great impression on the whole country. For the moment it made the fierce
talk of the Southern extremists inconsequential. Buoyant Northerners,
such as Seward, felt that the crisis was over; that the South had voted
for a reconciliation; that only tact was needed to make everybody happy.
When, a few weeks after the election, Seward said that all would be
merry again inside of ninety days, his illusion had for its foundation
the Southern rejection of the slave profiteers.
Unfortunately, Seward did not understand the precise significance of
the thought of the moderate South. He did not understand that while the
South had voted to send Breckinridge and his sort about their business,
it was still deeply alarmed, deeply fearful that after all it might at
any minute be forced to call them back, to make common cause with them
against what it regarded as an alien and destructive political power,
the Republicans. This was the Southern reservation, the unspoken
condition of the vote which Seward--and for that matter, Lincoln,
also,--failed to comprehend. Because of these cross-purposes, because
the Southern alarm was based on another thing than the standing or
falling of slavery, the situation called for much more than tact, for
profound psychological statesmanship.
And now emerges out of the complexities of the Southern situation a
powerful personality whose ideas and point of view Lincoln did not
understand. Robert Barnwell Rhett had once been a man of might in
politics. Twice he had very nearly rent the Union asunder. In 1844,
again in 1851, he had come to the very edge of persuading South Carolina
to secede. In each case he sought to organize the general discontent of
the South,--its dread of a tariff, and of Northern domination. After his
second failure, his haughty nature took offense at fortune. He resigned
his seat in the Senate and withdrew to private life. But he was too
large and too bold a character to attain obscurity. Nor would his
restless genius permit him to rust in ease. During the troubled
'fifties, he watched from a distance, but with ever increasing interest,
that negative Southern force which he, in the midst of it, comprehended,
while it drifted under the wing of the extremists. As he did so, the old
arguments, the old ambitions, the old hopes revived. In 1851 his cry
to the South was to assert itself as a Separate nation--not for any one
reason, but for many reasons--and to lead its own life apart from
the North. It was an age of brilliant though ill-fated revolutionary
movements in Europe. Kossuth and the gallant Hungarian attempt at
independence had captivated the American imagination. Rhett dreamed of
seeing the South do what Hungary had failed to do. He thought of the
problem as a medieval knight would have thought, in terms of individual
prowess, with the modern factors, economics and all their sort, left
on one side. "Smaller nations (than South Carolina)," he said in 1851,
"have striven for freedom against greater odds."
In 1860 he had concluded that his third chance had come. He would try
once more to bring about secession. To split the Union, he would play
into the hands of the slave-barons. He would aim to combine with their
movement the negative Southern movement and use the resulting coalition
to crown with success his third attempt. Issuing from his seclusion, he
became at once the overshadowing figure in South Carolina. Around him
all the elements of revolution crystallized. He was sixty years old;
seasoned and uncompromising in the pursuit of his one ideal, the
independence of the South. His arguments were the same which he had used
in 1844, in 1851: the North would impoverish the South; it threatens
to impose a crushing tribute in the shape of protection; it seeks to
destroy slavery; it aims to bring about economic collapse; in the wreck
thus produced, everything that is beautiful, charming, distinctive in
Southern life will be lost; let us fight! With such a leader, the forces
of discontent were quickly, effectively, organized. Even before the
election of Lincoln, the revolutionary leaders in South Carolina were
corresponding with men of like mind in other Southern States, especially
Alabama, where was another leader, Yancey, only second in intensity to
Rhett.
The word from these Alabama revolutionists to South Carolina was to
dare all, to risk seceding alone, confident that the other States of
the South would follow. Rhett and his new associates took this perilous
advice. The election was followed by the call of a convention of
delegates of the people of South Carolina. This convention, on the
twentieth of December, 1860, repealed the laws which united South
Carolina with the other States and proclaimed their own independent.
XII. THE CRISIS
Though Seward and other buoyant natures felt that the crisis had passed
with the election, less volatile people held the opposite view. Men who
had never before taken seriously the Southern threats of disunion had
waked suddenly to a terrified consciousness that they were in for it.
In their blindness to realities earlier in the year, they were like that
brilliant host of camp followers which, as Thackeray puts it, led the
army of Wellington dancing and feasting to the very brink of Waterloo.
And now the day of reckoning had come. An emotional reaction carried
them from one extreme to the other; from self-sufficient disregard of
their adversaries to an almost self-abasing regard.
The very type of these people and of their reaction was Horace Greeley.
He was destined many times to make plain that he lived mainly in his
sensibilities; that, in his kaleidoscopic vision, the pattern of the
world could be red and yellow and green today, and orange and purple
and blue tomorrow. To descend from a pinnacle of self-complacency into
a desolating abyss of panic, was as easy for Greeley as it is--in the
vulgar but pointed American phrase--to roll off a log. A few days after
the election, Greeley had rolled off his log. He was wallowing in panic.
He began to scream editorially. The Southern extremists were terribly
in earnest; if they wanted to go, go they would, and go they should. But
foolish Northerners would be sure to talk war and the retaining of the
South in the Union by force: it must not be; what was the Union compared
with bloodshed? There must be no war--no war. Such was Greeley's
terrified--appeal to the North. A few weeks after the election he
printed his famous editorial denouncing the idea of a Union pinned
together by bayonets. He followed up with another startling concession
to his fears: the South had as good cause for leaving the Union as
the colonies had for leaving the British Empire. A little later, he
formulated his ultimate conclusion,--which like many of his ultimates
proved to be transitory,--and declared that if any group of Southern
States "choose to form an independent nation, they have a clear moral
right to do so," and pledging himself and his followers to do "our best
to forward their views."
Greeley wielded through The Tribune more influence, perhaps, than was
possessed by any other Republican with the single exception of Lincoln.
His newspaper constituency was enormous, and the relation between
the leader and the led was unusually close. He was both oracle and
barometer. As a symptom of the Republican panic, as a cause increasing
that panic, he was of first importance.
Meanwhile Congress had met. And at once, the most characteristic
peculiarity of the moment was again made emphatic. The popular
majorities and the political machines did not coincide. Both in the
North and in the South a minority held the situation in the hollow of
its hand. The Breckinridge Democrats, despite their repudiation in the
presidential vote, included so many of the Southern politicians, they
were so well organized, they had scored such a menacing victory with
the aid of Rhett in South Carolina, they had played so skilfully on the
fears of the South at large, their leaders were such skilled managers,
that they were able to continue for the moment the recognized spokesmen
of the South at Washington. They lost no time defining their position.
If the Union were not to be sundered, the Republicans must pledge
themselves to a new and extensive compromise; it must be far different
from those historic compromises that had preceded it. Three features
must characterize any new agreement: The South must be dealt with as
a unit; it must be given a "sphere of influence"--to use our modern
term--which would fully satisfy all its impulses of expansion; and in
that sphere, every question of slavery must be left entirely, forever,
to local action. In a word, they demanded for the South what today would
be described as a "dominion" status. Therefore, they insisted that the
party which had captured the Northern political machine should formulate
its reply to these demands. They gave notice that they would not discuss
individual schemes, but only such as the victorious Republicans might
officially present. Thus the national crisis became a party crisis. What
could the Republicans among themselves agree to propose?
The central figure of the crisis seemed at first to be the brilliant
Republican Senator from New York. Seward thought he understood the
South, and what was still more important, human nature. Though he echoed
Greeley's cry for peace--translating his passionate hysteria into the
polished cynicism of a diplomat who had been known to deny that he was
ever entirely serious--he scoffed at Greeley's fears. If the South had
not voted lack of confidence in the Breckinridge crowd, what had it
voted? If the Breckinridge leaders weren't maneuvering to save their
faces, what could they be accused of doing? If Seward, the Republican
man of genius, couldn't see through all that, couldn't devise a way
to help them save their faces, what was the use in being a brilliant
politician?
Jauntily self-complacent, as confident of himself as if Rome were
burning and he the garlanded fiddler, Seward braced himself for the task
of recreating the Union.
But there was an obstacle in his path. It was Lincoln. Of course, it
was folly to propose a scheme which the incoming President would not
sustain. Lincoln and Seward must come to an understanding. To bring that
about Seward despatched a personal legate to Springfield. Thurlow Weed,
editor, man of the world, political wire-puller beyond compare, Seward's
devoted henchman, was the legate. One of the great events of American
history was the conversation between Weed and Lincoln in December, 1860.
By a rare propriety of dramatic effect, it occurred probably, on the
very day South Carolina brought to an end its campaign of menace and
adopted its Ordinance of Secession, December twentieth.(1)
Weed had brought to Springfield a definite proposal. The Crittenden
compromise was being hotly discussed in Congress and throughout the
country. All the Northern advocates of conciliation were eager to put it
through. There was some ground to believe that the Southern machine at
Washington would accept it. If Lincoln would agree, Seward would make it
the basis of his policy.
This Compromise would have restored the old line of the Missouri
Compromise and would have placed it under the protection of a
constitutional amendment. This, together with a guarantee against
congressional interference with slavery in the States where it existed,
a guarantee the Republicans had already offered, seemed to Seward, to
Weed, to Greeley, to the bulk of the party, a satisfactory means of
preserving the Union. What was it but a falling back on the original
policy of the party, the undoing of those measures of 1854 which had
called the party into being? Was it conceivable that Lincoln would
balk the wishes of the party by obstructing such a natural mode of
extrication? But that was what Lincoln did. His views had advanced since
1854. Then, he was merely for restoring the old duality of the country,
the two "dominions," Northern and Southern, each with its own social
order. He had advanced to the belief that this duality could not
permanently continue. Just how far Lincoln realized what he was doing in
refusing to compromise will never be known. Three months afterward, he
took a course which seems to imply that his vision during the interim
had expanded, had opened before him a new revelation of the nature of
his problem. At the earlier date Lincoln and the Southern people--not
the Southern machine--were looking at the one problem from opposite
points of view, and were locating the significance of the problem in
different features. To Lincoln, the heart of the matter was slavery. To
the Southerners, including the men who had voted lack of confidence in
Breckinridge, the heart of the matter was the sphere of influence. What
the Southern majority wanted was not the policy of the slave profiteers
but a secure future for expansion, a guarantee that Southern life,
social, economic, cultural, would not be merged with the life of the
opposite section: in a word, preservation of "dominion" status. In
Lincoln's mind, slavery being the main issue, this "dominion" issue was
incidental--a mere outgrowth of slavery that should begin to pass
away with slavery's restriction. In the Southern mind, a community
consciousness, the determination to be a people by themselves, nation
within the nation, was the issue, and slavery was the incident. To
repeat, it is impossible to say what Lincoln would have done had he
comprehended the Southern attitude. His near horizon which had kept
him all along from grasping the negative side of the Southern movement
prevented his perception of this tragic instance of cross-purposes.
Lacking this perception, his thoughts had centered themselves on a
recent activity of the slave profiteers. They had clamored for the
annexation of new territory to the south of us. Various attempts had
been made to create an international crisis looking toward the seizure
of Cuba. Then, too, bold adventurers had staked their heads, seeking to
found slave-holding communities in Central America. Why might not such
attempts succeed? Why might not new Slave States be created outside the
Union, eventually to be drawn in? Why not? said the slave profiteer, and
gave money and assistance to the filibusters in Nicaragua. Why not? said
Lincoln, also. What protection against such an extension of boundaries?
Was the limitation of slave area to be on one side only, the Northern
side? And here at last, for Lincoln, was what appeared to be the true
issue of the moment. To dualize the Union, assuming its boundaries to be
fixed, was one thing. To dualize the Union in the face of a movement for
extension of boundaries was another. Hence it was now vital, as Lincoln
reasoned, to give slavery a fixed boundary on all sides. Silently, while
others fulminated, or rhapsodized, or wailed, he had moved inexorably to
a new position which was nothing but a logical development of the old.
The old position was--no extension of slave territory; the new position
was--no more Slave States.(2) Because Crittenden's Compromise left
it possible to have a new Slave State in Cuba, a new Slave State
in Nicaragua, perhaps a dozen such new States, Lincoln refused to
compromise.(3)
It was a terrible decision, carrying within it the possibility of civil
war. But Lincoln could not be moved. This was the first acquaintance
of the established political leaders with his inflexible side. In the
recesses of his own thoughts the decision had been reached. It was
useless to argue with him. Weed carried back his ultimatum. Seward
abandoned Crittenden's scheme. The only chance for compromise passed
away. The Southern leaders set about their plans for organizing a
Southern Confederacy.
XIII. ECLIPSE
Lincoln's ultimatum of December twentieth contained three proposals that
might be made to the Southern leaders:
That the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law which hitherto had been
left to State authorities should be taken over by Congress and supported
by the Republicans.
That the Republicans to the extent of their power should work for the
repeal of all those "Personal Liberty Laws" which had been established
in certain Northern States to defeat the operation of the Fugitive Slave
Law.
That the Federal Union must be preserved.(1)
In presenting these proposals along with a refusal to consider the
Crittenden Compromise, Seward tampered with their clear-cut form.
Fearful of the effect on the extremists of the Republican group, he
withheld Lincoln's unconditional promise to maintain the Fugitive Slave
Law and instead of pledging his party to the repeal of Personal Liberty
Laws he promised only to have Congress request the States to repeal
them. He suppressed altogether the assertion that the Union must be
preserved.(2) About the same time, in a public speech, he said he was
not going to be "humbugged" by the bogy of secession, and gave his
fatuous promise that all the trouble would be ended inside ninety days.
For all his brilliancy of a sort, he was spiritually obtuse. On him,
as on Douglas, Fate had lavished opportunities to see life as it is, to
understand the motives of men; but it could not make him use them. He
was incorrigibly cynical. He could not divest himself of the idea that
all this confusion was hubbub, was but an ordinary political game, that
his only cue was to assist his adversaries in saving their faces. In
spite of his rich experience,--in spite of being an accomplished man of
the world,--at least in his own estimation--he was as blind to the real
motives of that Southern majority which had rejected Breckinridge as was
the inexperienced Lincoln. The coolness with which he modified Lincoln's
proposals was evidence that he considered himself the great Republican
and Lincoln an accident. He was to do the same again--to his own regret.
When Lincoln issued his ultimatum, he was approaching the summit, if not
at the very summit, of another of his successive waves of vitality, of
self-confidence. That depression which came upon him about the end of
1858, which kept him undecided, in a mood of excessive caution during
most of 1859, had passed away. The presidential campaign with its
thrilling tension, its excitement, had charged him anew with confidence.
Although one more eclipse was in store for him--the darkest eclipse of
all--he was very nearly the definitive Lincoln of history. At least, he
had the courage which that Lincoln was to show.
He was now the target for a besieging army of politicians clamoring for
"spoils" in the shape of promises of preferment. It was a miserable and
disgraceful assault which profoundly offended him.(3) To his mind this
was not the same thing as the simple-hearted personal politics of
his younger days--friends standing together and helping one another
along--but a gross and monstrous rapacity. It was the first chill shadow
that followed the election day.
There were difficult intrigues over the Cabinet. Promises made by his
managers at Chicago were presented for redemption. Rival candidates
bidding for his favor, tried to cut each other's throats. For example,
there was the intrigue of the War Department. The Lincoln managers had
promised a Cabinet appointment to Pennsylvania; the followers of Simon
Cameron were a power; it had been necessary to win them over in order
to nominate Lincoln; they insisted that their leader was now entitled
to the Pennsylvania seat in the Cabinet; but there was an anti-Cameron
faction almost as potent in Pennsylvania as the Cameron faction. Both
sent their agents to Springfield to lay siege to Lincoln. In this
duel, the Cameron forces won the first round. Lincoln offered him
the Secretaryship. Subsequently, his enemies made so good a case that
Lincoln was convinced of the unwisdom of his decision and withdrew the
offer. But Cameron had not kept the offer confidential. The withdrawal
would discredit him politically and put a trump card into the hands
of his enemies. A long dispute followed. Not until Lincoln had reached
Washington, immediately before the inauguration, was the dispute ended,
the withdrawal withdrawn, and Cameron appointed.(4)
It was a dreary winter for the President-elect. It was also a brand-new
experience. For the first time he was a dispenser of favor on a grand
scale. Innumerable men showed their meanest side, either to advance
themselves or to injure others. As the weeks passed and the spectacle
grew in shamelessness, his friends became more and more conscious of his
peculiar melancholy. The elation of the campaign subsided into a deep
unhappiness over the vanity of this world. Other phases of the shadowy
side of his character also asserted themselves. Conspicuous was a
certain trend in his thinking that was part of Herndon's warrant for
calling him a fatalist. Lincoln's mysticism very early had taken a turn
toward predestination, coupled with a belief in dreams.(5) He did not in
any way believe in magic; he never had any faith in divinations, in the
occult, in any secret mode of alluring the unseen powers to take one's
side. Nevertheless, he made no bones about being superstitious. And he
thought that coming events cast their shadows before, that something, at
least, of the future was sometimes revealed through dreams. "Nature,"
he would say, "is the workshop of the Almighty, and we form but links in
the chain of intellectual and material life."(6) Byron's Dream was one
of his favorite poems. He pondered those ancient, historical tales which
make free use of portents. There was a fascination for him in the story
of Caracalla--how his murder of Geta was foretold, how he was upbraided
by the ghosts of his father and brother. This dream-faith of his was as
real as was a similar faith held by the authors of the Old Testament.
He had his theory of the interpretation of dreams. Because they were
a universal experience--as he believed, the universal mode of
communication between the unseen and the seen--his beloved "plain
people," the "children of Nature," the most universal types of humanity,
were their best interpreters. He also believed in presentiment. As
faithfully as the simplest of the brood of the forest--those recreated
primitives who regulated their farming by the brightness or the
darkness of the moon, who planted corn or slaughtered hogs as Artemis
directed--he trusted a presentiment if once it really took possession of
him. A presentiment which had been formed before this time, we know not
when, was clothed with authority by a dream, or rather a vision, that
came to him in the days of melancholy disillusion during the last winter
at Springfield. Looking into a mirror, he saw two Lincolns,--one alive,
the other dead. It was this vision which clenched his pre-sentiment that
he was born to a great career and to a tragic end. He interpreted the
vision that his administration would be successful, but that it would
close with his death.(7)
The record of his inner life during the last winter at Springfield is
very dim. But there can be no doubt that a desolating change attacked
his spirit. As late as the day of his ultimatum he was still in
comparative sunshine, or, at least his clouds were not close about him.
His will was steel, that day. Nevertheless, a friend who visited him
in January, to talk over their days together, found not only that "the
old-time zest" was lacking, but that it was replaced by "gloom and
despondency."(8) The ghosts that hovered so frequently at the back of
his mind, the brooding tendencies which fed upon his melancholy and
made him at times irresolute, were issuing from the shadows, trooping
forward, to encompass him roundabout.