General Robert E. Lee . . . . 28,356
The army of Tennessee under General Joseph E. Johnston . . 37,047
The army of Florida under Major-General Samuel Jones . . . 2,113
The army of Alabama under Lieutenant-General Richard Taylor . 12,723
The Trans-Mississippi army of General E. Kirby Smith . . . 10,167
The Arkansas army of Brigadier-General M. Jeff Thompson . . 5,048
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95,454
These figures are given as the result of actual count made of the
paroles signed, and have been verified by officers both of the
Union Army and of the Confederate Army. They represent the actual
force engaged in the field, and upon the basis of calculation
adopted in the North would indicate a Confederate Army of nearly
three hundred thousand men at the close of the struggle. When the
frequent desertions from the Southern Army are remembered, and
their losses in prisoners and those disabled in the fearful fights
of the months which preceded the surrender of Lee, it will not be
exaggeration to say that the South had at the opening of General
Grant's campaign in Virginia the preceding summer more than five
hundred thousand men borne upon the rolls of its armies. The waste
of the Confederate forces during the sixty days immediately preceding
the final surrender was very great. The knowledge of the situation
had penetrated the ranks, and the men lost spirit and hope. The
result which followed was precisely that which has always happened
with armies so circumstanced. The ranks melted away, and there
were neither resource nor discipline to fill them again.
THE UNION AND CONFEDERATE ARMIES.
It would be but poor compliment to the soldiers of the Union to
withhold just recognition of the brave opponents who met them on
so many hard-fought fields. Nor is there any disposition among
loyal men to stint the praise which is always due to courage.
Never perhaps was an army organized with fighting qualities superior
to those of the army put into the field by the Confederacy. They
fought with an absolute conviction, however erroneous, that their
cause was just; and their arms were nerved by the feeling which
their leaders had instilled deeply into their minds, that they were
contending against an intolerable tyranny and protecting the
sacredness of home. In a war purely defensive, as was that of the
Confederacy, an army such as they raised and maintained can baffle
the efforts of vastly superior numbers. The Confederates found
from their own experience how changed was the task when they assumed
the offensive and ventured to leave their own territory, with their
perfect knowledge of its topography and with a surrounding population
of sympathizers and helpers. In their first attempt at invasion
they did not get beyond cannon-sound of the Potomac, and in the
second they were turned back by the result of the first battle.
These facts do not impeach the prowess of the Confederate soldiery,
but they illustrate the task imposed on the Army of the Union and
they suggest the vast difference in the responsibilities which the
invading and the defensive forces were called upon to meet.
For so large an army as the Government of the Union was compelled
to raise, volunteering could not be relied upon as a steady resource
for recruitment. Great as was the ardor among the loyal people at
the beginning of the struggle, it was soon found, as it has always
been found in other nations, that unaided patriotism could not
supply the heavy demands constantly made to repair the waste from
the casualties of war and from the ravages of disease. The Act of
Congress of March 3, 1863, provided for the enrolment of all able-
bodied male citizens between the ages of twenty and forty-five
years, while the Act of February 24, 1864, granted freedom to all
male slaves between the ages of twenty and forty-five who might
enlist in the Northern armies. Reward was made to go with duty,
and by the Act of July 4, 1864, Congress ameliorated the rigors of
the conscription by paying to each drafted man a bounty for one
years' service, at the same time doubling and trebling the amount
for two and three years' service respectively. The Secretary of
War was by the same law directed to discharge from service at the
request of parents all persons under the age of eighteen years who
might have enlisted in the army, and it was made an offense punishable
with loss of commission for any officer knowingly to enlist a person
less than sixteen years of age. Conscription laws have been
unpopular in all countries, and though resisted among us on one
occasion with riot, they were upheld with strong courage by the
mass of the loyal people. Representatives in Congress who had
voted for the enactments were returned by large majorities, and
Mr. Lincoln was re-elected with an overwhelming expression of
popular favor at the very time when he was directing the enforcement
of the draft. The vote of 1864 was perhaps the most significant
exhibition of patriotism made during the war, and had an extraordinary
influence in discouraging those who were directing the fortunes of
the Confederacy.
In the Loyal States the Government called for more than 2,750,000
men at various time throughout the war. In the South nearly every
white person capable of bearing arms rendered at one time or another
service in the army. A leading military authority of England,
speaking of the strength of the armies of the United States and of
the Confederacy, says, "The total number of men called under arms
by the Government of the United States between April, 1861, and
April, 1865, amounted to 2,759,049, of whom 2,656,053 were actually
embodied in the armies. If to these be added the 1,100,000 men
embodied by the Southern States during the same time, the total
armed forces reach the enormous amount of nearly 4,000,000, drawn
from a population of only 32,000,000 of all ages. Before this vast
aggregate, the celebrated uprising of the French nation in 1793,
or the recent efforts of France and Germany in the war of 1870-71,
sink into insignificance. And within three years the whole of
these vast forces were peaceably disbanded and the army had shrunk
to a normal strength of only 30,000 men."
Germany with a population of 41,000,000 can in time of war furnish
an army of 1,250,000 men. France with a population of 36,000,000
claims that she can set more than 1,500,000 men afield. With a
population of less than 25,000,0000 from which to levy troops, the
Government of the United States had when the war closed more than
1,000,000 men upon the muster-rolls of the army to be paid off and
discharged. Of this vast force probably not more than forty per
cent. were available for operations on the field. The wounded,
the sick, those upon furlough, upon detail in other service, upon
military service elsewhere than in the field, together with those
in military parlance absent or "not accounted for," would, it is
estimated, be equal to sixty per cent. of the entire army.
AREA OF THE WAR AND ITS COST.
The area over which the armies of the Union were called to operate
was 800,000 square miles in extent,--as large as the German Empire,
France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Holland combined. Those who
led in the secession movement relied confidently upon the impossibility
of overcoming a population inhabiting so great an expanse of
territory. Their judgment was confirmed by that of the best military
critics of Europe who looked pityingly upon the folly of the United
States for undertaking a task which after years of suffering and
great loss of life could end only in defeat, with hopeless bankruptcy
for the surviving remnant of the Republic. Could the Government
have had the advantage of a small area for its military operations,
its power to overcome the rebellion would have been greatly enhanced,
and an army not exceeding half of that which was raised could have
vindicated the authority of the flag and maintained the integrity
of the Union. The National expenditures would have been decreased
in even greater ratio, for aside from reducing the number of troops,
the enormous cost involved in transportation would have been lessened
by hundreds of millions of dollars in the four years of the war.
Another cause of increased expenditure was the haste necessarily
attendant upon all the military preparations of the Government.
Armies were to be created from the basis of an organization hardly
greater than would serve as a police force for the Republic. When
Fort Sumter was fired upon, the Army of the United States, rank
and file, scarcely exceeded sixteen thousand men. The Government
was compelled to equip its vast forces from stores of which hardly
a nucleus existed. Arms, ammunition, military supplies, were all
to be instantly gathered. The growth of the great host, its
equipment, its marshaling, its prodigious strength, are among the
marvels and the glories of our history. To admit that mistakes
were made is only to say that the work was in human hands. Criticism
may well be drowned in the acclaim of success. No National emergency
has ever been met with greater courage, promptness, or skill.
The loss to the country and the expenditures from its Treasury
could not be estimated when the war closed. We knew that a half-
million citizens of the Republic had laid down their lives--three
hundred thousand in defending the Union, two hundred thousand in
attempting to destroy it. We knew the enormous amounts which had
been paid in supporting our armies. But we were not wholly prepared
for the millions that must be paid in satisfaction of claims which
there had been no mode of reckoning. Nor had there been any standard
by which an estimate could be made of the sums required by the
pensions which the gratitude and the justice of the Government
would be called upon to grant. It was soon apparent that the need
of relief was proportional to the magnitude of the struggle, and
the Government prepared to respond with a munificence never
paralleled.
THE CHARACTER OF EDWIN M. STANTON.
Nine months after the outbreak of hostilities the organization and
equipment of the National forces were placed under the direction
of Edwin M. Stanton as Secretary of War. Outside of his professional
reputation, which was high, Mr. Stanton had been known to the public
by his service in the Cabinet of Mr. Buchanan during the last three
months of his Administration. In that position he had undoubtedly
exhibited zeal and fidelity in the cause of the Union. He was a
member of the Democratic party, a thorough believer in its principles,
and a hearty opponent of Mr. Lincoln in the contest of 1860. In
speech and writing he referred to Mr. Lincoln's supporters in the
extreme partisan phrase of the day,--as "Black Republicans." He
had no sympathy with Mr. Lincoln's views on the subject of slavery,
and was openly hostile to any revival of the doctrine of Protection.
If Mr. Buchanan had been governed by the views of Mr. Stanton he
would undoubtedly have vetoed the Morrill Tariff bill, and thus an
unintended injury would have been inflicted upon the reviving credit
of the nation. A citizen of the District of Columbia, Mr. Stanton
was not called upon to make a personal record in the Presidential
election of 1860, but his sympathies were well understood to be
with the supporters of Breckinridge.
With these political principles and affiliations, Mr. Stanton was
not even considered in connection with the original organization
of Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet. But the fact of his being a Democrat
was now in his favor, for Mr. Lincoln was anxious to signify by
some decisive expression, his appreciation of the patriotism which
had induced so large a proportion of the Democratic party to lay
aside prejudice and unite in support of his Administration. He
had a high estimate of Mr. Stanton's capacity, derived from personal
intercourse in a professional engagement some three years before.
He had learned something of his powers of endurance, of his trained
habits of thought, of his systematic method of labor, and he had
confidence that at forty-seven years of age, with vigorous health
and a robust constitution, Mr. Stanton could endure the strain
which the increasing labor of the War Department would impose.
His nomination was confirmed without delay, and the whole country
received his appointment with profound satisfaction.
No Cabinet minister in our history has been so intemperately
denounced, so extravagantly eulogized. The crowning fact in his
favor is that through all the mutations of his stormy career he
was trusted and loved by Mr. Lincoln to the end of his days. He
was at all times and under all circumstances absolutely free from
corruption, and was savagely hostile to every man in the military
service who was even suspected of irregularity or wrong. He
possessed the executive faculty in the highest degree. He was
prompt, punctual, methodical, rapid, clear, explicit in all his
work. He imparted energy to every branch of the service, and his
vigorous determination was felt on the most distant field of the
war as a present and inspiring force.
Mr. Stanton had faults. He was subject to unaccountable and violent
prejudice, and under its sway he was capable of harsh injustice.
Many officers of merit and of spotless fame fell under his displeasure
and were deeply wronged by him. General Stone was perhaps the most
conspicuous example of the extremity of outrage to which the
Secretary's temper could carry him. He was lacking in magnanimity.
Even when intellectually convinced of an error, he was reluctant
to acknowledge it. He had none of that grace which turns an enemy
to a friend by healing the wounds which have been unjustly inflicted.
While oppressing many who were under his control, he had the keenest
appreciation of power, and to men who were wielding great influence
he exhibited the most deferential consideration. He had a quick
insight into character, and at a glance could tell a man who would
resist and resent from one who would silently submit. He was
ambitious to the point of uncontrollable greed for fame, and by
this quality was subject to its counterpart of jealousy, and to an
envy of the increasing reputation of others. It was a sore trial
to him that after his able and persistent organization of all the
elements of victory, the share of credit which justly belonged to
him, was lost sight of in the glory which surrounded the hero of
a successful battle.
But his weaknesses did not obscure the loftiness of his character.
The capricious malignity and brutal injustice of the Great Frederick
might as well be cited against the acknowledged grandeur of his
career, as an indictment be brought against Stanton's fame on his
personal defects, glaring and even exasperating as they were. To
the Nation's trust he was sublimely true. To him was committed,
in a larger degree than to any other man except the President alone,
the successful prosecution of the war and the consequent preservation
of the Union. Against those qualities which made him so many
enemies, against those insulting displays of temper which wounded
so many proud spirits helplessly subject to him for the time,
against those acts of rank injustice which, in the judgment of his
most partial eulogist, will always mar his fame, must be remembered
his absolute consecration to all that he was and of all he could
hope to be, to the cause of his country. For more than three years,
of unceasing and immeasurable responsibility, he stood at his post,
by day and by night, never flagging in zeal, never doubting in
faith. Even his burly frame and rugged strength were overborne by
the weight of his cares and by the strain upon his nerves, but not
until his work was finished, not until the great salvation had
come. Persecution and obloquy have followed him into the grave,
but an impartial verdict must be that he was inspired with the
devotion of a martyr, and that he wore out his life in a service
of priceless value to all the generations of his countrymen.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Relation with Great Britain.--Close of the Year 1860.--Prince of
Wales's Visit to the United States.--Exchange of Congratulatory
Notes.--Dawn of the Rebellion.--Lord Lyons's Dispatch.--Mr. Seward's
Views.--Lord John Russell's Threats.--Condition of Affairs at Mr.
Lincoln's Inauguration.--Unfriendly Manifestations by Great Britain.
--Recognizes Belligerency of Southern States.--Discourtesy to
American Minister.--England and France make Propositions to the
Confederate States.--Unfriendly in their Character to the United
States.--Full Details given.--Motives inquired into.--Trent Affair.
--Lord John Russell.--Lord Lyons.--Mr. Seward.--Mason and Slidell
released.--Doubtful Grounds assigned.--Greater Wrongs against us
by Great Britain.--Queen Victoria's Friendship.--Isolation of United
States.--Foreign Aid to Confederates on the Sea.--Details given.--
So-called Neutrality.--French Attempt to establish an Empire in
Mexico.--Lord Palmerston in 1848, in 1859, in 1861.--Conclusive
Observations.
At the close of the year 1860 the long series of irritating and
dangerous questions which had disturbed the relations of the United
States and Great Britain, from the time of the Declaration of
Independence, had reached final and friendly solution. The fact
gave unalloyed satisfaction to the American people and to their
Government. Mr. Buchanan was able to say in his message of December,
in language which Lord Lyons truly described as "the most cordial
which has appeared in any President's message since the foundation
of the Republic,"--
"Our relations with Great Britain are of the most friendly character.
Since the commencement of my Administration the two dangerous
questions arising from the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty and from the right
of search claimed by the British Government have been amicably and
honorably adjusted. The discordant constructions of the Clayton-
Bulwer Treaty, which at different periods of the discussion bore
a threatening aspect, have resulted in a final settlement entirely
satisfactory to this government. The only question of any importance
which still remains open is the disputed title between the two
governments to the Island of San Juan in the vicinity of Washington
Territory." It was obvious that neither government looked forward
to any trouble from this source.
To give manifestation of the cordiality with which our friendship
was reciprocated, Her Majesty had selected this auspicious year
for a visit of her son, the Prince of Wales, to this country. His
Royal Highness was received everywhere by the government and the
people with genuine and even enthusiastic hospitality, and at the
termination of his visit Lord Lyons was instructed to express the
thanks of Her Majesty.
"One of the main objects," His Lordship wrote to Secretary Cass on
the 8th of December, 1860, "which Her Majesty had in view in
sanctioning the visit of His Royal Highness was to prove to the
President and citizens of the United States the sincerity of those
sentiments of esteem and regard which Her Majesty and all classes
of her subjects entertain for the kindred race which occupies so
distinguished a position in the community of nations. Her Majesty
has seen with the greatest satisfaction that her feelings and those
of her people in this respect have been met with the warmest sympathy
in the great American Union; and Her Majesty trusts that the feelings
of confidence and affection, of which late events have proved beyond
all question the existence, will long continue to prevail between
the two countries to their mutual advantage and to the general
interests of civilization and humanity. I am commanded to state
to the President that the Queen would be gratified by his making
known generally to the citizens of the United States her grateful
sense of the kindness with which they received her son, who has
returned to England deeply impressed with all he saw during his
progress through the States, and more especially so with the friendly
and cordial good will manifested towards him on every occasion by
all classes of the community."
Mr. William Henry Trescott, then Assistant Secretary of State,
replied to Lord Lyons's note without delay, writing on the 11th of
December: "I am instructed by the President to express the
gratification with which he has learned how correctly Her Majesty
has appreciated the spirit in which His Royal Highness was received
throughout the Republic, and the cordial manifestation of that
spirit by the people of the United States which accompanied him in
every step of his progress. Her Majesty has justly recognized that
the visit of her son aroused the kind and generous sympathies of
our citizens, and, if I may so speak, has created an almost personal
interest in the fortunes of the Royalty which he so well represents.
The President trusts that this sympathy and interest towards the
future representative of the Sovereignty of Great Britain are at
once an evidence and a guaranty of that consciousness of common
interest and mutual regard which have bound in the past, and will
in the future bind together more strongly than treaties, the feelings
and the fortunes of the two nations which represent the enterprise,
the civilization, and the constitutional liberty of the same great
race. I have also been instructed to make this correspondence
public, that the citizens of the United States may have the
satisfaction of knowing how strongly and properly Her Majesty has
appreciated the cordial warmth of their welcome to His Royal
Highness."
VISIT OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.
Time was soon to test "the sincerity of those sentiments of esteem
and regard which Her Majesty and all classes of her subjects
entertain for the kindred race which occupies so distinguished a
position in the community of nations." Within a few days after
the exchange of this correspondence it became the duty of Lord
Lyons to announce to his government that the domestic differences
"in the great American Union" were deepening into so fierce a feud
that from different motives both General Cass the Secretary of
State, to whom his letter had been addressed, and Mr. Trescott the
Assistant Secretary of State, by whom it had been answered, had
resigned, and that the United States, one "of the two great nations
which represent the enterprise, the civilization, and the constitutional
liberty of the same great race," was about to confront the gravest
danger that can threaten national existence.
The State of South Carolina passed its Ordinance of Secession
December 17, 1860. From that date until the surrender of Fort
Sumter, April 14, 1861, many of the most patriotic and able statesmen
of the country and a large majority of the people of the North
hoped that some reasonable and peaceful adjustment of the difficulties
would be found. The new Administration had every right to expect
that foreign powers would maintain the utmost reserve, both in
opinion and in action, until it could have a fair opportunity to
decide upon a policy. The great need of the new President was
time. Both he and his advisers felt that every day's delay was a
substantial gain, and that the maintenance of the _status quo_,
with no fresh outbreak at home and no unfriendly expression aborad,
was of incalculable advantage to the cause of the Union.
Amid the varying and contradictory impressions of the hour, Lord
Lyons had reported events as they occurred, with singular fairness
and accuracy. Just one month before Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated,
on the 4th of February, 1861, His Lordship wrote to Lord John
Russell, at that time Her Majesty's Minister of Foreign Affairs:
"Mr. Seward's real view of the state of the country appears to be
that if bloodshed can be avoided until the new government is
installed, the seceding States will in no long time return to the
Confederation. He seems to think that in a few months the evils
and hardships produced by secession will become intolerably grievous
to the Southern States, that they will be completely re-assured as
to the intentions of the Administration, and that the conservative
element which is now kept under the surface by the violent pressure
of the Secessionists will emerge with irresistible force. From
all these causes he confidently expects that when elections for
the State Legislatures are held in the Southern States in November
next, the Union party will have a clear majority and will bring
the seceding States back into the Confederation. He then hopes to
place himself at the head of a strong Union party having extensive
ramifications both in the North and in the South, and to make 'Union
or Disunion, not Freedom or Slavery,' the watchwords of political
parties." It can scarcely escape notice how significant, even at
this early period, is the use in this dispatch of the word
"confederation" as applied to the United States,--a use never before
made of it in diplomatic communication since the establishment of
the Constitution, and indicating, only too clearly, the view to be
taken by the British Government of the relation of the States to
the Union.
Whatever may have been the estimate at home of the policy attributed
to Mr. Seward, it was certainly one which would commend itself to
the sympathy of a friendly nation, and one, to the success of which
no neutral power would hesitate to contribute all the aid it could
rightfully render. The dispatch of Lord Lyons was received in
London on the 18th of February, and on the 20th Lord John Russell
replied as follows: "The success or failure of Mr. Seward's plans
to prevent a disruption of the North-American Union is a matter of
deep interest to Her Majesty's Government, but they can only expect
and hope. They are not called upon nor would they be acting
prudently were they to obtrude their advice on the dissentient
parties in the United States. Supposing however that Mr. Lincoln,
acting under bad advice, should endeavor to provide excitement for
the public mind by raising questions with Great Britain, Her
Majesty's Government feel no hesitation as to the policy they would
pursue. They would in the first place be very forbearing. They
would show by their acts how highly they value the relations of
peace and amity with the United States. But they would take care
to let the government which multiplied provocations and sought for
quarrels understand that their forbearance sprung from the
consciousness of strength and not from the timidity of weakness.
They would warn a government which was making political capital
out of blustering demonstrations that our patience might be tried
too far."
THREATS FROM LORD JOHN RUSSELL.
It is impossible to mistake the spirit or the temper of this
dispatch. It is difficult to account for the manifest irritation
of its tone except upon the ground that Lord John Russell saw in
a possible reconciliation, between North and South, something that
threatened the interest or jarred upon the sympathy of the British
Government. It was at least sufficient and ominous warning of what
the United States might expect from "the confidence and affection"
which had only a few weeks before been outpoured so lavishly by
Her Majesty's Government. The fact is worthy of emphasis that
since the cordial interchange of notes touching the visit of the
Prince of Wales there had not been a single word of unkindness in
the correspondence of the two governments. But our embarrassments
had been steadily deepening, and according to many precedents in
the career of that illustrious statesman, Lord John seems to have
considered the period of our distress a fitting time to assert that
"British forbearance springs from the consciousness of strength
and not from the timidity of weakness."
On the 4th of March, 1861, the administration of Mr. Lincoln assumed
the responsibility of government. At that date the organization
of the Southern Confederacy had not been perfected. Four States
which ultimately joined it had not yet seceded from the Union.
There had been no overt act of violence. The Administration still
believed in the possibility of a peaceful settlement. But on the
12th of April Fort Sumter was attacked. On the 14th it was
surrendered. On the 15th the President issued his Proclamation
calling out seventy-five thousand militia and summoning Congress
to meet on the 4th of July. On the 17th the President of the
Confederacy authorized the issue of letters of marque. On the 19th
the President of the United States proclaimed a blockade of the
Southern ports and declared that privateers with letters of marque
from the Southern Confederacy would be treated as pirates.
This condition of affairs rendered the relation of foreign powers
to the Union and to the Confederacy at once urgent and critical.
It is true that Fort Sumter had surrendered to a warlike demonstration,
but fortunately no blood had been shed. It is true that letters
of marque had been authorized, but none had been actually issued.
It is true that a blockade had been proclaimed, but some time must
elapse before it could be practically enforced. All that can be
said is that the rebellion had organized itself with promptness
and courage for a conflict. There was still a pause. Neither
party thoroughly realized the horror of the work before them, though
every day made it more clearly apparent. Until then the United
States was the only organized government on our soil known to
England, and with it she had for three-quarters of a century
maintained commercial and political relations which had grown closer
and more friendly every year. The vital element of that government
was Union. Whatever might be the complicated relations of their
domestic law, to the world and to themselves the United States of
America was the indivisible government. This instinct of union
had gathered them together as colonies, had formed them into an
imperfect confederation, had matured them under a National
Constitution. It gave them their vigor at home, their power and
influence abroad. To destroy their union was to resolve them into
worse than colonial disintegration.
But the separation of the States was more than the dissolution of
the Union. For, treating with all due respect the conviction of
the Southern States as to the violation of their constitutional
rights, no fair-minded man can deny that the central idea of the
secession movement was the establishment of a great slave-holding
empire around the Gulf of Mexico. It was a bold and imperial
conception. With an abounding soil, with millions of trained and
patient laborers, with a proud and martial people, with leaders
used to power and skilled in government, controlling some of the
greatest and most necessary of the commercial staples of the world,
the haughty oligarchy of the South would have founded a slave
republic which, in its successful development, would have changed
the future of this continent and of the world. When English
statesmen were called upon to deal with such a crisis, the United
States had a right to expect, if not active sympathy, at least that
neutrality which would confine itself within the strict limit of
international obligation, and would not withhold friendly wishes
for the preservation of the Union.
RELATIONS OF ENGLAND AND THE UNION.
England had tested slowly but surely the worth of the American
Union. As the United States had extended its territory, had
developed in wealth, had increased in population, richer and richer
had become the returns to England's merchants and manufacturers;
question after question of angry controversy had been amicably
settled by the conviction of mutual, growing, and peaceful interests.
And while it had become a rhetorical truism with English historians
and statesmen, that relations with the independent Republic were
stronger, safer, and more valuable than those of the old colonial
connection, her own principles of constitutional liberty were re-
invigorated by the skill and the breadth with which they were
applied and administered by her own children in a new country.
England could not but know that all this was due to the Union,--
the Union which had concentrated the weakness of scattered States
into a government that protected the citizen and welcomed the
immigrant, which carried law and liberty to the pioneer on the
remotest border, which had made of provincial villages centres of
wealth and civilization that would not have discredited the capitals
of older nations, and which above all had created a Federal
representative government whose successful working might teach
England herself how to hold together the ample colonies that still
formed the outposts of her Empire.
More than all, a Cabinet, every member of which by personal relation
of tradition connection belonged to the great liberal party that
felt the achievement of Emancipation to be a part of its historic
glory, should have realized that no diminution of a rival, no
monopoly of commerce, could bring to England any compensation for
the establishment of a slave-holding empire upon the central waters
of the world.
With this natural expectation the Government in less than sixty
days after Mr. Lincoln's inauguration, sent its minister to London,
confident that he would at least be allowed to present to the
British Government for friendly consideration, the condition and
policy of the Republic before any positive action should disturb
the apparently amicable relations of the two countries. Mr. Charles
Francis Adams, who was selected for this important duty, was
instructed to explain to the British Government that the peculiar
relation of the States to the Federal Government, and the reticence
and reservations consequent upon a change of administration, had
hitherto restrained the action of the President in the formation
and declaration of his policy; that without foreign interference
the condition of affairs still afforded reasonable hope of a
satisfactory solution; and especially that it was necessary, if
there existed a sincere desire to avoid wrong and injury to the
United States, for foreign powers to abstain from any act of
pretended neutrality which would give material advantage or moral
encouragement to the organized forces of the rebellion.
Before Mr. Adams could cross the Atlantic the British Government,
although aware of his mission and its object, decided upon its own
course, in concerted action with France, and without reference to
the views or wishes or interest of the United States. On the day
before Mr. Adams's arrival in England, as if to give him offensive
warning how little his representations would be regarded, Her
Majesty's Government issued a proclamation recognizing the confederated
Southern States as belligerents. It is entirely unnecessary to
discuss the question of the right to recognize belligerency. The
great powers of Europe had the same right to recognize the Southern
Confederacy as a belligerent that they had to recognize it as an
established nationality, and with the same consequences,--all
dependent upon whether the fact so recognized were indeed a fact.
But the recognition of belligerency or independence may be the
means to achieve a result, and not simply an impartial acquiescence
in a result already achieved. The question therefore was not
whether foreign powers had a right to recognize, but whether the
time and method of such recognition were not distinctly hostile,--
whether they were not the efficient and coldly calculated means to
strengthen the hands of the Rebellion.
Events proved that if the English Government had postponed this
action until the Government of the United States had been allowed
a frank discussion of its policy, no possible injury to English
interests could have resulted. It was but a very short time before
the rebellion assumed proportions that led to the recognition of
the Confederacy as a belligerent by the civil, judicial, and military
authorities of the Union; a recognition by foreign powers would
then have been simply an act of impartial neutrality. But, declared
with such precipitancy, recognition could be regarded only as an
act of unfriendliness to the United States. The proof of this is
inherent in the case:--
1. The purpose of the secession, openly avowed from the beginning,
was the dissolution of the Union and the establishment of an
independent slave-empire; and the joint recognition was a declaration
that such a result, fraught with ruin to us, was not antagonistic
to the feelings or to the supposed interests of Europe, and that
both the commercial ambition of England and the military aspirations
of France in Mexico hoped to find profit in the event.
ENGLAND'S RECOGNITION OF BELLIGERENCY.
2. This recognition of belligerency in defiance of the known wishes
and interests of the United States, accompanied by the discourteous
refusal to allow a few hours' delay for the reception of the American
minister, was a significant warning to the seceded States that no
respect due to the old Union would long delay the establishment of
new relations, and that they should put forth all their energies
before the embarrassed Administration could concentrate its efforts
in defense of the National life.
3. The recognition of the belligerent flag of the Southern
Confederacy, with the equal right to supplies and hospitality,
guarantied by such recognition, gave to the insurgents facilities
and opportunities which were energetically used, and led to
consequences which belong to a later period of this history, but
the injury and error of which were emphatically rebuked by a judgment
of the most important tribunal that has ever been assembled to
interpret and administer international law.
The demand which naturally followed for a rigid enforcement of the
blockade, imposed a heavy burden upon the Government of the United
States just at the time when it was least prepared to assume such
a burden. Apologists for the unfriendly course of England interpose
the plea that the declaration of blockade by the United States was
in fact a prior recognition of Southern belligerency. But it must
be remembered that when the United States proposed to avoid this
technical argument by closing the insurgent ports instead of
blockading them, Mr. Seward was informed by Lord Lyons, acting in
concert with the French minister, that Her Majesty's Government
"would consider a decree closing the ports of the South actually
in possession of the insurgent or Confederate States, as null and
void, and that they would not submit to measures on the high seas
in pursuance of such decree." Bitterly might Mr. Seward announce
the fact which has sunk deep into the American heart: "It is indeed
manifest in the tone of the speeches, as well as in the general
tenor of popular discussion, that neither the responsible ministers
nor the House of Commons nor the active portion of the people of
Great Britain sympathize with this government, and hope, or even
wish, for its success in suppressing the insurrection; and that on
the contrary the whole British nation, speaking practically, desire
and expect the dismemberment of the Republic."
This very decided step towards a hostile policy was soon followed
by another even more significant. On the 9th of May, 1861, only
a few days before the Proclamation of Her Britannic Majesty,
recognizing the belligerency of the Southern Confederacy and thus
developing itself as a part of a concerted and systematic policy,
Lord Cowley, the British Ambassador at Paris, wrote to Lord John
Russell: "I called this afternoon on M. Thouvenel, Minister of
Foreign Affairs, for the purpose of obtaining his answer to the
proposals contained in your Lordship's dispatch of the 6th inst.
relative to the measures which should be pursued by the Maritime
Powers of Europe for the protection of neutral property in presence
of the events which are passing in the American States. M. Thouvenel
said the Imperial Government concurred entirely in the views of
Her Majesty's Government in endeavoring to _obtain of the belligerents_
a _formal_ recognition of the second, third, and fourth articles
of the Declaration of Paris. Count de Flahault (French Ambassador
in London) would receive instructions to make this known officially
to your Lordship. With regard to the manner in which this endeavor
should be made, M. Thouvenel said that he thought a communication
should be addressed to both parties _in as nearly as possible the
same language_, the consuls being made the organs of communication
with the Southern States."
Communicating this intelligence to Lord Lyons in a dispatch dated
May 18, 1861, Lord John Russell added these instructions: "Your
Lordship may therefore be prepared to find your French colleague
ready to take the same line with yourself in his communications
with the Government of the United States. I need not tell your
Lordship that Her Majesty's Government would very gladly see a
practice which is calculated to lead to great irregularities and
to increase the calamities of war renounced by _both_ the contending
parties in America as it has been renounced by almost _every other
nation_ in the world. . . . You will take such measures as you
shall judge most expedient to transmit to Her Majesty's consul at
Charleston or New Orleans a copy of my previous dispatch to you of
this day's date, to be communicated at Montgomery to the President
of the so-styled Confederate States."
The identity of the address and the equality upon which both the
belligerents were invited to do what had been done by "almost every
other _nation_ of the world" need not be emphasized.
ACTION OF CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT.
On July 5, 1861, Lord Lyons instructed Mr. Bunch, the British Consul
at Charleston, South Carolina:--
"The course of events having invested the States assuming the title
of Confederate States of America with the character of belligerents,
it has become necessary for Her Majesty's Government to obtain from
the existing government in those States securities concerning the
proper treatment of neutrals. I am authorized by Lord John Russell
to confide the negotiation on this matter to you, and I have great
satisfaction in doing so. In order to make you acquainted with
the views of Her Majesty's Government, I transmit to you a duplicate
of a dispatch to me in which they are fully stated." His Lordship
then proceeded to instruct the consul as to the manner in which it
might be best to conduct the negotiation, the object being to avoid
as far as possible a direct official communication with the
authorities of the Confederate States. Instructions to the same
purport were addressed by the French Government to their consul at
Charleston.
What then was the point of the negotiations committed to these
consuls? It will be found in the dispatch from Lord John Russell,
communicated by his order to Mr. Bunch. It was the accession of
the United States and of the Confederate States to the Declaration
of Paris of April 16, 1856. That Declaration was signed by the
Ministers of Austria, France, Great Britain, Prussia, Russia,
Sardinia, and Turkey. It adopted as article of Maritime Law the
following points:--
"1. Privateering is and remains abolished.
"2. The neutral flag covers enemy's goods with the exception of
contraband of war.
"3. Neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war, are
not liable to capture under the enemy's flag.
"4. Blockades in order to be binding must be effective,--that is
to say, maintained by a force sufficient really to prevent access
to the coast of the enemy."
The Powers signing the Declaration engaged to bring it to the
knowledge of those Powers which had not taken part in that Congress
of Paris, and to invite them to accede to it; and they agreed that
"the present Declaration is not and shall not be binding except
between those Powers which have acceded or shall accede to it."
It was accepted by all the European and South American Powers.
The United States, Mexico, and the Oriental Powers did not join in
the general acceptance.
The English and French consuls in Charleston, having received these
instructions, sought and found an intermediary whose position and
diplomatic experience would satisfy the requirements. This agent
accepted the trust on two conditions,--one, that he should be
furnished with the instructions as proof to the Confederate Government
of the genuineness of the negotiation, the other, that the answer
of the Confederate Government should be received in whatever shape
that government should think proper to frame it. The negotiations
in Richmond which had by this time become the seat of the Insurgent
Government were speedily concluded, and on the 13th of August,
1861, the Confederate Government passed the following resolution:--
"WHEREAS the Plenipotentiaries of Great Britain, Austria, France,
Prussia, Russia, Sardinia, and Turkey, in a conference held at
Paris on the 16th of April, 1856, made certain declarations concerning
Maritime Law, to serve as uniform rules for their guidance in all
cases arising out of the principles thus proclaimed;
"AND WHEREAS it being desirable not only to attain certainty and
uniformity as far as may be practicable in maritime law, but also
to maintain whatever is just and proper in the established usages
of nations, the Confederate States of America deem it important to
declare the principles by which they will be governed in their
intercourse with the rest of mankind: Now therefore be it
"_Resolved_, by the Congress of the Confederate States of America,
"1st, That we maintain the right of privateering as it has been
long established by the practice and recognized by the law of
nations.
"2d, That the neutral flag covers enemy's goods with the exception
of contraband of war.
"3d, That neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war,
are not liable to capture under the enemy's flag.
"4th, Blockades in order to be binding must be effective; that is
to say, maintained by a force sufficient really to prevent access
to the coast of the enemy."
ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND THE CONFEDERACY.
"These resolutions," says Mr. Bunch to Lord Lyons on Aug. 16, 1861,
"were passed on the 13th inst., approved on the same day by the
President, and I have the honor to enclose herewith to your Lordship
the copy of them which has been sent to Mr. ---- by the Secretary
of State to be delivered to M. de Belligny and myself." On Aug.
30, 1861, Lord Lyons wrote to Lord John Russell: "I have received,
just in time to have the enclosed copy made for your Lordship, a
dispatch from Mr. Consul Bunch reporting the proceedings taken by
him in conjunction with his French colleague M. de Belligny to
obtain the adherence of the so-called Confederate States to the
last three articles of the Declaration of Paris;" and a few days
later he says, "I am confirmed in the opinion that the negotiation,
which was difficult and delicate, was managed with great tact and
judgment by the two consuls."
Upon the discovery of this "difficult and delicate negotiation,"
Mr. Seward demanded the removal of Mr. Bunch. Lord John Russell
replied to Mr. Adams Sept. 9, 1861, "The undersigned will without
hesitation state to Mr. Adams that in pursuance of an agreement
between the British and French Government, Mr. Bunch was instructed
to communicate to the persons exercising authority in the so-called
Confederate States the desire of those governments that the second,
third, and fourth articles of the Declaration of Paris should be
observed by those States in the prosecution of the hostilities in
which they were engaged. Mr. Adams will observe that the commerce
of Great Britain and France is deeply interested in the maintenance
of the articles providing that the flag covers the goods, and that
the goods of a neutral taken on board a belligerent ship are not
liable to confiscation. Mr. Bunch, therefore, in what he has done
in this matter, has acted in obedience to the instructions of his
government, who accept the responsibility of his proceedings so
far as they are known to the Foreign Department, and who cannot
remove him from his office for having obeyed instructions."
Here then was a complete official negotiation with the Confederate
States. Mr. Montagu Bernard, in his ingenious and learned work,
_The Neutrality of Great Britain during the American War_, conceals
the true character of the work in which the British Government had
been engaged: "The history of an unofficial application made to
the Confederate States on the same subject is told in the two
following dispatches. It will be seen that the channel of
communication was a private person instructed by the British and
French consuls, who had been themselves instructed by the ministers
of their respective governments at Washington." The presence of
a private intermediary at one point cannot break the chain of
official communication if the communications are themselves official.
For certain purposes the governments of England and France consulted
and determined upon a specific line of policy. That policy was
communicated in regular official instructions to their minister in
Washington. The Ministers were to select the instruments to carry
it out, and the persons selected were the official consular
representatives of France and England, who although residing at
the South held their _exequatures_ from the United-States Government.
They were instructed to make a political application to the government
of the Confederacy, and Lord John Russell could not disguise that
government under the mask of "the persons exercising authority in
the so-called Confederate States." Their application was received
by the Confederate Government through their agent just as it would
have been received through the mail addressed to the Secretary of
State. Their application was officially acted upon by the Confederate
Congress, and the result contained in an official document was
transmitted to them, and forwarded by them to their immediate
official superiors in Washington, who recognized it as a successful
result of "a difficult and delicate negotiation." It was then sent
to the Foreign Secretaries of the two countries, and the responsibility
of the act was fully and finally assumed by those ministers.
Nor can it be justified as an application to a belligerent, informing
him that in the exercise of belligerent rights England and France
would expect a strict conformity to International Law. The four
articles of the Treaty of Paris were not provisions of International
Law. They were explicit modifications of that law as it had long
existed, and the Declaration itself stated that it was not to bind
any of the Powers which had not agreed expressly to accept it. It
was therefore an invitation, not to a belligerent but to the Southern
Confederacy, to accept and thus become a part to an international
compact to which in the very nature of things there could be no
parties save those whose acceptance constituted an international
obligation. It has never yet been claimed that a mere insurgent
belligerent, however strong, occupied such position. If instead
of declaring by resolution that the second, third, and fourth
articles of the Declaration of Paris were principles which by their
own voluntary action they would adopt as rules for their own
government, the Confederate States had, with an astute policy which
the invitation itself seems intended to suggest, demanded that they
should be allowed to accept the Declaration in the same method in
which it had been accepted "by every other nation," it is difficult
to see how their demand could have been refused; and if it has been
admitted, what would have been wanting to perfect the recognition
of the independence of the Southern Confederacy?
THE PARIS CONVENTION.
The motive of England and France in this extraordinary negotiation
with the Confederacy is plain. The right of privateering was not
left untouched except with deep design. By securing the assent of
the Confederacy to the other three articles of the Paris Convention,
safety was assured to British and French cargoes under the American
flag, while every American cargo was at risk unless protected by
a Foreign flag--generally the flag of England. It would have been
impossible to invent a process more gainful to British commerce,
more harmful to American commerce. While the British and French
consuls were conducting this negotiation with the Confederate
States, the British and French ministers were conducting another
to the same purport with the United States. Finally Mr. Seward
offered to waive the point made by Secretary Marcy many years before
at the date of the Declaration, and to accept the four articles of
the Paris Convention, pure and simple. But his could not be done,
because the Confederate States had not accepted the first article
abolishing privateering and her privateers must therefore be
recognized. England and France used this fact as a pretext for
absolutely declining to permit the accession of the United States,
one of the great maritime powers of the world, to a treaty which
was proclaimed to be a wise and humane improvement of the old and
harsh law of nations, and to which in former years the United States
had been most earnestly invited to give her assent. This course
throws a flood of light on the clandestine correspondence with the
Confederacy, and plainly exposes the reasons why it was desired
that the right of privateering should be left open to the Confederates.
Through that instrumentality great harm could be inflicted on the
United States and at the same time England could be guarded against
a cotton famine. To accomplish these ends she negotiated what was
little less than a hostile treaty with an Insurgent Government.
This action was initiated before a single battle was fought, and
was evidently intended as encouragement and inspiration to the
Confederates to persist in their revolutionary proceedings against
the Government of the United States. Any reasonable man, looking
at the condition of affairs, could not doubt that the public
recognition of the independence of the Confederacy by England and
France, was a foregone and rapidly approaching conclusion.
With this condition of affairs leading necessarily to a more
pronounced unfriendliness, an incident occurred towards the close
of the year which seriously threatened a final breach of amicable
relations. On the 9th of November, 1861, Captain Wilkes of the
United-States steamer _San Jacinto_, seized the persons of James
M. Mason and John Slidell, ministers from the Southern Confederacy,
and their secretaries, on board the British mail-steamer _Trent_
on her way from Havana to Kingston. Messrs. Mason and Slidell were
accredited by the Executive of the Southern Confederacy to the
Governments of England and France. Their avowed object was to
obtain the recognition by those governments of the independence of
the new Southern Republic, and their success would have been a most
dangerous if not a fatal blow to the cause of the Union. But they
were not by any recognized principle of international law contraband
of war, and they were proceeding from a neutral port to a neutral
port in a neutral vessel. The action of the officer who seized
them was not authorized by any instructions, and the seizure was
itself in violation of those principles of maritime law for which
the United States had steadily and consistently contended from the
establishment of its national life. The difficulty of adjustment
lay not in the temper or conviction of either government, but in
the passionate and very natural excitement of popular feeling in
both countries. In the United States there was universal and
enthusiastic approval of the act of Captain Wilkes. In England
there was an equally vehement demand for immediate and signal
reparation.
LORD JOHN RUSSELL AND LORD LYONS.
Lord John Russell, after reciting the facts, instructed Lord Lyons
in a dispatch of Nov. 30, 1861: "Her Majesty's Government therefore
trust that when this matter shall have been brought under the
consideration of the Government of the United States, that government
will of its own accord offer to the British Government such redress
as alone would satisfy the British nation; namely, the liberation
of the four gentlemen and their delivery to your Lordship in order
that they may again be placed under British protection, and a
suitable apology for the aggression which has been committed.
Should these terms not be offered by Mr. Seward you will propose
them to him." In a dispatch of the same date Lord John Russell
says to Lord Lyons: "In my previous dispatch of this date I have
instructed you by command of Her Majesty to make certain demands
of the Government of the United States. Should Mr. Seward ask for
delay in order that this grave and painful matter should be
deliberately considered, you will consent to a delay not exceeding
seven days. If at the end of that time no answer is given, or if
any other answer is given except that of compliance with the demands
of Her Majesty's Government, your Lordship is instructed to leave
Washington with all the members of your Legation, bringing with
you the archives of the Legation, and to repair immediately to
London. If however you should be of opinion that the requirements
of Her Majesty's Government are substantially complied with you
may report the facts to Her Majesty's Government for their
consideration, and remain at your post until you receive further
orders." The communication of this peremptory limitation of time
for a reply would have been an offensive threat; but it was a
private instruction to guide the discretion of the minister, not
to be used if the condition of things upon its arrival promised an
amicable solution. It must also in justice be remembered that
excited feeling had been shown by different departments of our own
Government as well as by the press and the people. The House of
Representatives had unanimously adopted a resolution thanking
Captain Wilkes "for his brave, adroit, and patriotic conduct;" and
the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Gideon Welles, had publicly and
officially approved his action.
The spirit in which Lord Lyons would receive his instructions was
indicated in advance by his own dispatch to Lord John Russell of
Nov. 19, 1861: "I have accordingly deemed it right to maintain
the most complete reserve on the subject. To conceal the distress
which I feel would be impossible, nor would it if possible be
desirable; but I have expressed no opinion on the questions of
international law involved; I have hazarded no conjecture as to
the course which will be taken by Her Majesty's Government. On
the one hand I dare not run the risk of compromising the honor and
inviolability of the British flag by asking for a measure of
reparation which may prove to be inadequate. On the other hand I
am scarcely less unwilling to incur the danger of rendering a
satisfactory settlement of the question more difficult by making
a demand which may turn out to be unnecessarily great. In the
present imperfect state of my information I feel that the only
proper and prudent course is to wait for the orders which your
Lordship will give, with a complete knowledge of the whole case.
I am unwilling moreover to deprive any explanation or reparation
which the United-States Government may think it right to offer, of
the grace of being made spontaneously. I know too that a demand
from me would very much increase the main difficulty which the
government would feel in yielding to any disposition which they
may have to make amends to Great Britain. The American people
would more easily tolerate a spontaneous offer of reparation made
by its government from a sense of justice than a compliance with
a demand for satisfaction from a foreign minister."
In accordance with the sentiments thus expressed, Lord Lyons,
interpreting his discretion liberally and even generously, called
upon Mr. Seward on the 19th of December, 1861, and the following
is his official account of the interview: "The Messenger Seymour
delivered to me at half-past eleven o'clock last night your Lordship's
dispatch of the 30th ultimo, specifying the reparation required by
Her Majesty's Government for the seizure of Mr. Mason and Mr.
Slidell and their secretaries on board the royal mail-steamer
_Trent_. I waited on Mr. Seward this afternoon at the State
Department, and acquainted him in general terms with the tenor of
that dispatch. I stated in particular, as nearly as possible in
your Lordship's words, that the only redress which could satisfy
Her Majesty's Government and Her Majesty's people would be the
immediate delivery of the prisoners to me in order that they might
be placed under British protection, and moreover a suitable apology
for the aggression which had been committed. I added that Her
Majesty's Government hoped that the Government of the United States
would of its own accord offer this reparation; that it was in order
to facilitate such an arrangement that I had come to him without
any written demand, or even any written paper at all, in my hand;
that if there was a prospect of attaining this object I was willing
to be guided by him as to the conduct on my part which would render
its attainment most easy. Mr. Seward received my communication
seriously and with dignity, but without any manifestation of
dissatisfaction. Some further conversation ensued in consequence
of questions put by him with a view to ascertain the exact character
of the dispatch. At the conclusion he asked me to give him to-
morrow to consider the question and to communicate with the President.
On the day after he should, he said, be ready to express an opinion
with respect to the communication I had made. In the mean time he
begged me to be assured that he was very sensible of the friendly
and conciliatory manner in which I had made it."
SECRETARY SEWARD AND LORD LYONS.
On the 26th of December Mr. Seward transmitted to Lord Lyons the
reply of the United States to the demand of the British Government.
In forwarding it to his Government Lord Lyons said: "Before
transmitting to me the note of which a copy enclosed in my immediately
preceding dispatch of to-day's date, Mr. Seward sent for me to the
State Department, and said with some emotion that he thought that
it was due to the great kindness and consideration which I had
manifested throughout in dealing with the affair of the _Trent_,
that he should tell me with his own lips that he had been able to
effect a satisfactory settlement of it. He had now however been
authorized to address to me a note which would be satisfactory to
Her Majesty's Government. In answer to inquiries from me Mr. Seward
said that of course he understood Her Majesty's Government to leave
it open to the Government of Washington to present the case in the
form which would be most acceptable to the American people, but
that the note was intended to be and was a compliance with the
terms proposed by Her Majesty's Government. He would add that the
friendly spirit and discretion which I had manifested in the whole
matter from the day on which the intelligence of the seizure reached
Washington up to the present moment had more than any thing else
contributed to the satisfactory settlement of the question."
In his reply Mr. Seward took the ground that we had the right to
detain the British vessel and to search for contraband persons and
dispatches, and moreover that the persons named and their dispatches
were contraband. But he found good reason for surrendering the
Confederate envoys in the fact that Captain Wilkes had neglected
to bring the _Trent_ into a Prize Court and to submit the whole
transaction to Judicial examination. Mr. Seward certainly strained
the argument of Mr. Madison as Secretary of State in 1804 to a most
extraordinary degree when he apparently made it cover the ground
that we would quietly have submitted to British right of search if
the "Floating Judgment-seat" could have been substituted by a
British Prize Court. The seizure of the _Trent_ would not have
been made more acceptable to the English Government by transferring
her to the jurisdiction of an American Prize-Court, unless indeed
that Court should have decided, as it most probably would have
decided, that the seizure was illegal. Measuring the English demand
not by the peremptory words of Lord John Russell but by the kindly
phrase in which Lord Lyons in a personal interview verbally
communicated them, Mr. Seward felt justified in saying that "the
claim of the British Government is not made in a discourteous
manner." Mr. Seward did not know that at the very moment he was
writing these conciliatory words, British troops were on their way
to the Dominion of Canada to menace the United States, and that
British cannon were shotted for our destruction.
Lord John Russell, however much he might differ from Mr. Seward's
argument, found ample satisfaction to the British Government in
his conclusion. He said in reply: "Her Majesty's Government having
carefully taken into their consideration the liberation of the
prisoners, the delivery of them into your hands, and the explanations
to which I have just referred, have arrived at the conclusion that
they constitute the reparation which Her Majesty and the British
nation had a right to expect." And thus, by the delivery of the
prisoners in the form and at the place least calculated to excite
or wound the susceptibilities of the American people, this dangerous
question was settled. It is only to be regretted that the spirit
and discretion exhibited by the eminent diplomatist who represented
England here with such wisdom and good temper, had not been adopted
at an earlier date and more steadily maintained by the British
Government. It would have prevented much angry controversy, much
bitter feeling; it would have averted events and consequences which
still shadow with distrust a national friendship that ought to be
cordial and constant.
ENGLAND, FRANCE, PRUSSIA, AND AUSTRIA.
The painful event impressed upon the Government of the United States
a profound sense of its isolation from the sympathy of Europe.
The principle of maritime law, which was so promptly and rigorously
applied, was one for which the United States had contended in its
weakness against the usages of the world and against the arms of
Great Britain. There was apparent now an eager resolution to
enforce it, when that enforcement was sure to embarrass us and to
provoke a spirit of derisive triumph in our foes. It was clear
that no effort would be spared to restrict our belligerent rights
within the narrowest possible limits. Not content with leaving us
to settle this question with England, France and Prussia and Austria
hastened to inform us in language professedly friendly, that England
would be supported in her demand for reparation, cost what it might
to us in prestige, and in power to deal with the Rebellion at home.
At this time there was but one among the great nations of the world
which adhered to an active and avowed friendship for us. "We desire
above all things the maintenance of the American Union as one
indivisible nation," was the kindly and always to be remembered
greeting that came to us from the Emperor of Russia.
The profound ability exhibited by Mr. Seward as Secretary of State
has long been acknowledged and emphasized by the admiration and
gratitude of the country. In the _Trent_ affair he acted under a
pressure of circumstances more harassing and perplexing than had
ever tested the skill of American diplomacy. It is with no
disposition to detract from the great service rendered by him that
a dissent is expressed from the ground upon which he placed the
surrender of Mason and Slidell. It is not believed that the doctrine
announced by Mr. Seward can be maintained on sound principles of
International Law, while it is certainly in conflict with the
practice which the United States had sought to establish from the
foundation of the Government. The restoration of the envoys on
any such apparently insufficient basis did not avoid the mortification
of the surrender; it only deprived us of the fuller credit and
advantage which we might have secured from the act. It is to be
regretted that we did not place the restoration of the prisoners
upon franker and truer ground, viz., that their seizure was in
violation of the principles which we had steadily and resolutely
maintained--principles which we would not abandon either for a
temporary advantage or to save the wounding of our National pride.
The luminous speech of Mr. Sumner, when the papers in the _Trent_
case were submitted to Congress, stated the ground for which the
United States had always contended with admirable precision. We
could not have refused to surrender Mason and Slidell without
trampling upon our own principles and disregarding the many precedents
we had sought to establish. But it must not be forgotten that the
sword of precedent cut both ways. It was as absolutely against
the peremptory demand of England for the surrender of the prisoners
as it was against the United States for the seizure of them.
Whatever wrong was inflicted on the British Flag by the action of
Captain Wilkes, had been time and again inflicted on the American
flag by officers of the English Navy,--without cause, without
redress, without apology. Hundreds and thousands of American
citizens had in time of peace been taken by British cruisers from
the decks of American vessels and violently impressed into the
naval service of that country.
Lord Castlereagh practically confessed in Parliament that this
offense against the liberty of American citizens had been repeated
thirty-five hundred times. According to the records of our own
department of State as Mr. Sumner alleges "the quarter-deck of a
British man-of-war had been made a floating judgment-seat six
thousand times and upwards, and each time some citizen or other
person was taken from the protection of our national flag without
any form of trial whatever." So insolent and oppressive had British
aggression become before the war of 1812, that Mr. Jefferson in
his somewhat celebrated letter to Madame de Staël-Holstein of May
24, 1813, said, "No American could safely cross the ocean or venture
to pass by sea from one to another of our own ports. _It is not
long since they impressed at sea two nephews of General Washington
returning from Europe, and put them, as common seamen, under the
ordinary discipline of their ships of war_."
After the war of 1812 these unendurable insults to our flag were
not repeated by Great Britain, but her Government steadily refused
to make any formal renunciation of her right to repeat them, so
that our immunity from like insults did not rest upon any better
foundation than that which might be dictated by considerations of
interest and prudence on the part of the offending Power. The
wrong which Captain Wilkes committed against the British flag was
surely not so great as if he had seized the persons of British
subjects--subjects, if you please, who were of kindred blood to
one who stands as high in the affection of the British people as
Washington stands in the affection of the American people,--if
indeed there be such a one in English tradition.
The offense of Captain Wilkes was surely far below that in the
essential quality of outrage. He had not touched the hair of a
British subject's head. He had only removed from the hospitality
and shelter of a British ship four men who were bent on an errand
of destruction to the American Union. His act cannot be justified
by the canons of International Law as our own Government has
interpreted and enforced them. But in view of the past and of the
long series of graver outrages with which Great Britain had so
wantonly insulted the American flag, she might have refrained from
invoking the judgment of the civilized world against us, and
especially might she have refrained from making in the hour of our
sore trial and our deep distress, a demand which no British Minister
would address to this Government in the day of its strength and
its power.
FRIENDLY POSITION OF THE QUEEN.
It would be ungracious to withhold an expression of the lasting
appreciation entertained in this country of the course pursued by
Her Majesty, the Queen of England, throughout this most painful
ordeal. She was wiser than her Ministers, and there can be little
doubt but for her considerate interposition, softening the rigor
of the British demand, the two nations would have been forced into
war. On all the subsequent occasions for bitterness towards England,
by reason of the treatment we experienced during the war, there
was an instinctive feeling among Americans that the Queen desired
peace and good will, and did not sympathize with the insidious
efforts at our destruction, which had their origin in her dominions.
It was fortunate that the disposition of the Queen, and not of her
Ministry, was represented in Washington by Lord Lyons. The good
sense and good temper of His Lordship were of inestimable value to
both countries, in making the task of Mr. Seward practicable,
without increasing the resentment of our people.
It was well that the Government and people of the United States
were so early taught that their value to the world of foreign
principles, foreign feeling, and foreign interests was only what
they could themselves establish; that in this contest they must
depend upon themselves; and that the dissolution of their National
Unity and the destruction of their free, popular Government from
the lack of courage and wisdom in those whose duty it was to maintain
them, would not be unwelcome to the Principalities and Powers that
"were willing to wound, but yet afraid to strike." This is not
the time to describe the vacillating and hesitating development of
this hostile policy; but as the purpose of the United-States
Government grew more steady, more resolute, and more self-reliant,
a sickening doubt seemed to becloud the ill-concealed hope of our
ruin. It was not long until the brave and deluded rebels of the
South learned that there was no confidence to be placed in the
cruel and selfish calculation which encouraged their desperate
resistance with the show of sympathy, but would not avow an open
support or make a manly sacrifice in their behalf.
This initial policy of foreign powers had developed its natural
consequences. It not only excited but it warranted in the Southern
Confederacy the hope of early recognition. It seemed impossible
that, with this recognized equality between the belligerents, there
would not occur somewhere just such incidents as the seizure of
the _Trent_ or the capture of the _Florida_ which would render it
very difficult to maintain peaceful relations between foreign Powers
and the United States. The neutrality laws were complicated. Men-
of-war commanded by ambitious, ardent, and patriotic officers would
sometimes in the excitement of honorable feeling, sometimes in
mistaken sense of duty, vindicate their country's flag; while it
was the interest of the officers of the Confederate cruisers, as
bold and ingenious men who ever commanded ship, to create, wherever
they could, difficulties which would embarrass the interests of
neutrals and intensify between the United States and foreign Powers
the growing feeling of distrust. Thus from month to month the
Government of the United States could never feel secure that there
would not arise questions which the indignation of its own people
and the pride and latent hostility of foreign government would
place beyond the power of friendly adjustment. Such questions did
arise with England, France, Brazil, Spain, and even with Mexico,
which the common disinclination to actual war succeeded in postponing
rather than settling. But as the civil war went on, three classes
of questions took continuous and precise shape. Their scope and
result can be fully and fairly considered. These were--
1. The building and equipping of Confederate cruisers and their
treatment as legitimate national vessels of war in the home and
colonial ports of foreign powers.
2. The establishment at such ports as Nassau, in the immediate
vicinity of the blockaded ports of the Southern States, of depots
of supplies, which afforded to the Confederates enormous advantages
in the attempt to break the blockade.
3. The distinct defiance of the traditional policy of the United
States by the invasion of the neighboring Republic of Mexico for
the avowed purpose of establishing there a foreign and monarchical
dynasty.
SECRET SERVICE OF THE CONFEDERACY.
No sooner had Her Brittanic Majesty's proclamation, recognizing
the belligerent rights of the Southern Confederacy, been issued,
than a naval officer of remarkable ability and energy was sent from
Montgomery to Liverpool. In his very interesting history of the
services rendered by him, that officer says: "The chief object of
this narrative is to demonstrate by a plain statement of facts that
the Confederate Government, through their agents, did nothing more
than all other belligerents have heretofore done in time of need;
namely, tried to obtain from every possible source the means
necessary to carry on the war in which they were engaged, and that
in so doing they took particular pains to understand the municipal
law of those countries in which they sought to supply their wants,
and were especially careful to keep with the statutes. . . .
"The object of the Confederate Government was not merely to build
a single ship, but it was to maintain a permanent representative
of the Navy Department abroad, and to get ships and naval supplies
without hindrance so long as the war lasted. To effect this purpose
it was manifestly necessary to act with prudence and caution and
to do nothing in violation of the municipal law, because a single
conviction would both expose the object and defeat the aim." His
solicitor "therefore drew up a case for counsel's opinion and
submitted it to two eminent barristers, both of whom have since
filled the highest judicial positions. The case was submitted;
was a general and not a specific proposition. It was not intimated
for what purpose and on whose behalf the opinion was asked, and
the reply was therefore wholly without bias, and embraced a full
exposition of the Act in its bearing upon the question of building
and equipping ships in Her Majesty's dominions.
"The inferences drawn from the investigation of the Act by counsel
were put in the following form by my solicitor:--
"'1. It is no offense (under the Act) for British subjects to
equip, etc., a ship at some country _without_ Her Majesty's dominions
though the intent be to cruise against a friendly State.
"'2. It is no offense for _any_ person (subject or no subject) to
_equip_ a ship _within_ Her Majesty's dominions if it be _not_ done
with the intent to cruise against a friendly State.
"'3. The mere building of a ship _within_ Her Majesty's dominions
by any person (subject or no subject) is no offense, _whatever may
be the intent of the parties_, because the offense is not in the
_building_, but the _equipping_.
"'Therefore any ship-builder may build any ship in Her Majesty's
dominions, provided he does not equip her within Her Majesty's
dominions, and he had nothing to do with the acts of the purchasers
done _within_ Her Majesty's dominions without his concurrence, or
without Her Majesty's dominions even with his concurrence.'"--
[BULLOCK's _Secret Service of the Confederate States_, vol. i, pp.
65-67.]
It is an amazing courtesy which attributes to the eminent counsel
a complete ignorance of the object and purpose for which their
weighty opinion was sought in the construction of British law.
Such ignorance is feigned and not real, and the pretense of its
existence indicates either on the part of the author or the counsel
a full appreciation of the deadly consequences of that malign
interpretation of England's duty for which two illustrious members
of the English Bar were willing to stand sponsors before the world.
Conceding, as we fairly may concede, that the decision in the case
of the _Alexandra_ is confirmatory of the opinion given by these
leaders of the British bar, the result was simply the establishment
and administration of the Naval Department of the Confederacy in
England. There was its chief, there were its financial agents,
there its workshops. There were its vessels armed and commissioned.
Thence they sailed on their mission of destruction, and thither
they returned to repair their damages, and to renew their supplies.
Under formal contracts with the Confederate Government the colonial
ports of Nassau and the Bermudas were made depots of supplies which
were drawn upon with persistent and successful regularity. The
effects of this thoroughly organized system of so-called neutrality
that supplied ports, ships, arms, and men to a belligerent which
had none, are not matters of conjecture or exaggeration; they have
been proven and recorded. In three years fifteen million dollars'
worth of property was destroyed,--given to the flame or sunk beneath
the waters,--the shipping of the United States was reduced one-
half, and the commercial flag of the Union fluttered with terror
in every wind that blew, form the whale-fisheries of the Arctic to
the Southern Cross.
MINISTER DAYTON'S INDIGNANT PROTEST.
With this condition of affairs, permitted and encouraged by England
and France, our distinguished minister at Paris was justified in
saying to the Government of Louis Napoleon on the reception of the
Confederate steamer _Georgia_ at Brest, in language which though
but the bare recital of fact was of itself the keenest reproach to
the French Government:--
"The _Georgia_, like the _Florida_, the _Alabama_, and other scourges
of peaceful commerce, was born of that unhappy decree which gave
the rebels who did not own a ship-of-war or command a single port
the right of an ocean belligerent. Thus encouraged by foreign
powers they began to build and fit out in neutral ports a class of
vessels constructed mainly for speed, and whose acknowledged mission
is not to fight, but to rob, to burn, and to fly. Although the
smoke of burning ships has everywhere marked the track of the
_Georgia_ and the _Florida_ upon the ocean, they have never sought
a foe or fired a gun against an armed enemy. To dignify such
vessels with the name of ships-of-war seems to me, with deference,
a misnomer. Whatever flag may fly from their mast-head, or whatever
power may claim to own them, their conduct stamps them as piratical.
If vessels of war even, they would by this conduct have justly
forfeited all courtesies in ports of neutral nations. Manned by
foreign seamen, armed by foreign guns, entering no home port, and
waiting no judicial condemnation of prizes, they have already
devastated and destroyed our commerce to an extent, as compared
with their number, beyond any thing known in the records of
privateering."
It would seem impossible that such a state of things could be the
result of the impartial administration of an honest neutrality.
It must be attributed to one of two causes;--either the municipal
law of foreign countries was not sufficient to enable the governments
to control the selfishness or the sentiment of their people,--to
which the reply is obvious that the weakness and incompetence of
municipal law cannot diminish or excuse international obligations:
or it must have been due to a misconception of the obligations
which international law imposes. How far there may have been a
motive for this misconception, how far the wish was father to the
thought of such misconstruction, it is perhaps needless now to
inquire. The theory of international law maintained by the foreign
Powers may be fairly stated in two propositions:--
1. That foreign Powers had the right, and in due regard to their
own interests were bound, to recognize belligerency as a fact.
2. That belligerents once recognized, were equals and must be
treated with the same perfect neutrality.
It is not necessary to deny these propositions, but simply to
ascertain their real meaning. In its primary and simple application,
the law of belligerency referred to two or more belligerents,
equally independent. Its application to the case of insurgents
against an established and recognized government is later, involves
other and in some respects different considerations, and cannot
even now be regarded as settled. To recognize an insurgent as a
belligerent is not to recognize him as fully the equal of the
government from which he secedes. This would be simply to recognize
his independence. The limitation which international law places
upon this recognition is stated in the English phrase, "the right
to recognize belligerency as a fact;"--that is, to recognize the
belligerent to the extent of his war capacity but no farther. The
neutral cannot on this principle recognize in the belligerent the
possession of any power which he does not actually possess, although
in the progress of the contest such power may be developed.
The Southern Confederacy had an organized government and great
armies. To that extent its power was a fact. But when foreign
governments recognized in the insurgents the rights of ocean
belligerency, they went beyond the fact. They were actually giving
to the Confederacy a character which it did not possess and which
it never acquired. For the Confederacy had not a ship or an open
port. Whenever an insurgent power claims such right, it must be
in condition to assume and discharge the obligation which such
rights impose. When any power, insurgent or recognized, claims
such right,--the right to fly its flag, to deal in hostility with
the commerce of the world, to exercise dangerous privileges which
may affect the interests and complicate the relations of other
nations,--it must give to the world a guaranty that it is both able
and willing to administer the system of maritime law under which
it claims such rights and powers, by submitting its action to the
regular and formal jurisdiction of Prize Courts. Strike the Prize
Court out of modern maritime law and the whole system falls, and
capture on the sea becomes pure barbarism,--distinguished from
piracy only by the astuteness of a legal technicality. The Southern
Confederacy could give no guaranty. Just as it undertook to
naturalize foreign seamen upon the quarter-deck of its roving
cruisers, so it undertook to administer a system of maritime law
which precluded the most solemn and important of its provisions--
a judicial decision--and converted the humane and legal right of
capture into an absolute and a ruthless decree of destruction. No
neutral has the right to make or accept such an interpolation into
the recognized and essential principles of the law of maritime
warfare.
ENGLAND'S MALIGNANT NEUTRALITY.
The application of this so-called neutrality to both the so-called
belligerents was not designed nor was it practicable. In referring
to the obligation of the neutral to furnish no assistance to either
of the belligerents, one of the oldest and most authoritative of
international law writers says: "I do not say to give assistance
equally but to give no assistance, for it would be absurd that a
state should assist at the same time two enemies. And besides it
would be impossible to do it with equality: the same things, the
like number of troops, the like quantity of arms and munitions
furnished under different circumstances are no longer equivalent
succors." Assistance is not a theoretical idea; it is a plain,
practical, unmistakable fact. When the United States had, at vast
cost and by incredible effort, shut the Southern Confederacy from
the sea and blockaded its ports against the entry of supplies, when
that government had no resources within its territory by which it
could put a ship upon the ocean, or break the blockade from within,
then it was that England allowed Confederate officers to camp upon
her soil, organize her labor, employ her machinery, use her ports,
occupy her colonial stations, almost within sight of the blockaded
coast, and to do this continuously, systematically, defiantly.
By these acts the British government gave the most valuable assistance
to the South and actually engaged in defeating the military operations
of the United States. There was no equivalent assistance which
Great Britain could or did render to the United States. They might
have rendered other assistance, but none which would compensate
for this. Let it be supposed for one moment that Mexico had
practiced, on the other side of the Rio Grande, the same sort of
neutrality,--that she had lined the bank of the river with depots
of military supplies; that she had allowed officers of the Confederate
army to establish themselves and organize a complete system for
the receipt of cotton and the delivery of merchandise on her
territory; that her people had served as factors, intermediaries,
and carriers,--would any reasonable interpretation of international
law consider such conduct to be impartial neutrality? But illustration
does not strengthen the argument. The naked statement of England's
position is its worst condemnation. Her course, while ingeniously
avoiding public responsibility, gave unceasing help to the Confederacy
--as effective as if the intention had been proclaimed. The whole
procedure was in disregard of international obligation and was the
outgrowth of what M. Prévost-Paradol aptly charaterized as a
"malignant neutrality."
It cannot be said in reply that the Governments of England and
France were unable to restrain this demonstration of the sympathy,
this exercise of the commercial enterprise of their people. For
the time came when they did restrain it. As soon as it became
evident that the Confederacy was growing weaker, that with all its
marvelous display of courage and endurance it could not prevent
the final success of the Union, there was no longer difficulty in
arresting the building of the iron-clads on the Mersey; then the
watchfulness of home and colonial authorities was quickened; then
supplies were meted out scantily; then the dangers of a great slave
empire began to impress Ministerial consciences, and the same Powers
prepared to greet the triumph of the Union with well-feigned
satisfaction. But even if this change had not occurred the condition
of repressed hostility could not have lasted. It was war in disguise
--not declared, only because the United-States Government could
not afford to multiply its enemies, and England felt that there
was still uncertainty enough in the result to caution her against
assuming so great a risk. But the tension of the relation was
aptly described by Mr. Seward in July, 1863, when he said,--
"If the law of Great Britain must be left without amendment and be
construed by the government in conformity with the rulings of the
chief Baron of the Exchequer [the _Alexandra_ case] then there will
be left for the United States no alternative but to protect themselves
and their commerce against armed cruisers proceeding from British
ports as against the naval forces of a public enemy. . . . British
ports, domestic as well as colonial, are now open under certain
restrictions to the visits of piratical vessels, and not only
furnish them coals, provisions, and repairs, but even receive their
prisoners when the enemies of the United States come in to obtain
such relief from voyages in which they have either burned ships
they have captured, or have even manned and armed them as pirates
and sent them abroad as auxiliaries in the work of destruction.
Can it be an occasion for either surprise or complaint that if this
condition of things is to remain and receive the deliberate sanction
of the British Government, the navy of the United States will
receive instructions to pursue these enemies into the ports which
thus in violation of the law of nations and the obligations of
neutrality become harbors for the pirates? The President very
distinctly perceives the risks and hazards which a naval conflict
thus maintained will bring to the commerce and even to the peace
of the two countries. But he is obliged to consider that in the
case supposed, the destruction of our commerce will probably amount
to a naval war, waged by a portion at least of the British nation
against the government and people of the United States--a war
tolerated although not declared or avowed by the British Government.
If through the necessary employment of all our means of national
defense such a partial war shall become a general one between the
two nations, the President thinks that the responsibility for that
painful result will not fall upon the United States."
ENGLAND'S MALIGNANT NEUTRALITY.
The truth is that the so-called neutral policy of foreign Powers
was the vicious application of obsolete analogies to the conditions
of modern life. Because of the doctrine of belligerent recognition
had in its origin referred to nations of well established, independent
existence, the doctrine was now pushed forward to the extent of
giving ocean belligerency to an insurgent which had in reality no
maritime power whatever. It was an old and recognized principle
that the commercial relations of the neutral should not be interfered
with unless they worked positive injury to the belligerent. The
new application made the interests of neutral commerce the supreme
factor in determining how far belligerent rights should be respected.
The ship-building and carrying-trade of England were to be maintained
and encouraged at any cost to the belligerent. Under the old law,
a belligerent had the right to purchase a ship and a cargo, or a
neutral might run a blockade, taking all the risk of capture. By
the new construction, power was to be given to a belligerent to
transfer the entire administration of its naval service to foreign
soil, and to create and equip a navy which issued from foreign
waters, ready not for a dangerous journey to their own ports of
delivery, but for the immediate demonstration of hostile purpose.
No such absurd system can be found in the principles or precedents
of international law; no such system would be permitted by the
great powers of Europe if to-morrow they should engage in war.
The principle of this policy was essentially mercenary. It professed
no moral sense. It might be perfectly indifferent to the high or
the low issues which the contest between the belligerents involved;
it was deaf to any thing which might be urged by justice of humanity
or friendship; it was the cynical recognition of the truth of the
old proverb that "It is an ill wind which blows good to no one."
It was the same principle upon which England declares with audacious
selfishness that she cannot sacrifice that portion of her Indian
revenue which comes from the opium trade or the capital which is
invested in its growth and manufacture, and that China must therefore
take the poison which diseases and degrades her population. But
selfish as is this market-policy, it is a policy of circumstance.
It may be resisted with success or it may be abandoned because it
cannot succeed. It creates bitterness; it leads to war; it may in
its selfishness cause the destruction of a nation, but it does not
necessarily imply a desire for that destruction. But there was in
the foreign policy of Europe towards the United States during the
civil war the manifestation of a spirit more intense in its hostility,
more dangerous in its consequences. It was the spirit of enmity
to the Union itself, and the emphatic demonstration of this feeling
was the invasion of Mexico for the purpose of converting the republic
by force into an empire. Louis Napoleon's enterprise was distinctly
based on the utter destruction of the American Union.
The Declaration of Independence by the British Colonies in America
was something more than the creation of a new sovereignty. It was
the foundation of a new system both of internal government and
foreign relation, a system not entirely isolated from the affairs
of the Old World but independent of the dynastic complications and
the territorial interests which controlled the political conflicts
of Europe. At first, with its material resources undeveloped, its
territorial extension limited and surrounded by the colonies of
the great Powers, this principle although maintained as a conviction,
could not manifest itself in action. But it showed itself in that
abstinence from entangling alliances which would avoid the dangers
of even a too friendly connection. In time our territory expanded.
The colonies of foreign nations following our example became
independent republics whose people had the same aspirations, whose
governments were framed upon the same basis of popular right. The
rapidity of communication, supplied by the railroad and the telegraph,
facilitated and concentrated this political cohesion, and there
had been formed from the borders of Canada to the Straits of Magellan
a complete system of republics (to which Brazil can scarcely be
considered an exception) professing the same political creed, having
great commercial interests in common, and which with the extinction
of some few jealousies, were justified in the anticipation of a
prosperous and peaceful future. There was not an interest or an
ambition of a single one of these republics which threatened an
interest or an ambition of a single European power.
THE REPUBLICS OF AMERICA.
It needs no argument to show that the central element of the
stability of this system of American republics was the strength of
the Federal Union, its growth into a harmonious nationality, and
its ability to prevent anywhere on the two continents the armed
intervention of foreign Powers for the purpose of political
domination. This strength was known and this resolution publicly
declared, and it is safe to affirm that before 1861 or after 1865
not one nor all of the European Powers would have willingly challenged
this policy. But the moment the strength of the Union seemed
weakened, the moment that the leading Republic of this system found
itself hampered and embarrassed by internal dissensions, all Europe
--that Europe which upon the threatening of a Belgian fortress, or
the invasion of a Swiss canton, or the loss of the key to a church
in Jerusalem, would have written protocols, summoned conferences,
and mustered armies--quietly acquiesced in as wanton, wicked, and
foolish an aggression as ever Imperial folly devised. The same
monarch who appealed with confidence to Heaven when he declared
war to prevent a Hohenzollern from ascending the throne of Spain,
appealed to the same Heaven with equal confidence and equal success
when he declared war to force a Hapsburg upon the throne of Mexico.
The success of the establishment of a Foreign Empire in Mexico
would have been fatal to all that the United States cherished, to
all that it hoped peacefully to achieve. The scheme of invasion
rested on the assumption of the dissolution of the Union and its
division into two hostile governments; but aside from that possibility,
it threatened the United States upon the most vital questions. It
was at war with all our institutions and our habits of political
life, for it would have introduced into a great country on this
continent, capable of unlimited development, that curious and
mischievous form of government, that perplexing mixture of absolutism
and democracy,--imperial power supported by universal suffrage,--
which seems certain to produce aggression abroad and corruption at
home, and which must have injuriously influenced the political
growth of the Spanish-American Republics. Firmly seated in Mexico,
it would have spread through Central America to the Isthmus,
controlling all canal communications between the two oceans which
were the boundaries of the Union, while its growth upon the Pacific
Coast would have been in direct rivalry with the natural and
increasing power of the United States. Commanding the Gulf of
Mexico it would have controlled the whole commerce of the West-
Indian islands and radically changed their future. Bound by dynastic
connection, checked and directed by European influence, it could
not have developed a national policy in harmony with neighboring
States, but its existence and its necessary efforts at expansion
would have made it not only a constant menace to American Republics
but a source of endless war and confusion between the great Powers
of the world. The policy signally failed. But surely European
statesmen, without miraculous foresight, might have anticipated
that its success would have been more dangerous than its defeat,
and that the conservative strength of the Union might be even to
them an influence of good and not of evil.
FORMER VIEWS OF LORD PALMERSTON.
In 1859 Lord Palmerston wrote to Lord John Russell: "It is plain
that France aims through Spain at getting fortified points on each
side of the Gut of Gibraltar which in the event of war between
Spain and France on the one hand and England on the other would by
a cross fire render that strait very difficult and dangerous to
pass and thus virtually shut us out of the Mediterranean. . . .
The French Minister of War or of marine said the other day that
Algeria never would be safe till France possessed a port on the
Atlantic coast of Africa. Against whom would such a port make
Algeria safe? Evidently only against England, and how could such
a port help France against England? Only by tending to shut us
out of the Mediterranean." Later in the same year writing to the
same colleague, he says, "Till lately I had strong confidence in
the fair intentions of Napoleon towards England, but of late I have
begun to feel great distrust and to suspect that his formerly
declared intention of avenging Waterloo has only lain dormant and
has not died away. He seems to have thought that he ought to lay
his foundation by beating with our aid or with our concurrence or
our neutrality, first Russia, then Austria, and by dealing with
them generously to make them his friends in any subsequent quarrel
with us. . . . Next he has been assiduously laboring to increase
his naval means, evidently for offensive as well as for defensive
purposes, and latterly great pains have been taken to raise throughout
France and especially among the army and navy, hatred of England
and a disparaging feeling of our military and naval means."
Is it not strange that, even with such apprehensions, the destruction
of the Union was so welcome in England that it blinded the eyes of
her statesmen and her people? They should surely have seen that
the establishment of a Latin empire under the protection of France,
in the heart of the Spanish-American Republics, would open a field
far more dangerous to British interests than a combination for a
French port in Africa, and that in pursuing his policy the wily
Emperor was providing a throne for an Austrian archduke as a
compensation for the loss of Lombardy. There was a time when Lord
Palmerston himself held broader and juster views of what ought to
be the relations between England and the United States. In 1848
he suggested to Lord John Russell a policy which looked to a complete
unification of the interests of the two countries: "If as I hope,"
said His Lordship, "we shall succeed in altering our Navigation
Laws, and if as a consequence Great Britain and the United States
shall place their commercial marines upon a footing of mutual
equality with the exception of the coasting-trade and some other
special matters, might not such an arrangement afford us a good
opportunity for endeavoring to carry in some degree into execution
the wish which Mr. Fox entertained in 1783, when he wished to
substitute close alliance in the place of sovereignty and dependence
as the connecting link between the United States and Great Britain?
A treaty for mutual defense would no longer be applicable to the
condition of the two countries as independent Powers, but might
they not with mutual advantage conclude a treaty containing something
like the following conditions:--
"1. That in all cases of difference which may hereafter unfortunately
arise between the contracting parties, they will in the first place
have recourse to the mediation of some friendly Power, and that
hostilities shall not begin between them until every endeavor to
settle their difference by such means shall have proved fruitless.
"2. That if either of the two should at any time be at war with
any other Power, no subject or citizen of the other contracting
party shall be allowed to take out letters of marque from such
Power under pain of being treated and dealt with as a pirate.
"3. That in such case of war between either of the two parties
and a third Power, no subject or citizen of the other contracting
party shall be allowed to enter into the service naval or military
of such third Power.
"4. That in such case of war as aforesaid, neither of the contracting
parties shall afford assistance to the enemies of the other by sea
or by land, unless war should break out between the two contracting
parties themselves after the failure of all endeavors to settle
their differences in the manner specified in Article 1."
At the time Lord Palmerston expressed these opinions, we had just
closed the Mexican war, with vast acquisition of territory and with
a display of military power on distant fields of conquest which
surprised European statesmen. Our maritime interests were almost
equal to those of the United Kingdom, our prosperity was great,
the prestige of the Nation was growing. In the thirteen intervening
years between that date and the outbreak of the Southern Rebellion
we had grown enormously in wealth, our Pacific possessions had
shown an extraordinary production of precious metals, our population
had increased more than ten millions. If an alliance with the
United States was desirable for England in 1848, it was far more
desirable in 1861, and Lord Palmerston being Prime Minister in the
latter year, his power to propose and promote it was far greater.
Is there any reason that will satisfactorily account for His
Lordship's abandonment of this ideal relation of friendship between
the two countries except that he saw a speedier way of adding to
the power of England by conniving at the destruction of the Union?
His change from the policy which he painted in 1848 to that which
he acted in 1861 cannot be satisfactorily explained upon any other
hypothesis than that he could not resist the temptation to cripple
and humiliate the Great Republic.
FIXED POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES.
This brief history of the spirit rather than the events which
characterized the foreign relations of the United States during
the civil war, has been undertaken with no desire to revive the
feelings of burning indignation which they provoked, or to prolong
the discussion of the angry questions to which they gave rise.
The relations of nations are not and should not be governed by
sentiment. The interest and ambition of states, like those of men,
will disturb the moral sense and incline to one side or the other
the strict balance of impartial justice. New days bring new issues
and old passions are unsafe counselors. Twenty years have gone
by. England has paid the cost of her mistakes. The Republic of
Mexico has seen the fame and the fortunes of the Emperors who sought
her conquest sink suddenly--as into the pits which they themselves
had digged for their victims--and the Republic of the United States
has come out of her long and bitter struggle, so strong that never
again will she afford the temptation or the opportunity for unfriendly
governments to strike at her National life. Let the past be the
past, but let it be the past with all the instruction and the
warning of its experience.
The future safety of these continents rests upon the strength and
the maintenance of the Union, for had dissolution been possible,
events have shown with what small regard the interests or the honor
of either of the belligerents would have been treated. It has been
taught to the smaller republics that if this strength be shattered
they will be the spoil of foreign arms and the dependent provinces
again of foreign monarchs. When this contest was over, the day of
immaturity had passed and the United States stood before the world
a great and permanent Power. That Power can afford to bury all
resentments. Tranquil at home, developing its inexhaustible
resources with a rapidity and success unknown in history, bound in
sincere friendship, and beyond the possibility of a hostile rivalry,
with the other republics of the continents, standing midway between
Asia and Europe, a Power on the Pacific as well as on the Atlantic,
with no temptation to intermeddle in the questions which disturb
the Old World, the Republic of the United States desires to live
in amicable relation with all peoples, demanding only the abstinence
of foreign intervention in the development of that policy which
her political creed, her territorial extent, and the close and
cordial neighborhood of kindred governments have made the essential
rule of her National life.
[NOTE.--In the foregoing chapter the term "piratical" is used
without qualification in referring to the Southern cruisers, because
it is the word used in the quotations made. It undoubtedly
represented the feeling of the country at that time, but in an
impartial discussion of the events of the war the word cannot be
used with propriety. Our own Courts have found themselves unable
to sustain such a conclusion. Looking to the future it is better
to rest our objections to the mode of maritime warfare adopted by
the Confederacy upon a sound and enduring principle; viz., that
the recognition of ocean belligerency, when the belligerent cannot
give to his lawful exercise of maritime warfare the guaranty of a
prize jurisdiction, is a violation of any just or reasonable system
of international law. The Confederacy had the plea of necessity
for its course, but the jurisdiction of England for aiding and
abetting the practice has not yet been presented.]
[NOTE.--Her Britannic Majesty's principal ministers of State in
1861-2,--at the time of the correspondence touching the _Trent_
affair, referred to in the preceding chapter,--were as follows:--
_Premier_--Lord Palmerston.
_Lord High Chancellor_--Lord Westbury.
_Lord President of the Council_--Earl Granville.
_Lord Privy Seal_--The Duke of Argyll.
_Secretary for Foreign Affairs_--Lord John Russell.
_Secretary for the Colonies_--The Duke of Newcastle.
_Secretary for the Home Department_--Sir George Gray.
_Secretary of State for War_--Sir G. C. Lewis.
_Secretary of State for India_--Sir Charles Wood.
_Chancellor of the Exchequer_--Rt. Honorable W. E. Gladstone.
_Secretary for Ireland_--Rt. Honorable Edward Cardwell.
_Postmaster-General_--Lord Stanley of Alderney.
_President Board of Trade_--Rt. Honorable Charles Pelham Villiers.
The same Ministry, with unimportant changes, continued in power
throughout the whole period of the Rebellion in the United States.]
ADDENDUM.
The Tenth chapter of this volume having been given to the press in
advance of formal publication, many inquiries have been received
in regard to the text of Judge Black's opinion of November 20,
1860, referred to on pp. 231, 232. The opinion was submitted to
the President by Judge Black as Attorney-General. So much of the
opinion as includes the points which are specially controverted
and criticized is here given--about one-half of the entire document.
It is as follows:--
. . . "I come now to the point in your letter which is probably of
the greatest practical importance. By the Act of 1807 you may
employ such parts of the land and naval forces as you may judge
necessary for the purpose of causing the laws to be duly executed,
in all cases where it is lawful to use the militia for the same
purpose. By the Act of 1795 the militia may be called forth
'whenever the laws of the United States shall be opposed, or the
execution thereof obstructed, in any State by combinations too
powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of Judicial
proceedings, or by the power vested in the marshals.' This imposes
upon the President the sole responsibility of deciding whether the
exigency has arisen which requires the use of military force, and
in proportion to the magnitude of that responsibility will be the
care not to overstep the limits of his legal and just authority.
"The laws referred to in the Act of 1795 are manifestly those which
are administered by the judges, and executed by the ministerial
officers of the courts for the punishment of crime against the
United States, for the protection of rights claimed under the
Federal Constitution and laws, and for the enforcement of such
obligations as come within the cognizance of the Federal Judiciary.
To compel obedience to these laws, the courts have authority to
punish all who obstruct their regular administration, and the
marshals and their deputies have the same powers as sheriffs and
their deputies in the several States in executing the laws of the
States. These are the ordinary means provided for the execution
of the laws; and the whole spirit of our system is opposed to the
employment of any other, except in cases of extreme necessity
arising out of great and unusual combinations against them. Their
agency must continue to be used until their incapacity to cope with
the power opposed to them shall be plainly demonstrated. It is
only upon clear evidence to that effect that a military force can
be called into the field. Even then its operations must be purely
defensive. It can suppress only such combinations as are found
directly opposing the laws and obstructing the execution thereof.
It can do no more than what might and ought to be done by a civil
posse, if a civil posse could be raised large enough to meet the
same opposition. On such occasions, especially, the military power
must be kept in strict subordination to the civil authority, since
it is only in aid of the latter that the former can act at all.
"But what if the feeling in any State against the United States
should become so universal that the Federal officers themselves
(including judges, district attorneys, and marshals) would be
reached by the same influences, and resign their places? Of course,
the first step would be to appoint others in their stead, if others
could be got to serve. But in such an event, it is more than
probable that great difficulty would be found in filling the offices.
We can easily conceive how it might become altogether impossible.
We are therefore obliged to consider what can be done in case we
have no courts to issue judicial process, and no ministerial officers
to execute it. In that event troops would certainly be out of
place, and their use wholly illegal. If they are sent to aid the
courts and marshals, there must be courts and marshals to be aided.
Without the exercise of those functions which belong exclusively to
the civil service, the laws cannot be executed in any event, no
matter what may be the physical strength which the Government has
at its command. Under such circumstances, to send a military force
into any State, with orders to act against the people, would be
simply making war upon them.
"The existing laws put and keep the Federal Government strictly on
the defensive. You can use force only to repel an assault on the
public property and aid the Courts in the performance of their
duty. If the means given you to collect the revenue and execute
the other laws be insufficient for that purpose, Congress may extend
and make them more effectual to those ends.
"If one of the States should declare her independence, your action
cannot depend upon the righteousness of the cause upon which such
declaration is based. Whether the retirement of the State from
the Union be the exercise of a right reserved in the Constitution,
or a revolutionary movement, it is certain that you have not in
either case the authority to recognize her independence or to
absolve her from her Federal obligations. Congress, or the other
States in Convention assembled, must take such measures as may be
necessary and proper. In such an event, I see no course for you
but to go straight onward in the path you have hitherto trodden--
that is, execute the laws to the extent of the defensive means
placed in your hands, and act generally upon the assumption that
the present constitutional relations between the States and the
Federal Government continue to exist, until a new code of things
shall be established either by law or force.
"Whether Congress has the constitutional right to make war against
one or more States, and require the Executive of the Federal
Government to carry it on by means of force to be drawn from the
other States, is a question for Congress itself to consider. It
must be admitted that no such power is expressly given; nor are
there any words in the Constitution which imply it. Among the
powers enumerated in Article 1, Section 8, is that 'to declare war,
grant letters of marque and reprisal, and to make rules concerning
captures on land and water.' This certainly means nothing more
than the power to commence and carry on hostilities against the
foreign enemies of the nation. Another clause in the same section
gives Congress the power 'to provide for calling forth the militia,'
and to use them within the limits of the State. But this power is
so restricted by the words which immediately follow that it can be
exercised only for one of the following purposes: 1. To execute
the laws of the Union; that is, to aid the Federal officers in the
performance of their regular duties. 2. To suppress insurrection
against the State; but this is confined by Article 4, Section 4, to
cases in which the State herself shall apply for assistance against
her own people. 3. To repel the invasion of a State by enemies
who come from abroad to assail her in her own territory. All these
provisions are made to protect the States, not to authorize an
attack by one part of the country upon another; to preserve the
peace, and not to plunge them into civil war. Our forefathers do
not seem to have thought that war was calculated 'to form a more
perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility,
provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and
secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.'
There was undoubtedly a strong and universal conviction among the
men who framed and ratified the Constitution, that military force
would not only be useless, but pernicious, as a means of holding
the States together.
"If it be true that war cannot be declared, nor a system of general
hostilities carried on by the Central Government against a State,
then it seems to follow that an attempt to do so would be _ipso
facto_ an expulsion of such State from the Union. Being treated
as an alien and an enemy, she would be compelled to act accordingly.
And if Congress shall break up the present Union by unconstitutionally
putting strife and enmity and armed hostility between different
sections of the country, instead of the domestic tranquility which
the Constitution was meant to insure, will not all the States be
absolved from their Federal obligations? Is any portion of the
people bound to contribute their money or their blood to carry on
a contest like that?
"The right of the General Government to preserve itself in its
whole constitutional vigor by repelling a direct and positive
aggression upon its property or its officers cannot be denied.
But this is a totally different thing from an offensive war to
punish the people for the political misdeeds of their State
Government, or to enforce an acknowledgment that the Government of
the United States is supreme. The States are colleagues of one
another, and if some of them shall conquer the rest, and hold them
as subjugated provinces, it would totally destroy the whole theory
upon which they are now connected.
"If this view of the subject be correct, as I think it is, then
the Union must utterly perish at the moment when Congress shall
arm one part of the people against another for any purpose beyond
that of merely protecting the General Government in the exercise
of its proper constitutional functions.
"I am, very respectfully, yours, etc.,
"J. S. BLACK."
ERRATUM.
In Chapter VIII., there is some inaccuracy in regard to the number
of killed in the John Brown raid at Harper's Ferry. According to
the official report of Colonel Robert E. Lee, U.S.A., who commanded
the military force that relieved Harper's Ferry, the insurgents
numbered in all nineteen men,--fourteen white, five colored. Of
the white men, ten were killed; two, John Brown and Aaron C. Stevens,
were badly wounded; Edwin Coppee, unhurt, was taken prisoner; John
E. Cooke escaped. Of the colored men, two were killed, two taken
prisoner, one unaccounted for.
THE APPENDICES.
The progress of the country, referred to so frequently in the text,
is strikingly illustrated and verified by the facts contained in the
several appendices which follow.
The appendices include a variety of subjects, and they have all
been selected with the view of showing the progress and development
of the Nation in the different fields of enterprise and human labor.
The tabular statements as to the population and wealth of the
country will be found especially accurate and valuable. The
statistics relating to Education and the Public Schools, to
Agriculture, to Railways, to Immigration, to the Army, to Shipping,
to the Coal and Iron Product, to National and State Banks, to the
Circulation of Paper Money, to the price of Gold, and to the Public
Debt, will be found full of interest.
Thanks are due and are cordially given to Mr. Joseph Nimmo, Jr.,
Chief of the Bureau of Statistics, and Mr. Charles W. Seaton,
Superintendent of the Census, for valuable aid rendered in the
preparation of the appendices.
For courtesies constantly extended, and for most intelligent and
discriminating aid of various kinds, the sincerest acknowledgments
are made to Mr. Ainsworth R. Spofford, the accomplished Librarian
of Congress.
APPENDIX A.
POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES AT EACH CENSUS, FROM 1790 TO 1880 INCLUSIVE.
[From the Reports of the Superintendents of the Census.]
STATES AND STATES AND
TERRITORIES. 1880. 1870. 1860. 1850. 1840. 1830. 1820. 1810. 1800. 1790. TERRITORIES.
Alabama . . . . . . 1,262,505 996,992 964,201 771,623 590,756 309,527 127,901 . . . . . . . . . . Alabama.
Arkansas . . . . . . 802,525 484,471 435,450 209,897 97,574 30,388 { *18} . . . . . . . . . . Arkansas.
{ 14,255}
California . . . . . 864,694 560,247 379,994 92,597 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . California.
Colorado . . . . . . 194,327 39,864 34,277 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Colorado.
Connecticut . . . . 622,700 537,454 460,147 370,792 309,978 297,675 { *100} 261,942 251,002 237,946 . Connecticut.
{ 275,148}
Delaware . . . . . . 146,608 125,015 112,216 91,532 78,085 76,748 72,749 72,674 64,273 59,006 . Delaware.
Florida . . . . . . 269,493 187,748 140,424 87,445 54,477 34,730 . . . . . . . . . . . . . Florida.
Georgia . . . . . . 1,542,180 1,184,109 1,057,286 906,185 691,392 516,823 340,985 252,433 162,686 82,548 . Georgia.
Illinois . . . . . . 3,077,871 2,539,891 1,711,951 851,470 476,183 157,445 55,162 12,282 . . . . . . . Illinois.
Indiana . . . . . . 1,978,301 1,680,637 1,350,428 988,416 685,866 343,031 147,178 24,520 5,641 . . . . Indiana.
Iowa . . . . . . . . 1,624,615 1,194,020 674,913 192,214 43,112 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Iowa.
Kansas . . . . . . . 996,096 364,399 107,206 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kansas.
Kentucky . . . . . . 1,648,690 1,321,011 1,155,684 982,405 779,828 687,917 { *182} 406,511 220.955 73,677 . Kentucky.
{ 564,135}
Louisiana . . . . . 939,946 726,915 708,002 517,762 352,411 215,739 { *484} 76,556 . . . . . . . Louisiana.
{ 152,923}
Maine . . . . . . . 648,936 626,915 628,279 583,169 501,793 399,455 { *66} 228,705 151,719 96,540 . Maine.
{ 298,269}
Maryland . . . . . . 934,943 780.894 687,049 583,034 470,019 447,040 407,350 380,546 341,548 319,728 . Maryland.
Massachusetts . . . 1,783,085 1,457,351 1,231,066 994,514 737,699 610,408 { *128} 472,040 422,845 378,787 . Massachusetts.
{ 523,159}
Michigan . . . . . . 1,636,937 1,184,059 749,113 397,654 212,267 31,639 { *131} 4,762 . . . . . . . Michigan.
{ 8,765}
Minnesota . . . . . 780,773 439,706 172,023 6,077 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Minnesota.
Mississippi . . . . 1,131,597 827,922 791,305 606,526 375,651 136,621 75,448 40,352 8,850 . . . . Mississippi.
Missouri . . . . . . 2,168,380 1,721,295 1,182,012 682,044 383,702 140,455 { *29} 20,845 . . . . . . . Missouri.
{ 66,557}
Nebraska . . . . . . 452,402 122,993 28,841 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nebraska.
Nevada . . . . . . . 62,266 42,491 6,857 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nevada.
New Hampshire . . . 346,991 318,300 326,073 317,976 284,574 269,328 { *139} 214,460 183,858 141,885 . New Hampshire.
{ 244,022}
New Jersey . . . . . 1,131,116 906,096 672,035 489,555 373,306 320,823 { *149} 245,562 211,149 184,139 . New Jersey.
{ 277,426}
New York . . . . . . 5,082,871 4,382,759 3,880,735 3,097,394 2,428,921 1,918,008 { *701} 949,059 589,051 340,120 . New York.
{1,372,111}
North Carolina . . . 1,399,750 1,071,361 922,622 869,039 753,419 737,987 638,829 555,500 478,103 393,751 . North Carolina.
Ohio . . . . . . . . 3,198,062 2,665,260 2,339,511 1,980,329 1,519,467 937,903 { *139} 230,760 45,365 . . . . Ohio.
{ 581,295}
Oregon . . . . . . . 174,768 90,923 52,465 13,294 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Oregon.
Pennsylvania . . . . 4,282,891 3,521,951 2,906,215 2,311,786 1,724,033 1,348,233 { *1,951} 810,001 602,365 434,373 . Pennsylvania.
{1,047,507}
Rhode Island . . . . 276,531 217,353 174,620 147,545 108,830 97,129 { *44} 76,931 69,122 68,825 . Rhode Island.
{ 83,105}
South Carolina . . . 995,577 705,606 703,708 688,507 594,398 581,185 502,741 415,115 345,591 249,073 . South Carolina.
Tennessee . . . . . 1,542,359 1,258,520 1,109,801 1,002,717 829,210 681,904 { *52} 261,727 105,602 35,691 . Tennessee.
{ 422,771}
Texas . . . . . . . 1,591,749 818,579 604,215 212,592 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Texas.
Vermont . . . . . . 332,286 330,551 315,098 314,120 291,948 280,652 { *15} 217,895 154,465 85,425 . Vermont.
{ 235,966}
Virginia . . . . . . 1,512,565 1,225,163 1,956,318 1,421,661 1,239,797 1,211,405 { *250} 974,600 880,200 747,610 . Virginia.
{1,065,116}
West Virginia . . . 618,457 442,014 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . West Virginia.
Wisconsin . . . . . 1,315,497 1,054,670 755,881 305,391 30,945 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wisconsin.
Total, States . . 49,371,340 38,115,641 31,183,744 23,067,262 17,019,641 12,820,868 { *4,631} 7,215,858 5,294,390 . . . . . Total, States.
{9,600,783}
Arizona . . . . . . 40,440 9,658 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Arizona.
Dakota . . . . . . . 135,177 14,181 4,837 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dakota.
District of Columbia 117,624 131,700 75,080 51,687 43,712 39,834 33,039 24,023 14,003 . . . . District of Columbia.
Idaho . . . . . . . 32,610 14,999 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Idaho.
Montana . . . . . . 39,159 20,595 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Montana.
New Mexico . . . . . 119,565 91,874 93,516 61,547 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . New Mexico.
Utah . . . . . . . . 143,963 86,786 40,273 11,380 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Utah.
Washington . . . . . 75,116 23,955 11,594 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Washington.
Wyoming . . . . . . 20,789 9,118 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wyoming.
Total, Territories 784,443 443,730 259,577 124,614 43,712 39,834 33,039 24,023 14,093 . . . . . Total, Territories.
On the public ships . . . . . . . . . . . . 6,100 5,318 . . . . . . . . . . . . . On the public ships.
In U. S. Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . *4,631 . . . . . . . . . . In U. S. Service.
Total, U. S. . . . 50,155,783 38,558,371 31,443,321 23,191,876 17,069,453 12,866,020 9,633,832 7,239,881 5,308,483 3,929,214 . . Total, U. S.
* All other persons, except Indians, not taxed.
APPENDIX B.
APPORTIONMENT AMONG THE STATES OF REPRESENTATIVES
IN CONGRESS AFTER EACH CENSUS.
Admitted By Cons- By 1st By 2nd By 3d By 4th By 5th By 6th By 7th By 8th By 9th By 10th
STATES. to the titution, Census, Census Census, Census, Census, Census, Census, Census, Census, Census,
Union. 1789. 1790. 1800. 1810. 1820. 1830. 1840. 1850. 1860. 1870. 1880.
RATIO OF REPRESENTATION . . . . 30,000. 33,000. 33,000. 35,000. 40,000. 47,700. 70,680. 93,423. 127,381. 131,425. 154,325.
Alabama . . . . . . . . 1819 . . . . . . . . 3 5 7 7 6 8 8
Arkansas . . . . . . . . 1836 . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 3 4 5
California . . . . . . . 1850 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 3 4 6
Colorado . . . . . . . . 1876 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1
Connecticut . . . . . . . ---- 5 7 7 7 6 6 4 4 4 4 4
Delaware . . . . . . . . ---- 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Florida . . . . . . . . 1845 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1 2 2
Georgia . . . . . . . . ---- 3 2 4 6 7 9 8 8 7 9 10
Illinois . . . . . . . . 1818 . . . . . . . . 1 3 7 9 14 19 20
Indiana . . . . . . . . 1816 . . . . . . . . 3 7 10 11 11 13 13
Iowa . . . . . . . . . . 1846 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 6 9 11
Kansas . . . . . . . . . 1861 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 3 7
Kentucky . . . . . . . . 1792 . . 2 6 10 12 13 10 10 9 10 11
Louisiana . . . . . . . 1812 . . . . . . . . 3 3 4 4 5 6 6
Maine . . . . . . . . . 1820 . . . . . . . . 7 8 7 6 5 5 4
Maryland . . . . . . . . ---- 6 8 9 9 9 8 6 6 5 6 6
Massachusetts . . . . . . ---- 8 14 17 20 13 12 10 11 10 11 12
Michigan . . . . . . . . 1837 . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 4 6 9 11
Minnesota . . . . . . . . 1858 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2 3 5
Mississippi . . . . . . . 1817 . . . . . . . . 1 2 4 5 5 6 7
Missouri . . . . . . . . 1821 . . . . . . . . 1 2 5 7 9 13 14
Nebraska . . . . . . . . 1867 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1 3
Nevada . . . . . . . . . 1864 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1 1
New Hampshire . . . . . . ---- 3 4 5 6 6 5 4 3 3 3 2
New Jersey . . . . . . . ---- 4 5 6 6 6 6 5 5 5 7 7
New York . . . . . . . . ---- 6 10 17 27 34 40 34 33 31 33 34
North Carolina . . . . . ---- 5 10 12 13 13 13 9 8 7 8 9
Ohio . . . . . . . . . . 1802 . . . . . . 6 14 19 21 21 19 20 21
Oregon . . . . . . . . . 1859 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1 1 1
Pennsylvania . . . . . . ---- 8 13 18 23 26 28 24 25 24 27 28
Rhode Island . . . . . . ---- 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
South Carolina . . . . . ---- 5 6 8 9 9 9 7 6 4 5 7
Tennessee . . . . . . . 1796 . . . . 3 6 9 13 11 10 8 10 10
Texas . . . . . . . . . 1845 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 4 6 11
Vermont . . . . . . . . 1791 . . 2 4 6 5 5 4 3 3 3 2
Virgina . . . . . . . . ---- 10 19 23 23 22 21 15 13 11 9 10
West Virginia . . . . . 1863 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 4
Wisconsin . . . . . . . 1848 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 8 8 9
65 105 141 181 213 240 223 237 293 293 325
APPENDIX C.
PUBLIC DEBT OF THE UNITED STATES, 1791-1883.
Statement of the Outstanding Principal of the Public Debt of the United
States on the 1st of January of each Year from 1791 to 1842 inclusive;
and on the 1st of July of each Year from 1843 to 1883 inclusive.
The amount given for the year 1791 represents the debt of the Revolution
under the Funding Bill of Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury.
The debt had decreased to a considerable extent by the year 1812. In
consequence of the war with Great Britain, which began that year, there
was a rapid increase, the maximum being reached in 1816. Thenceforward,
with the exception of the years 1822, 1823, and 1824,--a period of
extreme financial depression,--the debt was steadily decreased, until
in the year 1835, under the Presidency of General Jackson, it was
extinguished,--the total amount outstanding being only $37,000 in bonds
which were not presented for payment. The creation of a new debt,
however, began at once, and was increased in the years 1847, 1848, and
1849 by the Mexican war. This, in turn, was quite steadily reduced
until the financial panic of 1857, when, during the administration of
Mr. Buchanan, there was another incease. The debt was about eighty
millions of dollars in amount when the civil war began.
Year. Amount. Year. Amount. Year. Amount. Year. Amount.
1791 $75,463,476.52 1815 $ 99,833,660.15 1839 $ 3,573,343.82 1863 $1,119,772,138.63
1792 77,227,924.66 1816 127,334,933.74 1840 5,270,875.54 1864 1,815,784,370.57
1793 80,352,634,04 1817 123,491,965.16 1841 13,594,480.73 1865 2,680,647,869.74
1794 78,427,404.77 1818 103,466,633.83 1842 20,601,226.28 1866 2,773,236,173.69
1795 80,747,587,39 1819 95,529,648.28 1843 32,742,922.00 1867 2,678,126,103.87
1796 83,762,172.07 1820 91,015,566.15 1844 23,461,652.50 1868 2,611,687,851.19
1797 82,064,479.33 1821 89,987,427.66 1845 15,925,303.01 1869 2,588,452,213.94
1798 79,228,529.12 1822 93,546,676.98 1846 15,550,202.97 1870 2,480,672,427.81
1799 78,408,669.77 1823 90,875,877.28 1847 38,826,534.77 1871 2,353,211,332,32
1800 82,976,294.35 1824 90,269,777.77 1848 47,044,862.23 1872 2,253,251,328.78
1801 83,038,050,80 1825 83,788,432.71 1849 63,061,858.69 1873 2,234,482,993.20
1802 86,712,632.25 1826 81,054,059.99 1850 63,452,773.55 1874 2,251,690,468.43
1803 77,054,686.30 1827 73,987,357.20 1851 68,304,796.02 1875 2,232,284,531.95
1804 86,427,120.88 1828 67,475,043.87 1852 66,199,341.71 1876 2,180,395,067.15
1805 82,312,150.50 1829 58,421,413.67 1853 59,803,117.70 1877 2,205,301,392.10
1806 75,723,270.66 1830 48,565,406.50 1854 42,242,222.42 1878 2,256,205,892.53
1807 69,218.398.64 1831 39,123,191.68 1855 35,586,858.56 1879 2,245,495,072.04
1808 65,196,317.97 1832 24,322,235,18 1856 31,972,537.90 1880 2,120,415,370.63
1809 57,023,192.09 1833 7,001,698.83 1857 28,699,831.85 1881 2,069,013,569.58
1810 53,173,217.52 1834 4,760,082.08 1858 44,911,881.03 1882 1,918,312,994.03
1811 48,005,587.76 1835 37,513.05 1859 58,496,837.88 1883 1,884,171,728.07
1812 45,209,737.90 1836 336,957.83 1860 64,842,287.88
1813 55,962,827.57 1837 3,308,124.07 1861 90,580,873.72
1814 81,487,846.24 1838 10,434,221.14 1862 524,176,412.13
APPENDIX D.
Showing the Highest and Lowest Price of Gold in the New-York Market every
Month, from the Suspension of Specie Payment by the Government in
January, 1862, until Resumption in January, 1879, a Period of Seventeen
Years.
1862. 1863. 1864. 1865. 1866. 1867.
MONTH. Highest Lowest Highest Lowest Highest Lowest Highest Lowest Highest Lowest Highest Lowest
January . . . 103-5/8 100 160-3/4 133-5/8 159-3/8 151-1/2 233-3/4 198-1/8 144-5/8 129 137-7/8 132
February . . . 104-3/4 102-1/8 172-1/2 152-1/2 161 157-1/4 216-1/2 196-5/8 140-5/8 135-7/8 140-1/2 135-1/4
March . . . . 102-3/8 101-1/4 171-3/4 139 169-3/4 159 201 148-1/4 136-1/2 125 140-3/8 133-3/8
April . . . . 102-1/4 101 157-7/8 145-1/2 184-3/4 166-1/4 153-5/8 144 129-5/8 125-1/2 142 132-3/8
May . . . . . 104-1/8 102-1/8 154-3/4 143-1/2 190 168 145-3/8 128-5/8 141-1/2 125-1/8 138-7/8 134-7/8
June . . . . . 109-1/2 103-3/8 148-3/8 140-1/2 250 193 147-3/8 135-7/8 167-3/4 137-5/8 138-3/4 136-1/2
July . . . . . 120-1/8 108-3/4 145 123-1/4 285 222 146 138-3/4 155-3/4 147 140-5/8 138
August . . . . 116-1/4 112-1/2 129-3/4 122-1/8 259-1/2 231-1/2 145-3/8 140-1/4 152-1/4 146-1/2 142-3/8 139-7/8
September . . 124 116-1/2 143-1/8 126-7/8 254-1/2 191 145 142-5/8 147-1/8 143-1/4 146-3/8 141
October . . . 133-1/2 122 156-3/4 140-3/8 227-3/4 189 149 144-1/8 154-3/8 145-1/2 145-5/8 140-1/4
November . . . 133-1/4 129 154 143 260 210 148-3/4 145-7/8 148-5/8 137-1/2 141-1/2 138-1/8
December . . . 134 128-1/2 152-3/4 148-1/2 243 212-3/4 148-1/2 144-5/8 141-3/4 131-1/4 137-7/8 133
1868. 1869. 1870. 1871. 1872. 1873.
MONTH. Highest Lowest Highest Lowest Highest Lowest Highest Lowest Highest Lowest Highest Lowest
January . . . 141-7/8 133-1/4 136-5/8 134-5/8 123-1/4 119-3/8 111-1/4 110-1/2 110-1/8 108-1/2 114-1/4 111-5/8
February . . . 144 139-5/8 136-1/4 130-7/8 121-1/2 115 112-1/2 110-3/4 111 109-1/2 115-7/8 112-7/8
March . . . . 141-3/8 137-7/8 132-1/4 130-7/8 116-3/8 110-1/4 112 110-1/8 110-5/8 109-3/4 118-1/2 114-5/8
April . . . . 140-3/8 137-3/4 134-3/8 131-1/4 115-5/8 111-1/2 111-1/4 110-1/8 110-5/8 109-3/4 118-1/2 114-5/8
May . . . . . 140-1/2 139-1/8 144-7/8 134-5/8 115-1/2 113-3/4 112-1/4 111 114-3/4 112-1/8 118-5/8 116-5/8
June . . . . . 141-1/2 139-1/8 139-5/8 136-1/2 114-3/4 110-7/8 113-1/8 111-3/4 114-3/4 113 118-1/4 115
July . . . . . 145-1/4 140-1/8 137-7/8 134 122-3/4 111-1/8 113-1/4 111-3/4 115-1/4 113-1/2 116-3/8 115
August . . . . 150 143-1/2 136-5/8 131-1/4 122 114-3/4 113-1/8 111-5/8 115-5/8 112-1/8 116-1/4 114-3/8
September . . 145-1/8 141-1/8 162-1/2 130-5/8 116-3/4 113 115-1/8 112-1/4 115-1/8 112-5/8 116-1/8 110-7/8
October . . . 140-3/8 133-3/4 132 128-1/8 114-1/4 111-1/8 115 111-1/2 115-1/4 112-1/4 111-1/4 107-5/8
November . . . 137 132-1/8 128-5/8 121-1/2 113-1/4 110 112-5/8 110-1/2 114-1/4 111-3/8 110-1/2 106-1/8
December . . . 136-3/4 134-1/2 124 119-1/2 111-1/4 110-1/2 110-3/8 108-1/2 113-3/8 111-1/8 112-5/8 108-3/8
1874. 1875. 1876. 1877. 1878.
MONTH. Highest Lowest Highest Lowest Highest Lowest Highest Lowest Highest Lowest
January . . . 112-1/8 110-1/8 113-3/8 111-3/4 113-1/4 112-1/2 107-1/8 105-1/4 102-7/8 101-1/4
February . . . 113 111-3/8 115-3/8 113-1/4 114-1/8 112/3-4 106-1/8 104-5/8 102-3/8 101-5/8
March . . . . 113-5/8 111-1/4 117 114 115 113-3/4 105-3/8 104-1/4 102 100-3/4
April . . . . 114-3/8 111-3/4 115-1/2 114 113-7/8 112-1/2 107-7/8 104-3/4 101-1/4 100-1/8
May . . . . . 113-1/8 111-7/8 116-3/8 115 113-1/4 112-1/4 107-3/8 106-1/4 101-1/4 100-3/8
June . . . . . 112-1/4 110-1/2 117-1/2 116-1/4 113 111-7/8 106-3/8 104-3/4 101 100-5/8
July . . . . . 110-7/8 109 117-1/4 111-3/4 112-1/2 111-3/8 106-1/8 105-1/8 101-1/2 100-3/8
August . . . . 110-1/4 109-1/4 114-3/4 112-5/8 112-1/8 109-3/8 105-1/2 103-7/8 100-3/4 100-1/2
September . . 110-1/4 109-3/8 117-3/8 113-3/4 110-3/8 109-1/4 104 102-7/8 100-1/2 100-1/8
October . . . 110-3/8 109-3/4 117-5/8 114-1/2 113-1/4 108-7/8 103-3/8 102-1/2 101-3/8 100-1/4
November . . . 112-3/8 110 116-3/8 114-1/8 110-1/8 108-1/8 103-3/8 102-1/2 100-1/2 100-1/8
December . . . 112-3/8 110-1/2 115-1/4 112-1/8 109 107 103-3/8 102-1/2 100-1/2 100
Table showing the Total Amount of Gold and Silver Coin issued from the
Mints of the United States in each Decennial Period since 1790.
Period. Gold. Silver. Period. Gold. Silver.
1793-1800 . . $ 1,014,290.00 $ 1,440,454.75 1851-1860 . . $330,237,085.50 $ 46,582,183.00
1801-1810 . . 3,250,742.50 3,569,165.25 1861-1870 . . 292,409,545.50 13,188,601.90
1811-1820 . . 3,166,510.00 5,970,810.95 1871-1880 . . 393,125,751.00 155,123,087.10
1821-1830 . . 1,903,092.50 16,781,046.95 1881-1883 . . 204,076,239.00 84,268,825.65
1831-1840 . . 18,756,487.50 27,309,957.00
1841-1850 . . 89,239,817.50 22,368,130.00 Total . . .$1,337,179,561.00 $376,602,262.55
APPENDIX E.
The following statement exhibits the total valuation of real and personal
estate in the United States, according to the Census Returns of 1850,
1860, 1870, and 1880.
Both the "true" and the "assessed" valuation are given, except in 1850,
which gives only the "true." The dispartiy between the actual propery
and that which is assessed for taxation is very striking.
The effect of the war and the consequent abolition of slavery on the
valuation of property in the Southern States is clearly shown by the
figures.
In all comparisons of value between the different periods, it must be
borne in mind, that, in 1870, gold was at an average premium of 25.3 per
cent. To equate the valuation with those of other years, there must be
a reduction of one-fifth on the reported valuation of 1870, both "true"
and "assessed."
The four periods exhibit a more rapid accumulation of wealth in the
United States than was ever known before in the history of the world.
STATES 1850. 1860. 1870. 1880. STATES
AND Assessed Assessed Assessed AND
TERRITORIES. True Value. Value. True Value. Value. True Value. Value. True Value. TERRITORIES.
Alabama . . . . . . . . . $228,204,332 $432,198,762 $495,237,078 $155,582,595 $201,835,841 $122,867,228 $428,000,000 . . Alabama.
Arizona . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,410,295 3,440,791 9,270,214 41,000,000 . . Arizona.
Arkansas . . . . . . . . 39,841,025 180,211,330 219,256,473 94,528,843 156,394,691 86,409,364 286,000,000 . . Arkansas.
California . . . . . . . 22,161,872 139,654,667 207,874,613 269,644,068 638,767,017 584,578,036 1,343,000,000 . . California.
Colorado . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17,338,101 20,243,303 74,471,693 240,000,000 . . Colorado.
Connecticut . . . . . . . 155,707,980 341,256,976 444,274,114 425,433,237 774,631,524 327,177,385 799,000,000 . . Connecticut.
Dakota . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,924,489 5,599,752 20,321,530 118,000,000 . . Dakota.
Delaware . . . . . . . . 21,062,556 39,767,233 46,242,181 64,787,223 97,180,833 59,951,643 130,000,000 . . Delaware.
District of Columbia . . 14,018,874 41,084,945 41,084,945 74,271,693 126,873,618 99,401,787 220,000,000 . . District of Columbia.
Florida . . . . . . . . . 22,862,270 68,929,685 73,101,500 32,480,843 44,163,655 30,938,309 120,000,000 . . Florida.
Georgia . . . . . . . . . 335,425,714 618,232,387 645,895,237 227,219,519 268,169,207 239,472,599 606,000,000 . . Georgia.
Idaho . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,292,205 6,552,081 6,440,876 29,000,000 . . Idaho.
Illinois . . . . . . . . 156,265,006 389,207,372 871,860,282 482,899,575 2,121,680,579 786,616,394 3,210,000,000 . . Illinois.
Indiana . . . . . . . . . 202,650,264 411,042,424 528,835,371 663,455,044 1,268,180,543 727,815,131 1,681,000,000 . . Indiana.
Iowa . . . . . . . . . . 23,714,638 205,168,983 247,338,265 302,515,418 717,644,750 398,671,251 1,721,000,000 . . Iowa.
Kansas . . . . . . . . . . . . 22,518,232 31,327,895 92,125,861 188,892,014 160,891,689 700,000,000 . . Kansas.
Kentucky . . . . . . . . 301,628,456 528,212,693 666,043,112 409,544,294 604,318,552 350,563,971 902,000,000 . . Kentucky.
Louisiana . . . . . . . . 233,998,764 435,787,265 602,118,568 253,371,890 323,125,666 160,162,439 382,000,000 . . Louisiana.
Maine . . . . . . . . . . 122,777,571 154,380,388 190,211,600 204,253,780 348,155,671 235,978,716 511,000,000 . . Maine.
Maryland . . . . . . . . 219,217,364 297,135,238 376,919,944 423,834,918 643,748,976 497,307,675 837,000,000 . . Maryland.
Massachusetts . . . . . . 573,342,286 777,157,816 815,237,433 1,591,983,112 2,132,148,741 1,584,756,802 2,623,000,000 . . Masschusetts.
Michigan . . . . . . . . 59,787,255 163,533,005 257,163,983 272,242,917 719,208,118 517,666,359 1,580,000,000 . . Michigan.
Minnesota . . . . . . . . . . . 32,018,773 52,294,413 84,135,322 228,909,590 258,028,687 792,000,000 . . Minnesota.
Mississippi . . . . . . . 228,951,130 509,472,912 607,324,911 177,278,800 209,197,345 110,628,129 354,000,000 . . Mississippi.
Missouri . . . . . . . . 137,247,707 266,935,851 501,214,398 556,129,969 1,284,922,897 532,795,801 1,562,000,000 . . Missouri.
Montana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9,943,411 15,184,522 18,609,802 40,000,000 . . Montana.
Nebraska . . . . . . . . . . . 7,426,949 9,131,056 54,584,616 69,277,483 90,585,782 385,000,000 . . Nebraska.
Nevada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25,740,973 31,134,012 29,291,459 156,000,000 . . Nevada.
New Hampshire . . . . . . 103,652,835 123,810,809 156,310,860 149,065.290 252,624,112 164,755,181 363,000,000 . . New Hampshire.
New Jersey . . . . . . . 200,000,000 296,682,492 467,918,324 624,868,971 940,976,064 572,518,361 1,305,000,000 . . New Jersey.
New Mexico . . . . . . . 5,174,471 20,838,780 20,813,768 17,784,014 31,349,793 11,363,406 49,000,000 . . New Mexico.
New York . . . . . . . . 1,080,309,216 1,390,464,638 1,843,338,517 1,967,001,185 6,500,841,264 2,651,940,006 6,308,000,000 . . New York.
North Carolina . . . . . 226,800,472 292,297,602 358,739,399 130,378,622 260,757,244 156,100,202 461,000,000 . . North Carolina.
Ohio . . . . . . . . . . 504,726,120 959,867,101 1,193,898,422 1,167,731,697 2,235,430,300 1,534,360,508 3,238,000,000 . . Ohio.
Oregon . . . . . . . . . 5,063,474 19,024,915 28,930,637 31,798,510 51,558,932 52,522,084 154,000,000 . . Oregon.
Pennsylvania . . . . . . 722,486,120 719,253,335 1,416,501,818 1,313,236,042 3,808,340,112 1,683,459,016 4,942,000,000 . . Pennsylvania.
Rhode Island . . . . . . 80,508,794 125,104,305 135,337,588 244,278,854 295,965,646 252,538,673 400,000,000 . . Rhode Island.
South Carolina . . . . . 288,257,694 489,319,128 548,138,754 183,913,337 208,146,989 133,560,135 322,000,000 . . South Carolina.
Tennessee . . . . . . . . 201,246,686 382,495,200 493,903,892 253,782,161 498,237,724 211,778,538 705,000,000 . . Tennessee.
Texas . . . . . . . . . . 52,740,473 267,792,335 365,200,614 149,732,929 159,052,542 340,364,515 825,000,000 . . Texas.
Utah . . . . . . . . . . 986,083 4,158,020 5,596,118 12,565,842 16,159,995 24,775,279 114,000,000 . . Utah.
Vermont . . . . . . . . . 92,205,049 84,758,619 122,477,170 102,548,528 235,349,553 86,806,775 302,000,000 . . Vermont.
Virginia . . . . . . . . 430,701,082 657,021,336 793,249,681 365,439,917 409,588,133 308,455,135 707,000,000 . . Virginia.
Washington . . . . . . . . . . 4,394,735 5,601,466 10,642,863 13,562,164 23,810,693 62,000,000 . . Washington.
West Virginia . . . . . . included in Virginia 140,538,273 190,651,491 139,622,705 350,000,000 . . West Virginia.
Wisconsin . . . . . . . . 42,056,595 185,945,489 273,671,668 333,209,838 702,307,329 438,971,751 1,139,000,000 . . Wisconsin.
Wyoming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,516,748 7,016,748 13,621,829 54,000,000 . . Wyoming.
Total for U. S. . . . . $7,135,780,228 $12,084,560,005 $16,159,616,068 $14,178,986,732 $30,068,518,507 $16,902,993,543 $43,642,000,000 . . Total for U. S.
APPENDIX F.
OWNERSHIP AND LOCATION OF PROPERTY.
In the following table, the column headed "Location" gives the valuation
of the property located in each State and Territory, by the Census of
1880. The column headed "Ownership" gives the value of property owned
by the residents of the several States and Territories, wherever that
property may be located. Some interesting results are shown. Residents
of New York own thirteen hundred millions of property not located in
their State; residents of Pennsylvania, four hundred and fifty millions.
Many of the States show a large proportion of their property owned
elsewhere. Considerably more than half the property of Nevada is owned
outside the State. The whole table presents one of the most interesting
deductions of the Census Bureau.
STATES
AND Ownership. Location.
TERRITORIES.
Alabama . . . . . . $378,000,000 $428,000,000
Arizona . . . . . . 23,000,000 41,000,000
Arkansas . . . . . . 246,000,000 286,000,000
California . . . . . 1,430,000,000 1,343,000,000
Colorado . . . . . . 149,000,000 240,000,000
Connecticut . . . . 852,000,000 779,000,000
Dakota . . . . . . . 68,000,000 118,000,000
Delaware . . . . . . 138,000,000 136,000,000
Dist. of Columbia . 223,000,000 220,000,000
Florida . . . . . . 95,000,000 120,000,000
Georgia . . . . . . 554,000,000 606,000,000
Idaho . . . . . . . 12,000,000 29,000,000
Illinois . . . . . . 3,092,000,000 3,219,000,000
Indiana . . . . . . 1,499,000,000 1,681,000,000
Iowa . . . . . . . . 1,415,000,000 1,721,000,000
Kansas . . . . . . . 575,000,000 760,000,000
Kentucky . . . . . . 880,000,000 902,000,000
Louisiana . . . . . 422,000,000 382,000,000
Maine . . . . . . . 501,000,000 511,000,000
Maryland . . . . . . 869,000,000 837,000,000
Massachusetts . . . 2,795,000,000 2,623,000,000
Michigan . . . . . . 1,370,000,000 1,580,000,000
Minnesota . . . . . 638,000,000 792,000,000
Mississippi . . . . 324,000,000 354,000,000
Missouri . . . . . . 1,530,000,000 1,562,000,000
Montana . . . . . . 29,000,000 40,000,000
Nebraska . . . . . . 200,000,000 385,000,000
Nevada . . . . . . . 69,000,000 156,000,000
New Hampshire . . . 328,000,000 363,000,000
New Jersey . . . . . 1,433,000,000 1,305,000,000
New Mexico . . . . . 30,000,000 49,000,000
New York . . . . . . 7,619,000,000 6,208,000,000
North Carolina . . . 446,000,000 461,000,000
Ohio . . . . . . . . 3,301,000,000 3,238,000,000
Oregon . . . . . . . 126,000,000 154,000,000
Pennsylvania . . . . 5,393,000,000 4,942,000,000
Rhode Island . . . . 420,000,000 400,000,000
South Carolina . . . 296,000,000 322,000,000
Tennessee . . . . . 666,000,000 705,000,000
Texas . . . . . . . 725,000,000 825,000,000
Utah . . . . . . . . 67,000,000 114,000,000
Vermont . . . . . . 289,000,000 302,000,000
Virginia . . . . . . 693,000,000 707,000,000
Washington . . . . . 48,000,000 62,000,000
West Virginia . . . 307,000,000 350,000,000
Wisconsin . . . . . 969,000,000 1,139,000,000
Wyoming . . . . . . 20,000,000 54,000,000
$43,642,000,000 $43,642,000,000
APPENDIX G
The following table exhibits the amount of revenue collected at the
Customs Houses on foreign imports each year, from 1789 to 1883, under
the various tariff laws; also the amount of internal revenue collected
each year, from the foundation of the government to 1883. The separate
table gives the amount collected each year under the income-tax while
in force, and the total amount received from the tax on spirits and
beer for twenty-one years after it was first levied in 1862.
Receipts of the United States from March 4, 1789, to June 30, 1883.
Years. From Customs. From Internal Revenue.
1789-1791 $4,399,473.00
1792 3,443,070.85 $208,942.81
1793 4,255,306.56 337,705.70
1794 4,801,065.28 274,089.62
1795 5,588,461.62 337,755.36
1796 6,567,987.94 475,289.60
1797 7,549,649.65 575,491.45
1798 7,106,061.93 644,357.95
1799 6,610,449,31 779,136.44
1800 9,080,932.78 809,396.55
1801 10,750,778.93 1,048,033.43
1802 12,438,235.74 621,898.89
1803 10,479,417.61 215,179.69
1804 11,098,565.33 50,941.29
1805 12,938,487.04 21,747.15
1806 14,667,698.17 20,101.45
1807 15,845,521.61 13,051.40
1808 16,363,550.58 8,190.23
1809 7,257,506.62 4,034.29
1810 8,583,309.31 7,430.63
1811 13,313,222.73 2,295.95
1812 8,958,777.53 4,903.06
1813 13,224,623.25 4,755.04
1814 5,998,772.08 1,662,984.83
1815 7,282,942.22 4,678,059.07
1816 36,306,874.88 5,124,708.31
1817 26,283,348.49 2,678,100.77
1818 17,176,385.00 955,270.20
1819 20,283,608.76 229,593.63
1820 15,005,612.15 106,260.53
1821 13,004,447.15 69,027.63
1822 17,589,761.94 67,665.71
1823 19,088,433.44 34,242.17
1824 17,878,325.71 34,663.37
1825 20,098,713.45 25,771.35
1826 23,341,331.77 21,589.93
1827 19,712,283.29 19,885.68
1828 23,205,523.64 17,451.54
1829 22,681,965.91 14,502.74
1830 21,922,391.39 12,160.62
1831 24,224,441.77 6,933.51
1832 28,465,237.24 11,630.65
1833 29,031,508.91 2,759.00
1834 16,214,957.15 4,196.09
1835 19,391,310.59 10,459.48
1836 23,409,940.53 370.00
1837 11,169,290.39 5,493.84
1838 16,158,800.36 2,467.27
1839 23,137,924.81 2,553,32
1840 13,499,502.17 1,682.25
1841 14,487,216.74 3,261.36
1842 18,187,908.76 495.00
1843 7,046,843.91 103.25
1844 26,183,570.94 1,777.34
1845 27,528,112.70 3,517.12
1846 26,712,667.87 2,897.26
1847 23,747,864.66 375.00
1848 31,757,070.96 375.00
1849 28,346,738.82
1850 39,668,686.42
1851 49,017,567.92
1852 47,339,326.62
1853 58,931.865.52
1854 64,224,190.27
1855 53,025.794.21
1856 64,022,863.50
1857 63,875,905.05
1858 41,789,620.96
1859 49,565,824.38
1860 53,187,511.87
1861 39,582,125.64
1862 49,056,397.62
1863 69.059,642.40 $37,640,787.95
1864 102,316,152.99 109,741,134.10
1865 84,928,260.60 209,464,215.25
1866 179,046,651.58 309,226,813.42
1867 176,417,810.88 266,027,537.43
1868 164,464,599.56 191,087,589.41
1869 180,048,426.63 158,356,460.86
1870 194,538,374.44 184,899,756.49
1871 206,270,408.05 143,098,153.63
1872 216,370,286.77 130,642,177.72
1873 188,089,522.70 113,729,314.14
1874 163,103,833.69 102,409,784.90
1875 157,167,722.35 110,007,493.58
1876 148,071,984.61 116,700,732.03
1877 130,956,493.07 118,630,407.83
1878 130,170,680.20 110,581,624.74
1879 137,250,047.70 113,561,610.58
1880 186,522,064.60 124,009,373.92
1881 198,159,676.02 135,264,385.51
1882 220,410,730.25 146,497,595.45
1883 214,706,496.93 144,720,368.98
Total $5,073,240,329.60 $3,098,575,330.71
From Distilled Spirits.
Years. From Income Tax. | From Fermented Liquors.
1863 $2,741.858.25 $5,176,530.50 $1,628,933.82
1864 20,294,731.74 30,329,149.53 2,290,009.14
1865 32,050,017.44 18,731,422.45 3,734,928.06
1866 72,982,159.03 33,268,171.82 5,220,552.72
1867 66,014,429.34 33,542,951.72 6,057,500.63
1868 41,455,598.36 18,655,630.90 5,955,868.92
1869 34,791,855.84 45,071,230.86 6,099,879.54
1870 37,775,873.62 55,606,094.15 6,319,126.90
1871 19,162,650.75 46,281,848,10 7,389,501.82
1872 14,436,861.78 49,475,516.36 8,258,498.46
1873 5,062,311.62 52,099,371.78 9,324,937.84
1874 139,472.09 49,444,089.85 9,304,679.72
1875 232.64 52,081,991.12 9,144,004.41
1876 588.27 56,426,365.13 9,571,280.66
1877 97.79 57,469,429.72 9,480,789.17
1878 50,420,815.80 9,937,051.78
1879 52,570,284.69 10,729,320.08
1880 61,185,508.79 12,829,802.84
1881 3,021.92 67,153,974.88 13,700,241.21
1882 69,873,408.18 16,153,920.42
1883 74,368,775.20 16,900,615.81
Total $366,911,760.48 $979,232,561.53 $180,031,443.95
APPENDIX H.
IMPORTANT CROPS.
The following table exhibits the aggregate production in the United
States, for a series of years ending wih 1882, of certain crops which
contribute largely to the national wealth. The total acreage, the
yield per acre, and the value per acre, are given in each case.
CORN. Yield per Acre. Value
Years. Bushels. Acres. | Value. per Acre.
1849 592.071,104
1859 838,792,742
1866 867,946,295 34,306,538 25 $591,666,295
1867 768,320,000 32,520,249 23 610,948,390
1868 906,527,000 34,887,246 25.9 569,512,460 $16.32
1869 760,944,549
1870 1,094,255,000 38,646,977 28.3 601,839,030 15.57
1871 991,898,000 34,091,137 29.1 478,275,900 14.02
1872 1,092,719,000 35,526,836 30.7 435,149,290 12.24
1873 932,274,000 39,197,148 23.8 447,183,200 11.41
1874 850,148,500 41,036,918 20.7 550,043,080 13.40
1875 1,321,069,000 44,841,371 29.4 555,445,930 12.38
1876 1,283,827,500 49,033,364 26.1 475,491,210 9.69
1877 1,342,558,000 50,369,113 26.6 480,643,400 9.54
1878 1,388,218,750 51,585,000 26.9 441,153,405 8.55
1879 1,754,591,676 62,368,504 28.1
1880 1,717,434,543 62,317,842 27.6 679,714,499 10.91
1881 1,194,916,000 64,262,025 18.6 759,482,170 11.82
1882 1,617,025,100 65,659,546 24.6 783,867,175 11.91
WHEAT. Yield per Acre. Value
Years. Bushels. Acres. | Value. per Acre.
1849 100,485,944
1859 173,104,924
1866 151,999,906 15,424,496 10 $333,773,646
1867 212,441,400 18,321,561 11.5 421,796,460
1868 224,036,600 18,460,132 12.1 319,195,290 $17.29
1869 287,745,626
1870 235,884,700 18,992,591 12.4 245,865,045 12.94
1871 230,722,400 19,943,893 11.5 290,411,820 14.56
1872 249,997,100 20,858,359 11.9 310,180,375 14.87
1873 281,254,700 22,171,676 12.7 323,594,805 14.20
1874 309,102,700 24,967,027 12.5 291,107,895 11.66
1875 292,136,000 26,381,512 11 294,580,990 11.16
1876 289,356,500 27,627,021 10.4 300,259,300 10.86
1877 364,194,146 26,277,546 13.9 394,695,779 15.08
1878 420,122,400 32,108,560 13.1 326,346,424 10.15
1879 459,483,137 35,430,333 13
1880 498,549,868 37,986,717 13.1 474,201,850 12.48
1881 383,280,090 37,709,020 10.2 456,880,427 12.01
1882 504,185,470 37,067,194 13.6 444,602,125 12.00
POTATOES. Yield per Acre. Value
Years. Bushels. Acres. | Value. per Acre.
1849 65,797,896
1859 111,148,867
1866 107,200,976 1,069,381 100 $72,939,029
1867 97,783,000 1,192,195 82 89,276,830
1868 106,090,000 1,131,552 93.7 84,150,040 $74.36
1869 143,337,473
1870 114,775,000 1,325,119 86.6 82,668,590 62.38
1871 120,461,700 1,220,912 98.6 71,836,671 58.83
1872 113,516,000 1,331,331 85.2 68,091,120 51.14
1873 106,089,000 1,295,139 81.9 74,774,890 57.73
1874 105,981,000 1,310,041 80.9 71,823,330 54.82
1875 166,877,000 1,510,041 110.5 65,019,420 43.05
1876 124,827,000 1,741,983 71.6 83,861,390 48.14
1877 170,092,000 1,792,287 94.9 76,249,500 42.54
1878 124,126,650 1,776,800 69.9 73,059,125 41.12
1879 169,458,539
1880 167,659,570 1,842,510 91 81,062,214 44.00
1881 109,145,494 2,041,670 53.5 99,291,341 48.63
1882 170,972,508 2,171,636 78.7 92,304,844 43.84
HAY. Yield per Acre. Value
Years. Tons. Acres. | Value. per Acre.
1849 13,838,642
1859 19,083,896
1866 21,778,627 17,668,904 1.22 $317,561,837
1867 26,277,000 20,020,554 372,864,670
1868 26,141,900 21,541,573 1.21 351,941,030 $16.33
1869 27,316,048
1870 24,525,000 19,861,805 1.23 338,969,680 17.06
1871 22,239,409 19,009,052 1.17 351,717,035 18.50
1872 23,812,800 20,318,936 1.17 345,969,079 17.02
1873 25,085,100 21,894,084 1.34 339,895,486 15.52
1874 24,133,900 21,769,772 1.11 331,420,738 15.22
1875 27,873,600 23,507,964 1.18 342,203,445 14.55
1876 30,867,100 25,282,797 1.22 300,901,252 11.90
1877 31,629,300 25,367,708 1.24 271,934,950 10.72
1878 39,608,296 26,931,300 1.47 285,543,752 10.60
1879 35,150,711 30,631,054 1.15
1880 31,925,233 25,863,955 1.23 371,811,084 14.38
1881 35,135,064 30,888,700 1.14 415,131,366 13.43
1882 38,138,049 32,339,585 1.15 369,958,158 11.45
TOBACCO. Yield per Acre. Value
Years. Pounds. Acres. | Value. per Acre.
1849 199,752,655
1859 434,209,461
1866 388,128,684 520,107 746 $ 53,778,888
1867 313,724,000 494,333 631 41,283,431
1868 320,982,000 427,189 751 40,081,942 $93.82
1869 262,735,341 481,101 569 32,206,325 66.94
1870 250,628,000 330,668 757 26,747,158 80.83
1871 263,196,100 350,769 570 25,901,421 73.84
1872 342,304,000 416,512 821.8 35,730,385 85.78
1873 372,810,000 480,878 775 30,865,972 64.19
1874 178,355,000 281,662 633.2 23,362,765 82.94
1875 379,347,000 559,049 678.5 30,342,600 54.27
1876 381,002,000 540,457 705 28,282,968 52.33
1877 440,000,000
1878 392,546,700 542,850 723.1 22,137,428 40.78
1879 472,661,157 638,841 739.9
1880 446,296,889 602,516 740.7 36,414,615 60.44
1881 449,880,014 646,239 696.1 43,372,336
1882 513,077,558 671,522 764 43,189,951 64.18
APPENDIX I.
The following table exhibits in a condensed and perspicuous form the
operations of the Post-Office Department, from the foundation of the
government. The very rapid increase in the revenue of the department
after 1860 will be noted.
No. of Post Offices.
| Extent of Post-Routes in Miles.
| | Revenue of the Department.
Years. | | | Expenditure of the Department.
| | | | AMOUNT PAID FOR
| | | | Salaries of Post-Masters.
| | | | | Transportation of the Mail.
1790 75 1,875 $37,935 $32,140 $8,198 $22,081
1795 453 13,207 160,620 117,893 30,272 75,359
1800 903 20,817 280,804 213,994 69,243 128,644
1805 1,558 31,076 421,373 377,378 111,552 239,635
1810 2,300 36,406 551,684 495,969 149,438 327,966
1815 3,000 43,748 1,043,065 748,121 241,901 487,779
1816 3,260 48,673 961,782 804,422 265,944 521,979
1817 3,459 52,089 1,002,973 916,515 303,916 589,189
1818 3,618 59,473 1,130,235 1,035,832 346,429 664,611
1819 4,000 67,586 1,204,737 1,117,801 375,828 717,881
1820 4,500 72,492 1,111,927 1,160,926 352,295 782,425
1821 4,650 78,808 1,059,087 1,184,283 337,599 815,681
1822 4,709 82,763 1,117,490 1,167,572 335,299 788,618
1823 4,043 84,860 1,130,115 1,156,995 360,462 767,464
1824 5,182 84,860 1,197,758 1,188,019 383,804 768,939
1825 5,677 94,052 1,306,525 1,229,043 411,183 785,646
1826 6,150 94,052 1,447,703 1,366,712 447,727 885,100
1827 7,003 105,336 1,524,633 1,468,959 486,411 942,345
1828 7,530 105,336 1,659,915 1,689,945 548,049 1,086,313
1829 8,004 115,000 1,707,418 1,782,132 559,237 1,153,646
1830 8,450 115,176 1,850,583 1,932,708 595,234 1,274,226
1831 8,686 115,486 1,997,811 1,936,122 635,028 1,252,226
1832 9,205 104,466 2,258,570 2,266,171 715,481 1,482,507
1833 10,127 119,916 2,617,011 2,930,414 826,283 1,894,638
1834 10,693 119,916 2,823,749 2,910,605 897,317 1,925,544
1835 10,770 112,774 2,903,356 2,757,350 945,418 1,719,007
1836 11,091 118,264 3,408,323 3,841,766 812,803 1,638,052
1837 11,767 141,242 4,236,779 3,544,630 891,352 1,996,727
1838 12,519 134,818 4,238,733 4,430,662 933,948 3,131,308
1839 12,780 133,999 4,484,657 4,636,536 980,000 3,285,622
1840 13,468 155,739 4,543,522 4,718,236 1,028,925 3,296,876
1841 13,778 155,026 4,407,726 4,499,528 1,018,645 3,159,375
1842 13,733 149,732 4,456,849 5,674,752 1,146,256 3,087,796
1843 13,814 142,295 4,296,225 4,374,754 1,426,394 2,947,319
1844 14,103 144,687 4,237,288 4,296,513 1,358,316 2,938,551
1845 14,183 143,940 4,289,841 4,320,732 1,409,875 2,905,504
1846 14,601 152,865 3,487,199 4,084,297 1,042,079 2,716,673
1847 15,146 153,818 3,955,893 3,979,570 1,060,228 2,476,435
1848 16,159 163,208 4,371,077 4,326,850 2,394,703
1849 16,749 163,703 4,905,178 4,479,049 1,320,921 2,577,407
1850 18,417 178,672 5,552,971 5.212,953 1,549,376 2,965,786
1851 19,796 196,290 6,727,867 6,278,402 1,781,686 3,538,064
1852 20,901 214,284 6,925,971 7,108,459 1,296,765 4,225,311
1853 22,320 217,743 5,940,725 7,982,957 1,406,477 4,906,308
1854 23,548 219,935 6,955,586 8,577,424 1,707,708 5,401,382
1855 24,410 227,908 7,342,136 9,968,342 2,135,335 6,076,335
1856 25,565 239,642 7,620,822 10,405,286 2,102,891 6,765,639
1857 26,586 242,601 8,053,952 11,508,058 2,285,610 7,239,333
1858 27,977 260,603 8,186,793 12,722,470 2,355,016 8,246,054
1859 28,539 260,052 8,668,484 15,754,093 2,453,901 7,157,629
1860 28,498 240,594 8,518,067 19,170,610 2,552,868 8,808,710
1861 28,586 140,139 8,349,296 13,606,759 2,514,157 5,309,454
1862 28,875 134,013 8,299,821 11,125,364 2,340,767 5,853,834
1863 29,047 139,598 11,163,790 11,314,207 2,876,983 5,740,576
1864 28,878 139,171 12,438,254 12,644,786 3,174,326 5,818,469
1865 20,550 142,340 14,556,159 13,694,728 3,383,382 6,246,884
1866 23,828 180,921 14,386,986 15,352,079 3,454,677 7,630,474
1867 25,163 203,245 15,237,027 19,235,483 4,033,728 9,336,286
1868 26,481 216,928 16,292,601 22,730,593 4,255,311 10,266,056
1869 27,106 223,731 18,344,511 23,698,131 4,546,958 10,406,501
1870 28,492 231,232 19,772,221 23,998,837 4,673,466 10,884,653
1871 30,045 238,350 20,037,045 24,390,104 5,028,382 11,529,395
1872 31,863 251,398 21,915,426 26,658,192 5,121,665 15,547,821
1873 33,244 256,210 22,996,742 29,084,946 5,725,468 16,161,034
1874 34,294 269,097 26,447,072 32,126,415 5,818,472 18,881,319
1875 35,547 277,873 26,791,360 33,611,309 7,049,936 18,777,201
1876 36,383 281,708 27,895,908 33,263,488 7,397,397 18,361,048
1877 37,345 292,820 27,468,323 33,486,322 7,295,251 18,529,238
1878 39,258 301,966 29,277,517 34,165,084 7,977,852 19,262,421
1879 40,855 316,711 30,041,983 33,449,899 7,185,540 20,012,872
1880 42,989 343,888 33,315,479 36,542,804 7,701,418 22,255,984
1881 44,512 344,006 36,785,398 39,251,736 8,298,743 23,196,032
1882 46,231 343,618 41,876,410 40,039,635 8,964,677 22,846,112
1883 47,863 353,166 45,508,692 42,816,700 10,315,394 23,870,666
APPENDIX J.
The following table exhibits the number of miles of railroad in
operation, and the number of miles constructed each year, in the United
States, from 1830 to 1883 inclusive. It will be observed that nearly
three-fourths of the total mileage have been constructed since 1869.
Year. Miles in Operation the the End of each Year.
| Miles Constructed each Year.
1830 23 |
1831 95 72
1832 229 134
1833 380 151
1834 633 253
1835 1,098 465
1836 1,273 175
1837 1,497 224
1838 1,913 416
1839 2,302 389
1840 2,818 516
1841 3,535 717
1842 4,026 491
1843 4,185 159
1844 4,377 192
1845 4,633 256
1846 4,930 297
1847 5,598 668
1848 5,996 398
1849 7,365 1,369
1850 9,021 1,656
1851 10,982 1,961
1852 12,908 1,926
1853 15,360 2,452
1854 16,720 1,360
1855 18,374 1,654
1856 22,016 3,642
1857 24,503 2,487
1858 26,968 2,465
1859 28,789 1,821
1860 30,635 1,846
1861 31,286 651
1862 32,120 834
1863 33,170 1,050
1864 33,908 738
1865 35,085 1,177
1866 36,801 1,716
1867 39,250 2,449
1868 42,229 2,979
1869 46,844 4,615
1870 52,885 6,079
1871 60,293 7,379
1872 66,171 5,878
1873 70,278 4,107
1874 72,383 2,105
1875 74,096 1,713
1876 76,808 2,712
1877 79,089 2,281
1878 81,776 2,687
1879 86,497 4,721
1880 93,545 7,174
1881 103,334 11,142
1882 114,930 11,591
1883 119,937 6,608
APPENDIX K.
The following table gives the number of miles of railroad in operation
in each State and Territory in the United States during the years 1865,
1870, 1875, 1877, 1879, 1880, 1881, and 1882 respectively.
STATES AND TERRITORIES. 1865. 1870. 1875. 1877. 1879. 1880. 1881. 1882.
Maine . . . . . . . . . 521 786 980 989 1,009 1,004 1,027 1,056
New Hampshire . . . . . 667 736 934 964 1,019 1,014 1,021 1,038
Vermont . . . . . . . 587 614 810 872 873 916 918 920
Masschusetts . . . .. 1,297 1,480 1,817 1,863 1,870 1,915 1,959 1,967
Rhode Island . . . . 125 136 179 204 210 211 212 212
Connecticut . . . . . . 637 742 918 922 922 922 959 962
New England . . . . . 3,834 4,494 5,638 5,814 5,903 5,982 6,096 6,155
New York . . . . . . . 3,002 3,928 5,423 5,725 6,008 6,062 6,332 7,037
New Jersey . . . . . . 864 1,125 1,511 1,661 1,663 1,602 1,781 1,870
Pennsylvania . . . . . 3,728 4,656 5,705 5,902 6,068 6,166 6,331 6,857
Delaware . . . . . . . 134 197 272 272 293 275 275 282
Maryland and Dist. of
Columbia . . . . . . 446 671 929 944 966 1,005 1,030 1,063
West Virginia . . . . . 365 387 615 638 694 691 706 813
Middle States . . . . 8,539 10,964 14,455 15,142 15,679 15,891 16,455 17,922
Virginia . . . . . . . 1,407 1,449 1,608 1,635 1,672 1,897 2,224 2,446
Kentucky . . . . . . . 567 1,017 1,326 1,509 1,595 1,592 1,734 1,807
North Carolina . . . . 984 1,178 1,356 1,426 1,446 1,463 1,622 1,759
Tennessee . . . . . . . 1,296 1,492 1,630 1,656 1,701 1,845 1,902 2,067
South Carolina . . . . 1,007 1,139 1.335 1,406 1,424 1,427 1,479 1,517
Georgia . . . . . . . . 1,420 1,845 2,264 2,339 2,460 2,438 2,540 2,874
Florida . . . . . . . . 416 446 484 485 519 557 702 973
Alabama . . . . . . . . 805 1,157 1,800 1,802 1,832 1,845 1,859 1,909
Mississippi . . . . . . 898 990 1,018 1,088 1,140 1,133 1,188 1,309
Louisiana . . . . . . . 335 450 466 466 544 675 937 1,032
Southern States . . . 9,129 11,163 13,287 13,812 14,333 14,872 16,187 17,693
Ohio . . . . . . . . . 3,331 3,538 4,461 4,878 5,521 5,824 6,321 6,931
Michigan . . . . . . . 941 1,638 3,446 3,477 3,673 3,981 4,326 4,654
Indiana . . . . . . . . 2,217 3,177 3,963 4,057 4,336 4,020 4,406 5,018
Illinois . . . . . . . 3,157 4,823 7,109 7,334 7,578 7,900 8,309 8,752
Wisconsin . . . . . . . 1,010 1,525 2,566 2,701 2,896 3,169 3,471 3,824
Minnesota . . . . . . . 213 1,092 1,900 2,194 3,008 3,390 3,577 3,974
Dakota Territory . . . 65 275 290 400 1,320 1,733 2,133
Iowa . . . . . . . . . 891 2,683 3,850 4,134 4,779 5,401 6,165 6,968
Missouri . . . . . . . 925 2,000 2,905 3,198 3,740 3,964 4,206 4,500
Indian Territory . . . 275 275 275 279 285 350
Arkansas . . . . . . . 38 256 740 767 808 889 1,033 1,533
Texas . . . . . . . . . 465 711 1,685 2,210 2,591 3,257 4,926 6,007
Nebraska . . . . . . . 122 705 1,167 1,286 1,634 1,949 2,273 2,494
Kansas . . . . . . . . 40 1,501 2,150 2,352 3,103 3,446 3,655 3,866
Colorado . . . . . . . 157 807 1,045 1,208 1,576 2,193 2,772
New-Mexico Territory . 118 745 1,034 1,076
Wyoming Territory . . . 459 459 465 472 500 564 613
Idaho Territory . . . . 220 182 251 472
Utah Territory . . . . 257 506 506 593 747 782 967
Montana Territory . . . 10 110 267 659
Western States and
Territories . . . . . 13,350 24,587 38,254 41,160 46,963 52,649 59,777 67,563
Nevada . . . . . . . . 593 601 627 720 738 894 948
California . . . . . . 214 925 1,503 2,080 2,209 2,201 2,315 2,643
Arizona Territory . . . 183 401 549 765
Oregon . . . . . . . . 19 159 248 248 295 561 627 807
Weashington Territory . 110 197 212 250 434 434
Pacific States and
Territories . . . . . 233 1,677 2,462 3,152 3,619 4,151 4,819 5,597
RECAPITULATION.
New-England States . . 3,834 4,494 5,638 5,814 5,903 5,982 6,096 6,155
Middle States . . . . . 8,539 10,964 14,455 15,142 15,679 15,891 16,455 17,922
Southern States . . . . 9,129 11,163 13,287 13,812 14,333 14,872 16,187 17,693
Western States and
Territories . . . . . 13,350 24,587 38,254 41,169 46,963 52,649 59,777 67,563
Pacific States and
Territories . . . . . 233 1,677 2,462 3,152 3,619 4,151 4,819 5,597
Grand Total . . . . . 35,085 52,885 74,096 79,089 86,497 93,545 103,334 114,930
APPENDIX L.
This table exhibits the total amount of pensions paid by the government
from its foundation, including those to soldiers of the Revolution, war
of 1812, Mexican war, war of the Rebellion, and the various Indian wars.
Year. Pensions.
1791 $175,813.88
1792 109,243.15
1793 80,087.81
1794 81,399.24
1795 68,673.22
1796 100,843.71
1797 92,256.97
1798 104,845.33
1799 95,444.03
1800 64,130.73
1801 73,533.37
1802 85,440.39
1803 62,902.10
1804 80,092.80
1805 81,854.59
1806 81,875.53
1807 70,500.00
1808 82,576.04
1809 87,833.54
1810 83,744.16
1811 75,043.88
1812 91,042.10
1813 86,989.91
1814 90,164.36
1815 60,656.06
1816 188,804.15
1817 297,374.43
1818 890,719.90
1819 2,415,939.85
1820 3,208,376.31
1821 242,817.25
1822 1,948,199.40
1823 1,780,588.52
1824 1,499,326.59
1825 1,308,810.57
1826 1,566,593.83
1827 976,138.86
1828 580,573.57
1820 949,594.47
1830 1,363,297.31
1831 1,170,665.14
1832 1,184,422.40
1833 4,589,152.40
1834 3,364,285,30
1835 1,954,711.32
1836 2,882,797.96
1837 2,672,162.45
1838 2,156,057.29
1830 3,142,750.51
1840 2,603,562.17
1841 2,388,434.51
1842 1,378,931.33
1843 839,041.12
1844 2,032,008.99
1845 2,400,788.11
1846 1,811,097.56
1847 1,744,883.63
1848 1,227,496.48
1849 1,328,867.64
1850 1,866,886.02
1851 2,293,377.22
1852 2,401,858.78
1853 1,756.306.20
1854 1,232,665.00
1855 1,477,612.33
1856 1,296,229.65
1857 1,310,380.58
1858 1,219,768.30
1859 1,222,222.71
1860 1,100,802.32
1861 1,034,599.73
1862 852,170.47
1863 1,078,513.36
1864 4,985,473.90
1865 16,347,621.34
1866 15,605,549.88
1867 20.936,551.71
1868 23,782,386.78
1869 28,476,621.78
1870 28,340,202.17
1871 34,443,894.88
1872 28,533,402.76
1874 29,038,414.66
1875 29,456,216.22
1876 28,257,395.69
1877 27,963,752.27
1878 27,137,019.08
1879 35,121,482.39
1880 56,777,174.44
1881 50,059,279.62
1882 61,345,193.95
1883 66,012,573.64
$724,658,382.78
APPENDIX M.
The following table shows the distribution of the tonnage of the
United-States merchant-marine employed in the foreign trade, the coasting
trade, and the fisheries, from 1789 to 1883 inclusive.
Foreign Trade.
| Coasting Trade.
| | Whale Fisheries.
Year Ended | | | Cod Fisheries.
| | | | Mackerel Fisheries.
| | | | | Total Merchant-Marine.
Tons. Tons. Tons. Tons. Tons. Tons.
Dec. 31, 1789 123,893 68,607 9,062 201,562
1790 346,254 103,775 28,348 478,377
1791 363,110 106,494 32,542 502,146
1792 411,438 120,957 32,062 564,457
1793 367,734 122,071 30,959 520,764
1794 438,863 162,578 4,129 23,048 628,618
1795 529,471 184,398 3,163 30,933 747,965
1796 576,733 217,841 2,364 34,962 831,900
1797 597,777 237,403 1,104 40,628 876,912
1798 603,376 251,443 763 42,746 898,328
1799 657,142 246,640 5,647 29,979 939,408
1800 667,107 272,492 3,466 29,427 972,492
1801 630,558 274,551 3,085 39,382 947,576
1802 557,760 289,623 3,201 41,522 892,106
1803 585,910 299,060 12,390 51,812 949,172
1804 680,514 317,537 12,339 52,014 1,042,404
1805 744,224 332,663 6,015 57,465 1,140,367
1806 798,507 340,540 10,507 59,183 1,208,737
1807 840,163 349,028 9,051 70,306 1,268,548
1808 765,252 420,819 4,526 51,998 1,242,595
1809 906,855 405,103 3,777 34,487 1,350,282
1810 981,019 405,347 3,589 34,828 1,424,783
1811 763,607 420,362 5,209 43,234 1,232,502
1812 758,636 477,972 2,930 30,459 1,269,997
1813 672,700 471,109 2,942 19,877 1,166,628
1814 674,633 466,159 562 17,855 1,159,209
1815 854,295 475,666 1,230 36,937 1,368,128
1816 800,760 522,165 1,168 48,126 1,372,219
1817 804,851 525,030 5,224 64,807 1,309,912
1818 589,954 549,374 16,750 69,107 1,225,185
1819 581,230 571,058 32,386 76,078 1,260,752
1820 583,657 588,025 36,445 72,040 1,280,167
1821 593,825 614,845 27,995 62,293 1,298,958
1822 582,701 624,189 48,583 69,226 1,324,699
1823 600,003 617,805 40,503 78,225 1,336,566
1824 636,807 641,563 33,346 77,447 1,389,163
1825 665,409 640,861 35,379 81,462 1,423,111
1826 696,221 722,330 41,984 73,656 1,534,191
1827 701,517 789,159 45,992 83,687 1,620,607
1828 757,998 842,906 54,801 85,687 1,741,392
1829 592,859 508,858 57,284 101,797 1,260,798
1830 537,563 516,979 39,705 61,556 35,973 1,191,776
1831 538,136 539,724 82,797 60,978 46,211 1,267,846
1832 614,121 649,627 73,246 55,028 47,428 1,439,450
1833 648,869 744,199 101,636 62,721 48,726 1,606,151
1834 749,378 783,619 108,424 56,404 61,082 1,758,907
Sept. 30, 1835* 788,173 797,338 97,649 77,338 64,443 1,824,941
1836 753,094 873,023 146,254 63,307 46,424 1,882,102
1837 683,205 956,981 129,137 80,552 46,811 1,896,686
1838 702,962 1,041,105 124,860 70,084 56,649 1,995,640
1839 702,400 1,153,552 132,285 72,258 35,984 2,096,479
1840 762,838 1,176,694 136,927 76,036 28,269 2,180,764
1841 788,398 1,107,068 157,405 66,552 11,321 2,130,744
1842 823,746 1,045,753 151,990 54,805 16,007 2,092,391
June 30, 1843* 856,930 1,076,156 152,517 61,224 11,776 2,158,603
1844 900,471 1,109,615 168,614 85,225 16,171 2,280,096
1845 904,476 1,223,218 190,903 76,901 21,414 2,417,002
1846 943,307 1,315,577 187,420 79,318 36,463 2,562,085
1847 1,047,454 1,488,601 103,859 77,681 31,451 2,839,046
1848 1,168,707 1,659,317 192,613 89,847 43,558 3,154,042
1849 1,258,756 1,770,376 180,186 81,756 42,942 3,334,016
1850 1,439,694 1,797,825 146,017 93,806 58,112 3,535,454
1851 1,544,663 1,899,976 181,644 95,617 50,539 3,772,439
1852 1,705,650 2,055,873 193,798 110,573 72,546 4,138,440
1853 1,910,471 2,134,258 193,203 109,228 59,850 4,407,010
1854 2,151,918 2,322,114 181,901 111,928 35,041 4,802,902
1855 2,348,358 2,543,255 186,848 111,915 21,625 5,212,001
1856 2,302,190 2,247,663 189,461 102,452 29,887 4,871,653
1857 2,268,196 2,336,609 195,842 111,868 28,328 4,940,843
1858 2,301,148 2,401,220 198,594 119,252 29,594 5,049,808
1859 2,321,674 2,488,929 185,728 129,637 27,070 5,145,038
1860 2,379,396 2,644,867 166,841 136,653 26,111 5,353,868
1861 2,496,894 2,704,544 145,734 137,846 54,795 5,539,813
1862 2,173,537 2,606,716 117,714 133,601 80,596 5,112,164
1863 1,926,886 2,960,633 99,228 117,290 51,019 5,155,056
1864 1,486,749 3,245,265 95,145 103,742 55,499 4,986,400
1865 1,518,350 3,381,522 90,516 65,185 41,209 5,096,782
1866 1,387,756 2,719,621 105,170 51,642 46,589 4,310,778
1867 1,515,648 2,660,390 52,384 44,567 31,498 4,304,487
1868 1,494,389 2,702,140 71,343 83,887** 4,351,759
1869 1,496,220 2,515,515 70,202 62,704 4,144,641
1870 1,448,846 2,638,247 67,954 91,460 4,246,507
1871 1,363,652 2,764,600 61,400 92,865 4,282,607
1872 1,359,040 2,929,552 51,608 97,547 4,437,747
1873 1,378,533 3,163,220 44,755 109,519 4,696,027
1874 1,389,815 3,292,439 39,108 78,290 4,800,652
1875 1,515,598 3,219,698 38,229 80,207 4,853,732
1876 1,553,705 2,598,835 30,116 87,802 4,279,458
1877 1,570,600 2,540,322 40,593 91,085 4,242,600
1878 1,589,348 2,497,170 39,700 86,547 4,212,765
1879 1,451,505 2,598,183 40,028 79,885 4,169,601
1880 1,314,402 2,637,686 38,408 77,538 4,068,034
1881 1,297,035 2,646,010 38,551 76,136 4,057,734
1882 1,259,492 2,795,777 32,802 77,862 4,165,933
1883 1,269,681 2,838,354 32,414 95,038 4,235,487
* Nine months
** After 1867 the tonnage engaged in mackerel fisheries is included in
this column.
APPENDIX N.
The following table exhibits the immigration into the United States by
decades from 1821 to 1880.
1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871
Countries. to to to to to to 1881.
1830. 1840. 1850. 1860. 1870. 1880.
England . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14,055 7,611 32,092 247,125 251,288 440,961 76,547
Ireland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50,724 207,381 780,719 914,119 456,593 444,589 79,909
Scotland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,912 2,667 3,712 38,331 44,681 98,926 16,451
Wales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 185 1,261 6,319 4,642 6,779 1,316
Great Britain, not specified . . . . 7,942 65,347 229,979 132,199 349,766 7,908 7
Total British Isles . . . . . . . 75,803 283,191 1,047,763 1,338,093 1,106,970 989,163 165,230
Austria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9,398 69,558 21,437
Belgium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 22 5,074 4,738 7,416 7,278 1,939
Denmark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 1,063 539 3,749 17,885 34,577 8,951
France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8,497 45,575 77,262 76,358 37,749 73,301 5,653
Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6,761 152,454 434,626 951,667 822,007 757,698 249,572
Hungary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488 13,475 6,756
Italy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468 2,253 1,879 9,231 12,982 60,830 20,103
Netherlands . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,078 1,412 8,251 10,789 9,539 17,236 10,812
Norway and Sweden . . . . . . . . . 91 1,201 13,903 20,931 117,798 226,488 82,859
Russia and Poland . . . . . . . . . 91 646 656 1,621 5,047 54,606 14,476
Spain and Portugal . . . . . . . . . 2,622 2,954 2,759 10,353 9,047 9,767 464
Switzerland . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,226 4,821 4,644 25,011 23,839 31,722 11,628
All other countries in Europe . . . 43 96 155 116 234 1,265 451
Total Europe, not British Isles . 23,013 212,497 549,739 1,114,564 1,073,429 1,357,801 435,101
Total Europe . . . . . . . . . . . 98,816 495,688 1,597,502 2,452,657 2,180,399 2,346,964 600,331
China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 8 35 41,397 68,059 122,436 20,711
All other countries of Asia . . . . 8 40 47 61 385 632 64
Total Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 48 82 41,458 68,444 123,068 20,775
Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 52 55 210 324 221 37
British North American Provinces . . 2,277 13,624 41,723 59,309 184,713 430,210 95,188
Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,817 6,599 3,271 3,078 2,386 5,164 244
Central America . . . . . . . . . . 105 44 368 449 96 229 33
South America . . . . . . . . . . . 531 856 3,579 1,224 1,443 1,153 85
West Indies . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,834 12,301 13,528 10,660 9,698 14,461 1,009
Total America . . . . . . . . . . 11,564 33,424 62,469 74,720 198,336 451,216 96,559
Islands of the Atlantic . . . . . . 352 103 337 3,090 3,778 10,121 1,287
Islands of the Pacific . . . . . . 2 9 29 158 235 11,421 910
All other countries, not specified . 32,679 69,801 52,777 25,921 15,236 1,684 146
Aggregate . . . . . . . . . . . . 143,439 599,125 1,713,251 2,598,214 2,466,752 2,944,695 720,045
APPENDIX O.
COAL AND IRON PRODUCT.
The following table exhibits the quantity of coal produced in each
State and Territory of the United States during the census years ended
May 31, 1870, and 1880, and the calendar years 1876, 1877, 1878, 1879,
and 1881 (weight expressed in tons of 2,240 pounds).
STATE OR 1870. 1876. 1877. 1878. 1879. 1880. 1881.
TERRITORY. Tons. Tons. Tons. Tons. Tons. Tons. Tons.
_Anthracite_.
Pennsylvania . . 15,648,437 21,436,667 23,619,911 20,605,262 26,142,689 28,640,819 28,500,016
Rhode Island . . 14,000 14,000 14,000 14,000 15,000 6,176 10,000
Virginia . . . . 2,817
_Bituminous_.
Pennsylvania . . 7,800,386 11,500,000 12,500,000 13,500,000 14,500,000 18,425,163 20,000,000
Illinois . . . . 2,624,163 3,500,000 3,500,000 3,500,000 3,500,000 6,115,377 6,000,000
Ohio . . . . . . 2,527,285 3,500,000 5,250,000 5,000,000 5,000,000 6,008,595 8,250,000
Maryland . . . . 2,345,153 1,835,081 1,574,339 1,679,322 1,730,709 2,228,917 2,261,918
Missouri . . . . 621,930 900,000 900,000 900,000 900,000 556,304 1,750,000
West Virginia. . 608,878 800,000 1,000,000 1,000,000 1,250,000 1,839,845 1,500,000
Indiana . . . . 437,870 950,000 1,000,000 1,000,000 1,000,000 1,454,327 1,500,000
Iowa . . . . . . 263,487 1,500,000 1,500,000 1,500,000 1,600,000 1,461,116 1,750,000
Kentucky . . . . 32,938 650,000 850,000 900,000 1,000,000 946,288 1,100,000
Tennessee . . . 133,418 550,000 750,000 375,000 450,000 495,131 750,000
Virginia . . . . 61,803 90,000 90,000 75,000 90,000 43,079 100,000
Kansas . . . . . 150,582 125,000 200,000 200,000 200,000 771,142 750,000
Oregon . . . . . 200,000 200,000 200,000 200,000 43,205 300,000
Michigan . . . . 28,150 30,000 30,000 30,000 35,000 100,800 100,000
California . . . 600,000 600,000 600,000 600,000 236,950 600,000
Arkansas . . . . 14,778 30,000
Montana . . . . 224
North Carolina . 350
Alabama . . . . 11,000 100,000 175,000 200,000 250,000 323,972 375,000
Nebraska . . . . 1,425 30,000 50,000 75,000 75,000 200 75,000
Wyoming . . . . 500,000 100,000 100,000 175,000 589,595 375,000
Washington . . . 100,000 150,000 150,000 170,000 145,015 175,000
Utah . . . . . . 45,000 45,000 60,000 225,000 225,000
Colorado . . . . 250,000 300,000 367,000 400,000 462,747 700,000
Georgia . . . . 100,000 154,644 150,000
Total bituminous
17,648,468 27,569,081 30,688,339 31,525,322 36,665,709 42,417,764 48,816,918
Total anthracite
15,662,437 21,436,667 23,619,911 20,605,262 26,142,689 28,649,812 28,510,016
Total anthracite and bituminous
33,310,905 49,005,748 54,308,250 52,130,584 62,808,398 71,067,576 77,326,934
APPENDIX O--_Concluded_.
The following table shows the quantity of pig-iron produced, imported,
exported, and retained for consumption in the United States, from 1867
to 1882, expressed in tons of 2,240 pounds.
Total Production and Imports.
Calendar Year Ended | Exports, Foreign and Domestic.
Year. Production. June 30, Imports. | | Retained for Home Consumption.
_Tons_. _Tons_. _Tons_. _Tons_._Tons_.
1866 1,205,663 1867 112,642 1,317,705 628 1,317,077
1867 1,305,023 1868 112,133 1,417,156 282 1,416,874
1868 1,431,250 1869 136,975 1,568,225 273 1,567,952
1869 1,711,287 1870 153,283 1,864,570 1,456 1,863,114
1870 1,665,178 1871 178,139 1,843,317 3,772 1,839,545
1871 1,706,793 1872 247,529 1,954,322 2,172 1,952,150
1872 2,548,713 1873 215,496 2,764,209 2,818 2,761,201
1873 2,560,963 1874 92,042 2,653,005 10,152 2,642,853
1874 2,401,262 1875 53,437 2,454,699 16,193 2,438,506
1875 2,023,733 1876 79,455 2,103,188 7,241 2,095,947
1876 1,868,961 1877 67,922 1,936,883 3,560 1,933,323
1877 2,006,594 1878 55,000 2,121,594 6,198 2,115,396
1878 2,301,215 1879 87,576 2,388,791 3,221 2,385,570
1879 2,741,853 1880 754,657 3,406,510 2,607 3,493,903
1880 3,835,191 1881 417,849 4,253,040 6,811 4,246,229
1881 4,144,254 1882 496,045 4,640,299 9,519 4,630,780
Quantity of Iron and Steel Railroad Bars produced, imported, exported,
and retained for Consumption in the United States, from 1867 to 1882,
expressed in tons of 2,240 pounds.
Total Production and Imports.
Calendar Production. Year | Exports, Foreign and Domestic.
Year. Iron. Steel. Total. Ended Imports. | | Retained for Home Consumption.
_Tons_. _Tons_. _Tons_. June 30, _Tons_. _Tons_. _Tons_._Tons_.
1866 384,623 384,623 1867 96,272 480,895 159 480,736
1867 410,319 2,277 412,596 1868 151,097 563,693 710 562,983
1868 445,972 6,451 452,423 1869 237,704 690,127 564 689,563
1869 521,371 8,616 529,987 1870 279,766 809,753 885 808,863
1870 523,371 30,357 553,571 1871 458,056 1,011,627 1,341 1,010,286
1871 658,467 34,152 692,619 1872 531,537 1,224,156 4,484 1,219,672
1872 808,866 83,991 892,857 1873 357,631 1,250,488 7,147 1,243,341
1873 679,520 115,192 794,712 1874 148,920 943,632 7,313 936,319
1874 521,847 129,414 651,261 1875 42,082 693,343 14,199 679,144
1875 447,901 259,699 707,000 1876 4,708 712,308 13,554 698,754
1876 417,114 368,269 785,383 1877 30 785,413 6,103 779,310
1877 296,911 385,865 682,776 1878 11 682,787 8,426 674,351
1878 288,295 499,817 788,112 1879 2,611 790,723 7,127 783,596
1879 375,143 618,851 993,994 1880 152,791 1,146,785 2,363 1,144,422
1880 440,859 864,353 1,305,212 1881 302,294 1,607,506 4,274 1,603,232
1881 436,233 1,210,285 1,646,518 1882 295,666 1,942,184 4,190 1,937,994
APPENDIX P.
The following table shows the number of men called for by the President
of the United States, and the number furnished by each State, Territory,
and the District of Columbia, both for the Army and Navy, from April.
15, 1861, to close of the war.
STATES Aggregate. Aggregate
AND Men furnished Reduced to
TERRITORIES. Quota | Paid Commutation. a Three Years'
| | | Total. Standard.
Maine . . . . . . . . . 73,587 70,107 2,007 72,114 56,776
New Hampshire . . . . . 35,897 33,937 692 34,629 30,849
Vermont . . . . . . . . 32,074 33,288 1,074 35,262 29,068
Massachusetts . . . . . 139,095 146,730 5,318 152,048 124,104
Rhode Island . . . . . 18,898 23,236 463 23,699 17,866
Connecticut . . . . . . 44,797 55,864 1,515 57,379 50,623
New York . . . . . . . 507,148 448,850 18,197 467,047 392,270
New Jersey . . . . . . 92,820 76,814 4,196 81,010 57,908
Pennsylvania . . . . . 385,369 337,936 28,171 366,107 265,517
Delaware . . . . . . . 13,935 12,284 1,386 13,670 10,322
Maryland . . . . . . . 70,965 46,638 3,678 50,316 41,275
West Virginia . . . . . 34,463 32,068 32,068 27,711
District of Columbia . 13,973 16,534 338 16,872 11,506
Ohio . . . . . . . . . 306,322 313,180 6,479 319,659 240,514
Indiana . . . . . . . . 199,788 196,363 784 197,147 153,576
Illinois . . . . . . . 244,496 259,092 55 259,147 214,133
Michigan . . . . . . . 95,007 87,364 2,008 89,372 80,111
Wisconsin . . . . . . . 109,080 91,327 5,097 96,424 79,260
Minnesota . . . . . . . 26,326 24,020 1,032 25,052 19,693
Iowa . . . . . . . . . 79,521 76,242 67 76,309 68,630
Missouri . . . . . . . 122,496 109,111 109,111 86,530
Kentucky . . . . . . . 100,782 75,760 3,265 79,025 70,832
Kansas . . . . . . . . 12,931 20,149 2 20,151 18,706
Tennessee . . . . . . . 1,560 31,092 31,092 26,394
Arkansas . . . . . . . 780 8,289 8,289 7,863
North Carolina . . . . 1,560 3,156 3,156 3,156
California . . . . . . 15,725 15,725 15,725
Nevada . . . . . . . . 1,080 1,080 1,080
Oregon . . . . . . . . 1,810 1,810 1,810
Washington Territory . 964 964 964
Nebraska Territory . . 3,157 3,157 2,175
Colorado Territory . . 4,903 4,903 3,697
Dakota Territory . . . 206 206 206
New-Mexico Territory . 6,561 6,561 4,432
Alabama . . . . . . . . 2,576 2,576 1,611
Florida . . . . . . . . 1,290 1,290 1,290
Louisiana . . . . . . . 5,224 5,224 4,654
Mississippi . . . . . . 545 545 545
Texas . . . . . . . . . 1,965 1,965 1,632
Indian Nation . . . . . 3,530 3,530 3,530
Colored Troops* . . . . 93,441 93,441 91,789
Total . . . . . . . .2,763,670 2,772,408 86,724 2,859,132 2,320,272
* Colored troops organized at various stations in the States in
rebellion, embracing all not specifically credited to States, and which
cannot be so assigned.
Reduced to Periods of Service only, the Following Aggregates for the
Different Periods in the Army and Navy appear:--
Periods of Enlistment. Number.
60 days . . . . . . . . 2,045
3 months . . . . . . . 108,416
100 days . . . . . . . 85,807
4 months . . . . . . . 42
6 months . . . . . . . 26,118
8 months . . . . . . . 373
9 months . . . . . . . 89,899
1 year . . . . . . . . 393,706
2 years . . . . . . . . 44,400
3 years . . . . . . . . 2,028,630
4 years . . . . . . . . 1,042
Aggregate enlistments . 2,780,478
The Number of Indivials who served during the War is estimated as
follows:--
Number who died during the war . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304,360
Number who were discharged for disability . . . . . . . . . . . 285,545
Deserters (less those arrested and 25 per cent. additional) . . 128,352
One-third of those serving terms of less than one year (estimated that
two-thirds thereof re-enlisted) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104,134
One-half of those serving more than one year and less than two years
(estimated that one-half re-enlisted) . . . . . . . . . . . . 224,053
Number in the service May 1, 1865 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,000,516
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,046,969
Add number in regular army at commencement of war . . . . . . 16,422
Aggregate number of different individuals who served during the war
2,063,391
There are no records which give with accuracy the number of men in
the Confederate Army. The general aggregate for the four years is,
upon the best authority attainable, placed at one million one hundred
thousand men (1,100,000). The maximum number of men on the Confederate
Army rolls at any one time is estimated at five hundred thousand. The
irregular manner in which the men were conscripted during the last two
years of the war, taken in connection with the loss of records, makes
it impossible to give accurate statements of the numbers furnished by
the several States.
REGULAR ARMY.
The following table shows the actual strength of the regular army of
the United States at different periods, from 1789 to 1883 (retired
officers not included).
Officers.
Date. | Men. Total.
1780-90 . . 50 672 722
1795 . . . 212 3,228 3,440
1800 . . . 248 3,803 4,051
1805 . . . 196 2,534 2,730
1810 . . . 466 6,488 6,954
July, 1812 . . . 301 6,385 6,686*
Feb., 1813 . . . 1,476 17,560 19,036*
Sept. 1814 . . . 2,395 35,791 38,186*
Feb., 1815 . . . 2,396 31,028 33,424*
Dec., 1820 . . . 712 8,230 8,942
1825 . . . 562 5,157 5,719
1830 . . . 627 5,324 5,951
1835 . . . 680 6,471 7,151
1840 . . . 733 9,837 10,570
1845 . . . 826 7,523 8,349
1850 . . . 948 9,815 10,763
1855 . . . 1,042 14,710 15,752
1860 . . . 1,108 15,250 16,367
1861 . . . 1,004 15,418 16,422
1862 . . . 1,720 21,450 23,170
1863 . . . 1,844 22,915 24,759
1864 . . . 1,813 19,791 21,604
1865 . . . 1,605 20,765 22,310
1866 . . . 2,020 31,470 33,490
1867 . . . 2,853 53,962 56,815
1868 . . . 2,835 48,081 50,916
1869 . . . 2,700 34,074 36,774
1870 . . . 2,541 34,534 37,075
1871 . . . 2,105 26,848 28,953
1872 . . . 2,104 26,071 28,175
1873 . . . 2,076 26,576 28,652
1874 . . . 2,080 26,364 28,444
1875 . . . 2,068 23,250 25,318
1876 . . . 2,151 26,129 28,250
1877 . . . 2,178 21,767 23,945
1878 . . . 2,153 23,365 25,818
1879 . . . 2,127 24,262 26,389
1880 . . . 2,152 24,259 26,411
1881 . . . 2,181 22,994 25,175
1882 . . . 2,162 23,024 25,186
1883 . . . 2,143 23,335 25,478
* Second war with Great Britain
The following summary shows the total numbers of soldiers serving in
the various wars in which the United States was engaged prior to the
Rebellion.
Soldiers of the War of the Revolution, 1775 to 1783 . . 289,715
Indian War, General Wayne, 1794 . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,843
Indian War, 1811 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 650
War with Great Britain, 1812 to 1815, number of soldiers, sailors
and marines serving 12 months or more . . . . 63,179
Number of militia serving 6 months or more . 66,325
" " " " 3 " " " . 125,643
" " " " 1 month " " . 125,307
" " " " less than 1 month . 147,200
------- 527,654
Number of soldiers serving in
Seminole War, 1817-18 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,911
Black-Hawk War, 1831-32 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,031
South-western disturbances, 1836 . . . . . . . . . . 2,803
Cherokee Country disturbances, 1836-37 . . . . . . . 3,926
Creek disturbances, 1836-37 . . . . . . . . . . . . 13,418
Florida War, 1836-42 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41,122
Number of soldiers and sailors serving in Mexican War, 1846-47
. . . 105,454
Number of soldiers serving in
New-York frontier disturbances, 1838-39 . . . . . . . 1,128
Arostook disturbances, 1838-39, 2 regiments . . . . . 1,430
APPENDIX Q.
The following table exhibits the school age, population, and enrollment
of the States and Territories in 1881, with salaries paid to teachers,
and total expenditure for schools.
School Age.
| School Population.
STATES. | | No. Enrolled in Public Schools.
| | | Aggregate Salaries Paid to Teachers.
| | | | Total Expenditure.
Alabama . . . . . . . . . 7-21 422,739 176,289 $384,769 $410,690
Arkansas . . . . . . . . 6-21 272,841 98,744 388,412
California . . . . . . . 5-17 211,237 163,855 2,346,056 3,047,605
Colorado . . . . . . . . 6-21 40,804 26,000 557,151
Connecticut . . . . . . . 4-16 143,745 119,381 1,025,323 1,476,691
Delaware . . . . . . . . 6-21 37,285 29,122 138,819 207,281
Florida . . . . . . . . . 4-21 88,677 39,315 97,115 114,895
Georgia . . . . . . . . . 6-18 461,016 244,197 498,533
Illinois . . . . . . . . 6-21 1,002,222 701,627 4,722,349 7,858,414
Indiana . . . . . . . . . 6-21 714,343 503,855 3,057,110 4,528,754
Iowa . . . . . . . . . . 5-21 594,730 431,513 3,040,716 5,129,819
Kansas . . . . . . . . . 5-21 348,179 249,034 1,167,620 1,976,397
Kentucky . . . . . . . . 6-20 553,638 238,440 1,248,524
Louisiana . . . . . . . . 6-18 271,414 62,370 374,127 441,484
Maine . . . . . . . . . . 4-21 213,927 150,067 965,697 1,089,414
Maryland . . . . . . . . 5-20 319,201 158,909 1,162,429 1,604,580
Massachusetts . . . . . . 5-15 312,680 325,239 4,130,714 5,776,542
Michigan . . . . . . . . 5-20 518,294 371,743 2,114,567 3,418,233
Minnesota . . . . . . . . 5-21 300,923 177,278 993,997 1,466,492
Mississippi . . . . . . . 5-21 419,963 237,288 644,352 757,758
Missouri . . . . . . . . 6-20 723,484 476,376 2,218,637 3,152,178
Nebraska . . . . . . . . 5-21 152,824 100,776 627,717 1,165,103
Nevada . . . . . . . . . 6-18 10,533 8,329 59,194 140,419
New Hampshire . . . . . . 5-15 60,899 63,235 408,554 577,022
New Jersey . . . . . . . 5-18 335,631 203,542 1,510,830 1,914,447
New York . . . . . . . . 5-21 1,662,122 1,021,282 7,775,505 10,923,402
North Carolina . . . . . 6-21 468,072 240,710 342,212 409,659
Ohio . . . . . . . . . . 6-21 1,063,337 744,758 5,151,448 8,133,622
Oregon . . . . . . . . . 4-20 61,641 34,498 234,818 318,331
Pennsylvania . . . . . . 6-21 1,422,377 931,749 4,677,017 7,994,705
Rhode Island . . . . . . 5-16 53,077 44,920 408,993 549,937
South Carolina . . . . . 6-16 262,279 133,458 309,855 345,634
Tennessee . . . . . . . . 6-21 545,875 283,468 529,618 638,009
Texas . . . . . . . . . . 8-14 230,527 186,786 674,869 753,346
Vermont . . . . . . . . . 5-20 99,463 74,646 366,448 447,252
Virginia . . . . . . . . 5-21 556,665 239,046 823,310 1,100,239
West Virginia . . . . . . 6-21 213,191 145,203 539,648 761,250
Wisconsin . . . . . . . . 4-20 491,358 300,122 1,618,283 2,279,103
Total for States . . . 15,661,213 9,737,176 $54,642,716 $83,601,327
School Age.
| School Population.
TERRITORIES. | | No. Enrolled in Public Schools.
| | | Aggregate Salaries Paid to Teachers.
| | | | Total Expenditure.
Arizona . . . . . . . . . 6-21 9,571 3,844 $44,628
Dakota . . . . . . . . . 5-21 38,815 25,451 314,484
District of Columbia . . 6-18 43,558 27,299 $295,668 527,312
Idaho . . . . . . . . . . 5-21 7,520 6,080 38,174 44,840
Montana . . . . . . . . . 4-21 9,895 5,112 52,781 55,781
New Mexico . . . . . . . 7-18 29,255 4,755 28,002 28,973
Utah . . . . . . . . . . 6-18 42,353 26,772 113,768 199,264
Washington . . . . . . . 4-21 23,899 14,754 94,019 114,379
Wyoming . . . . . . . . . 7-21 4,112 2,907 25,894 28,504
Indian:
Cherokees . . . . . . . 3,715 3,048 52,500
Chickasaws . . . . . . 900 650 33,550
Choctaws . . . . . . . 2,600 1,460 31,700
Creeks . . . . . . . . 1,700 799 26,909
Seminoles . . . . . . . 400 226 7,500
Total for Territories . . 218,293 123,157 $648,306 $1,510,115
Total for States . . . . 15,661,213 9,737,176 54,642,716 83,601,327
Grand total . . . . . . . 15,879,506 9,860,333 $55,291,022 $85,111,442
APPENDIX R.
The following table gives some interesting and important statistics
respecting colleges in the United States.
No. Universities and Colleges.
| No. Instructors in Preparatory Department.
| | No. Students in Preparatory Department.
STATES | | | No. Instructors in Collegiate Department.
AND | | | | No. Students in Collegiate Department.
TERRITORIES. | | | | | No. Volumes in College Libraries.
| | | | | | Value of Grounds, Buildings, and Apparatus.
| | | | | | | Income from Productive Funds.
| | | | | | | | Receipts for the last Year from Tuition Fees.
Alabama . . . . . 3 2 20 18 314 8,200 $300,000 $24,600 $8,000
Arkansas . . . . . 4 10 564 28 271 2,286 114,000 1,000 8,300
California . . . . 11 36 1,178 131 602 47,750 1,380,200 105,116 91,014
Colorado . . . . . 3 2 113 23 45 11,000 230,000 1,282 366
Connecticut . . . 3 62 959 148,155 472,884 120,776 114,128
Delaware . . . . . 1 8 54 6,000 75,000 4,980 500
Georgia . . . . . 6 2 70 54 554 30,100 652,300 43,493 10,650
Illinois . . . . . 28 58 2,901 224 1,887 130,630 2,511,550 95,229 116,844
Indiana . . . . . 15 58 1,793 128 1,329 76,591 1,298,000 50,029 29,646
Iowa . . . . . . . 18 46 1,697 168 1,614 51,022 789,000 51,382 42,568
Kansas . . . . . . 8 21 889 75 431 24,178 523,000 5,500 5,400
Kentucky . . . . . 14 18 594 97 1,178 45,076 673,000 38,443 37,060
Louisiana . . . . 9 22 1,022 68 174 57,995 837,000 15,100 21,060
Maine . . . . . . 3 3 45 32 422 59,371 863,500 39,000 22,000
Maryland . . . . . 11 18 325 160 1,385 49,922 892,500 181,734 45,705
Massachusetts . . 7 7 192 151 1,865 292,626 1,250,000 276,131 166,851
Michigan . . . . . 9 22 1,361 114 1,166 59,690 1,344,942 89,290 75,351
Minnesota . . . . 5 1 279 44 408 21,600 421,196 50,900 8,340
Mississippi . . . 3 7 557 21 320 8,400 446,000 32,643 8,275
Missouri . . . . . 16 37 1,101 196 1,605 108,315 1,127,220 63,005 135,294
Nebraska . . . . . 5 11 360 16 216 8,000 205,000 2,359 682
Nevada . . . . . . 1 1 40
New Hampshire . . 1 15 247 54,000 125,000 25,000 16,000
New Jersey . . . . 4 73 677 60,600 1,150,000 86,615 20,770
New York . . . . . 27 113 2,662 426 3,495 294,437 7,480,540 472,413 462,059
North Carolina . . 9 8 616 69 590 31,250 549,000 10,000 37,096
Ohio . . . . . . . 36 120 3,726 284 2,612 286,411 3,156,744 180,661 101,775
Oregon . . . . . . 8 21 785 38 458 9,420 257,000 20,600 15,950
Pennsylvania . . . 27 70 1,877 288 2,367 163,718 4,744,850 239,499 250,105
Rhode Island . . . 1 18 251 53,000 36,999 30,869
South Carolina . . 8 8 358 42 304 17,450 340,000 22,869 5,194
Tennessee . . . . 19 33 1,122 148 1,876 51,708 1,498,250 80,475 39,720
Texas . . . . . . 9 18 1,075 58 540 10,411 335,000 775 55,150
Vermont . . . . . 2 18 93 33,000 440,000 16,328 6,082
Virginia . . . . . 8 6 73 69 889 102,000 1,558,000 22,200 20,540
West Virginia . . 4 7 134 32 201 5,800 295,000 8,469 5,592
Wisconsin . . . . 8 15 786 88 658 48,765 890,300 101,556 56,702
Dist. of Columbia 5 9 359 43 222 47,411 900,000 1,957 1,165
Utah . . . . . . . 1 3 202 3 2,735 30,000 3,147
Washington . . . . 2 7 83 11 90 3,200 100,000 500 4,500
Total . . . . . 362 820 28,959 3,541 32,459 2,522,223 $40,255,976 $2,618,008 $2,080,450
STATISTICS RESPECTING SCHOOLS OF SCIENCE IN THE UNITED STATES.
Part I.--Institutions endowed with National Land-Grant.
Number of Schools.
| No. Instructors. ) Preparatory Department.
| | No. Students.)
| | | No. Instructors. ) Scientific Department.
STATES. | | | | No. Students.)
| | | | | No. Volumes in General Libraries.
| | | | | | Value of Grounds, Buildings, and Apparatus.
| | | | | | | Income from Productive Funds.
| | | | | | | | Receipts for the last Year from Tuition Fees.
Alabama . . . . . . . . 1 1 47 11 135 2,000 $75,000 $20,280
Arkansas . . . . . . . . 1 2 14 200 170,000 10,400 $2,000
California . . . . . . . 1 0 0 26 101
Colorado . . . . . . . . 1 5 57 150 55,000
Connecticut . . . . . . 1 26 185 5,000 200,000 29,212 17,798
Delaware . . . . . . . . 1
Florida . . . . . . . . 0 10,004
Georgia . . . . . . . . 5 16 877 19 182 3,500 164,000 17,914 1,800
Illinois . . . . . . . . 1 3 77 24 303 12,942 545,000 21,398 10,619
Indiana . . . . . . . . 1 2 141 9 140 2,065 250,000 17,000 2,029
Iowa . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 15 20 211 6,000 500,000 45,000 0
Kansas . . . . . . . . . 1 13 267 3,050 99,525 31,225 426
Kentucky . . . . . . . . 1 2 13 182 85,000 9,900 1,500
Louisiana . . . . . . . 1 1 40 9 29 17,000 400,000 14,500 0
Maine . . . . . . . . . 1 8 110 4,105 145,000 7,500
Maryland . . . . . . . . 1 6 7 49 100,000 6,975 825
Massachusetts . . . . . 2 45 517 5,300 520,727 30,672 53,107
Michigan . . . . . . . . 1 0 0 12 227 6,250 274,380 20,517 0
Minnesota . . . . . . . 1
Mississippi . . . . . . 2 10 437 9 102 2,380 300,000 11,679
Missouri . . . . . . . . 2 2 25 15 209 1,750 46,660 7,680 1,300
Nebraska . . . . . . . . 1 25,000
Nevada . . . . . . . . . 1
New Hampshire . . . . . 1 10 44 1,200 100,000 4,800
New Jersey . . . . . . . 1 14 54
New York . . . . . . . . 1 0 0 52 259 253,509
North Carolina . . . . . 1 0 0 7 24 2,000 7,500
Ohio . . . . . . . . . . 1 7 93 13 124 1,600 500,000 33,923 3,798
Oregon . . . . . . . . . 1 3 60 10,000 5,000
Pennsylvania . . . . . . 1 5 45 12 44 3,000 532,000 30,000 0
Rhode Island . . . . . . 1
South Carolina . . . . . 2 4 58 26,500 25,000 11,508
Tennessee . . . . . . . 1 25,410
Texas . . . . . . . . . 1 0 0 18 127 1,090 212,000 14,280 4,191
Vermont . . . . . . . . 1 0 0 9 23 8,130
Virginia . . . . . . . . 2 1 108 33 320 2,200 521,080 23,500 100
West Virginia . . . . . 1
Wisconsin . . . . . . . 1 0 0 18 124 200,000 15,322 18
Total . . . . . . . . 46 52 1,911 465 4,281 109,732 $6,308,881 $491,229 $99,511
U. S. Military Academy . 1 0 0 52 228 28,208 2,500,000 0 0
U. S. Naval Academy . . 1 0 0 65 261 22,629 1,292,390 0 0
Grand total . . . . . 48 52 1,911 582 4,770 160,569 $10,101,271 $491,229 $99,511
Part II.--Insitutions not endowed with National Land-Grant.
Number of Schools.
| No. Instructors. ) Preparatory Department.
| | No. Students.)
| | | No. Instructors. ) Scientific Department.
STATES. | | | | No. Students.)
| | | | | No. Volumes in General Libraries.
| | | | | | Value of Grounds, Buildings, and Apparatus.
| | | | | | | Income from Productive Funds.
| | | | | | | | Receipts for the last Year from Tuition Fees.
California . . . . . . . 1 2 34 5 68 300
Colorado . . . . . . . . 2 8 83 600 $15,000 $1,500
Georgia . . . . . . . . 1
Indiana . . . . . . . . 1 900 135,000 $15,000
Massachusetts . . . . . 5 103 224 6,200 188,500 72,755 10,050
Michigan . . . . . . . . 1 3 7
Missouri . . . . . . . . 1 5 249 17 153 125,000
New Hampshire . . . . . 2 16 50 2,000 1,700 11,000 2,160
New Jersey . . . . . . . 2 29 156 5,000 650,000 43,450 19,780
New York . . . . . . . . 5 84 2,586 24,393 2,000,000 43,495 44,100
Ohio . . . . . . . . . . 3 6 100,000 9,734
Pennsylvania . . . . . . 8 7 89 2,268 42,468 594,000 6,050
Vermont . . . . . . . . 1 10 20 4,000 20,000 1,000
Virginia . . . . . . . . 3 8 123 550 400,000 1,200 7,000
District of Columbia . . 1
Total . . . . . . . . 37 7 290 378 5,738 86,411 $4,229,200 $202,684 $85,590
GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE FOREGOING STATISTICS RESPECTING SUPERIOR
INSTRUCTION.
Adding the statistics of public and private schools of science (i.e.,
schools endowed and schools not endowed with the public land-grant) to
those of universities and colleges, we have the following totals: Number
of institutions, 447; number of instructors in preparatory departments,
879, in collegiate and scientific departments, 4,501; number of students
in preparatory departments, 31,160, in collegiate and scientific
departments, 42,967; income from productive funds, $3,311,921; income
from tuition, $2,265,551; volumes in college libraries, 2,769,203; value
of grounds, buildings, and apparatus, $54,586,447.
APPENDIX S.
An exhibit of the legal-tender currency in circulation on the first day
of January and the first day of July in each year since the first
greenback was issued in 1862.
Date. Amount.
Jan. 1, 1863 . . $223,108,000
July 1, 1863 . . 297,767,114
Jan. 1, 1864 . . 444,825,022
July 1, 1864 . . 431,178,671
Jan. 1, 1865 . . 447,074,374
July 1, 1865 . . 432,687,966
Jan. 1, 1866 . . 425,839,319
July 1, 1866 . . 400,619,206
Jan. 1, 1867 . . 380,276,160
July 1, 1867 . . 371,783,597
Jan. 1, 1868 . . 356,000,000
July 1, 1868 . . 356,000,000
Jan. 1, 1869 . . 356,000,000
July 1, 1869 . . 356,000,000
Jan. 1, 1870 . . 356,000,000
July 1, 1870 . . 356,000,000
Jan. 1, 1871 . . 356,000,000
July 1, 1871 . . 356,000,000
Jan. 1, 1872 . . 357,500,000
July 1, 1872 . . 357,500,000
Jan. 1, 1873 . . 358,557,907
July 1, 1873 . . 356,000,000
Jan. 1, 1874 . . 378,401,702
July 1, 1874 . . 382,000,000
Jan. 1, 1875 . . 382,000,000
July 1, 1875 . . 375,771,580
Jan. 1, 1876 . . 371,827,220
July 1, 1876 . . 369,772,284
Jan. 1, 1877 . . 366,055,084
July 1, 1877 . . 359,764,332
Jan. 1, 1878 . . 349,943,776
July 1, 1878 . . 346,681,016
Jan. 1, 1879 . . 346,681,016
July 1, 1879 . . 346,681,016
Jan. 1, 1880 . . 346,681,016
July 1, 1880 . . 346,681,016
Jan. 1, 1881 . . 346,681,016
July 1, 1881 . . 346,681,016
Jan. 1, 1882 . . 346,681,016
July 1, 1882 . . 346,681,016
Jan. 1, 1883 . . 346,681,016
July 1, 1883 . . 346,681,016
Jan. 1, 1884 . . 346,681,016
APPENDIX T.
This table presents the number of national banks each year from the
passage of the original Bank Act, with the average capital, deposits,
and circulation for each year on or near October 1 = from 1863 to 1883.
No. of
Years. Banks. Capital. Deposits. Circulation.
1863 . . 66 $7,188,393 $8,497,682
1864 . . 508 86,782,802 122,166,536 $45,260,504
1865 . . 1,513 393,157,206 500,910,873 171,321,903
1866 . . 1,644 415,472,369 564,616,778 280,253,818
1867 . . 1,642 420,073,415 540,797,838 293,887,941
1868 . . 1,643 420,634,511 580,940,821 295,593,645
1869 . . 1,617 426,399,151 511,400,197 293,593,645
1870 . . 1,648 430,399,301 501,407,587 291,798,640
1871 . . 1,790 458,255,696 600,868,487 315,519,117
1872 . . 1,940 479,629,174 613,290,671 333,495,027
1873 . . 1,976 491,072,616 622,685,563 339,081,799
1874 . . 2,027 493,765,121 669,068,996 333,225,298
1875 . . 2,087 504,829,769 664,579,619 318,350,379
1876 . . 2,089 499,802,232 651,385,210 291,544,020
1877 . . 2,080 479,467,771 616,403,987 291,874,236
1878 . . 2,053 466,147,436 620,236,176 301,888,092
1879 . . 2,048 454,067,365 719,737,568 313,786,342
1880 . . 2,090 457,553,985 873,537,637 317,350,036
1881 . . 2,132 463,821,985 1,070,997,531 320,200,069
1882 . . 2,269 483,104,213 1,122,472,682 314,721,215
1883 . . 2,501 509,699,787 1,049,437,700 310,517,857
APPENDIX U.
The following table exhibits the principal items contained in the
returns of the State banks of the country, yearly, from 1834 to 1861:--
No. of
Years. Banks. Capital. Deposits. Circulation.
1834 . . 506 $200,005,944 $75,666,986 $94,839,570
1835 . . 704 231,250,337 83,081,365 103,692,495
1836 . . 713 251,875,292 115,104,440 140,301,038
1837 . . 788 251,875,292 115,104,440 140,185,890
1838 . . 829 317,636,778 84,601,184 116,138,910
1839 . . 840 327,132,512 90,240,146 135,170,995
1840 . . 901 358,442,692 75,696,857 106,968,572
1841 . . 784 313,608,959 64,800,101 107,200,214
1842 . . 692 260,171,797 62,408,870 83,734,011
1843 . . 691 228,861,948 56,168,623 58,563,608
1844 . . 696 210,872,056 84,550,785 75,167,646
1845 . . 707 206,045,969 88,020,646 89,608,711
1846 . . 707 196,894,309 96,913,070 105,552,427
1847 . . 715 203,070,622 91,792,533 105,519,766
1848 . . 751 204,838,175 103,226,177 128,506,091
1849 . . 782 207,309,361 91,178,623 114,743,415
1850 . . 824 217,317,211 109,586,585 131,366,526
1851 . . 879 227,807,553 128,957,712 155,165,251
1852 . . 914 247,858,036 137,255,794 150,619,015
1853 . . 950 267,908,519 145,533,876 146,072,780
1854 . . 1,208 301,376,071 188,188,744 204,680,207
1855 . . 1,307 332,177,288 190,400,342 186,952,223
1856 . . 1,398 343,874,272 212,705,662 195,747,950
1857 . . 1,416 370,834,686 230,351,352 214,778,822
1858 . . 1,422 394,622,799 185,932,049 155,208,244
1859 . . 1,476 401,976,242 259,568,278 193,306,818
1860 . . 1,562 421,880,095 253,802,129 207,102,477
1861 . . 1,601 429,592,713 257,229,562 202,005,767
APPENDIX V.
MAP SHOWING THE TERRITORIAL GROWTH OF THE UNITED STATES.
The annexed map is designed to show, clearly and accurately, the
territorial extent of the United States as established by the Treaty
of 1783, with the various additions since made, by purchase, conquest,
or voluntary annexation.
The map is intended to illustrate many parts of the text, and, in
connection with the various Appendices, will exhibit within small
compass the expansion of free institutions, the growth of population,
and the increase of material wealth with which the Republic has been
blessed.
[map omitted]
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