Excited Condition of the South.--The John Brown Raid at Harper's
Ferry.--Character of Brown.--Governor Wise.--Hot Temper.--Course
of Republicans in Regard to John Brown.--Misunderstanding of the
Two Sections.--Assembling of the Charleston Convention.--Position
of Douglas and his Friends.--Imperious Demands of Southern Democrats.
--Caleb Cushing selected for Chairman of the Convention.--The South
has Control of the Committee on Resolutions.--Resistance of the
Douglas Delegates.--They defeat the Report of the Committee.--
Delegates from Seven Southern States withdraw.--Convention unable
to make a Nomination.--Adjourns to Baltimore.--Convention divides.
--Nomination of both Douglas and Breckinridge.--Constitutional
Union Convention.--Nomination of Bell and Everett.--The Chicago
Convention.--Its Membership and Character.--Mr. Seward's Position.
--His Disabilities.--Work of his Friends, Thurlow Weed and William
M. Evarts.--Opposition of Horace Greeley.--Objections from Doubtful
States.--Various Candidates.--Nomination of Lincoln and Hamlin.--
Four Presidential Tickets in the Field.--Animated Canvass.--The
Long Struggle over.--The South defeated.--Election of Lincoln.--
Political Revolution of 1860 complete.
The South was unnaturally and unjustifiably excited. The people
of the slave States could not see the situation accurately, but,
like a man with disordered nerves, they exaggerated every thing.
Their sense of proportion seemed to be destroyed, so that they
could no longer perceive the intrinsic relation which one incident
had to another. In this condition of mind, when the most ordinary
events were misapprehended and mismeasured, they were startled and
alarmed by an occurrence of extraordinary and exceptional character.
On the quiet morning of October, 1859, with no warning whatever to
the inhabitants, the United-States arsenal, at Harper's Ferry,
Virginia, was found to be in the possession of an invading mob.
The town was besieged, many of its citizens made prisoners, telegraph
wires cut, railway-trains stopped by a force which the people, as
they were aroused from sleep, had no means of estimating. A
resisting body was soon organized, militia came in from the
surrounding country, regular troops were hurried up from Washington.
By the opening of the second day, a force of fifteen hundred men
surrounded the arsenal, and, when the insurgents surrendered, it
was found that there had been but twenty-two in all. Four were
still alive, including their leader, John Brown.
JOHN BROWN AT HARPER'S FERRY.
Brown was a man of singular courage, perseverance, and zeal, but
was entirely misguided and misinformed. He had conceived the
utterly impracticable scheme of liberating the slaves of the South
by calling on them to rise, putting arms in their hands, and aiding
them to gain their freedom. He had borne a very conspicuous and
courageous part in the Kansas struggles, and had been a terror to
the slave-holders on the Missouri border. His bravery was of a
rare type. He had no sense of fear. Governor Wise stated that
during the fight, while Brown held the arsenal, with one of his
sons lying dead beside him, another gasping with a mortal wound,
he felt the pulse of the dying boy, used his own musket, and coolly
commanded his men, all amid a shower of bullets from the attacking
force. While of sound mind on most subjects, Brown had evidently
lost his mental balance on the one topic of slavery. His scheme
miscarried the moment its execution was attempted, as any one not
blinded by fanaticism could have from the first foreseen.
The matter was taken up in hot wrath by the South, with Governor
Wise in the lead. The design was not known to or approved by any
body of men in the North; but an investigation was moved in the
Senate, by Mr. Mason of Virginia, with the evident view of fixing
the responsibility on the Northern people, or, at least, upon the
Republican party. These men affected to see in John Brown, and
his handful of followers, only the advance guard of another irruption
of Goths and Vandals from the North, bent on inciting servile
insurrection, on plunder, pillage, and devastation. Mr. Mason's
committee found no sentiment in the North justifying Brown, but
the irritating and offensive course of the Virginia senator called
forth a great deal of defiant anti-slavery expression which, in
his judgment, was tantamount to treason. Brown was tried and
executed. He would not permit the plea of unsound mind to be made
on his behalf, and to the end he behaved with that calm courage
which always attracts respect and admiration. Much was made of
the deliverance of the South, from a great peril, and every thing
indicated that the John Brown episode was to be drawn into the
political campaign as an indictment against anti-slavery men. It
was loudly charged by the South, and by their partisans throughout
the North, that such insurrections were the legitimate outgrowth
of Republican teaching, and that the national safety demanded the
defeat and dissolution of the Republican party. Thus challenged,
the Republican party did not stand on the defensive. Many of its
members openly expressed their pity for the zealot, whose rashness
had led him to indefensible deeds and thence to the scaffold. On
the day of his execution, bells were tolled in many Northern towns
--not in approval of what Brown had done, but from compassion for
the fate of an old man whose mind had become distempered by suffering,
and by morbid reflection on the suffering of others; from a feeling
that his sentence, in view of this fact, was severe; and lastly,
and more markedly, as a Northern rebuke to the attempt on the part
of the South to make a political issue from an occurrence which
was as unforeseen and exceptional as it was deplorable.
The fear and agitation in the South were not feigned but real.
Instead of injuring the Republican party, this very fact increased
its strength in the North. The terror of the South at the bare
prospect of a negro insurrection led many who had not before studied
the slavery question to give serious heed to this phase of it.
The least reflection led men to see that a domestic institution
must be very undesirable which could keep an entire community of
brave men in dread of some indefinable tragedy. Mobs and riots of
much greater magnitude than the John Brown uprising had frequently
occurred in the free States, and they were put down by the firm
authority of law, without the dread hand of a spectre behind which
might in a moment light the horizon with the conflagration of homes,
and subject wives and daughters to a fate of nameless horror.
Instead, therefore, of arresting the spread of Republican principles,
the mad scheme of John Brown tended to develop and strengthen them.
The conviction grew rapidly that if slavery could produce such
alarm and such demoralization in a strong State like Virginia,
inhabited by a race of white men whose courage was never surpassed,
it was not an institution to be encouraged, but that its growth
should be prohibited in the new communities where its weakening
and baleful influence was not yet felt.
Sentiment of this kind could not be properly comprehended in the
South. It was honestly misrepresented by some, willfully misrepresented
by others. All construed it into a belief, on the part of a large
proportion of the Northern people, that John Brown was entirely
justifiable. His wild invasion of the South, they apprehended,
would be repeated as opportunity offered on a larger scale and with
more deadly purpose. This opinion was stimulated and developed
for political ends by many whose intelligence should have led them
to more enlightened views. False charges being constantly repeated
and plied with incessant zeal, the most radical misconception became
fixed in the Southern mind. It was idle for the Republican party
to declare that their aim was only to prevent the extension of
slavery to free territory, and that they were pledged not to
interfere with its existence in the States. Such distinctions were
not accepted by the Southern people. Their leaders had taught them
that the one necessarily involved the other, and that a man who
was in favor of the Wilmot Proviso was as bitter an enemy to the
South as one who incited a servile insurrection. These views were
unceasingly pressed upon the South by the Northern Democracy, who,
in their zeal to defeat the Republicans at home, did not scruple
to misrepresent their aims in the most reckless manner. They were
constantly misleading the public opinion of the slave States, until
at last the South recognized no difference between the creed of
Seward and the creed of Gerrit Smith, and held Lincoln responsible
for all the views and expressions of William Lloyd Garrison and
Wendell Phillips. The calling of a National Republican Convention
was to their disordered imagination a threat of destruction. The
success of its candidates would, in their view, be just cause for
resistance outside the pale of the Constitution.
MEETING OF CHARLESTON CONVENTION.
It was at the height of this overwrought condition of the Southern
mind, that the National Convention of the Democratic party met at
Charleston on the 23d of April, 1860. The convention had been
assembled in South Carolina, as the most discontented and extreme
of Southern States, in order to signify that the Democracy could
harmonize on her soil, and speak peace to the nation through the
voice which had so often spoken peace before. But the Northern
Democrats failed to comprehend their Southern allies. In their
anxiety to impress the slave-holders with the depth and malignity
of Northern anti-slavery feeling, they had unwittingly implicated
themselves as accessories to the crime they charged on others. If
they were, in fact, the friends to the South which they so loudly
proclaimed themselves to be, now was the time to show their faith
by their works. The Southern delegates had come to the convention
in a truculent spirit,--as men who felt that they were enduring
wrongs which must then and there be righted. They had a grievance
for which they demanded redress, as a preliminary step to further
conference. They wanted no evasion, they would accept no delay.
The Northern delegates begged for the nomination of Douglas as the
certain method of defeating the Republicans, and asked that they
might not be borne down by a platform which they could not carry
in the North. The Southern delegates demanded a platform which
should embody the Constitutional rights of the slave-holder, and
they would not qualify or conceal their requirements. If the North
would sustain those rights, all would be well. If the North would
not sustain them, it was of infinite moment to the South to be
promptly and definitely advised of the fact. The Southern delegates
were not presenting a particular man as candidate. On that point
they would be liberal and conciliatory. But they were fighting
for a principle, and would not surrender it or compromise it.
The supporters of Douglas from the North saw that they would be
utterly destroyed at home if they consented to the extreme Southern
demand. Their destruction would be equally sure even with Douglas
as their candidate if the platform should announce principles which
he had been controverting ever since his revolt against the Lecompton
bill. For the first time in the history of national Democratic
conventions the Northern delegates refused to submit to the exactions
of the South. Hitherto platforms had been constructed just as
Southern men dictated. Candidates had been taken as their preference
directed. But now the Northern men, pressed by the rising tide of
Republicanism in every free State, demanded some ground on which
they could stand and make a contest at home.
PROCEEDINGS OF CHARLESTON CONVENTION.
Caleb Cushing of Massachusetts was chosen President of the Convention.
The political career of Mr. Cushing had not been distinguished for
steady adherence to party. He was elected to Congress in 1834, as
representative from the Essex district in Massachusetts. He was
at that time a zealous member of the Whig party, and was active on
the Northern or anti-slavery side in the discussions relating to
the "right of petition." He served in the House for eight years.
After the triumph of Harrison in 1840, Mr. Cushing evidently aspired
to be a party leader. In the quarrel which ensued between President
Tyler and Mr. Clay, he saw an opportunity to gratify his ambition
by adhering to the administration. This brought him into very
close relations with Mr. Webster, who remained in Tyler's Cabinet
after his colleagues retired, and threw him at the same time into
rank antagonism with Mr. Clay, to whose political fortunes he had
previously been devoted. In view of the retirement of Mr. Webster
from the State Department in 1843, President Tyler nominated Mr.
Cushing for Secretary of the Treasury, but the Whig senators,
appreciating his power and influence in that important position,
procured his rejection. Some Democratic votes from the South were
secured against him because of his course in the House of
Representatives. The President then nominated him as Commissioner
to China, and he was promptly confirmed. Oriental diplomatists
never encountered a minister better fitted to meet them with their
own weapons.
Upon his return home, Mr. Cushing found that Mr. Webster had resumed
his place as the leader of the Northern Whigs. Mr. Clay had
meanwhile been defeated for the Presidency, his followers were
discouraged, the administration of Mr. Polk was in power. Mr.
Cushing at once joined the Democracy, and was made a Brigadier-
General in the army raised for the war with Mexico. From that time
onward he became a partisan of the extreme State-rights school of
the Southern Democracy, and was appropriately selected for Attorney-
General by President Pierce in 1853. In conjunction with Jefferson
Davis, he was considered to be the guiding and controlling force
in the administration. His thorough education, his remarkable
attainments, his eminence in the law, his ability as an advocate,
rendered his active co-operation of great value to the pro-slavery
Democrats of the South. He was naturally selected for the important
and difficult duty of presiding over the convention whose deliberations
were to affect the interests of the Government, and possibly the
fate of the Union.
It was soon evident that the South would have every advantage in
the convention which an intelligent and skillful administration of
parliamentary law could afford. Without showing unfairness, the
presiding officer, especially in a large and boisterous assembly,
can impart confidence and strength to the side with which he may
sympathize. But, apart from any power to be derived from having
the chairman of the convention, the South had a more palpable
advantage from the mode in which the standing committees must,
according to precedent, be constituted. As one member must be
taken from each State, the Southern men obtained the control of
all the committees, from the fact that the delegates from California
and Oregon steadily voted with them. There were thirty-three States
in the Union in 1860,--eighteen free and fifteen slave-holding.
California and Oregon, uniting with the South, gave to that section
seventeen, and left to the North but sixteen on all the committees.
The Democratic delegates from the Pacific States assumed a weighty
responsibility in thus giving to the Disunionists of the South
preliminary control of the convention, by permitting them to shape
authoritatively all the business to be submitted. It left the real
majority of the convention in the attitude of a protesting minority.
The Southern majority of one on the committees was fatal to Democratic
success. In a still more important aspect its influence was in
the highest degree prejudicial to the Union of the States.
Constituted in the manner just indicated, the Committee on Resolutions
promptly and unanimously agreed on every article of the Democratic
creed, except that relating to slavery. Here they divided, stubbornly
and irreconcilably. The fifteen slave States, re-enforced by
California and Oregon, gave to the Southern interest a majority of
one vote on the committee. The other free States, sixteen in all,
were hostile to the extreme Southern demands, and reported a
resolution, which they were willing to accept. The South required
an explicit assertion of the right of citizens to settle in the
Territories with their slaves,--a right not "to be destroyed or
impaired by Congressional or Territorial legislation." They required
the further declaration that it is the duty of the Federal Government,
when necessary, to protect slavery "in the Territories, and wherever
else its constitutional authority extends." This was in substance,
and almost identically in language, the extreme creed put forth by
the Southern Democratic senators in the winter of 1858-59, after
the "popular sovereignty" campaign of Douglas against Lincoln. It
was the most advanced ground ever taken by the statesmen of the
South, and its authorship was generally ascribed to Judah F.
Benjamin, senator from Louisiana. Its introduction in the Charleston
platform was intended apparently as an insult to Douglas. The
evident purpose was to lay down doctrines and prescribe tests which
Douglas could not accept, and thus to exclude him, not only from
candidacy, but from further participation in the councils of the
party.
QUARREL OF DEMOCRATIC FACTIONS.
The courage of the Northern Democrats was more conspicuously shown
in their resistance to these demands than in the declarations which
they desired to substitute. They quietly abandoned all their
assertions in regard to popular sovereignty, refrained from any
protest against the doctrine that the Constitution carried slavery
as far as its jurisdiction extended, and contented themselves with
a resolution that "inasmuch as differences of opinion exist in the
Democratic party as to the nature and extent of the powers of a
Territorial Legislature, and as to the powers and duties of Congress
under the Constitution of the United States over the institution
of slavery within the Territories, the Democratic party will abide
by the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States upon
questions of Constitutional law." This was perhaps the best device
practicable at the time; and had it been adopted with Douglas as
the candidate, and a united Democracy supporting him, it is not
improbable that a successful campaign might have been made. But
it was a makeshift, uncandid, unfair, cunningly contrived to evade
the full responsibility of the situation. It was a temporizing
expedient, and did not frankly meet the question which was engaging
the thoughts of the people. Had it succeeded, nothing would have
been settled. Every thing would have been postponed, and the crisis
would have inevitably recurred. So far as the Supreme Court could
determine the questions at issue, it had already been done in the
Dred Scott decision; and that decision, so far from being final,
was a part of the current controversy. There was, therefore,
neither logic nor principle in the proposition of the Douglas
minority. The Southern delegates keenly realized this fact, and
refused to accept the compromise. They could not endure the thought
of being placed in a position which was not only evasive, but might
be deemed cowardly. They were brave men, and wished to meet the
question bravely. They knew that the Republicans in their forthcoming
convention would explicitly demand the prohibition of slavery in
the Territories. To hesitate or falter in making an equally explicit
assertion of their own faith would subject them to fatal assault
from their slave-holding constituencies.
The Douglas men would not yield. They were enraged by the domineering
course of the Southern Democrats. They could not comprehend why
they should higgle about the language of the platform when they
could carry the slave States on the one form of expression as well
as the other. In the North it was impossible for the Democrats to
succeed with the Southern platform, but in the South it was, in
their judgment, entirely easy to carry the Douglas platform. From
the committee the contest was transferred to the convention, and
there the Douglas men were in a majority. They did not hesitate
to use their strength, and by a vote of 165 to 138 they substituted
the minority platform for that of the majority. It was skillfully
accomplished under the lead of Henry B. Payne of Ohio and Benjamin
Samuels of Iowa. The total vote of the convention was 303,--the
number of Presidential electors; and every vote had been cast on
the test question. The South voted solidly in the negative, and
was aided by the vote of California and Oregon, and a few scattering
delegates from Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The other fourteen
States of the North voted unanimously on the side of Douglas, and
gave him a majority of twenty-seven.
The Northern victory brought with it a defeat. A large number of
the Southern delegates, though fairly and honorably outvoted,
refused to abide by the decision. Seven States--Louisiana, Alabama,
South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas--withdrew
from the convention, and organized a separate assemblage, presided
over by Senator James A. Bayard of Delaware. By this defection
the Douglas men were left in absolute control of the convention.
But the friends of Douglas fatally obstructed his program by
consenting to the two-thirds rule, so worded as to required that
proportion of a full convention to secure a nomination. The first
vote disclosed the full strength of Douglas to be 152. He required
202 to be declared the nominee. After an indefinite number of
ballots, it was found impossible to make a nomination; and on the
3d of May the convention adjourned to meet in Baltimore on the 18th
of June. In the intervening weeks it was hoped that a more harmonious
spirit would return to the party. But the expectation was vain.
The differences were more pronounced than ever when the convention
re-assembled, and, all efforts to find a common basis of action
having failed, the convention divided. The Southern delegates with
California and Oregon, and with some scattering members from other
States, among whom were Caleb Cushing and Benjamin F. Butler of
Massachusetts, nominated John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky for
President, and Joseph Lane of Oregon for Vice-President. The
Northern convention, with a few scattering votes from the South,
nominated Stephen A. Douglas for President, and Herschel V. Johnson
of Georgia for Vice-President. Of the seventeen States that made
up the Breckinridge convention, it was deemed probable that he
could carry all. Of the sixteen that voted for Douglas, it was
difficult to name one in which with a divided party he could be
sure of victory. United in support of either candidate, the party
could have made a formidable contest, stronger in the North with
Douglas, stronger in the South with Breckinridge. Had the Democracy
presented Douglas and Breckinridge as their National nominees, they
would have combined all the elements of strength in their party.
But passion and prejudice prevented. The South was implacable
toward Douglas, and deliberately resolved to accept defeat rather
than secure a victory under his lead.
DISRUPTION OF THE DEMOCRACY.
The disruption of the Democracy was undoubtedly hastened by the
political events which had occurred since the adjournment at
Charleston. An organization, styling itself the Constitutional-
Union Party, representing the successors of the Old Whigs and
Americans, had met in Baltimore, and nominated John Bell of Tennessee
for President, and Edward Everett of Massachusetts for Vice-President.
The strength of the party was in the South. In the slave States
it formed the only opposition to the Democratic party, and was as
firm in defense of the rights of the slave-holder as its rival.
Its members had not been so ready to repeal the Missouri Compromise
as the Democrats, and they were unrelenting in their hostility to
Douglas, and severe in their exposure of his dogma of popular
sovereignty. They had effectively aided in bringing both the
doctrine and its author into disrepute in the South, and, if the
Democrats had ventured to nominate Douglas, they had their weapons
ready for vigorous warfare against him.
With a Southern slave-holder like Mr. Bell at the head of the
ticket, and a Northern man of Mr. Everett's well-known conservatism
associated with him, the Constitutional-Union Party was in a position
to make a strong canvass against Douglas in the South. It was this
fact which, on the re-assembling of the Democratic convention at
Baltimore, had increased the hostility of the South to Douglas,
and made their leaders firm in their resolution not to accept him.
Had the Union party nominated a Northern man instead of Mr. Bell
for President, the case might have been different for Douglas; but
the Southern Democrats feared that their party would be endangered
in half the slave States if they should present Douglas as a
candidate against a native Southerner and slave-holder of Bell's
character and standing. If they were to be beaten in the contest
for the Presidency, they were determined to retain, if possible,
the control of their States, and not to risk their seats in the
Senate and the House in a desperate struggle for Douglas. It would
be poor recompense to them to recover certain Northern States from
the Republicans, if at the same time, and by co-ordinate causes,
an equal number of Southern States should be carried by Bell, and
the destiny of the South be committed to a conservative party,
which would abandon threats and cultivate harmony. Bell's nomination
had, therefore, proved the final argument against the acceptance
of Douglas by the Southern Democracy.
Meanwhile, between the adjournment of the Democratic convention at
Charleston, and its re-assembling at Baltimore, the Republicans
had held their national convention at Chicago. It was a representative
meeting of the active and able men of both the old parties in the
North, who had come together on the one overshadowing issue of the
hour. Differing widely on many other questions, inheriting their
creeds from antagonistic organizations of the past, they thought
alike on the one subject of putting a stop to the extension of
slavery. Those who wished to go farther were restrained, and an
absolute control of opinion and action was commanded on this one
line. In the entire history of party conventions, not one can be
found so characteristic, so earnest, so determined to do the wisest
thing, so little governed by personal consideration, so entirely
devoted to one absorbing idea. It was made up in great part of
young men, though there were gray-haired veterans in sufficient
number to temper action with discretion. A large proportion of
the delegates were afterwards prominent in public life. At least
sixty of them, till then unknown beyond their districts, were sent
to Congress. Many became governors of their States, and in other
ways received marks of popular favor. It was essentially a convention
of the free States--undisguisedly sectional in the political
nomenclature of the day. The invitation was general, but, in the
larger portion of the South, no one could be found who would risk
his life by attending as a delegate. Nevertheless, there were
delegates present from the five slave States which bordered on the
free States, besides a partial and irregular representation from
Texas.
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION.
The anti-slavery character of the assemblage was typified by the
selection of David Wilmot for temporary chairman, and its conservative
side by the choice of an old Webster Whig, in the person of George
Ashmun of Massachusetts, for permanent president. This tendency
to interweave the radical and conservative elements, and, where
practicable, those of Whig with those of Democratic antecedents,
was seen in many delegations. John A. Andrew and George S. Boutwell
came from Massachusetts, William M. Evarts and Preston King from
New York, Thaddeus Stevens and Andrew H. Reeder from Pennsylvania,
Thomas Corwin and Joshua R. Giddings from Ohio, David Davis and N.
B. Judd from Illinois. Outside of the regular delegations, there
were great crowds of earnest men in Chicago, all from the free
States. The number in attendance was reckoned by tens of thousands.
Considering the restricted facilities for travel at that time, the
multitude was surprising and significant. The whole mass was
inspired with energy, and believed, without shadow of doubt, that
they had come to witness the nomination of the next President of
the United States. Confidence of strength is as potential an
element in a political canvass as in a military campaign, and never
was a more defiant sense of power exhibited than by the Chicago
convention of 1860 and by the vast throng which surrounded its
meetings. Such a feeling is contagious, and it spread from that
centre until it enveloped the free States.
The impression in the country, for a year preceding the convention,
was that Mr. Seward would be nominated. As the time drew nigh,
however, symptoms of dissent appeared in quarters where it had not
been expected. New parties are proverbially free from faction and
jealousy. Personal antagonisms, which come with years, had not
then been developed in the Republican ranks. It was not primarily
a desire to promote the cause of other candidates which led to the
questioning of Mr. Seward's availability, nor was there any
withholding of generous recognition and appreciation of all that
he had done for Republican principles. His high character was
gladly acknowledged, his eminent ability conceded, the magnitude
and unselfishness of his work were everywhere praised. Without
his aid, the party could not have been organized. But for his wise
leadership, it would have been wrecked in the first years of its
existence. He was wholly devoted to its principles. He had staked
every thing upon its success.
Mr. Seward had, however, some weak points as a candidate. A large
proportion of the Republicans had been connected with the American
organization, and still cherished some of its principles. Mr.
Seward had been the determined foe of that party. In battling for
the rights of the negro, he deemed it unwise and inconsistent to
increase the disabilities of the foreign-born citizen. His influence,
more than that of any other man, had broken down the proscriptive
creed of the American party, and turned its members into the
Republican ranks. But many of them came reluctantly, and in a
complaining mood against Mr. Seward. This led political managers
to fear that Mr. Seward would lose votes which another candidate
might secure. Others though that the radicalism of Mr. Seward
would make him weak, where a more conservative representative of
Republican principles might be strong. He had been at the forefront
of the battle for twelve years in the Senate, and every extreme
thing he had said was remembered to his injury. He had preached
the doctrine of an "irrepressible conflict" between the forces of
slavery and the forces of freedom, and timid men dreaded such a
trial as his nomination would presage. The South had made continuous
assault on this speech, and on the particular phrase which
distinguished it, and had impressed many Northern men with the
belief that Mr. Seward had gone too far. In short, he had been
too conspicuous, and too many men had conceived predilections
against him.
When the convention assembled, notwithstanding all adverse influences,
Mr. Seward was still the leading and most formidable candidate.
His case was in strong and skillful hands. Mr. Thurlow Weed, who
had been his lifelong confidential friend, presented his claims,
before the formal assembling of the convention, with infinite tact.
Mr. Weed, though unable to make a public speech, was the most
persuasive of men in private conversation. He was quiet, gentle,
and deferential in manner. He grasped a subject with a giant's
strength, presented its strong points, and marshaled its details
with extraordinary power. Whatever Mr. Weed might lack was more
than supplied by the eloquent tongue of William M. Evarts. Seldom
if ever in the whole field of political oratory have the speeches
of Mr. Evarts at Chicago been equaled. Even those who most decidedly
differed from him followed him from one delegation to another
allured by the charm of his words. He pleaded for the Republic,
for the party that could save it, for the great statesman who had
founded the party, and knew where and how to lead it. He spoke as
one friend for another, and the great career of Mr. Seward was
never so illumined as by the brilliant painting of Mr. Evarts.
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION.
With all the potential efforts and influences in his behalf, Mr.
Seward was confronted with obstacles which were insuperable. He
was seriously injured by the open defection of Horace Greeley.
Not able, or even desirous, to appear on the New-York delegation,
Mr. Greeley sat in the convention as a representative from Oregon.
The old firm of Seward, Weed, and Greeley, according to his own
humorous expression, had been dissolved by the withdrawal of the
junior partner; and a bitter dissension had in fact existed for
six years without public knowledge. With his great influence in
the agricultural regions of the country, Mr. Greeley was enabled
to turn a strong current of popular feeling against the eminent
senator from New York. Mr. Seward sustained further injury by the
action of the States which were regarded as politically doubtful.
Pennsylvania and Indiana took part against him. Henry S. Lane had
just been nominated for governor of Indiana, with Oliver P. Morton
--not then known beyond his State--for lieutenant-governor. It
was understood that Lane would be sent to the Senate if the
Republicans should carry the State, and that Morton, whose strength
of character was known and appreciated at home, would become
governor. Both candidates, having each a personal stake in the
contest, united in declaring that the nomination of Mr. Seward
meant a Democratic victory in Indiana. Andrew G. Curtin, who had
been nominated for governor of Pennsylvania, gave the same testimony
respecting that State; and his judgment was sustained by his faithful
friend and adviser, Alexander K. McClure. Delegates from other
States, where the contest was close, sympathized with the views of
Pennsylvania and Indiana, and there was a rapid and formidable
combination against Mr. Seward. The reformer and his creed rarely
triumph at the same time, and the fate of Mr. Seward was about to
add one more illustration of this truth.
But if not Mr. Seward, who? The Blairs and Horace Greeley answered,
"Edward Bates of Missouri,"--an old Whig, a lawyer of ability, a
gentleman of character. Though still in vigorous life, he had sat
in the convention which framed the constitution of Missouri in
1820. He had revered the Compromise of that year, and had joined
the Republicans in resentment of its repeal. Ohio, in a half-
hearted manner, presented Salmon P. Chase, who, with great ability
and spotless fame, lacked the elements of personal popularity.
Pennsylvania, with an imposing delegation, named Simon Cameron;
New Jersey desired William L. Dayton; Vermont wanted Jacob Collamer;
and delegates here and there suggested Judge McLean or Benjamin
F. Wade. The popular candidate of 1856, John C. Fremont, had
forbidden the use of his name.
Illinois had a candidate. He was held back with sound discretion,
and at the opportune moment presented with great enthusiasm. Ever
since the discussion with Douglas, Mr. Lincoln had occupied a
prominent place before the public; but there had been little mention
of his name for the Presidency. His friends at home had apparently
hoped to nominate him for Vice-President on the ticket with Mr.
Seward. But as the proofs of hostility to Seward multiplied,
speculation was busy as to the man who could be taken in his stead.
At the moment when doubts of Seward's success were most prevalent,
and when excitement in regard to the nomination was deepest, the
Republicans of Illinois met in State convention. It was but a few
days in advance of the assembling of the National convention. By
a spontaneous movement they nominated Mr. Lincoln for President.
It was a surprise to the convention that did it. The man who
created the great outburst for Mr. Lincoln in that Illinois
assemblage, who interpreted the feelings of delegates to themselves,
was Richard J. Oglesby, a speaker of force and eloquence, afterward
honorably prominent and popular in military and civil life. He
was seconded with unanimity, and with boisterous demonstrations of
applause. The whole State was instantly alive and ablaze for
Lincoln. A delegation competent for its work was sent to the
convention. David Davis, O. H. Browning, Burton C. Cook, Gustavus
Koerner, and their associates, met no abler body of men in a
convention remarkable for its ability. They succeeded in the
difficult task assigned to them. They did not in their canvass
present Mr. Lincoln as a rival to Mr. Seward, but rather as an
admirer and friend. The votes which were given to Mr. Lincoln on
the first ballot were, in large part, from delegations that could
not be induced in any event to vote for Mr. Seward. The presentation
of Mr. Lincoln's name kept these delegates from going to a candidate
less acceptable to the immediate friends of Mr. Seward. No management
could have been more skillful, no tact more admirable. The result
attested the vigor and wisdom of those who had Mr. Lincoln's fortunes
in charge.
Mr. Seward's support, however, after all the assaults made upon
it, was still very formidable. On the first ballot he received
1751/2 votes, while Mr. Lincoln received but 102. Delegates to the
number of 190 divided their votes between Bates, Chase, Cameron,
Dayton, McLean, and Collamer. They held the balance of power, and
on the second ballot it was disclosed that the mass of them favored
Mr. Lincoln as against Mr. Seward. The latter gained but nine
votes, carrying his total up to 1841/2, while Mr. Lincoln received
181. On the third ballot, Mr. Lincoln was nominated by general
consent.
NOMINATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
It is one of the contradictions not infrequently exhibited in the
movement of partisan bodies, that Mr. Seward was defeated because
of his radical expressions on the slavery questions, while Mr.
Lincoln was chosen in spite of expressions far more radical than
those of Mr. Seward. The "irrepressible conflict" announced by
Mr. Seward at Rochester did not go so far as Mr. Lincoln's declaration
at Springfield, that "the Union could not exist half slave, half
free." Neither Mr. Seward nor Mr. Lincoln contemplated the
destruction of the government, and yet thousands had been made to
believe that Mr. Seward made the existence of the Union depend on
the abolition of slavery. Mr Lincoln had announced the same doctrine
in advance of Mr. Seward, with a directness and bluntness which
could not be found in the more polished phrase of the New-York
senator. Despite these facts, a large number of delegates from
doubtful States--delegates who held the control of the convention
--supported Mr. Lincoln, on the distinct ground that the anti-
slavery sentiment which they represented was not sufficiently
radical to support the author of the speech in which had been
proclaimed the doctrine of an "irrepressible conflict" between
freedom and slavery.
In a final analysis of the causes and forces which nominated Mr.
Lincoln, great weight must be given to the influence which came
from the place where the convention was held, and from the sympathy
and pressure of the surrounding crowd. Illinois Republicans, from
Cairo to the Wisconsin line, were present in uncounted thousands.
The power of the mob in controlling public opinion is immeasurable.
In monarchical governments it has dethroned kings, and in republics
it dictates candidates. Had the conditions been changed and the
National convention of the Republicans assembled in Albany, it is
scarcely to be doubted that Mr. Seward would have been nominated.
It is quite certain that Mr. Lincoln would not have been nominated.
The great achievement at Chicago was the nomination of Mr. Lincoln
without offending the supporters of Seward. This happy result
secured victory for the party in the national contest. No wounds
were inflicted, no hatreds planted, no harmonies disturbed. The
devotion to the cause was so sincere and so dominant, that the
personal ambitions of a lifetime were subordinated in an instant
upon the demand of the popular tribunal whose decision was final.
The discipline of defeat was endured with grace, and self-abnegation
was accepted as the supreme duty of the hour.
A wise selection was made for Vice-President. Hannibal Hamlin
belonged originally to the school of Democrats who supported Jackson,
and who took Silas Wright as their model. After the repeal of the
Missouri Compromise he separated himself from his old associates,
and proved to be a powerful factor in the formation of the Republican
party. His candidacy for Governor of Maine, in 1856, broke down
the Democratic party in that State, and gave a great impulse to
the Republican campaign throughout the country. In strong common
sense, in sagacity and sound judgment, in rugged integrity of
character, Mr. Hamlin has had no superior among public men. It is
generally fortunate for a political party if the nominee for Vice-
President does not prove a source of weakness in the popular canvass.
Mr. Hamlin proved a source of strength, and the imparted confidence
and courage to the great movement against the Democratic party.
In the four Presidential tickets in the field, every shade of
political opinion was represented, but only two of the candidates
embodied positive policies. Mr. Lincoln was in favor of prohibiting
the extension of slavery by law. Mr. Breckinridge was in favor of
protecting its extension by law. No issue could have been more
pronounced than the one thus presented. Mr. Douglas desired to
evade it, and advocated his doctrine of non-intervention which was
full of contradictions, and was in any event offensive to the anti-
slavery conscience. It permitted what was considered a grievous
moral wrong to be upheld, if a majority of white men would vote in
favor of upholding it. Mr. Bell desired to avoid the one question
that was in the popular mind, and to lead the people away from
every issue except the abstract one of preserving the Union. By
what means the Union could be preserved against the efforts of
Southern secessionists, Mr. Bell's party did not explain. The
popular apprehension was that Mr. Bell would concede all they asked,
and insure the preservation of the Union by yielding to the demands
of the only body of men who threatened to destroy it.
ELECTION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
As the canvass grew animated, and the questions at issue were
elaborately discussed before the people, the conviction became
general that the supporters of Breckinridge contemplated the
destruction of the government. This was not simply the belief of
the Republicans. It was quite as general among the supporters of
Douglas and the supporters of Bell. In an earlier stage of the
anti-slavery contest, this fact would have created great alarm in
the Northern States, but now the people would not yield to such a
fear. They were not only inspired by the principles they upheld,
but there was a general desire to test the question thus presented.
If a President, constitutionally elected, could not be inaugurated,
it was better then and there to ascertain the fact than to postpone
the issue by an evasion or a surrender. The Republicans were
constantly strengthened by recruits from the Douglas ranks. Many
of the friends of Douglas had become enraged by the course of the
Southern Democrats, and now joined the Republicans, in order to
force the issue upon the men who had been so domineering and
offensive in the Charleston and Baltimore conventions. Mr. Lincoln
gained steadily and derived great strength from the division of
his opponents. But their union could not have defeated him. In
New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, but one electoral ticket
was presented against Mr. Lincoln, his opponents having coalesced
in a joint effort to defeat him. In New Jersey, the "Fusion"
ticket, as the combination was termed, was made up of three Douglas,
two Bell, and two Breckinridge representatives. Owing to the fact
that some of the supporters of Douglas refused to vote for the
Breckinridge and Bell candidates, Mr. Lincoln received four electoral
votes in New Jersey, though, in the aggregate popular vote, the
majority was against him. In California and Oregon he received
pluralities. In every other free State he had an absolute majority.
Breckinridge carried every slave State except four,--Virginia,
Kentucky, and Tennessee voting for Bell, and Missouri voting for
Douglas.
The long political struggle was over. A more serious one was about
to begin. For the first time in the history of the government,
the South was defeated in a Presidential election where an issue
affecting the slavery question was involved. There had been grave
conflicts before, sometimes followed by compromise, oftener by
victory for the South. But the election of 1860 was the culmination
of a contest which was foreshadowed by the Louisiana question of
1812; which became active and angry over the admission of Missouri;
which was revived by the annexation of Texas, and still further
inflamed by the Mexican war; which was partially allayed by the
compromises of 1850; which was precipitated for final settlement
by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, by the consequent struggle
for mastery in Kansas, and by the aggressive intervention of the
Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott. These are the events
which led, often slowly, but always with directness, to the political
revolution of 1860. The contest was inevitable, and the men whose
influence developed and encouraged it may charitably be regarded
as the blind agents of fate. But if personal responsibility for
prematurely forcing the conflict belongs to any body of men, it
attaches to those who, in 1854, broke down the adjustments of 1820
and of 1850. If the compromises of those years could not be
maintained, the North believed that all compromise was impossible;
and they prepared for the struggle which this fact foreshadowed.
They had come to believe that the house divided against itself
could not stand; that the Republic half slave, half free, could
not endure. They accepted as their leader the man who proclaimed
these truths. The peaceful revolution was complete when Abraham
Lincoln was chosen President of the United States.
In the closing and more embittered period of the political struggle
over the question of Slavery, public opinion in the South grew
narrow, intolerant, and cruel. The mass of the Southern people
refused to see any thing in the anti-slavery movement except
fanaticism; they classed Abolitionists with the worst of malefactors;
they endeavored to shut out by the criminal code and by personal
violence the enlightened and progressive sentiment of the world.
Their success in arousing the prejudice and unifying the action of
the people in fifteen States against the surging opinion of
Christendom is without parallel. Philanthropic movements elsewhere
were regarded with jealousy and distrust. Southern statesmen of
the highest rank looked upon British emancipation in the West Indies
as designedly hostile to the prosperity and safety of their own
section, and as a plot for the ultimate destruction of the Republic.
Each year the hatred against the North deepened, and the boundary
between the free States and the slave States was becoming as marked
as a line of fire. The South would see no way of dealing with
Slavery except to strengthen and fortify it at every point. Its
extinction they would not contemplate. Even a suggestion for its
amelioration was regarded as dangerous to the safety of the State
and to the sacredness of the family.
BRITISH SUPPORT OF THE SLAVE-TRADE.
Southern opinion had not always been of this type. It had changed
with the increase in the number of slaves, and with the increased
profit from their labor. Before the Revolutionary war, Virginia
had earnestly petitioned George III. to prohibit the importation
of slaves from Africa, and the answer of His Majesty was a peremptory
instruction to the Royal Governor at Williamsburg, "not to assent
to any law of the Colonial Legislature by which the importation of
slaves should in any respect be prohibited or obstructed." Anti-
slavery opinion was developed in a far greater degree in the American
Colonies than in the mother country. When the Convention of 1787
inserted in the Federal Constitution a clause giving to Congress
the power to abolish the slave-trade after the year 1808, they took
a step far in advance of European opinion. A society was formed
in London, in the year 1787, for the suppression of the slave-trade.
Although it was organized under the auspices of the distinguished
philanthropists, William Clarkson and Granville Sharp, it had at
the time as little influence upon the popular opinion of England
as the early efforts of William Lloyd Garrison and the Society for
the Abolition of Domestic Slavery had upon the public opinion of
the United States. It was not until 1791 that Mr. Wilberforce
introduced in Parliament his first bill for the suppression of the
slave-trade, and though he had the enlightened sympathy of Mr.
Pitt, the eminent premier did not dare to make it a ministerial
measure. The bill was rejected by a large vote. It was not until
fifteen years later that the conscience of England won a victory
over the organized capital engaged in the infamous traffic. It
was the young and struggling Republic in America that led the way,
and she led the way under the counsel and direction of Southern
statesmen. American slave-holders were urging the abolition of
the traffic while London merchants were using every effort to
continue it, and while Bristol, the very headquarters of the trade,
was represented in Parliament by Edmund Burke. Even among the
literary men of England,--if Boswell's gossip may be trusted,--Dr.
Johnson was peculiar in his hatred of the infamy--a hatred which
is obsequious biographer mollifies to an "unfavorable notion," and
officiously ascribes to "prejudice and imperfect or false information."
The anti-slavery work of England was originally inspired from
America, and the action of the British Parliament was really so
directed as to make the prohibition of the slave-trade correspond
in time with that prescribed in the Federal Constitution. The
American wits and critics of that day did not fail to note the
significance of the date, and to appreciate the statesmanship and
philosophy which led the British Parliament to terminate the trade
at the precise moment when the American Congress closed the market.
The slaves in the United States numbered about seven hundred thousand
when Washington's administration was organized. They had increased
to four millions when Lincoln was chosen President. Their number
in 1860 was less in proportion to the white population than it was
in 1789. The immigration of whites had changed the ratio. But
the more marked and important change had been in the value of slave
labor. In 1789 the slaves produced little or no surplus, and in
many States were regarded as a burden. In 1860 they produced a
surplus of at least three hundred millions of dollars. The power
of agricultural production in the Southern States had apparently
no limit. If the institution of Slavery could be rendered secure,
the dominant minds of the South saw political power and boundless
wealth within their grasp. They saw that they could control the
product and regulate the price of a staple in constant demand among
every people on the globe. The investment of the South in slaves
represented a capital of two thousand millions of dollars, reckoned
only upon the salable value of the chattel. Estimated by its
capacity to produce wealth, the institution of Slavery represented
to the white population of the South a sum vastly in excess of two
thousand millions. Without slave-labor, the cotton, rice, and
sugar lands were, in the view of Southern men, absolutely valueless.
With the labor of the slave, they could produce three hundred
millions a year in excess of the food required for the population.
Three hundred millions a year represented a remunerative interest
on a capital of five thousand millions of dollars. In the history
of the world there has perhaps never been so vast an amount of
productive capital firmly consolidated under one power, subject to
the ultimate control and direction of so small a number of men.
THE SOUTH AND THE SLAVE-TRADE.
With such extraordinary results attained, the natural desire of
slave-holders was to strive for development and expansion. They
had in the South more land than could be cultivated by the slaves
they then owned, or by their natural increase within any calculable
period. So great was the excess of land that, at the time Texas
was annexed, Senator Ashley of Arkansas declared that his State
alone could, with the requisite labor, produce a larger cotton-crop
than had ever been grown in the whole country. In the minds of
the extreme men of the South the remedy was to be found in re-
opening the African slave-trade. So considerate and withal so
conservative a man as Alexander H. Stephens recognized the situation.
When he retired from public service, at the close of the Thirty-
sixth Congress, in 1859, he delivered an address to his constituents,
which was in effect a full review of the Slavery question. He told
them plainly that they could not keep up the race with the North
in the occupation of new territory "unless they could get more
Africans." He did not avowedly advocate the re-opening of the
slave-trade, but the logic of his speech plainly pointed to that
end.
John Forsythe of Alabama, an aggressive leader of the most radical
pro-slavery type, carried the argument beyond the point where the
prudence of Mr. Stephens permitted him to go. In recounting the
triumphs of the South, he avowed that one stronghold remained to
be carried, "the abrogation of the prohibition of the slave-trade."
So eminent a man as William L. Yancey formally proposed in a Southern
commercial convention, in 1858, that the South should demand the
repeal of the laws "declaring the slave-trade to be piracy;" and
Governor Adams of South Carolina pronounced those laws to be "a
fraud upon the slave-holders of the South." The Governor of
Mississippi went still farther, and exhibited a confidence in the
scheme which was startling. He believed that "the North would not
refuse so just a demand if the South should unitedly ask it."
Jefferson Davis did not join in the movement, but expressed a hearty
contempt for those "who prate of the inhumanity and sinfulness of
the slave-trade."
Quotations of this character might be indefinitely multiplied.
The leaders of public opinion in the Cotton States were generally
tending in the same direction, and, in the language of Jefferson
Davis, were basing their conclusion on "the interest of the South,
and not on the interest of the African." Newspapers and literary
reviews in the Gulf States were seconding and enforcing the position
of their public men, and were gradually but surely leading the mind
of the South to a formal demand for the privilege of importing
Africans. A speaker in the Democratic National Convention at
Charleston, personally engaged in the domestic slave-trade, frankly
declared that the traffic in native Africans would be far more
humane. The thirty thousand slaves annually taken from the border
States to the cotton-belt represented so great an aggregation of
misery, that the men engaged in conducting it were, even by the
better class of slave-holders, regarded with abhorrence, and spoken
of as infamous.
It is worthy of observation that the re-opening of the African
slave-trade was not proposed in the South until after the Dred
Scott decision. This affords a measure of the importance which
pro-slavery statesmen attached to the position of the Supreme Court.
In the light of these facts, the repeated protests of Senator
Douglas "against such schemes as the re-opening of the African
slave-trade" were full of significance; nor could any development
of Southern opinion have vindicated more completely the truth
proclaimed by Mr. Lincoln, that the country was destined to become
wholly anti-slavery or wholly pro-slavery. The financial interest
at stake in the fate of the institution was so vast, that Southern
men felt impelled to seek every possible safeguard against the
innumerable dangers which surrounded it. The revival of the African
slave-trade was the last suggestion for its protection, and was
the immediate precursor of its destruction.
In reckoning the wealth-producing power of the Southern States,
the field of slave labor has been confined to the cotton-belt. In
the more northern of the slave-holding States, free labor was more
profitable, and hence the interest in Slavery was not so vital or
so enduring as in the extreme South. There can be little doubt
that the slave States of the border would have abolished the
institution at an early period except for the fact that their slaves
became a steady and valuable source of labor-supply for the increased
demand which came from the constantly expanding area of cotton.
But his did not create so palpable or so pressing an interest as
was felt in the Gulf States, and the resentment caused by the
election of Lincoln was proportionately less. The border States
would perhaps have quietly accepted the result, however distasteful,
except for the influence brought upon them from the extreme South,
where the maintenance of Slavery was deemed vital to prosperity
and to safety.
In the passions aroused by the agitation over slavery, Southern
men failed to see (what in cooler moments they could readily
perceive) that the existence of the Union and the guaranties of
the Constitution were the shield and safeguard of the South. The
long contest they had been waging with the anti-slavery men of the
free States had blinded Southern zealots to the essential strength
of their position so long as their States continued to be members
of the Federal Union. But for the constant presence of national
power, and its constant exercise under the provisions of the
Constitution, the South would have had no protection against the
anti-slavery assaults of the civilized world. Abolitionists from
the very beginning of their energetic crusade against slavery had
seen the Constitution standing in their way, and with the unsparing
severity of their logic had denounced it as "a league with hell
and a covenant with death." The men who were directing public
opinion in the South were trying to persuade themselves, and had
actually persuaded many of their followers, that the election of
Lincoln was the overthrow of the Constitution, and that their safety
in the Union was at an end. They frightened the people by Lincoln's
declaration that the Republic could not exist half slave, half
free. They would not hear his own lucid and candid explanation of
his meaning, but chose rather to accept the most extreme construction
which the pro-slavery literature and the excited harangues of a
Presidential canvass had given to Mr. Lincoln's language.
SOUTHERN CONFIDENCE IN SECESSION.
The confidence of Southern men in their power to achieve whatever
end they should propose was unbounded. They apparently did not
stop to contemplate the effect upon slavery which a reckless course
on their part might produce. Having been schooled to the utmost
conservatism in affairs of government, they suddenly became rash
and adventurous. They were apparently ready to put every thing to
hazard, professing to believe that nothing could be as fatal as to
remain under what they termed the "Government of Lincoln." They
believed they could maintain themselves against physical force,
but they took no heed of a stronger power which was sure to work
against them. They disregarded the enlightened philanthropy and
the awakened conscience which had abolished slavery in every other
Republic of America, which had thrown the protection of law over
the helpless millions of India, which had moved even the Russian
Autocracy to consider the enfranchisement of the serf. They would
not realize that the contest they were rashly inviting was not
alone with the anti-slavery men of the free States, not alone with
the spirit of loyalty to the Republic, but that it carried with it
a challenge to the progress of civilization, and was a fight against
the nineteenth century.