Samuel C. Parks (Lincoln, Logan County, February 11) is opposed

to the Crittenden Compromise, because the integrity of the

Republican party and the salvation of the country require that

this grand drama of secession, disunion, and treason be played

out entirely. Either slavery or freedom must rule this country,

or there must be a final separation of the free and the slave

states. No compromise will do any permanent good. On the

contrary, if the territorial question is compromised now, it

will but postpone, aggravate, and prolong the contest.

Considers it mean and cowardly to leave to our children a great

national trouble that we might settle ourselves.

January 2, 1861, Trumbull wrote to Governor Yates advising that some

steps be taken in the way of military preparations, saying:

The impression is very general here that Buchanan has waked up

at last to the sense of his condition and will make an effort

to enforce the laws and protect the public property. That this

was his determination two days ago, I have the best reasons for

knowing, but he is so feeble, vacillating, and irresolute, that

I fear he will not act efficiently; and some even say that he

has again fallen into the hands of the disunionists. This I

cannot believe. If he does his duty with tolerable efficiency,

even at this late day, there will be no serious difficulty. The

states which resolved themselves out of the Union would be

coming back before many months. But if he continues to side

with the disunionists, we cannot avoid serious trouble, for in

that event I think the traitors would be encouraged to attempt

to take possession here, and most of the public property and

munitions of war would be placed in the hands of the

disunionists before the 4th of March. In view of the present

condition of affairs and the uncertainty as to the future, I

think it no more than prudent that our state should be making

some preparations to organize its military, or get up volunteer

companies, so as to be ready to come to the support of the

Constitution and the laws if the occasion should require. I

think that there will be no occasion for troops here, and that

the inauguration will probably take place. But take place it

must, and at Washington, even though a hundred thousand men

have to come here to effect it. The Government is a failure

unless this is done.

Governor Yates's reply, if any, is not found in the Trumbull papers, but

a letter from him dated Springfield, January 22, says that Frank P.

Blair, Jr., had just arrived from St. Louis with information that the

secessionists in Missouri had formed a plot to seize the United States

Arsenal at St. Louis, which was the only depot of arms west of

Pittsburg. If this should be attempted, Yates said it would lead to

serious complications and perhaps a collision between Illinois and

Missouri, since it could not be permitted that this great arsenal,

intended for the use of the entire West, should fall into the hands of

enemies of the Union. He asked Trumbull to see General Scott at once and

insist that something be done which would obviate the necessity of

action on the part of the state of Illinois.

Some letters from Mrs. Trumbull to her son Walter, who was on a warship

in foreign parts during the month of January, 1861, supply a few items

of interest.

January 21 she says:

The Senators of Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida yesterday

took formal leave of the Senate. The speech of Clay, of

Alabama, was very ugly, but that of Davis was pathetic, and

even Republican ladies were moved to tears. Gov. Pickens of S.

C. sent for $300 due him as Minister to Russia, and the

Treasurer sent him a draft on the sub-treasury at Charleston

which the Rebels had seized.

January 24:

Called at Dr. Sunderland's[42] yesterday. He said that in

talking with a disunionist a few days ago he asked what the

South demanded and what would satisfy them. He replied that the

North must be uneducated, or educated differently; their

sentiments must be changed, and it can't be done in this

generation.

Just before starting home, Toombs's coachman, strange to say,

deserted his kind master for a trip on the Underground

Railroad, greatly to the disgust of Mrs. Toombs. She was met by

Mrs. Judge McLean, who said to her, "Mrs. Toombs, are you going

to leave us?" "Yes," she replied, "I am glad enough to go; here

I am riding in a hack!" It was very hard, very disgusting, and

Mrs. McLean, instead of trying to hunt up her fugitive for her,

told her that when the South had all seceded, they would have

Canada right on their borders, and where one now escaped, there

would then be a hundred.

January 26:

The city begins to present a warlike appearance. Two companies

are stationed quite near us on E St. and others are placed in

Judiciary Square near the Capitol, and at the President's,

about 700 in all. A company of light artillery arrived

yesterday morning, soon after which cannonading was heard,

volley after volley. I supposed the thunder of the cannon was

meant to convey wholesome instruction to the revolutionists,

but I learned this evening that it was a salute for Kansas,

which is now a state. Thirty-four guns were fired. I understood

that some of the ladies at the National Hotel were so alarmed

that they began to pack their trunks so as to retreat promptly

with all their luggage. I believe that Gen. Scott intends to

have more troops here, but the O. P. F.[43] countermands most

of his orders. The Cabinet find him very troublesome even now;

he still listens to Slidell and others.

A set of compromisers came here a few days since from New York

with a string of resolutions and explained them to Senator

King, hoping he would endorse them. Mr. King read them and

handed them back silently. Said the spokesman: "I trust they

meet your approval, they are good resolutions; you approve

them, do you not, Mr. King?" He answered in his good-humored,

laughing way, but withal very firmly: "I would resign my seat

first and I think I would rather die." The same men went to

your father urging him to support them, and stated that New

York would not defend the public property within her limits

unless Congress adopted some such action. Your father told them

that if that was to be the course of New York, we might as well

know it now as ever, and refused to have anything to do with

their resolutions.

In the same letter she writes:

Mrs. McLean called yesterday. She said they dined at the White

House once while the President was making up his mind whether

or not to recall Major Anderson. The judge took the President

aside to make some inquiries about the Major. Buchanan replied

that he had exceeded his instructions and must be recalled. The

Judge raised his hand with vehemence, almost in the President's

face, and asserted with emphasis: "You dare not do it, sir, you

dare not do it." And he did not.

Probably this is the only instance on record where a Judge of the

Supreme Court shook his fist in the face of the President after dining

with him at the White House. It is not improbable that the vehemence of

the venerable Judge was one of the potent reasons deterring Buchanan

from ordering Anderson to return from Fort Sumter to Fort Moultrie.[44]

TRUMBULL'S SPEECH AGAINST THE CRITTENDEN COMPROMISE

[In the Senate, March 2, 1861.]

MR. TRUMBULL. Mr. President, the long public service of the

Senator from Kentucky, his acknowledged patriotism and devotion

to the Union, give great importance to whatever he says; and in

all he has said in favor of the Union and its preservation, and

the maintenance of the Constitution, I most heartily concur. No

man shall exceed me in devotion to the Constitution and the

Union. But, while this is so, what the Senator says of those of

us who disagree with him as to the mode of preserving the Union

and maintaining the peace of the country is well calculated, in

consequence of the position he occupies, to mislead and

prejudice the public mind as to our true position. Does he

expect, or can he expect, that compromises will be made and

concessions yielded when he talks of the great party of this

country, constituting a majority of its people, as being wedded

to a dogma set up above the Constitution; when he talks of us

as usurping all the territories, as ostracizing all the people

of the South, and denying them their rights? Is that the way to

obtain compromises? Instead of turning his denunciation upon

those who violate the Constitution and trample the flag of the

country in the dust, he turns to us and talks to us of

usurpations, of our dogmas; tells us that for a straw we are

willing to dissolve the Union and involve the country in blood.

Why are not these appeals made and these rebukes administered

to the men who are involving the country in blood? If it is a

straw for us to yield, is it anything more than a straw for

them to demand? If it is a trifle for us to concede, is it any

larger than a trifle which the South demands, and to obtain

which it is willing to destroy this Union, which he has so

beautifully and so highly eulogized?

Sir, I have heard this charge against the people of the North,

of a desire to usurp the whole of the common territories, till

I am tired of the accusation. It has been made and refuted ten

thousand times. Not a man in the North denies to every citizen

of the South the same right in a territory that he claims for

himself. And who are the people of the South? Slaveholders? Not

one white citizen in twenty of the population in the South owns

a slave. The nineteen twentieths of the non-slaveholding

population of the South are forgotten, while the one twentieth

is spoken of as "the South." The man who owns a slave in the

South has just as much right in the territory as a man in the

North who owns no slave. If the Southerner cannot take his

negro slave to the territory, neither can the Northern man.

Again, sir, the Senator talks of the rights of the States to

the common territories. The territories do not belong to the

States; they are the property of the General Government; and

the state of Kentucky has no more right in a territory than has

the city of Washington, or any county in the state of Maryland.

As a state, Kentucky has no right in a territory, nor has

Illinois; but the territories belong to the Federal government,

and are disposed of to the citizens of the United States,

without regard to locality.

But, sir, I propose to inquire what it is that has brought the

country to its present condition; what it is that has

occasioned this disruption, this revolution in a portion of the

country. Many years ago an attempt was made in the state of

South Carolina to disrupt this Government, at that time on

account of the revenue system. It failed. The disunionists of

1832 were put down by General Jackson; and from that day to

this there have been secessionists _per se_, men who have been

struggling continuously and persistently to propagate their

doctrine wherever they could find followers; and, I am sorry to

say, they seem to have impressed the public mind of the South,

to a great extent, with their notions. In 1850, the effort to

break up the Government was renewed. It was then settled by

what were known as the compromise measures of that year. The

great men of that day--Clay, Webster, Cass, and others--took

part in that settlement, and it was then supposed that the

settlement would be permanent. The controversy of 1850 was not

in regard to a tariff, but in regard to the negro question; the

very question which General Jackson had prophesied, in the

nullification times, would be the one upon which the next

attempt would be made to destroy the Government. After a long

struggle, the compromise measures of 1850 were passed. Quiet

was given to the country; all parties in all sections of the

country acquiesced in the settlement then made. Resolutions

were offered in this body denouncing any person who should

attempt again to introduce the question of slavery into

Congress. Speeches were made, in which Senators declared that

they would never again speak upon the subject in the Congress

of the United States. It was said that the slavery question was

forever removed from the halls of Congress, and we then

supposed that the country would continue quiet on this exciting

subject. But, sir, in 1854, notwithstanding the pledges which

had been given in 1850, notwithstanding the quiet of the

country, when no man was agitating the slavery question; when

no petitions came from the states, counties, cities, or towns,

from villages or individuals, asking a disturbance of former

compromises; when all was quiet, of a sudden a proposition was

sprung in this chamber to unsettle the very questions which had

been put to rest by the compromises of 1850. A proposition was

then introduced to repeal one of the compromises which had been

recognized by the acts of 1850; for the Missouri Compromise,

which excluded slavery from Kansas and Nebraska, was, by

reference, directly and in express terms, reaffirmed by the

compromises of 1850. But, sir, in the beginning of 1854, that

fatal proposition was introduced and embodied in the

Kansas-Nebraska Act, which declared that the eighth section of

the act for the admission of Missouri into the Union, which had

passed in 1820, and which excluded slavery from Kansas and

Nebraska, should be repealed, it being declared to be "the true

intent and meaning of the act not to introduce slavery into any

state or territory, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave

the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their

domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the

Constitution of the United States"--a little stump speech, as

Colonel Benton denominated it, introduced into the body of the

bill, which has since become as familiar to all the children of

the land, from its frequent repetition, as Mother Goose's

stories. That was the fatal act which brought about the

agitation of the slavery question; and on the repeal of the

Missouri Compromise followed the disturbances in the settlement

of Kansas. That act led to civil war in Kansas, to the burning

of towns, to the invasion from Missouri, to all the horrors and

anarchy which reigned in that ill-fated territory for several

years, all of which is too fresh in the recollection of the

American people to require repetition. And, sir, from that day

to this, the doctrine which it is pretended was enunciated in

1854 in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, of non-intervention, of

popular sovereignty, for it is known under various names, has

been preached all over the country, until in the election of

1860, it was repudiated and scouted, North and South, by a

majority of the people in every state in the Union; and even at

this session, it has been thrust in here upon almost every

occasion, as the grand panacea that was to give peace to the

country; whereas it was the very thing which gave rise to all

the difficulties. The disunionists per se have seized hold of

the disturbances growing out of the slavery question, all

occasioned by this fatal step in 1854, to inflame the public

mind of the South, and bring about the state of things which

now exists.

But, sir, the Union survived the disunion movement of 1832; it

survived the excitement upon the slavery question in 1850; it

survived the disturbances in Kansas in 1855 and 1856,

consequent upon the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. It

survived them all without an actual attempt at disruption,

until we came down to 1860, and Abraham Lincoln was elected

President; and even now, notwithstanding the dissatisfaction at

his election in some portions of the country, and all the

previous troubles, the laws to-day would have had force in

every part of the Union, and secession would have been checked

in its very origin, had the Government done its duty and not

acted in complicity with the men who had resolved to destroy

it.

The secession movement, then, dates back several years. It

received an impetus in 1850; another in 1854; and in 1860, by

the connivance and the assistance of the Government itself, it

acquired the strength which it now has. What has been the

policy of the expiring administration? Its Cabinet officers

boasting of their complicity with the men who were plotting the

destruction of the Government; openly proclaiming in the face

of the world that they had used their official power, while

members of the Cabinet, and sworn to protect and preserve the

Government, to furnish the means for its destruction; openly

acknowledging before the world that they had used the power

which their positions gave them to discredit the Government,

and also to furnish arms and munitions of war to the men who

were conspiring together to assault its fortifications, and

seize its property; openly boasting that they had taken care,

during their public service, to see that the arms of the

Federal Government were placed in convenient positions for the

use of those who designed to employ them for its destruction.

More than this, members, while serving in the other branch of

Congress, go to the Executive of the United States, and tell

him, "Sir, we are taking steps in South Carolina to break up

this Government; you have forts and fortifications there; they

are but poorly manned; now if you will leave them in the

condition they are until the state of South Carolina gets ready

to take possession, we will wait until that time before we

seize them"; and the Executive of the nation asks that the

treasonable proposition be put in writing, and files it away.

Why, sir, is there another capital on the face of the globe, to

which men could come from state or province, and inform the

executive head that they were about to take steps to seize the

public property belonging to the Government, and warn the

Executive to leave it in its insecure and undefended state

until they should be prepared to take possession, and they be

permitted to depart? Is there another capital on the face of

the globe where commissioners coming to the Executive under

these circumstances would not have been arrested on the spot

for treason? But your Government, if it did not directly

promise not to arm its forts, certainly took no steps to

protect its public property; and this went on, until a gallant

officer who was in command of less than a hundred men in the

harbor of Charleston, acting upon his own responsibility,

thought proper to throw his little force into a fort where he

could protect himself; and then it was that these insurgents,

rebelling against the Government, demanded that he should be

withdrawn, and the Executive then was forced to take position.

Then his Cabinet officers who had been in conspiracy with the

plotters of treason, then the Chief Magistrate himself was

forced to take position. He must openly withdraw his forces,

and surrender the public property he was sworn to protect,

openly violate the oath he had taken to support the

Constitution of the United States, and execute the laws, and

take side with traitors; or else he must leave Major Anderson

where he was. Exposed to public view, brought to this dilemma,

I am glad to say that even then, at that late day, the

President of the United States concluded to take sides for the

Union; that even he came out, though feebly it was, on the part

of the United States, and his Secretary of War retired from his

Cabinet, not in disgrace, so far as its executive head was

concerned, for he parted pleasantly with the President of the

United States, but he retired because the President would not

carry out the policy which he understood to have been agreed

upon, which was to leave the fortifications in a position that

Carolina might take them whenever she thought proper.

But, sir, notwithstanding this, the Executive of the nation,

disregarding the advice of the Lieutenant-General who commands

the armies of the United States, and who had warned him months

before of the movements which were taking place to seize the

public property at the South, still leaves the property

unprotected; and the insurgents go on in some of the states,

before even passing ordinances of secession, and continue to

seize the public property; to capture the troops of the United

States; to take possession of the forts; to fire into its

vessels; to take down its flag; until they have at this time in

their possession fortifications which have cost the Government

more than $5,000,000, and which mount more than a thousand

guns.

All this has been done without any effort on the part of the

Government to protect the public property; and this is the

reason that secession has made the head it has. Why, sir, let

me ask, is it that the United States to-day has possession of

Fort Sumter? Can you tell me why is Fort Sumter in possession

of the United States? Because there are a hundred soldiers in

it--for no other reason. Why is Fort Moultrie in possession of

the insurgents? Because there were no men there to protect it;

and it is now matter of history that, had the Executive done

his duty, and placed a hundred men in Fort Moultrie, a hundred

in Castle Pinckney, and a hundred in Fort Sumter, Charleston

Harbor to-day would have been open, and your revenues would

have been collected there, as elsewhere throughout the United

States.

Will it be said that Carolina would have attacked those forts,

thus garrisoned? She does not attack a hundred men in Fort

Sumter. It is a wonder that she does not. The little, feeble

garrison there is well calculated to invite attack; but this

thing of secession, under the policy of the Administration, has

been made a holiday affair in the South. This great Government,

one of the most powerful on the face of the globe, is falling

to pieces just from its own imbecility.

MR. WIGFALL. Mr. President--

THE PRESIDING OFFICER (MR. BRIGHT). Does the Senator from

Illinois yield the floor?

MR. TRUMBULL. I have some further observations to make. I will

yield for a single question; not for a speech.

MR. WIGFALL. For a single question. I do not wish to interrupt

the Senator if it is not agreeable to him. I desire to ask a

single question.

MR. TRUMBULL. I have no objection to the question.

MR. WIGFALL. I understand the Senator to object to the course

that the present outgoing Administration has pursued in

reference to the forts. I know the Senator's candor, directness

of purpose, fairness, and boldness of statement; and I desire

to know whether the succeeding Administration will pursue the

same peace policy of leaving the forts in the possession of the

seceding states, or whether they will attempt to recapture

them?

MR. TRUMBULL. The Senator will find out my opinions on this

subject before I conclude. The opinions of the incoming

Administration, I trust, he will learn to-morrow from the

eastern front of the capitol.

MR. WIGFALL. I trust we shall, sir.

MR. TRUMBULL. I speak for myself, without knowing what may be

said in the inaugural of to-morrow; but I apprehend that the

Senator will learn to-morrow that we have a Government; and

that will be the beginning of the maintenance of the Union.

MR. WIGFALL. I hope we may.

MR. TRUMBULL. While the forts in the South were left thus

unprotected, and to be seized by the first comers, where was

your army? Scattered beyond reach, and sent to the frontiers,

so as not to be made available when it was wanted. And where

was your navy? The navy of the United States, when it was known

that the secession movement was on foot, was sent to distant

seas, until there was not at the command of the Secretary of

the Navy a single vessel, except one carrying two guns, that

could enter Charleston Harbor--a small vessel destined, I

believe, to take supplies to the African squadron, which

carried two guns. Does anybody suppose this was accidental? If

it were a question of fact to be tried before an intelligent

jury in any part of Christendom, does any one doubt that the

Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy would both be

convicted of having purposely, and by design, removed the army

and navy out of reach, in order that the forts might be seized,

and that the secession movement might progress? And how has it

been from that day to this? Irresolution and indecision on the

part of the Executive--one day sending a vessel with troops to

Charleston, and the next countermanding the order; and the

Senator from Texas, with a taste which I cannot admire, spoke

in terms of derision of his country's flag, when it returned in

disgrace--"struck in the face," I think, was his

expression--from Charleston Harbor. I admit it was disgraceful;

but I am sorry it should have afforded the Senator from Texas,

a member of the Senate of the United States, as the eloquent

Senator from Kentucky said he was, any pleasure that such a

transaction should have occurred.

This, then, briefly, is the reason that this secession movement

has acquired the strength it has. It is because this Government

has either favored it, or refused to do anything to check it.

Notwithstanding the mistake of 1854, the country would have

survived it all, had we had a Government to take care of and

preserve it.

Now, sir, what are the remedies that are proposed for the

present condition of things, and what have they been from the

beginning? They have been propositions of compromise; and

Senators have spoken of peace, and of the horrors of civil war;

and gentlemen who have contended for the right of the people of

the territories to regulate their own affairs, and who have

been horrified at the idea of a geographical line dividing free

states from slave states, free territory from slave territory,

and who have proclaimed that the great principle upon which the

Revolution was fought was that of the right of the people to

govern themselves, and that it was monstrous doctrine for

Congress to interfere in any way with its own territories, come

forward here with propositions to divide the country on a

geographical line; and not only that, but to establish slavery

south of the line; and they call this the Missouri Compromise!

The proposition known as the "Crittenden Proposition" is no

more like the Missouri Compromise than is the Government of

Turkey like that of the United States. The Missouri Compromise

was a law declaring that in all the territory which we had

acquired from Louisiana, north of a certain line of latitude,

slavery or involuntary servitude should never exist. But it

said nothing about the establishment of slavery south of that

line. It was a compromise made in order to admit Missouri into

the Union as a slave state, in 1820. That was the consideration

for the exclusion of slavery from all the country north of 36 deg.

30'. Now, sir, I have no objection to the restoration of the

Missouri Compromise as it stood in 1854, when the

Kansas-Nebraska Bill passed; and I have drawn up--and I intend

to offer it at the proper time as an amendment to some of these

propositions--a clause declaring that so much of the fourteenth

section of the act to organize the territories of Nebraska and

Kansas, approved the 30th of May, 1854, as repeals the Missouri

Compromise, and contains the little stump speech, shall be

repealed, and that we may hear no more of it, I trust, forever.

Since its authors have repudiated it, and have come forward

with a proposition to establish not the Missouri Compromise,

but to establish a geographical line running through the

territory which we now have, establishing slavery south of it,

and prohibiting it north, and providing that, in the territory

we may hereafter acquire, slavery shall be established south of

that line, I suppose we shall hear no more about leaving the

people "perfectly free to regulate their own affairs in their

own way"! The proposition known as the "Crittenden Compromise"

declares not only that, "in the territory south of the said

line of latitude, slavery of the African race is hereby

recognized as existing, and shall not be interfered with by

Congress"; but it provides further, that, in the territory we

shall hereafter acquire south of that line, slavery shall be

recognized, and not interfered with by Congress; but "shall be

protected as property by all the departments of the territorial

government during its continuance"; so that, if we make

acquisitions on the south of territories now free, and where,

by the laws of the land, the footsteps of slavery have never

been, the moment we acquire jurisdiction over them, the moment

the stars and stripes of the Republic float over those free

territories, they carry with them African slavery, established

beyond the power of Congress, and beyond the power of any

territorial legislature, or of the people, to keep it out; and

we are told that this is the Missouri Compromise! We are told

that slavery now exists in New Mexico; and I was sorry to find

even my friend from Oregon [Mr. Baker] ready to vote for this

proposition, which establishes slavery. Why, sir, suppose

slavery does exist in New Mexico; are you for putting a clause

into your Constitution that the people of New Mexico shall not

drive it out?

* * * * *

But, sir, unlike the Senator from Oregon, I will never agree to

put into the Constitution of the country a clause establishing

or making perpetual slavery anywhere. No, sir; no human being

shall ever be made a slave by my vote. No foot of God's soil

shall ever be dedicated to African slavery by my act--never,

sir. I will not interfere with it where I have no authority by

the Constitution to interfere; but I never will consent, the

people of the great Northwest, numbering more in white

population than all your Southern States together, never will

consent by their act to establish African slavery anywhere.

Why, sir, the seven free states of the Northwest, at the late

presidential election, cast three hundred thousand more votes

than all the fifteen Southern States together. Senators talk

about the North and the South, and speak of having two

Presidents, a Northern President and a Southern President, as

if we had no such country as the Northwest, more populous with

freemen than all the South. The people of the South and the

people of the East both will, by and by, learn, if they have

not already learned, that we have a country, and a great and

growing country, in the Northwest; a free country--made free,

too, by the act of Virginia herself. I do not propose to

discuss the House Resolution. I have said on any and all proper

occasions, and am willing to say at any time, to our brethren

of the South, we have no disposition, and never had any, and

have no power, if we had the disposition, to interfere with

your domestic institutions.

I think, then, sir, that none of these compromises will amount

to anything; but still I am willing to do this, and I think if

there is any difficulty it may be settled in this way: three of

the states of this Union, the state of Kentucky, the state of

New Jersey, and the State of Illinois, have called upon

Congress to call a convention of all the states for the purpose

of proposing amendments to the Constitution. I do not think the

Constitution needs amendment. In my judgment, the Constitution

as it is, is worthy to be lived up to and supported. I doubt if

we shall better it; but out of deference to those states, one

of which is my own state, I am willing to vote for the

resolution which has been introduced into this body

recommending to the various states to take into consideration

this proposition of calling a convention, in order to make such

amendments as may be deemed necessary by the states themselves

to this instrument. So far, I am willing to go. Would it not

have been better for the seceding states to have done that? Why

did they not propose, instead of attempting hastily to break up

the Government and seizing its public property, to call a

convention, in the constitutional form, of the various states,

and if the Federal Constitution needed amendment, amend it in

that way. No such proposition came from them; but Kentucky has

made the proposition for a convention, and I am willing to meet

her in the spirit in which it is made, and am ready, for one,

and would be glad if we could all unitedly pass the resolution

suggesting to the states to call a convention to make any and

all amendments to the Constitution which the exigencies of the

times may require.

The Senator from Texas wants to know how we are going to

preserve the Union; how we are going to stop the states from

seceding? And our Southern friends sometimes ask us to give

them something to stand upon in the South. The best political

foundation ever laid by mortal man upon which to plant your

foot is the Constitution. Take the old Constitution as your

fathers made it, and go to the people on that; rally them

around it, and not suffer it to be kicked about, rolled in the

dust, spit upon, and their efforts to be wasted in vain efforts

to amend it. Why, sir, has that old instrument ceased to be of

any value? These gentlemen who are talking about amending it,

and talking about guarantees as a condition to remain in the

Union, claim to be _par excellence_ the Union men. Why, sir, I

conceive I am a much better Union man than they. I am for the

Union under the Constitution as it is. I am willing, however,

that a convention should be called out of deference to those

who may wish to alter it; but I am not one of those who declare

that unless this provision is made, and unless this guarantee

is given, I will unite to destroy the Union, and cease to

observe the Constitution as it is.

Sir, the Southern States have been arming. The Senator from

Virginia [Mr. Mason] told us the other day that his state had

appropriated $1,500,000 to arm its citizens. For what? To arm

its citizens to fight against this Government; and then tell us

that, to a man, they will fight against this Government, if it

undertakes to enforce its laws, which they call coercion, the

coercion of a State! Why, sir, a government that has not the

power of coercing obedience to its laws is no government at

all. The very idea of a law without a sanction is an absurdity.

A government is not worth having that has not power to enforce

its laws. If the Senator from Texas wants to know my opinion, I

tell him yes, I am for enforcing the laws. Do you mean by that

you are going to march an army to coerce a state? No, sir; and

I do not mean the people of this country to be misled by this

confusion of terms about coercing a state. The Constitution of

the United States operates upon individuals; the laws operate

upon individuals; and whenever individuals make themselves

amenable to the laws, I would punish them according to the

laws. We may not always be able to do this. Why, sir, we have a

criminal code, and laws punishing larceny and murder and arson

and robbery and all these crimes; and yet murder is committed,

larcenies and robberies are committed, and the culprits are not

always punished and brought to justice. We may not be able, in

all instances, to punish those who conspire against the

Government. So far as it can be done, I am for executing the

laws; and I am for coercion. I am for settling, in the first

place, the question whether we have a government before making

compromises which leave us as powerless as before.

Sir, if my friend from Kentucky would employ some of that

eloquence of his which he uses in appealing to Republicans--and

talking about compromise--in defense of the Constitution as it

is, and in favor of maintaining the laws and the Government, we

should see a very different state of things in the country. If,

instead of coming forward with compromises, instead of asking

guarantees, he had put the fault where it belongs; if he called

upon the Government to do its duty; if, instead of blaming the

North for not making concessions where there is nothing to

concede, and not making compromises where there was nothing to

compromise about, he had appealed to the South, which was in

rebellion against the Government, and painted before them, as

only he could do it, the hideousness of the crimes they were

committing, and called upon them to return to their allegiance,

and upon the Government to enforce its authority, we would have

a very different state of things in this country to-day from

what now exists.

This, in my judgment, is the way to preserve the Union; and I

do not expect civil war to follow from it. You have only to put

the Government in a position to make itself respected, and it

will command respect. As I said before, five hundred troops in

Charleston would unquestionably have kept that port open; and

if you will arm the Government with sufficient authority to

maintain its laws and give us an honest Executive, I think you

will find the spread of secession soon checked; it will no

longer be a holiday affair. But while we submit to the disgrace

which is heaped upon us by those seceding states, while the

President of the United States says, "You have no right to

secede; but if you want to, you may, we cannot help it," you

may expect secession to spread.

Why, sir, the resolutions of the legislature of the state of

New York, which were passed early in the session, tendering to

the Federal Government all the resources of the state in money

and men to maintain the Government, had a most salutary effect

when it was heard here. I saw the effect of it at once. It was

the first blow at secession. Let the people of the North

understand that their services are required to maintain this

Union, and let them make known to the people of the South, to

the Government, and to the country, that the Union shall be

maintained; and the object is accomplished. Then you will find

Union men in the South. But while this secession fever was

spreading, and the Union men of the South had no support from

their Government, it is no wonder that state after state

undertook to withdraw from a confederacy which manifested no

disposition to maintain itself.

My remedy for existing difficulties is, to clothe the

Government with sufficient power to maintain itself; and when

that is done, and you have an Executive with the disposition to

maintain the authority of the Government, I do not believe that

a gun need be fired to stop the further spread of secession. I

believe, sir, after the new Administration goes into operation,

and the people of the South see, by its acts, that it is

resolved to maintain its authority, and, at the same time, to

make no encroachments whatever upon the rights of the people of

the South, the desire to secede will subside. When the people

of the Southern States, on the 5th of March, this year, and on

the 5th of March, 1862, shall find that, after a year has

transpired under a Republican administration, they are just as

safe in all their rights, just as little interfered with in

regard to their domestic institutions, as under any former

Administration, they will have no disposition to inaugurate

civil war and commence an attack upon the Federal Government.

Why, sir, some Senators talk about the Federal Government

making war. Who proposes it? The Southern people affect to

abhor civil war, when they, themselves, have commenced it.

Inhabitants of the six seceding states have begun the war. What

is war? Is firing into your vessels war? Is investing your

forts war? Is seizing your arsenals war? They have done it all,

and more; and then have the effrontery to say to the United

States, "Do not defend yourselves; do not protect your

Government; let it fall to pieces; let us do as we please, or

else you will have war." The highwayman meets you on the

street, demands your purse, and tells you to deliver it up, or

you will have a fight. You can always escape a fight by

submission. If in the right--and which is far better than to

submit to degradation--you can often escape collision by being

prepared to meet it. The moment the highwayman discovers your

preparation and ability to meet him, he flees away. Let the

Government be prepared, and we shall have no collision.

I cannot think the people of this country in the loyal states

would causelessly inaugurate civil war by attacking the

Government; and I regard all the states as loyal, which have

not undertaken to secede. I regard Kentucky and Tennessee and

Missouri as loyal states, just as much so as Illinois. Why,

sir, I live right upon the borders of Missouri, and I know that

the people across the river were, last fall, just as good Union

men as they were in Illinois. They never thought of secession

until the thing was started in South Carolina, and until some

persons here in Congress began to talk about guarantees,

instead of coming out for the Constitution and the Union as

they are. When Senators began to introduce propositions

demanding guarantees as a condition of continuing in the Union,

the real true Union men, in many instances, took sides with

them, and thus became, in fact, only conditional Unionists. I

am happy to say that they are getting over it, not only in

Missouri, but they are already cured of it in Tennessee, and I

trust in all the other states save those which, in their hurry,

and with inconsiderate zeal, have already taken measures, as

far as they could, to dissolve their connection with the

Government. Sir, I cannot think it possible that this great

Government is to go out without a struggle--a Government which

has been blessed so highly, and prospered so greatly. What

occasion is there for breaking it up? Are we not the happiest

people in the world? Do we not enjoy personal liberty and

religious freedom? What is it that the people of these Southern

States would have? Does anybody propose to interfere with their

domestic institutions? Nobody. Does anybody deny their equal

rights in the territories? Nobody. Why, sir, look at our

condition. We are one of the great nations of the world. At the

peace of 1783, we had, I think, something like three million

population; we have now more than thirty million. At that time

we had thirteen states; now we have thirty-four states; and our

territories have spread out until they extend across the

continent. The boundaries of the Republic embrace to-day a

greater extent of country than was contained within the Roman

Empire in the days of its greatest extent, or within the

empire of Alexander when he was said to have conquered the

world.

Sir, I cannot believe that this mad and insane attempt to break

up such a Government is to succeed. If my voice could reach

them, I would call upon my Southern brethren to pause, to

reflect, to consider if this Republican party has yet done them

any wrong. What complaints have they to make against us? We

have never wielded the power of Government--not for a day. Have

you of the South suffered any wrong at the hands of the Federal

Government? If you have, you inflicted it yourselves. We have

not done it. Is it the apprehension that you are going to

suffer wrong at our hands? We tell you that we intend no such

thing. Will you, then, break up such a government as this, on

the apprehension that we are all hypocrites and deceivers, and

do not mean what we say? Wait, I beseech you, until the

Government is put into operation under this new administration;

wait until you hear the inaugural from the President-elect;

and, I doubt not, it will breathe as well a spirit of

conciliation and kindness towards the South as towards the

North. While I trust it will disclose a resolute purpose to

maintain the Government, I doubt not it will also declare, in

unequivocal terms, that no encroachments shall be made upon the

constitutional rights of any state while he who delivers it

remains in power.

FOOTNOTES:

[38] Presumably Judge Read, of Pennsylvania.

[39] MS. in the collection of the late Major W. H. Lambert,

Philadelphia.

[40] _Cong. Globe_, 1860-61, p. 30.

[41] Trumbull's speech on the Crittenden Compromise, which was impromptu

and was delivered about midnight, is printed as an appendix to this

chapter.

[42] Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church.

[43] "Old Public Functionary"--a name that Buchanan in one of his

messages had given to himself.

[44] Jefferson Davis says, in his _Rise and Fall of the Confederate

States_, that Buchanan told him that "he thought it not impossible that

his homeward route would be lighted by burning effigies of himself and

that on reaching his home he would find it a heap of ashes."

CHAPTER VIII

CABINET-MAKING--THE DEATH OF DOUGLAS

During all this storm and stress the President-elect was at home

struggling with office-seekers. They came in swarms from all points of

the compass, and in the greatest numbers from Illinois. Judging from the

Trumbull papers alone it is safe to say that Illinois could have filled

every office in the national Blue Book without satisfying half the

demands. Every considerable town had several candidates for its own

post-office, and the applicants were generally men who had real claims

by reason of party service and personal character for the positions

which they sought. But there were exceptions, and Trumbull brought

trouble on his own head many times by taking part in the melee. Yet

there seemed to be no way of escape, even if he had wished to stand

aloof. The day of civil service reform had not yet dawned. Time has

kindly dropped its veil over those struggles except as relates to

Lincoln's Cabinet. The selection of the Cabinet will be considered

chronologically so far as the Trumbull papers throw light on it.

On his journey to Washington for the coming session of Congress,

Trumbull stopped a few days in New York. While there he received a call

from three gentlemen, who were a sub-committee of a larger number who

had been chosen, by the opponents of the Weed overlordship in New York

politics, to call upon Lincoln and remonstrate against the appointment

of Seward as a member of his Cabinet. The three men were William C.

Bryant, William Curtis Noyes, and A. Mann, Jr. They said that finding

it impracticable to see Lincoln, they had decided to call upon Trumbull

and ask him to present their views to the President-elect. Although

Trumbull disclaimed any peculiar knowledge or influence in respect of

Cabinet appointments, they proceeded to make their wishes known. They

said that a division had taken place in the Republican party of New

York, growing out of corruption at Albany during the last session of the

legislature, in which many Republicans were implicated; that so strong

was the feeling against certain transactions there, that but for the

presidential election the Republicans would have lost the state in

November; and that unless the transactions were repudiated by the coming

legislature the party would be beaten next year. They did not connect

Governor Seward personally with these transactions, but said that

several of his particular and most intimate friends, whom they named,

were implicated, and that if he went into the Cabinet he would draw them

after him.

Trumbull suggested to them that if Governor Seward went into the

Cabinet, as many people considered to be his due, it did not necessarily

follow that he would control the patronage of New York. Mr. Mann,

however, thought that this would be inevitable. He and Mr. Bryant and

Mr. Noyes expressed the opinion that Seward did not desire to go into

the Cabinet unless he could control the patronage and thus serve his

friends. They said they had no name to propose as a New York member of

the Cabinet, but they did not want the load of the Albany plunderers put

upon them, and that if it were so the party in New York would be ruined.

The purport of this interview was communicated by Trumbull to Lincoln by

letter dated Washington, December 2, 1860. Lincoln replied as follows:

_Private_

SPRINGFIELD, ILL., Dec. 8, 1860.

HON. LYMAN TRUMBULL.

MY DEAR SIR: Yours of the 2nd is received. I regret exceedingly

the anxiety of our friends in New York, of whom you write; but

it seems to me the sentiment in that State which sent a united

delegation to Chicago in favor of Gov. Seward ought not and

must not be snubbed, as it would be, by the omission to offer

Gov. S. a place in the Cabinet. _I will myself take care of the

question of "corrupt jobs"_ and see that justice is done to all

our friends of whom you wrote, as well as others.

I have written to Mr. Hamlin on this very subject of Gov. S.

and requested him to consult fully with you. He will show you

my note and enclosures to him; and then please act as therein

requested.

Yours as ever,

A. LINCOLN.

The enclosures were a formal tender of the office of Secretary of State

to Seward and a private letter to him urging his acceptance of the

appointment. The note to Hamlin requested that if he and Trumbull

concurred in the step, the letters should be handed to Seward. They were

promptly delivered.

As matters stood at that time it was certainly due to Seward that a

place in the Cabinet should be offered to him and that it should be the

foremost place. He was still the intellectual premier of the party and

nobody could impair his influence but himself. The principal scheme at

Albany, to which Bryant and his colleagues alluded, was a "gridiron"

street railroad bill for New York City, for which Weed was the political

engineer.

Trumbull saw Horace Greeley at this time. The latter would not recommend

taking a Cabinet officer from New York at all, but he did suggest giving

the mission to France to John C. Fremont. If this advice had been

followed, and Fremont had been kept out of the country, Lincoln would

have been spared one of the most terrible thorns in the side of his

Administration; but fate ordained otherwise, for when Cameron was taken

into the Cabinet it became necessary to provide a place for Dayton, and

Paris was chosen for that purpose.

The Cameron affair was the greatest embarrassment that Lincoln had to

deal with before his inauguration. It was a fact of evil omen that David

Davis, one of the delegates of Illinois to the Chicago Convention,

assuming to speak by authority, made promises that Simon Cameron, of

Pennsylvania, and Caleb Smith, of Indiana, should have places in the

Cabinet if Lincoln were elected. In so doing, Davis went counter to the

only instructions he had ever received from Lincoln on that subject. The

day before the nomination was made, the editor of the Springfield

_Journal_ arrived at the rooms of the Illinois delegation with a copy of

the _Missouri Democrat_, in which Lincoln had marked three passages and

made some of his own comments on the margin. Then he added, in words

underscored: "Make no contracts that will bind me." Herndon says that

this paper was read aloud to Davis, Judd, Logan, and himself. Davis then

argued that Lincoln, being at Springfield, could not judge of the

necessities of the situation in Chicago, and, acting upon that view of

the case, went ahead with his negotiations with the men of Pennsylvania

and Indiana, and made the promises as above stated.[45]

Gideon Welles, in his book on Lincoln and Seward, says there was but one

member of the Cabinet appointed "on the special urgent recommendation

and advice of Seward and his friends, but that gentleman was soon, with

Seward's approval, transferred to Hyperborean regions in a way and for

reasons never publicly made known." That man was Cameron.

The implication here is that Simon Cameron was appointed a member of

Lincoln's Cabinet in consequence of Seward's influence, and at his

desire. That Seward and Weed labored for Cameron's appointment, and that

Weed had private reasons for doing so, is true, but the controlling

factor was something of earlier date. David Davis had left his

comfortable home at Bloomington and gone to Springfield to redeem his

convention pledges. He camped alongside of Lincoln and laid siege to

him. He had a very strong case _prima facie_. He had not only worked for

Lincoln with all his might, but he had paid three hundred dollars out of

his own pocket for the rent of the Lincoln headquarters during the

convention. This seems like a small sum now, but it was three times as

much as Lincoln himself could have paid then for any political purpose.

Moreover, Davis had actually succeeded in what he had undertaken.[46]

A. K. McClure says, in his book on "Lincoln and Men of War Times" (p.

139), that the men who immediately represented Cameron on that occasion

(John P. Sanderson and Alexander Cummings) really had little influence

with the Pennsylvania delegation, and that the change of votes from

Cameron to Lincoln was not due to this barter.

Nicolay and Hay say that after the election Lincoln invited Cameron to

come to Springfield, but they produce no evidence to that effect. On the

other hand, Gideon Welles, quoting from an interview with Fogg, of New

Hampshire (a first-rate authority), says that Cameron tried to get an

invitation to Springfield, but that Lincoln would not give it; that a

little later Cameron invited Leonard Swett to his home at Lochiel,

Pennsylvania, and that while there Swett took upon himself to extend

such an invitation in Lincoln's name, and that Lincoln, although

surprised, was obliged to acquiesce in what Swett had done.[47] Swett,

it may be remarked, was the _Fidus Achates_ of David Davis at all times.

Cameron came to Springfield with a troop of followers, and the result

was that, on the 31st of December, Lincoln handed him a brief note

saying that he intended to nominate him for Secretary of the Treasury,

or Secretary of War, at the proper time.

Almost immediately thereafter he received a shock from A. K. McClure in

the form of a telegram saying that the appointment of Cameron would

split the party in Pennsylvania and do irreparable harm to the new

Administration. He invited McClure to come to Springfield and give him

the particular reasons, but McClure does not tell us what the reasons

were. Evidently they were graver and deeper than a mere faction fight in

the party, or a question whether Cameron or Curtin should have the

disposal of the patronage. They included personal as well as political

delinquencies, but McClure declined to put them in writing.

After hearing them, Lincoln wrote another letter to Cameron dated

January 3, 1861, asking him to decline the appointment that had been

previously tendered to him, and to do so at once by telegraph. Cameron

did not decline. Consequently Lincoln repeated the request ten days

later, January 13.

In the mean time Trumbull, having learned that a place in the

Cabinet--probably the Treasury--had been offered to Cameron, wrote a

letter to Lincoln, dated January 3, advising him not to appoint him. To

this letter Lincoln wrote the following reply:

_Very Confidential_

SPRINGFIELD, ILL., Jan. 7, 1861.

HON. LYMAN TRUMBULL,

MY DEAR SIR: Yours of the 3d is just received.... Gen. C. has

not been offered the Treasury and I think will not be. It seems

to me not only highly proper but a _necessity_ that Gov. Chase

shall take that place. His ability, firmness, and purity of

character produce this propriety; and that he alone can

reconcile Mr. Bryant and his class to the appointment of Gov.

S. to the State Department produces the necessity. But then

comes the danger that the protectionists of Pennsylvania will

be dissatisfied; and to clear this difficulty Gen. C. must be

brought to cooeperate. He would readily do this for the War

Department. But then comes the fierce opposition to his having

any Department, threatening even to send charges into the

Senate to procure his rejection by that body. Now, what I would

most like, and what I think he should prefer too, under the

circumstances, would be to retain his place in the Senate, and

if that place has been promised to another let that other take

a respectable and reasonably lucrative place abroad. Also, let

Gen. C.'s friends be, with entire fairness, cared for in

Pennsylvania and elsewhere. I may mention before closing that

besides the very fixed opposition to Gen. C. he is more amply

recommended for a place in the Cabinet than any other man....

Yours as ever,

A. LINCOLN.

It is easy to read two facts between these lines: first, that although

Lincoln had written a letter four days earlier withdrawing his offer to

Cameron, some influence had intervened to cause new hesitations; second,

that Lincoln knew that Cameron ought not to be taken into the Cabinet at

all, and that he was now seeking some way to buy him off. The cause of

the new hesitation was that David Davis was clinging to him like a burr.

The last observation in the letter to Trumbull, that Cameron was more

amply recommended for a place in the Cabinet than any other man, points

to the activity of Seward and Weed in Cameron's behalf, of which Welles

gives details in the interview with Fogg above mentioned.

Before Lincoln's letter of the 7th reached Trumbull, the latter wrote

the following, giving his objections to Cameron more in detail:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10, 1861.

HON. A. LINCOLN,

MY DEAR SIR: My last to you was written in a hurry--in the

midst of business in the Senate, and I have not a precise

recollection of its terms--but I desire now to write you a

little more fully in regard to this Cameron movement, and in

doing so, I have no other desire than the success of our

Administration. Cameron is very generally regarded as a

trading, unscrupulous politician. He has not the confidence of

our best men. He is a great manager and by his schemes has for

the moment created an apparent public sentiment in Penna. in

his favor. Many of the persons who are most strenuously urging

his appointment are doubtless doing it in anticipation of a

compensation. It is rather an ungracious matter to interfere to

oppose his selection and hence those who believe him unfit and

unworthy of the place [Copy illegible] seems to me he is

totally unfit for the Treasury Department. You may perhaps ask,

how, if these things are true, does he have so many friends,

and such, to support him, and such representative men. I am

surprised at it, but the world is full of great examples of men

succeeding for a time by intrigue and management. Report says

that C. secured Wilmot in his favor by assurances of support

for the Senate, and then secured Cowan by abandoning W. at the

last. The men who make the charges against Cameron are not all,

I am sure, either his personal enemies, or governed by

prejudice. Another very serious objection to Cameron is his

connection with Gov. Seward. The Governor is a man who acts

through others and men believe that Cameron would be his

instrument in the Cabinet. It is my decided conviction that

C.'s selection would be a great mistake and it is a pity he is

[Copy illegible] Gov. Seward's appointment is acquiesced in by

all our friends. Some wish it were not so, but regard it rather

as a necessity, and are not disposed to complain. There is a

very general desire here to have Gov. Chase go into the Cabinet

and in that wish I most heartily concur. In my judgment you had

better put Chase in the Cabinet and leave Cameron out, even at

the risk of a rupture with the latter, but I am satisfied he

can be got along with. He is an exacting man, but in the end

will put up with what he can get. He cannot get along in

hostility to you, and when treated fairly, and as he ought to

be, will acquiesce. This letter is, of course, strictly

confidential.

There is a reaction here and the danger of an attack on

Washington is, I think, over.

Very truly your friend,

LYMAN TRUMBULL.

The newspapers soon got hold of the fact that a place in the Cabinet had

been offered to Cameron. They did not learn that he had been asked to

decline it. Letters began to reach Trumbull urging him to use his

influence to prevent such a calamity. For example:

James H. Van Alen, New York, January 8, says honest men of all

parties were shocked by the rumor of Cameron's appointment to

the Treasury. This evening Judge Hogeboom and Mr. Opdycke leave

for Springfield and Messrs. D. D. Field and Barney for

Washington to make their urgent protest against the act. Says

he has written to Lincoln and forwarded extracts from

congressional documents in relation to Simon Cameron's actions

as commissioner to settle the claims of the half-breed

Winnebago Indians. Refers to the _Congressional Globe_, 25th

Congress, 3d Session, p. 194.

E. Peck, Springfield, January 10, says all the Chicago members

of the legislature took such steps as they could to prevent the

appointment of Cameron, believing him not to be a proper man

for any place in the Cabinet. If he goes in, it will not be as

the head of the Treasury Department. Understands that Chase was

offered the Treasury, but did not accept.

C. H. Ray, Springfield, January 16, thinks that the Cameron

business should be brought to a halt by some decisive action

among the Republicans in Senate and House. Says Lincoln sees

the error into which he has fallen, and would, most likely, be

glad to recede; but, except a dozen letters, he hears only from

the Cameron and Weed gang.

E. Peck, Springfield, February 1, says David Davis is quite

"huffy" because of the objections raised to Cameron and because

Smith, of Indiana, is not at once admitted to the Cabinet.

William Butler (state treasurer), Springfield, February 7, says

that last evening he had a confidential conversation with

Lincoln, who told him that the appointment of Cameron, or his

intimation to Cameron that he would offer him a place in the

Cabinet, had given him more trouble than anything else that he

had yet encountered. He had made up his mind that after

reaching Washington he would first send for Cameron and say to

him that he intended to submit the question of his appointment

to the Republican Senators; that he should call them together

for consultation, but would leave Cameron out, as the question

to be considered would be solely in reference to him; and that

he (Lincoln) wished to deal frankly and for the good of the

party. Butler thinks it would be disastrous to Cameron to go

into the Cabinet under such circumstances.

Norman B. Judd, of Chicago, was also expecting a place in the Cabinet.

He was a lawyer by profession and general attorney of the Chicago and

Rock Island Railroad. He had been a member of the State Senate, where he

contributed largely to Trumbull's first election to the United States

Senate, after which he had been devoted to Trumbull's political

interests and no less to Lincoln's. He was chairman of the Republican

State Committee and a member of the National Committee. He had been a

delegate-at-large to the Chicago Convention, where he had worked

untiringly and effectively for Lincoln's nomination. He was not a man

of ideas, but was fertile in expedients. In politics he was a "trimmer,"

sly, cat-like, and mysterious, and thus he came to be considered more

farseeing then he really was; but he was jovial, companionable, and

popular with the boys who looked after the primaries and the nominating

conventions. Both as a legislator and a party manager his reputation was

good, but his qualities were those of the politician rather than of the

statesman. He was certainly the equal of Caleb Smith and the superior of

Cameron. If he had been taken into the Cabinet, he would not have been

ejected without assignable reasons nine months later. It was known

immediately after the November election that he expected a Cabinet

position and that Trumbull favored him.

January 3, 1861, Judd wrote to Trumbull that he had heard no word from

Lincoln, but he had heard indirectly from Butler (state treasurer) that

Lincoln "never had a truer friend than myself and there was no one in

whom he placed greater confidence; still circumstances embarrassed him

about a Cabinet appointment." Judd understood this to mean that he would

not be appointed and he took it very much to heart. Doubtless the

circumstance that most embarrassed Lincoln was the same that operated in

Cameron's case. David Davis was insisting that his pledge to the Indiana

delegates should be made good.

January 6, Lincoln made an early call on Gustave Koerner at his hotel in

Springfield, before the latter was out of bed. Koerner gives the

following account of it in his "Memoirs":[48]

I unbolted the door and in came Mr. Lincoln. "I want to see you

and Judd. Where is his room?" I gave him the number, and

presently he returned with Judd while I was dressing.

"I am in a quandary," he said; "Pennsylvania is entitled to a

Cabinet office. But whom shall I appoint?" "Not Cameron," Judd

and myself spoke up simultaneously. "But whom else?" We

suggested Reeder or Wilmot. "Oh," said he, "they have no show.

There have been delegation after delegation from Pennsylvania,

hundreds of letters and the cry is Cameron, Cameron. Besides,

you know I have already fixed on Chase, Seward, and Bates, my

competitors at the convention. The Pennsylvania people say if

you leave out Cameron you disgrace him. Is there not something

in that?" I said, "Cameron cannot be trusted. He has the

reputation of being a tricky and corrupt politician." "I know,

I know," said Lincoln; "but can I get along if that State

should oppose my administration?" He was very much distressed.

We told him he would greatly regret his appointment. Our

interview ended in a protest on the part of Judd and myself

against the appointment.

January 7, Trumbull wrote to Lincoln advising him to give a Cabinet

appointment to some person who could stand in a nearer and more

confidential relation to him than that which grew out of political

affinity, adding that he (Lincoln) knew whether Judd was the kind of man

who would meet such requirements, and enclosing a written recommendation

of Judd for such a position, signed by himself and Senators Grimes,

Chandler, Wade, Wilkinson, Durkee, Harlan, and Doolittle. These, he

said, were the only persons to whom the paper had been shown and the

only ones aware of its existence.

Let it be said in passing that this was bad advice. Any man going into

the Cabinet as a more confidential friend of the President than the

others would have had all the others for his enemies.

January 10, William Jayne and Ebenezer Peck (both members of the state

legislature) expressed the opinion that Judd would be appointed.

Evidently the Trumbull letter and enclosure had, for the time being,

produced the intended effect. Jayne said that Davis and Yates were

opposed to Judd, but that Butler and Judge Logan favored him.

February 17, Judd wrote from Buffalo, New York, where he was

accompanying Lincoln on his journey to Washington, saying that he

believed the Treasury would be offered again to Chase, and if so he must

accept, although it might cause another "irrepressible conflict." He

said nothing about his own prospects.[49]

Evidently Lincoln had not yet decided to take Cameron into the Cabinet,

but after he arrived in Washington the influence of Seward and Weed,

which Dr. Ray had prefigured in a letter to Trumbull, prevailed upon him

to do so. This was the opinion of Montgomery Blair, a high-minded man

and an acute observer, expressed to Gideon Welles in these words:

Cameron had got into the War Department by the contrivance and

cunning of Seward who used him and other corruptionists as he

pleased with the assistance of Thurlow Weed; that Seward had

tried to get Cameron into the Treasury, but was unable to quite

accomplish that, and, after a hard underground quarrel against

Chase, it ended in the loss of Cameron, who went over to Chase

and left Seward.[50]

When Cameron and Smith were appointed, the Berlin Mission was given to

Judd, as a salve to his wound. Gustave Koerner had been "slated" in the

newspapers for the Berlin Mission, although he had not applied for it. A

telegram had been sent out from Springfield to the effect that that

place had been reserved for him, and he erroneously supposed that it had

been done with Lincoln's consent. It had been published far and wide in

America and Europe without contradiction. Koerner's friends on both

sides of the water had written congratulatory letters to him, and

everybody seemed to think that the thing was done, and wisely done. Some

of his clients had notified him that, having observed in the newspapers

that he was going abroad for a few years, they had engaged other counsel

to attend to their law business. At this very time Koerner was laboring

for Judd's appointment as member of the Cabinet.

The same telegram that announced failure in this attempt announced that

Judd had been designated as Minister to Prussia and had accepted.

Koerner felt humiliated, and he now applied for some other foreign

mission which might be awarded to the German element of the

party--preferably that of Switzerland; but it was now too late. The

other places had all been spoken for. At a later period he was appointed

Minister to Spain.

On the 9th of January, 1861, Trumbull was reelected Senator of the

United States by the legislature of Illinois, by 54 votes against 46 for

S. S. Marshall (Democrat). His nomination in the Republican caucus was

without opposition.

At the beginning of the special session of Congress called by President

Lincoln for July 4, 1861, Trumbull was appointed by his fellow Senators

Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, which place he occupied

during the succeeding twelve years.

The first duty he was called to perform was to announce the death of his

colleague, Stephen A. Douglas. Douglas had placed himself at Lincoln's

service in all efforts to uphold the Constitution and enforce the laws

against the disunionists. He returned from Washington early in April and

got in touch with his constituents, ready to act promptly as events

might turn out. It turned out that the Confederates struck the first

blow in the Civil War by bombarding Fort Sumter. This was the signal

for Douglas's last and greatest political and oratorical effort. The

state legislature, then in session, invited him to address them on the

present crisis, and he responded on the 25th of April in a speech which

made Illinois solid for the Union. The writer was one of the listeners

to that speech and he cannot conceive that any orator of ancient or

modern times could have surpassed it. Douglas seized upon his hearers

with a kind of titanic grasp and held them captive, enthralled,

spellbound for an immortal hour. He was the only man who could have

saved southern Illinois from the danger of an internecine war. The

southern counties followed him now as faithfully and as unanimously as

they had followed him in previous years, and sent their sons into the

field to fight for the Union as numerously and bravely as those of any

other section of the state or of the country. Douglas had only a few

more days to live. He was now forty-eight years of age, but if he had

survived forty-eight more he could never have surpassed that eloquence

or exceeded that service to the nation, for he never could have found

another like occasion for the use of his astounding powers.

He died at Chicago, June 3, 1861. Trumbull's eulogy was solemn, sincere,

pathetic, and impressive--a model of good taste in every way. He

retracted nothing, but, ignoring past differences, he gave an abounding

and heartfelt tribute of praise to the dead statesman for his matchless

service to his country in the hour of her greatest need. He concluded

with these words:

On the 17th day of June last, all that remained of our departed

brother was interred near the city of Chicago, on the shore of

Lake Michigan, whose pure waters, often lashed into fury by

contending elements, are a fitting memento of the stormy and

boisterous political tumults through which the great popular

orator so often passed. There the people, whose idol he was,

will erect a monument to his memory; and there, in the soil of

the state which so long without interruption, and never to a

greater extent than at the moment of his death, gave him her

confidence, let his remains repose so long as free government

shall last and the Constitution he loved so well endure.

FOOTNOTES:

[45] _Life of Lincoln_, by Herndon-Weik, 2d edition, III, 172, 181.

[46] David Davis's habit of coercing Lincoln was once complained of by

Lincoln himself, as related in a letter (now in the possession of Jesse

W. Weik) of Henry C. Whitney to Wm. H. Herndon. Whitney says:

"On March 5, 1861, I saw Lincoln and requested him to appoint Jim Somers

of Champaign to a small clerkship. Lincoln was very impatient and said

abruptly: 'There is Davis, with that way of making a man do a thing

whether he wants to or not, who has forced me to appoint Archy Williams

judge in Kansas right off and John Jones to a place in the State

Department; and I have got a bushel of despatches from Kansas wanting to

know if I'm going to fill up all the offices from Illinois.'"

[47] _Diary of Gideon Welles_, II, 390.

[48] Vol. II, p. 114.

[49] Fogg of New Hampshire says: "Mrs. Lincoln has the credit of

excluding Judd, of Chicago, from the Cabinet,"--which is not unlikely.

_Diary of Gideon Welles._

[50] _Diary of Gideon Welles_, I, 126.

CHAPTER IX

FORT SUMTER

Mrs. Trumbull did not accompany her husband to Washington at the special

session of Congress July 4, 1861. A few letters written to her by him

have been preserved. One of these revives the memory of an affair which

caused intense indignation throughout the loyal states.

On the day when it was decided in Cabinet meeting to send supplies to

Major Anderson in Fort Sumter, a newspaper correspondent named Harvey, a

native of South Carolina, sent a telegram to Governor Pickens at

Charleston notifying him of the fact. Harvey was the only newspaper man

in Washington who had the news. He did not put his own name on the

telegram, but signed it "A Friend." He was afterward appointed, at

Secretary Seward's instance, as Minister to Portugal, although he was so

obscure in the political world that the other Washington correspondents

had to unearth and identify him to the public. It was said that he had

once been the editor of the Philadelphia _North American_. After he had

departed for his mission, there had been a seizure of telegrams by the

Government and this anonymous one to Governor Pickens was found. The

receiving-clerk testified that it had been sent by Harvey. The

Republicans in Congress, and especially the Senators who had voted to

confirm him, were boiling with indignation. A committee of the latter

was appointed to call upon the President and request him to recall

Harvey. A letter of Trumbull to his wife (July 14) says:

The Republicans in caucus appointed a committee to express to

him their want of confidence in Harvey, Minister to Portugal.

Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward informed the committee that they

were aware of the worst dispatch to Governor Pickens before he

left the country, but not before he received the appointment,

and they did not think from their conversation with Harvey that

he had any criminal intent, and requested the committee to

report the facts to the caucus, Mr. Lincoln saying that he

would like to know whether Senators were as dissatisfied when

they came to know all the facts. The caucus will meet to-morrow

and I do not believe will be satisfied with the explanation.

The inside history of this telegram was made public long afterward.

Shortly before Seward took office as Secretary of State there came to

Washington City three commissioners from Montgomery, Alabama, whose

purpose was to negotiate terms of peaceful separation of the Confederate

States of America from the United States, or to report to their own

Government the refusal of the latter to enter into such negotiation.

These men were Martin J. Crawford, John Forsyth, and A. B. Roman. They

arrived in Washington on the 27th of February, four days after Lincoln's

arrival and one week before his inauguration. They did not make their

errand known until after the inauguration. They then communicated with

Seward, by an intermediary, the nature of their mission, and the latter

replied verbally that it was the intention of the new Administration to

settle the dispute in an amicable manner. On the 15th of March, Seward

assured the Confederate envoys that Sumter would be evacuated before a

letter from them could reach Montgomery--that is, within five days. The

negotiations were protracted till a decision had been reached, contrary

to Seward's desires and promises, to send a fleet with provisions to

relieve the garrison at Fort Sumter. Then Seward gave this fact to

Harvey, knowing that he would transmit it to Governor Pickens and that

the probable effect would be to defeat the scheme of relieving the

garrison. This he evidently desired. He had already secretly detached

the steamer Powhatan, an indispensable part of the Sumter fleet, and

sent it on a useless expedition to Pensacola Harbor.

Gideon Welles's account of the Harvey affair is as follows:

Soon after President Lincoln had formed the resolution to

attempt the relief of Sumter, and whilst it was yet a secret, a

young man connected with the telegraph office in Washington,

with whom I was acquainted, a native of the same town with

myself, brought to me successively two telegrams conveying to

the rebel authorities information of the purposes and decisions

of the Administration. One of these telegrams was from Mr.

Harvey, a newspaper correspondent, who was soon after, and with

a full knowledge of his having communicated to the rebels the

movements of the Government, appointed Minister to Lisbon. I

had, on receiving these copies, handed them to the President.

Mr. Blair, who had also obtained a copy of one, perhaps both,

of these telegrams from another source, likewise informed him

of the treachery. The subject was once or twice alluded to in

Cabinet without eliciting any action, and when the nomination

of Mr. Harvey to the Portuguese Mission was announced--a

nomination made without the knowledge of any member of the

Cabinet but the Secretary of State and made at his special

request--there was general disapprobation except by the

President (who avoided the expression of any opinion) and by

Mr. Seward. The latter defended and justified the selection,

which he admitted was recommended by himself, but the President

was silent in regard to it.[51]

Trumbull says in his letter that Lincoln and Seward told the committee

that they did not know that Harvey had sent the dispatch before he

received the appointment. Welles says that both of them knew it

beforehand, and that it was a matter of Cabinet discussion in which

Lincoln, however, took no part. How are we to explain this

contradiction? It was impossible for Lincoln to utter an untruth, but if

we may credit Gideon Welles, _passim_, it was not impossible for Seward

to do so and for Lincoln to remain silent while he did so, as he

remained silent while the Cabinet were discussing the appointment of

Harvey. If Seward, at the meeting of which Trumbull wrote, in this

private letter to his wife, took the lead in the conversation, as was

his habit, and said that there was no knowledge of Harvey's telegram to

Governor Pickens until after Harvey had been appointed as minister, and

Lincoln said nothing to the contrary, he would naturally have assumed

that Seward spoke for both.

There is reason to believe that Seward had previously prevailed upon the

President to agree to surrender Fort Sumter, as a means of preventing

the secession of Virginia. Evidence of this fact is supplied by the

following entry in the diary of John Hay, under date October 22, 1861:

At Seward's to-night the President talked about Secession,

Compromise, and other such. He spoke of a Committee of Southern

pseudo-unionists coming to him before inauguration for

guarantees, etc. _He promised to evacuate Sumter if they would

break up their Convention without any row, or nonsense._ They

demurred. Subsequently he renewed proposition to Summers, but

without any result. The President was most anxious to prevent

bloodshed.[52]

Hay here speaks of two offers made by Lincoln to evacuate Sumter, one

before his inauguration and one after. Both were made on condition that

a certain convention should be adjourned. This was the convention of

Virginia, which had been called to consider the question of secession.

It had met in Richmond on the 18th of February, while Lincoln was _en

route_ for Washington. As Lincoln arrived in Washington on the 23d of

February, the first offer must have been made in the interval between

that day and the 4th of March.

The History of Nicolay and Hay does not mention the first offer. It

speaks of the second one as a matter about which the facts are in

dispute, the disputants being John Minor Botts and J. B. Baldwin. Botts

was an ex-member of Congress from Virginia and a strong Union man.

Baldwin was a member of the Virginia Convention and a Union man. He had

come to Washington in response to an invitation which Lincoln had sent,

on or about the 20th of March, to George W. Summers, who was likewise a

member of the convention. Summers was not able to come at the time when

the invitation reached him, and he deputed Baldwin to go in his place.

After the war ended, Botts wrote a book entitled "The Great Rebellion,"

in which he gave the following account of an interview he had had with

President Lincoln on Sunday, April 7, 1861 (two days after Baldwin had

had his interview):

About this time Mr. Lincoln sent a messenger to Richmond,

inviting a distinguished member of the Union party to come

immediately to Washington, and if he could not come himself, to

send some other prominent Union man, as he wanted to see him on

business of the first importance. The gentleman thus addressed,

Mr. Summers, did not go, but sent another, Mr. J. B. Baldwin,

who had distinguished himself by his zeal in the Union cause

during the session of the convention; but this gentleman was

slow in getting to Washington, and did not reach there for

something like a week after the time he was expected. He

reached Washington on Friday, the 5th of April, and, on calling

on Mr. Lincoln, the following conversation in substance took

place, as I learned from Mr. Lincoln himself. After expressing

some regret that he had not come sooner, Mr. Lincoln said, "My

object in desiring the presence of Mr. Summers, or some other

influential and leading member of the Union party in your

convention, was to submit a proposition by which I think the

peace of the country can be preserved; but I fear you are

almost too late. However, I will make it yet.

"This afternoon," he said, "a fleet is to sail from the harbor

of New York for Charleston; your convention has been in session

for nearly two months, and you have done nothing but hold and

shake the rod over my head. You have just taken a vote, by

which it appears you have a majority of two to one against

secession. Now, so great is my desire to preserve the peace of

the country, and to save the border states to the Union, that

if you gentlemen of the Union party will adjourn without

passing an ordinance of secession, I will telegraph at once to

New York, arrest the sailing of the fleet, and take the

responsibility of EVACUATING FORT SUMTER!"

The proposition was declined. On the following Sunday night I

was with Mr. Lincoln, and the greater part of the time alone,

when Mr. Lincoln related the above facts to me. I inquired,

"Well, Mr. Lincoln, what reply did Mr. Baldwin make?" "Oh,"

said he, throwing up his hands, "he wouldn't listen to it at

all; scarcely treated me with civility; asked me what I meant

by an adjournment; was it an adjournment _sine die_?" "Of

course," said Mr. Lincoln, "I don't want you to adjourn, and,

after I have evacuated the fort, meet again to adopt an

ordinance of secession." I then said, "Mr. Lincoln, will you

authorize _me_ to make that proposition? For I will start

to-morrow morning, and have a meeting of the Union men

to-morrow night, who, I have no doubt, will gladly accept it."

To which he replied, "It's too late, now; the fleet sailed on

Friday evening."

In 1866, the Reconstruction Committee of Congress got an inkling of this

interview between Lincoln and Baldwin, called Baldwin as a witness, and

questioned him about it. He testified that he had an interview with the

President at the date mentioned, but denied that Lincoln had offered to

evacuate Fort Sumter if the Virginia Convention would adjourn _sine

die_. Thereupon Botts collected and published a mass of collateral

evidence to show that Baldwin had testified falsely.

Botts says in his book that he had confirmatory letters from Governor

Peirpoint, General Millson, of Virginia, Dr. Stone, of Washington, Hon.

Garrett Davis (Senator from Kentucky), Robert A. Gray, of Rockingham

(brother-in-law to Baldwin), Campbell Tarr, of Wheeling, and three

others, to whom Lincoln made the statement regarding his interview with

Baldwin, in almost the same language in which he made it to Botts

himself. Botts quotes from two letters written to him by John F. Lewis

in 1866, in which the latter says that Baldwin acknowledged to him

(Lewis) that Lincoln did offer to evacuate Fort Sumter on the condition

named. There are persons now living to whom Lewis made the same

statement, verbally.

There is another piece of evidence, supplied by Rev. R. L. Dabney in the

Southern Historical Society Papers, in a communication entitled "Colonel

Baldwin's Interview with Mr. Lincoln." This purports to give the

writer's recollections of an interview with Baldwin in March, 1865, at

Petersburg, while the siege of that place was going on. Baldwin said

that Secretary Seward sent Allan B. Magruder as a messenger to Mr.

Janney, president of the Virginia Convention, urging that one of the

Union members come to Washington to confer with Lincoln. Baldwin was

called out of the convention by Summers on the 3d of April to see

Magruder, and the latter said that Seward had authorized him to say that

Fort Sumter would be evacuated on Friday of the ensuing week. The

gentlemen consulted urged Baldwin to go to Washington, and he consented

and did go promptly. Seward accompanied him to the White House and

Lincoln took him upstairs into his bedroom and locked the door. Lincoln

"took a seat on the edge of the bed, spitting from time to time on the

carpet." The two entered into a long dispute about the right of

secession. Baldwin insisted that coercion would lead to war, in which

case Virginia would join in behalf of the seceded states.

Lincoln's native good sense [the narrative proceeds], with

Baldwin's evident sincerity, seemed now to open his eyes to the

truth. He slid off the edge of the bed and began to stalk in

his awkward manner across the chamber in great excitement and

perplexity. He clutched his shaggy hair as though he would jerk

out handfuls by the roots. He frowned and contorted his

features, exclaiming, "I ought to have known this sooner; you

are too late, sir, _too late_. Why did you not come here four

days ago and tell me all this?" Colonel Baldwin replied: "Why,

Mr. President, you did not ask our advice."

The foregoing narrative involves the supposition that Lincoln, in the

midst of preparations for sending a fleet to Fort Sumter, dispatched a

messenger to Richmond to bring a man to Washington to discuss with him

the abstract question of the right of a state to secede, and that,

having procured the presence of such a person, he took him into a

bedroom, locked the door, and had the debate with him, taking care that

nobody else should hear a syllable of it. Not a word about Fort Sumter,

although Magruder, the messenger, had said that it would be evacuated on

the following Friday! Yet the Rev. Mr. Dabney did not see the

incongruity of the situation.

Nicolay and Hay say that Lincoln did not make any offer to Baldwin to

evacuate Sumter, but did tell him what he had intended to say to

Summers, if the latter had come to Washington at the right time.[53]

Douglas in combating the Rebels, in contrast to the futile diplomacy of

Seward:

A marvelous incident is related in Welles's Diary immediately after his

narrative of the Harvey affair. It describes the activity and

earnestness of Stephen A.

Two days preceding the attack on Sumter, I met Senator Douglas

in front of the Treasury Building. He was in a carriage with

Mrs. Douglas, driving rapidly up the street. When he saw me he

checked his driver, jumped from the carriage, and came to me on

the sidewalk, and in a very earnest and emphatic manner said

the rebels were determined on war and were about to make an

assault on Sumter. He thought immediate and decisive measures

should be taken; considered it a mistake that there had not

already been more energetic action; said the dilatory

proceedings of the Government would bring on a terrible civil

war; that the whole South was united and in earnest. Although

he had differed with the Administration on important questions

and would never be in accord with some of its members on

measures and principles that were fundamental, yet he had no

fellowship with traitors or disunionists. He was for the Union

and would stand by the Administration and all others in its

defense, regardless of party. [Welles proposed that they should

step into the State Department and consult with Seward.] The

look of mingled astonishment and incredulity which came over

him I can never forget. "Then you," he said, "have faith in

Seward! Have you made yourself acquainted with what has been

going on here all winter? Seward has had an understanding with

these men. If he has influence with them, why don't he use it?"

Douglas considered it a waste of time and effort to talk to Seward,

considered him a dead weight and drag on the Administration; said that

Lincoln was honest and meant to do right, but was benumbed by Seward;

but finally yielded to Welles's desire that they should go into Seward's

office, in front of which they were standing. They went in and Douglas

told Seward what he had told Welles, that the rebels were determined on

war and were about to make an assault on Sumter, and that the

Administration ought not to delay another minute, but should make

instant preparations for war. All the reply they got from Seward was

that there were many rash and reckless men at Charleston and that if

they were determined to assault Sumter he did not know how they were to

be prevented from doing so.

Seward's aims were patriotic but futile. He wished to save the Union

without bloodshed, but the steps which he took were almost suicidal.

What the country then needed was a jettison of compromises, and a

resolution of doubts. Providence supplied these. The bombardment of

Sumter accomplished the object as nothing else could have done. Nothing

could have been contrived so sure to awaken the volcanic forces that

ended in the destruction of slavery as the spectacle in Charleston

Harbor.

FOOTNOTES:

[51] _Diary of Gideon Welles_, I, 32.

[52] _Letters and Diaries of John Hay_, 1, 47.

[53] Nicolay and Hay, III, 428. Probably the entry in Hay's Diary had

been forgotten when the History was written, twenty-five years later.

CHAPTER X

BULL RUN--THE CONFISCATION ACT

In company with other Senators, Trumbull went to the battle of Bull Run,

July 21, 1861. His experience there he communicated to his wife, first

by a brief telegram, and afterwards by letter. The telegram was

suppressed by the authorities in charge of the telegraph office, who

substituted one of their own in place of it and appended his name to it.

The letter follows:

WASHINGTON, July 22nd, 1861.

We started over into Virginia about 9 o'clock A.M., and drove

to Centreville, which is a high commanding position and a

village of perhaps fifty houses. Bull Run, where the battle

occurred, is South about 3 miles and the creek on the main

road, looking West, is about 4-1/2 miles distant. The country

is timbered for perhaps a mile West of the creek, between which

and Centreville there are a good many cleared fields. At

Centreville, Grimes and I got saddles and rode horseback down

the main road towards the creek about three miles toward a

hospital where were some few wounded soldiers and a few

prisoners who had been sent back. This was about half-past

three o'clock P.M. Here we met with Col. Vandever of Iowa, who

gave us a very clear account of the battle. He had been with

Gen. McDowell and Gen. Hunter, who with the strongest part of

the army, had gone early in the morning a few miles north of

the main road and crossed the creek to take the enemy in the

flank. His division had very serious fighting, but had driven

the enemy back and taken three of his batteries. At the

hospital we were about one and a half miles from Generals Tyler

and Schenck, Col. Sherman, etc., who were down the road in the

woods and out of sight, with several regiments and a number of

guns. Their troops, Vandever told us, were a good deal

demoralized, and he feared an attack from the South towards

Bull Run where the battle of a few days ago was fought. About

this time a battery, apparently not more than a mile and a half

distant and from the South, fired on the battery where Sherman

and Schenck were. The firing was not rapid. On the hill at

Centreville we could see quite beyond the timber of the creek

off towards Manassas and see the smoke and hear the report of

the artillery, but not very rapid as I thought. This we

observed before leaving Centreville, and were told it was our

main army driving the enemy back, but slowly and with great

difficulty.

While at the hospital McDougall of California came up from the

neighborhood of Gen. Schenck and said he was going back towards

Centreville to a convenient place where he could get water and

take lunch. As Grimes and myself had got separated from Messrs.

Wade and Chandler and Brown, who had with them our supplies, we

concluded to go back with McD. and partake with him. We

returned on the road towards Centreville and turned up towards

a house fifty or a hundred yards from the road, where we

quietly took our lunch, the firing continuing about as before.

Just as we were putting away the things we heard a great noise,

and looking up towards the road saw it filled with wagons,

horsemen and footmen in full run towards Centreville. We

immediately mounted our horses and galloped to the road, by

which time it was crowded, hundreds being in advance on the way

to Centreville and two guns of the Sherman battery having

already passed in full retreat. We kept on with the crowd, not

knowing what else to do. On the way to Centreville many

soldiers threw away their guns, knapsacks, etc. Gov. Grimes and

I each picked up a gun. I soon came up to Senator Lane of

Indiana, and the gun being heavy to carry and he better able to

manage it, I gave it to him. Efforts were made to rally the men

by civilians and others on their way to Centreville, but all to

no purpose. Literally, three could have chased ten thousand.

All this stampede was occasioned, as I understand, by a charge

of not exceeding two hundred cavalry upon Schenck's column down

in the woods, which, instead of repulsing as they could easily

have done (having before become disordered and having lost some

of their officers), broke and ran, communicating the panic to

everybody they met. The rebel cavalry, or about one hundred of

them, charged up past the hospital where we had been and took

there some prisoners, as I am told, and released those we had.

It was the most shameful rout you can conceive of. I suppose

two thousand soldiers came rushing into Centreville in this

disorganized condition. The cavalry which made the charge I did

not see, but suppose they disappeared in double-quick time, not

dreaming that they had put a whole division to flight. Several

guns were left down in the woods, though I believe two were

brought off. What became of Schenck I do not know. Tyler, I

understand, was at Centreville when I got back there. Whether

other portions of our army were shamefully routed just at the

close of the day, after we had really won the battle, it seems

impossible for me to learn, though I was told that McDowell was

at Centreville when we were there and that his column had also

been driven back. If this be so it is a terrible defeat. At

Centreville there was a reserve of 8000 or 10,000 men under

Col. Miles who had not been in the action and they were formed

in line of battle when we left there, but the enemy did not, I

presume, advance to that point last night, as we heard no

firing. We fed our horses at Centreville and left there at six

o'clock last evening. Came on to Fairfax Court House, where we

got supper, and leaving there at ten o'clock reached home at

half-past two this morning, having had a sad day and witnessed

scenes I hope never to see again. Not very many baggage wagons,

perhaps not more than fifty, were advanced beyond Centreville.

From them the horses were mostly unhitched and the wagons left

standing in the road when the stampede took place. This side of

Centreville there were a great many wagons, and the alarm if

possible was greater than on the other. Thousands of shovels

were thrown out upon the road, also axes, boxes of provisions,

etc. In some instances wagons were upset to get them out of the

road, and the road was full of four-horse wagons retreating as

fast as possible, and also of flying soldiers who could not be

made to stop at Centreville. The officers stopped the wagons

and a good many of the retreating soldiers by putting a file of

men across the road and not allowing them to pass. In this way

all the teams were stopped, but a good many stragglers climbed

the fences and got by. I fear that a great, and, of course, a

terrible slaughter has overtaken the Union forces--God's ways

are inscrutable. I am dreadfully disappointed and mortified.

Copy of telegram sent to Mrs. Lyman Trumbull, July 22, 1861:

The battle resulted unfavorably to our cause.

LYMAN T.

When received by Mrs. Trumbull, it read:

I came from near the battlefield last night. It was a

desperately bloody fight.

The only bill of importance passed at the July session of Congress at

Trumbull's instance was one to declare free all slaves who might be

employed by their owners, or with their owners' consent, on any military

or naval work against the Government, and who might fall into our hands.

It was called a Confiscation Act, but it did not confiscate any other

than slave property. It was an entering wedge, however, for complete

emancipation which came by successive steps later.

At the beginning of the regular session (December, 1861), I was sent to

Washington City as correspondent of the Chicago _Tribune_, and was, for

the first time, brought into close relations with Trumbull. He had

rented a house on G Street, near the Post-Office Department.

Very few Senators at that period kept house in Washington. At Mrs.

Shipman's boarding-house on Seventh Street, lived Senators Fessenden,

Grimes, Foot, and Representatives Morrill, of Vermont, and Washburne, of

Illinois; and there I also found quarters. As this was only a block

distant from the Trumbulls', and as I had received a cordial welcome

from them, I was soon on terms of intimacy with the family. Mr. Trumbull

was then forty-eight-years of age, five feet ten and one half inches in

height, straight as an arrow, weighing one hundred and sixty-seven

pounds, of faultless physique, in perfect health, and in manners a

cultivated gentleman. Mrs. Trumbull was thirty-seven years old, of

winning features, gracious manners, and noble presence. Five children

had been born to them, all sons. Walter, fifteen years of age, the

eldest then living, had recently returned from an ocean voyage on the

warship Vandalia, under Commander S. Phillips Lee. A more attractive

family group, or one more charming in a social way or more kindly

affectioned one to another, I have never known. Civilization could show

no finer type.

The Thirty-seventh Congress met in a state of great depression. Disaster

had befallen the armies of the Union, but the defeat at Bull Run was not

so disheartening as the subsequent inaction both east and west.

McClellan on the Potomac had done nothing but organize and parade.

Fremont on the Mississippi had done worse than nothing. He had

surrounded himself with a gang of thieves whose plundering threatened to

bankrupt the treasury, and when he saw exposure threatening he issued a

military order emancipating slaves, the revocation of which by the

President very nearly upset the Government. The popular demand for a

blow at slavery as the cause of the rebellion had increased in

proportion as the military operations had been disappointing. Lincoln

believed that the time had not yet come for using that weapon. He

revoked Fremont's order. He thereby saved Kentucky to the Union, and he

still held emancipation in reserve for a later day; but he incurred the

risk of alienating the radical element of the Republican party--an

honest, fiery, valiant, indispensable wing of the forces supporting the

Union. The explosion which took place in this division of the party was

almost but not quite fatal. Many letters received by Trumbull at this

juncture were angry and some mournful in the extreme. The following

written by Mr. M. Carey Lea, of Philadelphia, touches upon a danger

threatening the national finances, in consequence of this episode:

PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 1, 1861.

DEAR SIR: The ability of our Government to carry on this war

depends upon its being able to continue to obtain the enormous

amounts of money requisite. Of late, within a week or so, an

alarming falling off in the bond subscriptions has taken place.

Now it is upon these private subscriptions that the ability of

the banks to continue to lend the Government money depends, and

unless a change takes place they will be unable to take the

fifty millions remaining of the one hundred and fifty millions

loan. A member of the committee informed me lately that the

banks had positively declined to pledge themselves before the

1st of December, notwithstanding Mr. Chase's desire that they

should do so.

This sudden diminution of subscriptions arises from the course

taken by some of our friends in the West. Even suppose that

Gen. Fremont is treated unfairly by the Government (and I think

he is fairly termed incapable)--but suppose there should be

injustice done him--you might disapprove it, but the moment

there is any serious idea of _resisting_ the act of the

President, _this_ war is ended. For the bare suggestion of such

a thing has almost stopped subscriptions, and the serious

discussion, much more the attempt, would instantly put an end

to them.

I beg to remind you that in what I say I have no prejudice

against Fremont. I voted for him and have always concurred in

opinions with the Republican party, but we have now reached a

point where, if we look to _men_ and not to _principles_, we

are shipwrecked. Fremont is not more anti-slavery in his views

than Lincoln and Seward, and if he were in their place would

adopt the same cautious policy. The state of affairs must be my

excuse for intruding upon you these views. We _all_ have _all_

at stake and such a crisis leads those to speak who are

ordinarily silent. I remain, my dear Sir,

Yours respectfully,

M. CAREY LEA.

To this weighty communication Trumbull made the following reply:

WASHINGTON, Nov. 5th, 1861.

MY DEAR SIR: Thanks for your kind letter just received. I was

not aware of a disposition in the West to resist the act of the

President in regard to Gen. Fremont; though I was aware that

there was very great dissatisfaction in that part of the

country at the want of enterprise and energy on that part of

our Grand Army of the Potomac. We are fighting to sustain

constitutional government and regulated liberty, and, of

course, to set up any military leader in opposition to the

constituted authorities would be utterly destructive of the

very purpose for which the people of the loyal states are now

so liberally contributing their blood and treasure, and could

only be justified in case those charged with the administration

of affairs were betraying their trusts or had shown themselves

utterly incompetent and unable to maintain the Government. In

my opinion this rebellion ought to and might have been crushed

before this.

I have entire confidence in the integrity and patriotism of the

President. He means well and in ordinary times would have made

one of the best of Presidents, but he lacks confidence in

himself and the _will_ necessary in this great emergency, and

he is most miserably surrounded. Now that Gen. Scott has

retired, I hope for more activity and should confidently expect

it did I not know that there is still remaining an influence

almost if not quite controlling, which I fear is looking more

to some grand diplomatic move for the settlement of our

troubles than to the strengthening of our arms. It is only by

making this war terrible to traitors that our difficulties can

be permanently settled. War means desolation, and they who have

brought it on must be made to feel all its horrors, and our

armies must go forth using all the means which God and nature

have put in their hands to put down this wicked rebellion. This

in the end will be done, and if our armies are vigorously and

actively led will soon give us peace. I trust that Gen.

McClellan will now drive the enemy from the vicinity of the

Capital--that he has the means to do it, I have no doubt. If

the case were reversed and the South had our means and our arms

and men, and we theirs, they would before this have driven us

to the St. Lawrence. If our army should go into winter quarters

with the Capital besieged, I very much fear the result would be

a recognition of the Confederates by foreign Governments, the

demoralization of our own people, and of course an inability

to raise either men or money another season. Such must not be.

Action, action is what we want and must have. God grant that

McClellan may prove equal to the emergency.

Yours very truly,

LYMAN TRUMBULL.

The "influence almost if not quite controlling" meant Seward. Secretary

Cameron went to St. Louis to investigate Fremont and found him guilty.

Two months later he followed Fremont's example.[54] In his report as

Secretary of War he inserted an argument in favor of the emancipation

and arming of slaves. This he sent to the newspapers in advance of its

delivery to the President and without his knowledge. The latter

discovered it in time to expunge the objectionable part and to prevent

its delivery to Congress, but not soon enough to recall it from the

press. The expunged part was published by some of the newspapers that

had received it and was reproduced in the _Congressional Globe_

(December 12), by Representative Eliot, of Massachusetts.

The next man to take upon himself the responsibility of declaring the

nation's policy on this momentous question was General David Hunter, who

then held sway over a small strip of ground on the coast of South

Carolina. In the month of May, 1862, he issued an order granting freedom

to all slaves in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Hunter's order

was promptly revoked by the President.

Trumbull had been the pioneer, at the July session, in the way of

legislation for freeing the slaves. On the first day of the regular

session he took another step forward, by introducing a bill for the

confiscation of the property of the rebels and for giving freedom to

persons held as slaves by them. This came to be known as the

Confiscation Act.

On the 5th of December, 1861, he reported the bill from the Committee on

the Judiciary and made a brief speech on it. It provided that all the

property, real and personal, situated within the limits of the United

States, belonging to persons who should bear arms against the

Government, or give aid and comfort to those in rebellion, which persons

should not be reachable by the ordinary process of law, should be

forfeited and confiscated to the United States and that the forfeiture

should take immediate effect; and that the slaves of all such persons

should be free. Also that no slaves escaping from servitude should be

delivered up unless the person claiming them should prove that he had

been at all times loyal to the Government. Also that no officer in the

military or naval service should assume to decide whether a claim made

by a master to an escaping slave was valid or not.

This bill was the _piece de resistance_ of senatorial debate for the

whole session. Its confiscatory features were attacked on the 4th of

March by Senator Cowan, in a speech of great force. Cowan was a new

Senator from Pennsylvania, a Republican of conservative leanings, and a

great debater. He opposed the bill on grounds of both constitutionality

and expediency. On the 24th of April, Collamer, of Vermont, expressed

the sound opinions that private property could not be confiscated except

by judicial process, and that even if it could be done it would be bad

policy, since it would tend to prolong the war and would constitute a

barrier against future peace.

The Confederate Government had led the way by passing a law (May 21,

1861) sequestrating all debts due to Northern individuals or

corporations and authorizing the payment of the same to the Confederate

Treasury. The whole subject was extremely complex. "There was commonly,"

says a recent writer in the _American Historical Review_, "a failure in

the debates to discriminate between a general confiscation of property

within the jurisdiction of the confiscating government and the treatment

accorded by victorious armies to private property found within the

limits of military occupation. Thus the general rule exempting private

property on land from the sort of capture property must suffer at sea,

was erroneously appealed to as an inhibition upon the right of judicial

confiscation. That a military capture on land analogous to prize at sea

was not regarded as a legitimate war measure was so obvious and well

recognized a principle that it would hardly require a continual

reaffirmation. It was a very different matter, however, so far as the

law and practice of nations was concerned, for a belligerent to attack

through its courts whatever enemy's property might be available within

its limits."[55]

Collamer offered an amendment to strike out the first section of the

bill and insert a clause providing that every person adjudged guilty of

the crime of treason should suffer death, or, at the discretion of the

court, be imprisoned not less than five years and fined not less than

ten thousand dollars, which fine should be levied on any property, real

or personal, of which he might be possessed. The fine was to be in lieu

of confiscation. The aim of the amendment was to substitute due process

of law in place of legislative forfeiture. Various other amendments were

offered. On the 6th of May, the Senate voted by 24 to 14 to refer the

bill and amendments to a select committee of nine. The House, which had

been waiting for the Senate bill, decided on the 14th of May to take up

a measure of its own, which it passed on the 26th. The select committee

of the Senate framed a measure regarding the emancipation of escaping

slaves. This and the House bill were sent to a conference committee,

which reported the bill which became a law July 17, 1862.

This was not the end of it, however. Provision had been made in the bill

for the forfeiture, by judicial process, of the property, both real and

personal, of rebels, regardless of the clause of the Constitution which

declares that "no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood,

or forfeiture, except during the life of the person attainted." No such

exception was made in the bill. The President considered it

unconstitutional in this particular, and he wrote a short message giving

his reasons for withholding his approval of the measure. A rumor of his

intention reached Senator Fessenden, who called at the White House to

inquire whether it was true. He had a frank conversation with the

President, the result of which was that both houses passed a joint

resolution providing that no punishment or proceedings under the

Confiscation Act should be so construed as to work a forfeiture of the

real estate of the offender beyond his natural life. Lincoln's intended

veto of the Confiscation Bill is printed on page 3406 of the

_Congressional Globe_. Touching confiscation in general he expressed the

golden opinion that "the severest justice may not always be the best

policy." But he would not have vetoed the bill on grounds of expediency

merely. The forfeiture of real estate in perpetuity was the insuperable

objection in his mind. And he here seems to me to have been entirely

right. Yet Trumbull had the support of Judge Harris, Seward's successor

in the Senate, than whom nobody stood higher as a lawyer at that day.

The President then signed both the bill and the joint resolution. The

Confiscation Act remained, however, practically a dead letter, except as

to the freeing of the slaves. In the latter particular it was the first

great step toward complete emancipation, since it took effect upon

slaves within our lines, who could be reached and made free _de facto_.

It provided that all slaves of persons who should be thereafter engaged

in rebellion, escaping and taking refuge in the lines of the Union

forces, and all such slaves found in places captured by such forces,

should be declared free; that no slaves escaping should be delivered up

unless the owner should swear that he had not aided the rebellion; that

no officer of the United States should assume to decide on the validity

of the claim of any person to an escaping slave; that the President

should be authorized to employ negroes for the suppression of the

rebellion in any capacity he saw fit; and that he might colonize negroes

with their own consent and the consent of the foreign Government

receiving them.

According to a report of the Solicitor of the Treasury dated Dec. 27,

1867, the total proceeds of confiscation actually paid into the Treasury

up to that time amounted to the insignificant sum of $129,680.

The enforcement of the confiscation act was placed under the charge of

the Attorney-General. Practically, however, it was performed by officers

of the army, so far as it was enforced at all. General Lew Wallace,

while in command of the Middle Department at Baltimore, in 1864, issued

two orders declaring his intention to confiscate the property of

certain persons who were either serving in the rebel army or giving aid

to the Confederate cause. These orders, which were published in the

newspapers, came to the notice of Attorney-General Bates, who at once

wrote to Wallace to remind him that the execution of the confiscation

act devolved upon the Attorney-General, and that he (Bates) had not

given any orders which would warrant the Commander of the Middle

Department in seizing private property, and requesting him to withdraw

the orders. Wallace replied that his construction of the law differed

from that of the Attorney-General and that he should execute it

according to his own understanding of it. Thereupon Bates took the

orders, and the correspondence, to the President and declared his

intention to resign his office if his functions were usurped by military

men in the field, or by the War Department. Lincoln took the papers, and

directed Secretary Stanton to require Wallace to withdraw the two orders

and to desist from confiscation altogether. This was done by Stanton,

but the orders were never publicly withdrawn although action under them

was discontinued.

FOOTNOTES:

[54] Gideon Welles quotes Montgomery Blair as saying in conversation

(September 12, 1862): "Bedeviled with the belief that he might be a

candidate for the Presidency, Cameron was beguiled and led to mount the

nigger hobby, alarmed the President with his notions, and at the right

moment (B. says) he plainly and promptly told the President he ought to

get rid of C. at once, that he was not fit to remain in the Cabinet, and

was incompetent to manage the War Department, which he had undertaken to

run by the aid of Tom A. Scott, a corrupt lobby jobber from

Philadelphia." (_Diary_, I, 127.)

[55] Article on "Some Legal Aspects of the Confiscation Acts of the

Civil War," by J. G. Randall. _Am. Hist. Review_, October, 1912.

CHAPTER XI

THE EXPULSION OF CAMERON

Early in the year 1862, it was found that the national credit was

sinking in consequence of frauds in the War Department. A Committee on

Government Contracts was appointed by the House, and the first man to

fall under its censure was Alexander Cummings, one of the two

Pennsylvania politicians with whom David Davis had made his bargain for

votes at the Chicago convention.

The War Department was represented at New York by General Wool with a

suitable staff, Major Eaton being the commissary. There was also a Union

Defense Committee consisting of eminent citizens who had volunteered to

serve the Government in whatever capacity they might be needed.

Nevertheless, Secretary Cameron placed a fund of two million dollars in

the hands of General Dix, Mr. Opdycke, and Mr. Blatchford, to be

disbursed by E. D. Morgan and Alexander Cummings, or either of them, for

the purpose of forwarding troops and supplies to Washington. As E. D.

Morgan was Governor of the State and was busy at Albany, this

arrangement would be likely to devolve most of the purchases on Cummings

alone. Cameron wrote on April 2, to Cummings:

The Department needs at this moment an intelligent,

experienced, and energetic man on whom it can rely, to assist

in pushing forward troops, munitions, and supplies. I am aware

that your private affairs may demand your time. I am sure your

patriotism will induce you to aid me even at some loss to

yourself.

Major Eaton, the army commissary, distinctly informed Cummings that his

services were not needed in the purchase of supplies. Nevertheless,

Cummings drew $160,000 out of the two-million fund and proceeded to

disburse the same. He first appointed a certain Captain Comstock to

charter or purchase vessels. Captain Comstock went to Brooklyn,

accompanied by a friend, and inspected a steamer appropriately named the

Catiline, which he found could be bought for $18,000. Before he made his

report to Cummings, the friend who accompanied him suggested to another

friend named John E. Develin that there was a chance to make some money

"by good management." Comstock at the same time assured Colonel D. D.

Tompkins, of the Quartermaster's Department, that the ship was worth

$50,000. Comstock testified that he was sent for by Thurlow Weed to come

to the Astor House at the outbreak of the troubles, and that Weed stated

to him that he (Weed) was an agent of the Government to send troops and

munitions of war to Washington by way of the Chesapeake, and that he

wished to charter vessels for that purpose. Afterwards Cummings called

upon Comstock and showed him the same authority that Weed had shown.

The Catiline was bought by Develin for $18,000. The seller of the ship

testified that he received, as security for the purchase money, four

notes of $4500 each executed by Thurlow Weed, John E. Develin, G. C.

Davidson, and O. B. Matteson. Matteson had been a member of a previous

Congress from Utica, New York, but had been expelled from the House. The

Catiline was chartered for the Government at the rate of $10,000 per

month for three months, with an agreement that if she were lost in the

service the owners should be paid $50,000. The title to the Catiline

was, for convenience, placed in the name of a Mr. Stetson.

Cummings was examined by the Committee on Government Contracts. He

testified that he had formerly been the publisher of the Philadelphia

_Evening Bulletin_, and later publisher of the New York _World_, and

that he had resided in the latter city about eighteen months; his family

still residing in Philadelphia. The purchases made by him to be shipped

on the Catiline consisted mainly of groceries and provisions, including

twenty-five casks of Scotch ale, and twenty-five casks of London porter;

but he testified that he did not see any of the articles bought, nor did

he have any knowledge of their quality, nor did he see any of them put

on board the ship. The purchases, he said, were made from the firm of E.

Corning & Co., of Albany, through a member of the firm named Davidson,

whom Cummings met at the Astor House. Cummings assumed that Davidson was

a member of the firm because Davidson told him so; he had no other

evidence of the fact. He assumed also that Corning & Co. were dealers in

provisions, but had no absolute knowledge on that point.[56] He supposed

that the goods were shipped from Albany to be loaded on the Catiline,

but did not know that such was the fact. All these details he left to

his clerk, James Humphrey, who had been recommended as clerk by Thurlow

Weed. Cummings testified that he did not know Humphrey before; did not

know whether he had ever been in business in Albany or in New York; took

him on Weed's recommendation; made no bargain with him as to salary; did

not know where he could be found now. Bought a lot of hard bread from a

house in Boston. Questioned to whom he made payment for this bread, he

answered: "Directly to the party selling it, I suppose." "By you?" "By

my clerk, I suppose." Did not recollect who first suggested the purchase

of bread. Had no directions from the Government to purchase any

particular articles. Bought a quantity of straw hats and linen

pantaloons, thinking they would be needed by the troops in warm weather.

Did not personally know that any of the goods had been loaded on the

steamer or by whom they should have been so loaded. The cargo was

certified by Cummings to Cameron as shipped for the Government. Mr.

Barney, Collector of the Port, refused to give a clearance to the

Catiline to sail. Mr. Stetson, the owner, produced a letter from Thurlow

Weed requesting a clearance, but Barney still refused. Finally General

Wool gave a "pass" on which the Catiline sailed without a clearance.

General Wool revoked the pass on the following day, but the ship had

already departed.[57]

The report says: "The Committee have no occasion to call in question the

integrity of Mr. Cummings." We must infer, therefore, that he was chosen

by Cameron to disburse Government money in this emergency because he was

an extraordinary simpleton, and likely to be guided by Thurlow Weed in

buying army supplies from a hardware firm in Albany, and an unknown

Boston house that furnished hard bread.

Congressman Van Wyck of New York, a member of the Committee, said that

Mr. Weed's absence from home had prevented an examination into the

nature and extent of his agency in the matter of the Catiline.[58] At

the time when Weed's testimony was wanted he was in Europe acting as a

volunteer diplomat "assisting to counteract the machinations of the

agents of treason against the United States in that quarter," as appears

by a letter of Secretary Seward to Minister Adams, dated November 7,

1861.

The Committee on Government Contracts were unable to determine whether

the cargo of the Catiline was a private speculation or a _bona-fide_

purchase for the Government. The character of the goods purchased and

the mode of purchase pointed to the former conclusion. Scotch ale and

London porter were not embraced in any list of authorized rations, nor

were straw hats and linen pantaloons included in quartermaster's stores.

Congressman Van Wyck conjectured that it was a private speculation until

Collector Barney refused to grant a clearance, and that then it was

turned over to the Government. Mr. Stetson, who applied for the

clearance, first told the Collector that the ship was loaded with flour

and provisions belonging to several of his friends. When he called the

second time he testified that the cargo consisted of supplies for the

troops. The ship was destroyed by fire before the three months' charter

expired.

On the 13th of January, Henry L. Dawes, of Massachusetts, another member

of the committee, alluded to certain purchases of cavalry horses,

saying:

A regiment of cavalry has just reached Louisville one thousand

strong, and a board of army officers has condemned four hundred

and eighty-five of the one thousand horses as utterly

worthless. The man who examined those horses declared, upon his

oath, that there is not one of them worth twenty dollars. They

are blind, spavined, ring-boned, with the heaves, with the

glanders, and with every disease that horseflesh is heir to.

Those four hundred and eighty-five horses cost the Government,

before they were mustered into the service, $58,200, and it

cost the Government to transport them from Pennsylvania to

Louisville, $10,000 more before they were condemned and cast

off.

There are, sir, eighty-three regiments of cavalry one thousand

strong now in or roundabout the army. It costs $250,000 to put

one of those regiments upon its feet before it marches a step.

Twenty millions of dollars have thus far been expended upon

these cavalry regiments before they left the encampments in

which they were gathered and mustered into the service. They

have come here and then some of them have been sent back to

Elmira; they have been sent back to Annapolis; they have been

sent here and they have been sent there to spend the winter;

and many of the horses that were sent back have been tied to

posts and to trees within the District of Columbia and there

left to starve to death. A guide can take you around the

District of Columbia to-day to hundreds of carcasses of horses

chained to trees where they have pined away, living on bark and

limbs till they starve and die; and the Committee for the

District of Columbia have been compelled to call for

legislation here to prevent the city wherein we are assembled

from becoming an equine Golgotha.[59]

Horse contracts of this sort had been so plentiful that Government

officials had gone about the streets of Washington with their pockets

full of them. Some of these contracts had been used to pay Cameron's

political debts and to cure old political feuds, and banquets had been

given with the proceeds, "where the hatchet of political animosity,"

said Dawes, "was buried in the grave of public confidence and the

national credit was crucified between malefactors."

Dawes said also that there was "indubitable evidence that somebody has

plundered the public treasury well-nigh in a single year as much as the

entire current yearly expenses of the Government which the people hurled

from power because of its corruption"--meaning Buchanan's

Administration.[60]