THE USURPER
The answer which the country gave the President's Proclamation of
Emancipation was a startling one, even to the patient, careful
far-seeing man of the people in the White House. For months he had
carried the immortal document in his pocket without even allowing his
Cabinet to know it had been written. He had patiently borne the abuse of
his party leaders and the fierce assaults of Horace Greeley until he
believed the time had come that he must strike this blow--a blow which
would rouse the South to desperation and unite his enemies in the North.
He had finally issued it with grave fears.
The results were graver than he could foresee. More than once he was
compelled to face the issue of its repeal as the only way to forestall a
counter revolution in the North.
Desertions from the army became appalling--the number reached frequently
as high as two hundred a day and the aggregate over eight thousand a
month. His Proclamation had provided for the enlistment of negroes as
soldiers. Not only did thousands of men refuse to continue to fight when
the issue of Slavery was injected, but other thousands felt that the
uniform of the Republic had been dishonored by placing it on the backs
of slaves. They refused to wear it longer, and deserted at the risk of
their lives.
The Proclamation had united the South and hopelessly divided the North.
How serious this Northern division was destined to become was the
problem now of a concern as deep as the size and efficiency of General
Lee's army.
The election of the new Congress would put his administration to a
supreme fight for existence. If the Democratic Party under its new
leader, Clay Van Alen of Ohio, should win it meant a hostile majority in
power whose edict could end the war and divide the Union. They had
already selected in secret George B. McClellan for their coming standard
bearer.
For the first time the question of Union or Disunion was squarely up to
the North in an election. And it came at an unlucky moment for the
President. The army in the West had ceased to win victories. The
Southern army under Lee was still defending Richmond as strongly as
ever.
There was no evading the issue at the polls. The Proclamation had
committed the President to the bold, far-reaching radical and aggressive
policy of the utter destruction of Slavery. The people were asked to
choose between Slavery on the one hand and nationality on the other. The
two together they could not again have.
The President had staked his life on his faith that the people could be
trusted on a square issue of right and wrong.
This time he had underestimated the force of blind passions which the
hell of war had raised.
Maine voted first and cut down her majority for the administration from
nineteen thousand to a bare four thousand. The fact was ominous.
Ohio spoke next and Van Alen's ticket against the administration swept
the State, returning fourteen Democrats and only five Republicans to
Congress.
Indiana, the State in which the President's mother slept, spoke in
thunder tones against him, sending eight Democrats and three
Republicans. Even the rockribbed Republican stronghold of Pennsylvania
was carried by the opposition by a majority of four thousand, reversing
Lincoln's former majority of sixty thousand.
In New York the brilliant Democratic leader, Horatio Seymour, was
elected Governor on a platform hostile to the administration by more
than ten thousand majority. New Jersey turned against him, Michigan
reduced his majority from twenty to six thousand. Wisconsin evenly
divided its delegates to Congress.
Illinois, the President's own State, gave the most crushing blow of all.
His big majority there was completely reversed and the Democrats carried
the State by over seventeen thousand and the Congressional delegates
stood eleven to three against him.
And then his Border State Policy, against which the leaders of his party
had raged in vain was vindicated in the most startling way. True to his
steadfast purpose to hold these States in the Union at all hazards, he
had not included them in his Emancipation Proclamation.
One of the reasons for which they had refused his offer of United States
bonds in payment for their slaves was they did not believe them worth
the paper they were written on. A war costing two million dollars a day
was sure to bankrupt the Nation before the end could be seen.
And yet because he had treated them with patience and fairness, with
justice and with generosity, the Border States and the new State of West
Virginia born of this policy, voted to sustain the President, saved his
administration from ruin and gave him another chance to fight for the
life of the Union.
It was a close shave. His working majority in Congress was reduced to a
narrow margin, the opposition was large, united and fierce in its
aggression, but he had been saved from annihilation.
The temper of the men elected to the Legislatures, both State and
National, in the great Northern States was astounding.
So serious was the situation in Indiana that Governor Morton hastened to
Washington to lay the crisis before the President.
"I'm sorry to have to tell you," the Governor began, "but we must face
it. The Democratic politicians of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois now called
to power assume that the rebellion will not be crushed----"
"And therefore?"
"That their interests are antagonistic to New England and in harmony
with the South. Another three months like the last six and we are lost,
sir--hopelessly lost!"
"Is it as bad as that Governor?" the sad even voice asked.
A smile flickered across the stern, fine face of the war Governor:
"If you think me a pessimist remember that Van Alen their leader, has
just presided over a Democratic jubilee meeting in Ohio which was swept
again and again by cheers for Jefferson Davis--curses and jeers for the
Abolitionists. His speech has been put in the form of a leaflet which is
being mailed in thousands to our soldiers at the front----"
"You know that to be a fact?" the President asked sharply.
"The fact is notorious, sir. It will be disputed by no one. The outlook
is black. Meeting after meeting is being held in Indiana demanding peace
at any price, with the recognition of the Southern Confederacy--and,
mark you, what is still more significant the formation of a Northwestern
Confederacy with its possible Capital at your home town of Springfield,
Illinois----"
"No, no!" the President groaned.
"Your last call for three hundred thousand volunteers," the Governor
went on, "as you well know was an utter failure. Only eighty-six
thousand men have been raised under it. I was compelled to use a draft
to secure the number I did in Indiana. It is useless to call for more
volunteers anywhere----"
"Then we'll have to use the draft," was the firm response.
"If we can enforce it!" the Governor warned. "A meeting has just been
held in my State in which resolutions were unanimously passed demanding
that the war cease, denouncing the attempt to use the power to draft
men, declaring that our volunteers had been induced to enter the army
under the false declaration that war was waged solely to maintain the
Constitution and to restore the Union----"
"And so it is!" the President interrupted.
"Until you issued your Proclamation, freeing the slaves----"
"But only as a war measure to weaken the South, give us the victory and
restore the Constitution!"
"They refuse to hear your interpretation; they make their own. Van Alen
boldly declares that ninety-nine men out of every hundred whom he
represents in Congress breathe no other prayer than to have an end of
this hellish war. When news of victory comes, there is no rejoicing.
When news of our defeat comes there is no sorrow----"
"Is that statement really true?" the sorrowful lips asked.
"Of the majority who elected him, yes. In the Northwest, distrust and
despair are strangling the hearts of the people. More and more we hear
the traitorous talk of arraying ourselves against New England and
forming a Confederacy of our own. More than two thousand six hundred
deserters have been arrested within a few weeks in Indiana. It generally
requires an armed detail. Most of the deserters, true to the oath of the
order of the Knights of the Golden Circle, desert with their arms----"
"Is it possible?"
"And in one case seventeen of these fortified themselves in a log cabin
with outside paling and ditch for protection, and were maintained by
their neighbors. Two hundred armed men in Rush County resisted the
arrest of deserters. I was compelled to send infantry by special train
to take their ringleaders. Southern Indiana is ripe for Revolution.
"I have positive information that the incoming Democratic Legislature of
my State is in quick touch with the ones gathering in Illinois and
Ohio. In Illinois, your own State, they have already drafted the
resolutions demanding an armistice and a convention of all the States to
agree to an adjustment of the war. It is certain to pass the Illinois
House.
"My own Legislature has put this resolution into a more daring and
dangerous form. They propose boldly and at once to acknowledge the
Southern Confederacy and demand that the Northwest dissolve all further
relations with New England. When they have passed this measure in
Indiana, they expect Ohio and Illinois to follow suit.
"Their secret order which covers my State with a network of lodges,
whose purpose is the withdrawal of the Northwestern States from the
Union, has obtained a foothold in the army camps inside the city of
Washington itself----"
The President rose with quick, nervous energy and paced the floor. He
stopped suddenly in front of Morton, his deep set eyes burning a steady
flame:
"And what do you propose?"
"I haven't decided yet. I have the best of reasons to believe that the
first thing my Legislature will do when it convenes is to pass a
resolution refusing to receive any message from me as Governor of the
State!"
"Will they dare?"
"I'm sure of it. It will be composed of men sworn to oppose to the
bitter end any prosecution of this war. They intend to recognize the
Southern Confederacy, and dissolve their own Federal relation with the
United States. It may be necessary, sir----" he paused and fixed the
President with compelling eyes, "---it may be necessary to suspend the
civil government in the North in order to save the Union!"
The President lifted his big hand in a gesture of despair:
"God save us from that!"
"I came here to tell you just this," the Governor gravely concluded. "If
the crisis comes and I must use force I expect you to back me----"
Two big rugged hands grasped the one outstretched:
"God bless you, Governor Morton,--we've got to save the Union, and we're
going to do it! Since the day I came into this office I have fought to
uphold the supremacy of the civil law. My enemies may force me to use
despotic powers to crush it for larger ends!----But I hope not. I hope
not. God knows I have no vain ambitions. I have no desire to use such
power----"
The Governor left him gazing dreamily over the river toward Virginia a
great new sorrow clouding his soul.