In tracing American history from 1854 to 1860 we cannot fail to observe
that it reduces itself chiefly to a problem in that science which
politicians understand so well--applied psychology. Definite types
of men moulded by the conditions of those days are the determining
factors--not the slavery question in itself; not, primarily, economic
forces; not a theory of government, nor a clash of theories; not any one
thing; but the fluid, changeful forces of human nature, battling with
circumstances and expressing themselves in the fashion of men's minds.
To say this is to acknowledge the fatefulness of sheer feeling. Davis
described the situation exactly when he said, in 1860, "A sectional
hostility has been substituted for a general fraternity." To his own
question, "Where is the remedy?" he gave the answer, "In the hearts of
the people." There, after all, is the conclusion of the whole matter.
The strife between North and South had ceased to be a thing of the head;
it had become a thing of the heart. Granted the emotions of 1860,
the way in which our country staggered into war has all the terrible
fascination of a tragedy on the theme of fate.
That a secession movement would begin somewhere in the South before the
end of 1860 was a foregone conclusion. South Carolina was the logical
place, and in South Carolina the inevitable occurred. The presidential
election was quickly followed by an election of delegates, on the 6th of
December, to consider in convention the relations of the State with the
Union. The arguments before the Convention were familiar and had been
advocated since 1851. The leaders of the disunionists were the same
who had led the unsuccessful movement of ten years before. The central
figure was Rhett, who never for a moment had wavered. Consumed his life
long by the one idea of the independence of South Carolina, that stern
enthusiast pressed on to a triumphant conclusion. The powers which had
defeated him in 1851 were now either silent or converted, so that
there was practically no opposition. In a burst of passionate zeal the
independence of South Carolina was proclaimed on December 20, 1860, by
an ordinance of secession.
Simultaneously, by one of those dramatic coincidences which make history
stranger than fiction, Lincoln took a step which supplemented this
action and established its tragic significance. What that step was will
appear in a moment.
Even before the secession began, various types of men in politics had
begun to do each after his kind. Those whom destiny drove first into a
corner were the lovers of political evasion. The issue was forced upon
them by the instantaneous demand of the people of South Carolina for
possession of forts in Charleston Harbor which were controlled by the
Federal Government. Anticipating such a demand, Major Robert Anderson,
the commandant at Charleston, had written to Buchanan on the 23d of
November that "Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney must be garrisoned
immediately, if the Government determines to keep command of this
harbor."
In the mind of every American of the party of political evasion, there
now began a sad, internal conflict. Every one of them had to choose
among three courses: to shut his eyes and to continue to wail that the
function of government is to do nothing; to make an end of political
evasion and to come out frankly in approval of the Southern position;
or to break with his own record, to emerge from his evasions on the
opposite side, and to confess himself first and before all a supporter
of the Union. One or another of these three courses, sooner or later,
every man of the President's following chose. We shall see presently the
relative strength of the three groups into which that following broke
and what strange courses sometimes tragic, sometimes comic--two of the
three pursued. For the moment our concern is how the division manifested
itself among the heads of the party at Washington.
The President took the first of the three courses. He held it with the
nervous clutch of a weak nature until overmastered by two grim men who
gradually hypnotized his will. The turning-point for Buchanan, and the
last poor crisis in his inglorious career, came on Sunday, December
30th. Before that day arrived, his vacillation had moved his friends to
pity and his enemies to scorn. One of his best friends wrote privately,
"The President is pale with fear"; and the hostile point of view found
expression in such comments as this, "Buchanan, it is said, divides
his time between praying and crying. Such a perfect imbecile never held
office before."
With the question what to do about the forts hanging over his bewildered
soul, Buchanan sent a message to Congress on December 4, 1860, in which
he sought to defend the traditional evasive policy of his party. He
denied the constitutional right of secession, but he was also denied his
own right to oppose such a course. Seward was not unfair to the mental
caliber of the message when he wrote to his wife that Buchanan showed
"conclusively that it is the duty of the President to execute the
laws--unless somebody opposes him; and that no State has a right to go
out of the Union unless it wants to."
This message of Buchanan's hastened the inevitable separation of the
Democratic party into its elements. The ablest Southern member of the
Cabinet, Cobb, resigned. He was too strong an intellect to continue
the policy of "nothing doing" now that the crisis had come. He was too
devoted a Southerner to come out of political evasion except on one
side. On the day Cobb resigned the South Carolina Representatives called
on Buchanan and asked him not to make any change in the disposition
of troops at Charleston, and particularly not to strengthen Sumter,
a fortress on an island in the midst of the harbor, without at least
giving notice to the state authorities. What was said in this interview
was not put in writing but was remembered afterward in different ways
with unfortunate consequences.
Every action of Buchanan in this fateful month continued the
disintegration of his following. Just as Cobb had to choose between his
reasonings as a Democratic party man and his feelings as a Southerner,
so the aged Cass, his Secretary of State, and an old personal friend,
now felt constrained to choose between his Democratic reasoning and
his Northern sympathies, and resigned from the Cabinet on the 11th of
December. Buchanan then turned instinctively to the strongest natures
that remained among his close associates. It is a compliment to the
innate force of Jeremiah S. Black, the Attorney-General, that Buchanan
advanced him to the post of Secretary of State and allowed him to name
as his successor in the Attorney-Generalship Edwin M. Stanton. Both were
tried Democrats of the old style, "let-'em-alone" sort; and both had
supported the President in his Kansas policy. But each, like every
other member of his party, was being forced by circumstances to make his
choice among the three inevitable courses, and each chose the Northern
side. At once the question of the moment was whether the new Secretary
of State and his powerful henchmen would hypnotize the President.
For a couple of weeks the issue hung in the balance. Then there
appeared at Washington commissioners from South Carolina "empowered to
treat...for the delivery of forts...and other real estate" held by
the Federal Government within their State. On the day following their
arrival, Buchanan was informed by telegraph that Anderson had dismantled
Fort Moultrie on the north side of the harbor, had spiked its guns,
and had removed its garrison to the island fortress, Sumter, which
was supposed to be far more defensible. At Charleston his action was
interpreted as preparation for war; and all South Carolinians saw in
it a violation of a pledge which they believed the President had given
their congressmen, three weeks previous, in that talk which had not been
written down. Greatly excited and fearful of designs against them, the
South Carolina commissioners held two conferences with the President
on the 27th and 28th of December. They believed that he had broken his
word, and they told him so. Deeply agitated and refusing to admit
that he had committed himself at the earlier conference, he said that
Anderson had acted on his own responsibility, but he refused to order
him back to the now ruined Fort Moultrie. One remark which he let fall
has been remembered as evidence of his querulous state of mind: "You
are pressing me too importunately" exclaimed the unhappy President;
"you don't give me time to consider; you don't give me time to say my
prayers; I always say my prayers when required to act upon any great
state affair." One remembers Hampden "seeking the Lord" about ship
money, and one realizes that the same act may have a vastly different
significance in different temperaments.
Buchanan, however, was virtually ready to give way to the demand of the
commissioners. He drew up a paper to that effect and showed it to the
Cabinet. Then the turning-point came. In a painful interview, Black,
long one of his most trusted friends, told him of his intention to
resign, and that Stanton would go with him and probably also the
Postmaster-General, Holt. The idea of losing the support of these strong
personalities terrified Buchanan, who immediately fell into a panic.
Handing Black the paper he had drawn up, Buchanan begged him to retain
office and to alter the paper as he saw fit. To this Black agreed. The
demand for the surrender of the forts was refused; Anderson was not
ordered back to Moultrie; and for the brief remainder of Buchanan's
administration Black acted as prime minister.
A very powerful section of the Northern democracy, well typified by
their leaders at Washington, had thus emerged from political evasion
on the Northern side. These men, known afterwards as War Democrats,
combined with the Republicans to form the composite Union party which
supported Lincoln. It is significant that Stanton eventually reappeared
in the Cabinet as Lincoln's Secretary of War, and that along with him
appeared another War Democrat, Gideon Welles, Lincoln's Secretary of the
Navy. With them, at last, Douglas, the greatest of all the old Democrats
of the North, took his position. What became of the other factions of
the old Democratic party remains to be told.
While Buchanan, early in the month, was weeping over the pitilessness
of fate, more practical Northerners were grappling with the question
of what was to be done about the situation. In their thoughts they
anticipated a later statesman and realized that they were confronted by
a condition and not by a theory. Secession was at last a reality. Which
course should they take?
What strikes us most forcibly, as we look back upon that day, is the
widespread desire for peace. The abolitionists form a conspicuous
example. Their watchword was "Let the erring sisters go in peace."
Wendell Phillips, their most gifted orator, a master of spoken style at
once simple and melodious, declaimed splendidly against war. Garrison,
in "The Liberator", followed his example. Whittier put the same feeling
into his verse:
They break the links of Union; shall we light The flames of hell to weld
anew the chain On that red anvil where each blow is pain?
Horace Greeley said in an editorial in the "New York Tribune": "If the
cotton states shall decide that they can do better out of the Union
than in it, we shall insist on letting them go in peace. Whenever a
considerable section of our Union shall deliberately resolve to go out,
we shall resist all coercive measures designed to keep them in. We hope
never to live in a republic where one section is pinned to the residue
by bayonets."
The Democrats naturally clung to their traditions, and, even when they
went over, as Black and Stanton did, to the Anti-Southern group, they
still hoped that war would not be the result. Equally earnest against
war were most of the Republicans, though a few, to be sure, were ready
to swing the "Northern hammer." Summer prophesied that slavery would
"go down in blood." But the bulk of the Republicans were for a sectional
compromise, and among them there was general approbation of a scheme
which contemplated reviving the line of the Missouri Compromise, and
thus frankly admitting the existence of two distinct sections, and
guaranteeing to each the security of its own institutions. The greatest
Republican boss of that day, Thurlow Weed, came out in defense of this
plan.
No power was arrayed more zealously on the side of peace of any kind
than the power of money. It was estimated that two hundred millions of
dollars were owed by Southerners to Northerners. War, it was reasoned,
would cause the cancellation of these obligations. To save their
Southern accounts, the moneyed interests of the North joined the
extremists of Abolition in pleading to let the erring sisters go
in peace, if necessary, rather than provoke them to war and the
confiscation of debts. It was the dread of such an outcome--which
finally happened and ruined many Northern firms--that caused the
stock-market in New York to go up and down with feverish uncertainty.
Banks suspended payment in Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia.
The one important and all-engrossing thing in the mind's eye of all
the financial world at this moment was that specter of unpaid Southern
accounts.
At this juncture, Senator Crittenden of Kentucky submitted to the Senate
a plan which has been known ever since as the Crittenden Compromise. It
was similar to Weed's plan, but it also provided that the division of
the country on the Missouri Compromise line should be established by
a constitutional amendment, which would thus forever solidify
sectionalism. Those elements of the population generally called the
conservative and the responsible were delighted. Edward Everett wrote to
Crittenden, "I saw with great satisfaction your patriotic movement, and
I wish from the bottom of my heart it might succeed"; and August Belmont
in a letter to Crittenden spoke for the moneyed interest: "I have yet
to meet the first Union-loving man, in or out of politics, who does not
approve your compromise proposition...."
The Senate submitted the Compromise to a Committee of Thirteen. In this
committee the Southern leaders, Toombs and Davis, were both willing to
accept the Compromise, if a majority of the Republican members would
agree. Indeed, if the Republicans would agree to it, there seemed
no reason why a new understanding between the sections might not be
reached, and no reason why sectionalism, if accepted as the basis of the
government, might not solve the immediate problem and thus avert war.
In this crisis all eyes were turned to Seward, that conspicuous
Republican who was generally looked upon as the real head of his
party. And Seward, at that very moment, was debating whether to accept
Lincoln's offer of the Secretaryship of State, for he considered it
vital to have an understanding with Lincoln on the subject of the
Compromise. He talked the matter over with Weed, and they decided that
Weed should go to Springfield and come to terms with Lincoln. It was the
interview between Weed and Lincoln held, it seems, on the very day on
which the Ordinance of Secession was adopted--which gave to that day its
double significance.
Lincoln refused point-blank to accept the compromise and he put his
refusal in writing. The historic meaning of his refusal, and the
significance of his determination not to solve the problem of the hour
by accepting a dual system of government based on frankly sectional
assumptions, were probably, in a measure, lost on both Weed and Seward.
They had, however, no misunderstanding of its practical effect. This
crude Western lawyer had certain ideas from which he would not budge,
and the party would have to go along with him. Weed and Seward therefore
promptly fell into line, and Seward accepted the Secretaryship and came
out in opposition to the Compromise. Other Republicans with whom Lincoln
had communicated by letter made known his views, and Greeley announced
them in The Tribune. The outcome was the solid alignment of all the
Republicans in Congress against the Compromise. As a result, this last
attempt to reunite the sections came to nothing.
Not more than once or twice, if ever, in American history, has there
been such an anxious New Year's Day as that which ushered in 1861. A
few days before, a Republican Congressman had written to one of his
constituents: "The heavens are indeed black and an awful storm is
gathering...I see no way that either North or South can escape its
fury." Events were indeed moving fast toward disaster. The garrison at
Sumter was in need of supplies, and in the first week of the new year
Buchanan attempted to relieve its wants. But a merchant vessel, the Star
of the West, by which supplies were sent, was fired upon by the South
Carolina authorities as it approached the harbor and was compelled to
turn back. This incident caused the withdrawal from the Cabinet of the
last opposition members--Thompson, of Mississippi, the Secretary of the
Interior, and Thomas, of Maryland, the Secretary of the Treasury. In the
course of the month five Southern States followed South Carolina out
of the Union, and their Senators and Representatives resigned from the
Congress of the United States.
The resignation of Jefferson Davis was communicated to the Senate in a
speech of farewell which even now holds the imagination of the student,
and which to the men of that day, with the Union crumbling around
them, seemed one of the most mournful and dramatic of orations. Davis
possessed a beautiful, melodious voice; he had a noble presence, tall,
erect, spare, even ascetic, with a flashing blue eye. He was deeply
moved by the occasion; his address was a requiem. That he withdrew in
sorrow but with fixed determination, no one who listened to him could
doubt. Early in February, the Southern Confederacy was formed with Davis
as its provisional President. With the prophetic vision of a logical
mind, he saw that war was inevitable, and he boldly proclaimed his
vision. In various speeches on his way South, he had assured the
Southern people that war was coming, and that it would be long and
bloody.
The withdrawal of these Southern members threw the control of the House
into the hands of the Republicans. Their realization of their power
was expressed in two measures which also passed the Senate; Kansas was
admitted--as a State with an anti-slavery constitution; and the Morrill
tariff, which they had failed to pass the previous spring, now
became law. Thus the Republicans began redeeming their pledges to the
anti-slavery men on the one hand and to the commercial interest on the
other. The time had now arrived for the Republican nominee to proceed
from Springfield to Washington. The journey was circuitous in order to
enable Lincoln to speak at a number of places. Never before, probably,
had the Northern people felt such tense strain as at that moment; never
had they looked to an incoming President with such anxious doubt.
Would he prevent war? Or, if he could not do that, would he be able
to extricate the country--Heaven alone knew how!--without a terrible
ordeal? Since his election, Lincoln had remained quietly at Springfield.
Though he had influenced events through letters to Congressmen, his one
conspicuous action during that winter was the defeat of the Crittenden
Compromise. The Southern President had called upon his people to put
their house in order as preparation for war. What, now, had Lincoln to
say to the people of the North?
The biographers of Lincoln have not satisfactorily revealed the state of
his mind between election and inauguration. We may safely guess that his
silence covered a great internal struggle. Except for his one action in
defeating the Compromise, he had allowed events to drift; but by that
one action he had taken upon himself the responsibility for the drift.
Though the country at that time did not fully appreciate this aspect of
the situation, who now can doubt that Lincoln did? His mind was always a
lonely one. His very humor has in it, so often, the note of solitude,
of one who is laughing to make the best of things, of one who is
spiritually alone. During those months when the country drifted from
its moorings, and when war was becoming steadily more probable, Lincoln,
after the manner of the prophets, wrestled alone with the problems which
he saw before him. From the little we know of his inward state, it is
hard for us to conclude that he was happy. A story which is told by his
former partner, Mr. Herndon, seems significant. As Lincoln was leaving
his unpretentious law-office for the last time, he turned to Mr. Herndon
and asked him not to take down their old sign. "Let it hang there
undisturbed," said he. "Give our clients to understand that the election
of a President makes no difference in the firm.... If I live, I'm coming
back some time, and then we'll go right on practising law as if nothing
had happened."
How far removed from self-sufficiency was the man whose thoughts, on
the eve of his elevation to the Presidency, lingered in a provincial law
office, fondly insistent that only death should prevent his returning
some time and resuming in those homely surroundings the life he had
led previous to his greatness. In a mood of wistfulness and of intense
preoccupation, he began his journey to Washington. It was not the mood
from which to strike fire and kindle hope. To the anxious, listening
country his speeches on the journey to Washington were disappointing.
Perhaps his strangely sensitive mind felt too powerfully the fatefulness
of the moment and reacted with a sort of lightness that did not really
represent the real man. Be that as it may, he was never less convincing
than at that time. Nor were people impressed by his bearing. Often he
appeared awkward, too much in appearance the country lawyer. He acted as
a man who was ill at ease and he spoke as a man who had nothing to say.
Gloom darkened the North as a consequence of these unfortunate speeches,
for they expressed an optimism which we cannot believe he really felt,
and which hurt him in the estimation of the country. "There is no
crisis but an artificial one," was one of his ill-timed assurances, and
another, "There is nothing going wrong.... There is nothing that really
hurts any one." Of his supporters some were discouraged; others were
exasperated; and an able but angry partisan even went so far as to write
in a private letter, "Lincoln is a Simple Susan."
The fourth of March arrived, and with it the end of Lincoln's
blundering. One good omen for the success of the new Administration was
the presence of Douglas on the inaugural platform. He had accepted fate,
deeply as it wounded him, and had come out of the shattered party of
evasion on the side of his section. For the purpose of showing his
support of the administration at this critical time, he had taken a
place on the stand where Lincoln was to speak. By one of those curious
little dramatic touches with which chance loves to embroider history,
the presence of Douglas became a gracious detail in the memory of the
day. Lincoln, worn and awkward, continued to hold his hat in his hand.
Douglas, with the tact born of social experience, stepped forward and
took it from him without--exposing Lincoln's embarrassment.
The inaugural address which Lincoln now pronounced had little similarity
to those unfortunate utterances which he had made on the journey to
Washington. The cloud that had been over him, whatever it was, had
lifted. Lincoln was ready for his great labor. The inaugural contained
three main propositions. Lincoln pledged himself not to interfere
directly or indirectly with slavery in the States where it then existed;
he promised to support the enforcement of the fugitive slave law; and he
declared he would maintain the Union. "No State," said he, "upon its own
mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union.... To the extent of my
ability I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins
upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the
States.... In doing this, there need be no bloodshed or violence; and
there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the national authority.
The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess
the property and places belonging to the government." Addressing the
Southerners, he said: "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen,
and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government
will not assail you.... We are not enemies but friends.... The mystic
cords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to
every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet
swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will
be, by the better angels of our nature."
Gentle, as was the phrasing of the inaugural, it was perfectly firm, and
it outlined a policy which the South would not accept, and which, in the
opinion of the Southern leaders, brought them a step nearer war. Wall
Street held the same belief, and as a consequence the price of stocks
fell.