THE CONSPIRACY
Lord Lyons, the British Minister, was using smooth words to the
Secretary of State. Mr. Seward, our wily snuff dipper, was fully his
equal in expressions of polite friendship. What he meant to say, of
course, was that he could plunge a poisoned dagger into the British Lion
with the utmost pleasure. What he said was:
"I am pleased to hear from your lordship the expressions of good will
from her Gracious Majesty's Government."
"I am sorry to say, however," the Minister hastened to add, "that the
Proclamation of Emancipation was not received by the best people of
England as favorably as we had hoped."
"And why not?" Seward politely asked.
"Seeing that it could have no effect in really freeing the slaves until
the South is conquered it appeared to be merely an attempt to excite a
servile insurrection."
The Secretary lifted his eyebrows, took another dip of snuff, and softly
inquired:
"And may I ask of your lordship whether this would not have been even
more true in the earlier days of the war than now?"
"Undoubtedly."
"And yet I understand that her Gracious Majesty's Government was cold
toward us because we had failed to take such high moral grounds at once
in the beginning of the war?"
His lordship lifted his hands in polite admission of the facts.
"The trouble you see is," he went on softly, "Europe begins to feel that
the division of sentiment in the North will prove a fatal weakness to
the administration in so grave a crisis. Unfortunately, from our point
of view, of course, your Government is a democracy, the sport of every
whim of the demagogue of the hour----"
Seward lifted his eyes with a quick look at his lordship and smiled:
"Allow me to reassure her Gracious Majesty's Government on that point
immediately. The administration will find means of preserving the
sovereign power the people have entrusted to it. For example, my lord, I
can touch the little bell on my right hand and order the arrest without
warrant of a citizen of Ohio. I can touch the little bell on my left
hand and order the imprisonment of a citizen of New York; and no power
on earth except that of the President, can release them. Can the Queen
of Great Britain do as much?"
His lordship left apparently reassured.
The tinkle of the little bell on the desk of the Secretary of State
which had begun to fill the jails of the North with her leading
Democratic citizens did not have the same soothing effect on American
lawmakers, however. These arrests were made without warrant and the
victim held without charges, the right to bail or trial.
The President had dared to suspend the great _writ of habeas corpus_
which guaranteed to every freeman the right to meet his accuser in open
court and answer the charge against him.
The attitude of the bold aggressive opposition was voiced on the floor
of the House of Representatives in Washington in no uncertain language
by Daniel Voorhees of Indiana, in a speech whose passionate eloquence
was only equalled by its reckless daring.
"The present Executive of the Government," he declared, "has usurped the
powers of Law and Justice to an extent subversive of republican
institutions, and not to be borne by any free people. He has given
access to the vaults of prisons but not to the bar of justice. It is a
part of the nature of frail men to sin against laws, both human and
divine; but God Himself guarantees him a fair trial before punishment.
Tyrants alone repudiate the justice of the Almighty. To deny an accused
man the right to be heard in his own defense is an echo from the dark
ages of brutal despotism. We have in this the most atrocious tyranny
that ever feasted on the groans of a captive or banqueted on the tears
of the widow and the orphan.
"And yet on this spectacle of shame and horror American citizens now
gaze. The great bulwark of human liberty which generations in bloody
toil have built against the wicked exercise of unlawful power has been
torn away by a parricidal hand. Every man to-day from the proudest in
his mansion to the humblest in his cabin--all stand at the mercy of one
man, and the fawning minions who crouch before him for pay.
"We hear on every side the old cry of the courtier and the parasite. At
every new aggression, at every additional outrage, new advocates rise
to defend the source of patronage, wealth and fame--the department of
the Executive! Such assistance has always waited on the malignant
efforts of tyranny. Nero had his poet laureate, and Seneca wrote a
defense even for the murder of his mother. And this dark hour affords us
ample evidence that human nature is the same to-day as two thousand
years ago."
Such speeches could not be sent broadcast free of charge through the
mails without its effect on the minds of thousands. The great political
party in opposition to the administration was now arrayed in solid
phalanx against the war itself on whose prosecution the existence of the
Nation depended.
Again the Radical wing of his party demanded of the President the
impossible.
The Abolitionists had given a tardy and lukewarm support in return for
the issue of the Proclamation of Emancipation. Their support lasted but
a few days. Through their spokesman, Senator Winter, they demanded now
the whole loaf. They had received but half of their real program. They
asked for a policy of reconstruction in the parts of Louisiana and
Tennessee held by the Union army in accordance with their ideas. They
demanded the ballot for every slave, the confiscation of the property of
the white people of the South and its bestowment upon negroes and
camp-followers as fast as the Union army should penetrate into the
States in rebellion.
Senator Winter's argument was based on sound reasoning theoretically
whatever might be said of its wisdom as a National policy.
"Your Emancipation Proclamation," he declared to the President,
"provides for the arming and drilling of negro soldiers to fight for the
Republic. If they are good enough to fight they are good enough to vote.
The ballot is only another form of the bayonet which we use in time of
peace----"
"Correct, Senator," was the calm reply, "if we are to allow the negro
race to remain in America in physical contact with ours. But we are not
going to do this. No greater calamity could befall our people.
Colonization and separation must go hand in hand with the emancipation
of these children of Africa. I incorporated this principle in my act of
emancipation. I have set my life on the issue of its success. As a
matter of theory and abstract right we may grant the suffrage to a few
of the more intelligent negroes and the black soldiers we may enroll
until they can be removed----"
"Again we deal with a Southerner, Mr. President!" the Senator sneered.
"So be it," was the quiet answer. "I have never held any other views.
They were well known before the war. But two years before my election I
said in my debate with Douglas:
"'I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way,
the social and political equality of the white and black races. I am
not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes,
nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to inter-marry with white
people. I will say in addition to this that there is a physical
difference between the white and black races which, I believe, will
forever forbid the two living together on terms of social and political
equality."
"Yet," the Senator sneered, "you can change your mind. You said in your
Inaugural that you had no intention or right to interfere with the
institution of Slavery. You did so just the same."
"As an act of war to save the Union only. But mark you, I have always
hated Slavery from principle for the white man's sake as well as the
negro's. I am equally determined _on principle_ that the negro race
after it is free shall never be absorbed into our social or political
life!"
"You'll change your principles or retire to private life!" the old man
snapped.
"When I have saved the Union we shall see. Time will indicate the wisdom
of my position. I have no longer any ambition except to give the best
that's in me to my people."
The breach between the President and the most powerful leaders of his
own party was now complete. It was a difference that was fundamental and
irreconcilable. They asked him to extend the autocratic power he wielded
to preserve the Union in a time of war to a program of revenge and
proscription against the South as it should fall before the advancing
army. His answer was simple:
"Secession was void from the beginning. The South shall not be laid
waste as conquered territory when the Union is restored. They shall
return as our brethren to live with us in peace and good will with the
curse of Slavery lifted from them and their children. Nor will I permit
the absorption of this black blood into our racial stock to degrade our
National character. When free, the negro must return to his own."
With fierce, sullen determination the Radical wing of his party
organized a secret powerful conspiracy to drive Abraham Lincoln from
public life.
Behind this first line of attack stood the Democratic party with its
millions of loyal voters now united under George B. McClellan. The
Radicals and the Democrats hated each other with a passion second only
to their hatred of the President. They agreed to remove him first and
then settle their own differences.