President Lincoln and the Confederate Commissioners.--Misleading
Assurance given by Judge Campbell.--Mr. Seward's Answer to Messrs.
Forsythe and Crawford.--An Interview with the President is desired
by the Commissioners.--Rage in the South.--Condition of the Montgomery
Government.--Roger A. Pryor's Speech.--President determines to send
Provisions to Fort Sumter.--Advises Governor Pickens.--Conflict
precipitated.--The Fort surrenders.--Effect of the Conflict on the
North.--President's Proclamation and Call for Troops.--Responses
of Loyal States.--Popular Uprising.--Democratic Party.--Patriotism
of Senator Douglas.--His Relations with Mr. Lincoln.--His Death.--
Public Service and Character.--Effect of the President's Call on
Southern States.--North Carolina.--Tennessee.--Virginia.--Senator
Mason's Letter.--Responses of Southern Governors to the President's
Call for Troops.--All decline to comply.--Some of them with Insolent
Defiance.--Governors of the Free States.--John A. Andrew, E. D.
Morgan, Andrew G. Curtin, Oliver P. Morton.--Energetic and Patriotic
Action of all Northern Governors.--Exceptional Preparation in
Pennsylvania for the Conflict.--Governors of Free States all
Republicans except in California and Oregon.--Critical Situation
on Pacific Coast.--Loyalty of its People.--President's Reasons for
postponing Session of Congress.--Election in Kentucky.--Union
Victory.--John J. Crittenden and Garrett Davis.--John Bell.--
Disappoints Expectation of Union Men.--Responsibility of Southern
Whigs.--Their Power to arrest the Madness.--Audacity overcomes
Numbers.--Whig Party of the South.--Its Brilliant Array of Leaders.
--Its Destruction.
The negotiation which the seceding State of South Carolina had
unsuccessfully attempted with President Buchanan, for the surrender
of Fort Sumter, was now formally renewed by the Confederate Government
with the administration of Mr. Lincoln. The week following the
inauguration, John Forsythe of Alabama and Martin J. Crawford of
Georgia appeared in Washington in the character of Commissioners
from the Confederate States, "with a view," as they defined it,
"to a speedy adjustment of all questions growing out of the political
separation, upon such terms of amity and good will as the respective
interests, geographical contiguity, and future welfare of the two
nations, may render necessary." They addressed their communication
to the Secretary of State as a matter pertaining to the Foreign
Department of the government, and waited with confidence for an
answer that would practically recognize the nationality which they
assumed to represent. Judge Campbell of the Supreme Court, a
citizen of Alabama, had held some conferences with Mr. Seward, the
result of which was his personal assurance to the Commissioners
that Fort Sumter would be evacuated before the 25th of March; and
he urged them not to insist upon too prompt an answer to their
demand. At his instance, the reply of Mr. Seward was withheld from
official delivery, and, though dated the 15th of March, was really
not read by the Commissioners until the 7th or 8th of April.
THE CONFEDERATE COMMISSIONERS.
Mr. Seward's answer threw the Commissioners and the entire South
into a rage. He declined to comply with the request of Messrs.
Forsythe and Crawford. He saw in them, "not a rightful and
accomplished revolution, not an independent nation with an established
government, but only the perversion of a temporary and partisan
excitement, and an inconsiderate purpose of unjustifiable and
unconstitutional aggression upon the rights and the authority vested
in the Federal Government." Mr. Seward further advised them that
he "looked for the cure of evils which should result from proceedings
so unnecessary, so unwise, so unusual, so unnatural, not to irregular
negotiations having in view untried relations, but to regular,
considerate action of the people of those States through the Congress
of the United States, and through such extraordinary conventions,
if there be need thereof, as the Federal Constitution contemplates
and authorizes to be assembled." Under these circumstances, Mr.
Seward informed the Commissioners that his official duties were
confined to the conduct of the foreign relations of his country,
and did not at all embrace domestic questions, or questions arising
between the several States and the Federal Government.
The Secretary of State was unable, therefore, to comply with the
request of Messrs. Forsythe and Crawford, and declined to appoint
a day on which they might submit the objects of their visit to the
President of the United States. He refused to recognize them as
diplomatic agents, and would not hold correspondence or further
communication with them. Lest the Commissioners might console
themselves with the reflection that Mr. Seward was speaking only
for himself, and that the President might deal with them less
curtly, he informed them that he had cheerfully submitted his answer
to Mr. Lincoln, who coincided in the views it expressed, and
sanctioned the Secretary's decision declining official intercourse
with Messrs. Forsythe and Crawford. The rejoinder of the Confederate
Commissioners to Mr. Seward was in a threatening tone, upbraiding
him with bad faith, and advising him that "Fort Sumter cannot be
provisioned without the effusion of blood;" reminding him also that
they had not come to Washington to ask the Government of the United
States to recognize the independence of the Confederacy, but for
an "adjustment of new relations springing from a manifest and
accomplished revolution."
Up to this time there had not been the slightest collision between
the forces of the Confederacy and the forces of the Union. The
places which had been seized, belonging to the Federal Government,
had been taken without resistance; and the authorities of Montgomery
appeared to a great many Southern people to be going through blank
motions, and to be aping power rather than exercising it. Their
defiant attitude had been demoralizing to the public sentiment in
the North, but their failure to accomplish any thing in the way of
concession from the National Government, and their apparent timidity
in refraining from a shock of arms, was weakening the Disunion
sentiment in the States which composed the Confederacy. Jefferson
Davis had been inaugurated with great pomp and pretension in
February, and now April had been reached with practically nothing
done but the issuing of manifestoes, and the maintenance of a mere
shadow of government, without its substance. The Confederates had
as yet no revenue system and no money. They had no armed force
except some military companies in the larger cities, organized long
before secession was contemplated. They had not the pretense of
a navy, or any power apparently to create one. While the administration
of Mr. Lincoln, therefore, was disappointing great numbers in the
North by its failure to do something decisive towards re-establishing
the National authority in the rebellious States, the inhabitants
of those States were becoming daily dissatisfied with the fact that
the administration of Mr. Davis was doing nothing to consolidate
and protect the Confederacy.
DISSATISFACTION WITH THE CONFEDERACY.
Ever since the inauguration of Jefferson Davis, the flag of the
United States had been flying over the strongest fortress in the
Confederacy, and no forcible effort had been made to displace it.
The first flush of joy and congratulation was over, and re-action
had begun throughout the revolting States. The Confederate Government
was reminded by many of the leading newspapers of the South that
unless some decisive step were taken to assert its authority and
establish its prestige, it would quietly crumble to pieces. The
apparent non-resistance of Mr. Lincoln's administration had, in
many minds, the effect of casting contempt upon the whole Southern
movement, and the refusal to recognize or receive commissioners of
Mr. Davis's appointment was regarded as a direct insult to their
government, which, unless met by some decisive step, would subject
the leaders to the derision of public opinion throughout the new
Confederacy. Mr. Buchanan had been willing to receive commissioners
from seceding States, so far as to confer with them, even when he
declared that he had no power to take any action in the premises.
Mr. Lincoln had advanced beyond the position of Mr. Buchanan when
he refused even to give audience to representatives bearing the
commission of the Confederate States.
The situation therefore had become strained. The point had been
reached where it was necessary to go forward or go backward; where
the Confederacy must assert itself, or the experiment of secession
be abandoned. From all quarters of the seven States came the demand
upon the Montgomery government to do something decisive. A prominent
member of the Alabama Legislature told Jefferson Davis that "unless
he sprinkled blood in the face of the Southern people they would
be back in the old Union in less than ten days." Public meetings
were held to urge the government to action. At Charleston, in
answer to a large crowd who came to pay him honor, Roger A. Pryor
(whose attractive eloquence has since been used to better ends)
told the people that only one thing was necessary to force Virginia
into the Southern Confederacy: "to strike a blow." That done, he
promised them that "Virginia would secede in less than an hour by
Shrewsbury clock."
The indifference of Mr. Lincoln's administration to the program of
the Southern Confederacy was apparent and not real. In his Inaugural
he had declared that the power confided to him would be used to
hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the
government, and to collect the duties and imposts, but, beyond what
was necessary for those objects, there would be no invasion, no
use of force against or among the people anywhere. Influential
persons connected with Mr. Lincoln's administration may have wavered
in regard to the expediency of re-enforcing Major Anderson and
holding possession of Fort Sumter, but the President himself wisely
concluded that to retreat from that point would be an almost fatal
step. There was not a citizen in the North who had not become
interested in the fate of Major Anderson and the brave soldiers
under his command. Though many patriotic men of conservative or
timid nature advised a quiet withdrawal from Fort Sumter rather
than an open conflict for its possession, there was an instinctive
undertone in the masses of the people in the Northern States against
a concession so humiliating. If prestige were needed for the
government at Montgomery, Mr. Lincoln felt that it was needed for
the government at Washington, and if he withdrew from Sumter he
could not see any point where he could make a stand.
The President determined, therefore, to send supplies to Major
Anderson. He wisely saw that if he failed to do this he would be
receding from the temperate and conservative position taken in the
Inaugural, and that it would give to the Confederates a degree of
courage, and to the North a degree of despondency, which would
vastly increase the difficulty of restoring the Union. In Mr.
Lincoln's own language: "the abandonment of Sumter would be utterly
ruinous, under the circumstances." . . . "At home it would discourage
the friends of the Union, embolden its adversaries, and go far to
insure to the latter a recognition abroad. In fact, it would be
our national destruction consummated." Having taken this determination,
he communicated it to Governor Pickens of South Carolina just at
the time that Mr. Seward delivered to the commissioners of Jefferson
Davis the government's refusal to receive them. The answer to the
commissioners, and the determination not to permit Anderson to be
starved out of Fort Sumter with the hostile guns of the Confederacy
pointed at him, brought on the conflict. As soon as the two events
were made public, the Confederate Secretary of War instructed
General Beauregard that if the information conveyed to Governor
Pickens was authentic, he should proceed to reduce the fort. The
conflict came on the 12th of April, and after a furious cannonade
of thirty-four hours, Major Anderson, being out of provisions, was
compelled to surrender. The fleet that was bringing him relief
arrived too late, and the flag of the United States was lowered to
the Confederacy. Those who had urged Mr. Davis to strike a blow
and to sprinkle blood in the faces of the people as a means of
consolidating Southern opinion, were undoubtedly successful.
Throughout the States of the Confederacy the inhabitants were crazed
with success. They had taken from the National Government its
strongest fortress on the South-Atlantic coast. They felt suddenly
awakened to a sense of power, and became wild with confidence in
their ability to defy the authority of the United States.
EFFECT OF FORT SUMTER'S FALL.
The Confederate Government, however, had not anticipated the effect
of an actual conflict on the people of the North. Until the hour
of the assault on Sumter they had every reason for believing that
Mr. Lincoln's administration was weak; that it had not a sustaining
force of public opinion behind it in the free States; that, in
short, Northern people were divided very much on the line of previous
party organizations, and that his opponents had been steadily
gaining, his supporters as steadily losing, since the day of the
Presidential election in November. The Confederates naturally
counted much on this condition of Northern sentiment, and took to
themselves the comforting assurance that vigorous war could never
be made by a divided people. They had treasured all the extreme
sayings of Northern Democrats about resisting the march of a Black
Republican army towards the South, and offering their dead bodies
as obstructions to its progress. They believed, and had good reason
for believing, that half the population of the North was opposed
to the policy of subjugation, and they accepted the creed of Mr.
Buchanan that there was no power in the Constitution to coerce a
sovereign State.
Never was popular delusion so suddenly and so completely dispelled.
The effect of the assault on Sumter and the lowering of the National
flag to the forces of the Confederacy acted upon the North as an
inspiration, consolidating public sentiment, dissipating all
differences, bringing the whole people to an instant and unanimous
determination to avenge the insult and re-establish the authority
of the Union. Yesterday there had been doubt and despondency; to-
day had come assurance and confidence. Yesterday there had been
division; to-day there was unity. The same issue of the morning
paper that gave intelligence of the fall of Sumter, brought also
a call from the President of the United States for seventy-five
thousand men to aid him "in suppressing combinations against the
law, too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial
proceedings." He notified the people that "the first service
assigned to the force hereby called forth will probably be to
repossess the forts, places, and property which have been seized
from the Union;" and he concluded by convening an extra session of
Congress to assemble on the fourth day of the ensuing July. The
President stated, in his Proclamation, that the laws of the United
States had been "for some time past opposed, and their execution
obstructed, in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama,
Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, by combinations too
powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial
procedure, or by the powers vested in the marshals by law." He
had therefore "called forth the militia to suppress such combinations,
and to cause the laws to be duly executed." He appealed to all
loyal citizens "to aid in maintaining the honor, the integrity,
and the existence of the National Union, and the perpetuity of
popular government." The Proclamation was general. The Call for
troops was issued specifically to every State except the seven
already in revolt.
The Proclamation was responded to in the loyal States with an
unparalleled outburst of enthusiasm. On the day of its issue
hundreds of public meetings were held, from the eastern border of
Maine to the extreme western frontier. Work was suspended on farm
and in factory, and the whole people were roused to patriotic ardor,
and to a determination to subdue the Rebellion and restore the
Union, whatever might be the expenditure of treasure or the sacrifice
of life. Telegrams of congratulation and sympathy fell upon the
White House like snow-flakes in a storm; and the President was made
to feel, after all the months of gloom and darkness through which
he had passed since his election, that light had broken, that day
had dawned, and that the open struggle for the Union, however severe
and however sanguinary it might prove, was preferable to the slough
of despond in which the nation had been cast, and the valley of
humiliation through which the government had been groping.
In the history of popular uprisings and of manifestations of National
enthusiasm, there is perhaps no equal to that which was seen in
the free States of the Union in the weeks immediately following
the rash attack on Fort Sumter. While the feeling was too deep to
brook resistance, or quietly to endure a word of opposition, it
was happily so tempered with discretion as to prevent personal
outrages upon the few who did not join in the general chorus for
the Union. Suspected men were waited upon and requested to speak
for the loyal cause, and newspapers, which before the firing of
Sumter had been offensive in tone, were compelled to hoist the
National flag over their offices, and openly support the government.
But these cases were few and exceptional; and it is due to the
Democracy of the North to say, that however strongly they had
opposed the election of Mr. Lincoln, and however hostile they had
been to the principles which he represented, the mass of the party
responded with noble enthusiasm and with patriotic fidelity to the
Union. Their great leader, Senator Douglas, set a worthy example
by promptly waiting on the President, and expressing his deepest
sympathy and his most earnest co-operation in the struggle for the
life of the nation.
PATRIOTIC COURSE OF MR. DOUGLAS.
The patriotic course of Mr. Douglas had been of invaluable service
to the government from the hour of Mr. Lincoln's inauguration.
The old friendship between the illustrious rivals from Illinois,
which had begun when each was in his youth, was now strongly revived.
Differing always on political issues, they were at once in accord
when the fate of the government was at stake. The position of
Douglas during the extra session of the Senate had given marked
satisfaction to Mr. Lincoln, and when the deliberations came to a
close, on the 28th of March, the President said that a great gain
had been made to the cause of the Union, by the direction which
the speeches of Douglas would give to the sympathy and action of
the Northern Democracy. From the hour of actual danger, Mr. Douglas
had spoken no partisan word, had known no partisan division, had
labored only for the government of the nation, had looked only to
its safety and its honor. He had a larger following than any other
party leader of his day. Nearly a million and a half of men believed
in his principles, were devoted to him personally, trusted him
implicitly. The value of his active loyalty to the Union may be
measured by the disaster which would have been caused by hesitation
on his part. When he returned to his State, after the firing on
Sumter, the Republican Legislature of Illinois received him with
a display of feeling as profound as that with which they would have
welcomed Mr. Lincoln. His address on that memorable occasion was
worthy of the loftiest patriot, and was of inestimable value to
the cause of the Union. Perhaps no words spoken carried confidence
to more hearts, or gave greater strength to the National cause.
Mr. Douglas did not live to return to the Senate. The extra session
of March closed his public service. He died in Chicago on the
third day of June, 1861, at the early age of forty-eight. His last
days were his best days. The hour of his death was the hour of
his greatest fame. In his political career he had experienced the
extremes of popular odium and of popular approval. His name had
at different periods been attended with as great obloquy as ever
beset a public man. It was his happy fate to have changed this
before his death, and to have secured the enthusiastic approbation
of every lover of the Union. His career had been stormy, his
partisanship aggressive, his course often violent, his political
methods sometimes ruthless. He had sought favor at the South too
long to regain mastery of the North, and he had been defeated in
the Presidential struggle of 1860,--a struggle in which the ambition
of his life had been centred. But with danger to the Union his
early affections and the associations of his young life had come
back. He remembered that he was a native of New England, that he
had been reared in New York, that he had been crowned with honors
by the generous and confiding people of Illinois. He believed in
the Union of the States, and he stood by his country with a fervor
and energy of patriotism which enshrined his name in the history
and in the hearts of the American people. His death created the
profoundest impression in the country, and the Administration felt
that one of the mighty props of the Union had been torn away.
The rank of Mr. Douglas as a statesman is not equal to his rank as
a parliamentary leader. As a statesman, he was full of resources,
fertile in expedients. But he lacked the truest form of conservatism,
and more than once in his career carried partisan contests beyond
the point of safety. His participation in the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise is an illustration, all the more pertinent and impressive
because his own judgment was against the measure, and he allowed
himself to be controlled by the fear that another might usurp the
place in Southern regard so long held by himself. In parliamentary
discussion it is not easy to overstate the power of Mr. Douglas.
Indeed, it would be difficult to name his superior. He did not
attain the dignity of Webster's stately style. He was not gifted
with the fire that burned through Clay's impulsive speech. But as
a ready, comprehensive speaker, armed at all points and using his
weapons with deadliest effect, he was the equal of either. In the
rapidity with which he marshaled the facts favorable to his position,
in the consummate skill with which he presented his argument, in
the dashing and daring manner by which he overcame an opponent more
strongly intrenched than himself, Mr. Douglas is entitled to rank
with the most eminent of parliamentary debaters.
ADDITIONS TO THE CONFEDERACY.
The effect of Major Anderson's surrender of Sumter and of the
President's call for troops proved prejudicial to the Union sentiment
in the slave States which had not yet seceded. It would be more
correct, perhaps, to say that Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation was a test
of loyalty which revealed the actual character of public sentiment
in those States, till then not known in the North. Mr. Lincoln
had done every thing in his power to conciliate them, and to hold
them fast in their loyalty to the Union. But the sympathy with
the South, engendered by the common danger to the institution of
Slavery, was too powerful to be resisted. North Carolina, which
had always been moderate, conservative, and Union-loving, threw
her fortunes with the Confederacy. Tennessee, distracted by the
unforeseen defection of such staunch Union men as John Bell and
Baillie Peyton,* went Southward with the general current. Virginia
could not be restrained, although she was warned and ought to have
seen, that if she joined the Rebellion she would inevitably become
the battle-ground, and would consign her territory to devastation
and her property to destruction. The Virginia convention which
was in session before the firing on Fort Sumter, and which was
animated by a strong friendship for the Union, was carried in to
the vortex of secession by the surrounding excitement. By a vote
of 88 to 55 the State determined to join the Confederacy. The
wonder is that in the prevailing excitement and arrogant dictation,
there could have been found fifty-five men to resist so powerful
a tide of public opinion. The minority was strong enough, however,
to command the submission of the ordinance to a vote of the people,
--a submission which was in form and not in substance, for in
reality no freedom of opinion was conceded.
The ordinance which was passed on the 17th of April, three days
after the fall of Sumter, declared that "it should take effect when
ratified by a majority of the votes of the people of the State,
cast at a poll to be taken thereon on the fourth Thursday in May."
The Convention did not submit its work to popular review and decision
in a fair and honorable way. Eight days after the act of submission,
the Convention passed another ordinance, by which Virginia agreed
"to adopt and ratify the Constitution of the Provisional Government
of the Confederate States." They provided that this second ordinance
should have no effect if the first should be rejected by the people.
It is not difficult to see that the action was taken in order to
render the rejection of the first ordinance impossible. Under the
second ordinance, the Convention at once entered into a formal
alliance, offensive and defensive, with the Confederate States.
Their Vice-President, Alexander H. Stephens, appeared in Richmond
as commissioner of his government, and the Convention appointed Ex-
President John Tyler, William Ballard Preston, James P. Holcombe,
and other leading citizens, as commissioners for Virginia. These
joint commissioners made a formal compact between Virginia and the
Confederate States on the 25th of April, the day after the Convention
had adopted the Confederate Constitution. By this compact, Virginia,
"looking to a speedy union with the Confederate States," placed
"the whole military force of the Commonwealth under the control
and direction of the Confederate States, upon the same basis and
footing as if said Commonwealth were now a member of said
Confederacy."
Without waiting for the decision of the people on the question of
secession, the national flag was removed from the public buildings,
and the Confederate flag was raised. All the property of the
General Government was seized and, by an article in the agreement
with the Confederate commissioner, was in due time to be turned
over to the Montgomery government. In short, the State Government
of Virginia proceeded in its mad career of hostility to the Union,
without the slightest regard to the future decision of the people
on the important issue which in form had been submitted to them.
They evidently intended to make a rejection of the Disunion ordinance
impossible. For their own honor, the man who contrived and guided
these proceedings would better have adopted the bold precedent of
those States which refused altogether to submit the ordinance to
popular vote.
It ought not to escape notice that General Robert E. Lee is not
entitled to the defense so often made for him, that in joining the
Disunion movement he followed the voice of his State. General Lee
resigned his commission in the army of the Union and assumed command
of Confederate troops, long before Virginia had voted upon the
ordinance of secession. He gave the influence of his eminent name
to the schemes of those who, by every agency, _fas aut nefas_, were
determined to hurl Virginia into secession. The very fact that
General Lee had assumed command of the troops in Virginia was a
powerful incentive with many to vote against the Union. Jefferson
Davis had anticipated and measured the full force of the effect
which would be produced upon Virginians by General Lee's identification
with the Confederate cause. Whether or not there be ground for
making General Lee the subject of exceptional censure, there is
surely none for excusing him as one who reluctantly obeyed the
voice of his State. If he had remained in the national army until
the people of Virginia voted on the ordinance of secession, the
strength of the Union cause in his State would have been greater.
If he had chosen, as a citizen of Virginia, to stand by the Union
until his State decided against him, secession might have been
defeated. It is fair that his action should be clearly understood,
and that his name should bear the just responsibility.
THE SECESSION OF VIRGINIA.
All pretense of a fair submission of the question to popular vote
was finally abandoned, and the abandonment practically proclaimed
in a letter of Senator James M. Mason, which was published on the
16th of May, some ten days in advance of the election. "If it be
asked," wrote Mr. Mason, "what those shall do who cannot in conscience
vote to separate Virginia from the United States, the answer is
simple and plain. Honor and duty alike require that they should
not vote on the question, and if they retain such opinions they
must leave the State." Mr. Mason thus accurately defined what the
South understood by the submission of secession ordinances to
popular vote. It meant that a man might vote for an ordinance but
not against it; if he desired to vote against it, and persisted in
the desire, he should leave the State. It is rather a matter of
surprise that of 161,000 votes cast in Virginia on the question,
32,000 were registered against secession. These friends of the
Government were, it is true, in large part from the western section
of the State where slaves were few and the loyal sentiment was
strong. It is an interesting fact that along the mountain range
through Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and even as far South
as Georgia, the inhabitants generally sympathized with the Union.
Though often forced to aid the Rebellion, they were at heart loyal
to the government of their fathers, and on many important occasions
rendered the most valuable service to the National cause. The
devotion of large numbers in East Tennessee to the Federal Government
seriously embarrassed the new Confederacy. The remaining slave
States, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, gave trouble to the
administration, but did not succeed in separating themselves from
the Union. Large numbers of their people joined the Southern army,
but the political power of those States was wielded in favor of
the loyal cause. They desired to enact the part of neutrals; but
the National Government, from the first, took strong ground against
a policy so dishonorable in the States, so injurious to the Union.
The responses made by the Southern governors to the President's
call for troops are so characteristic, and afford so true a picture
of the times, as to merit notice. Nearly every one returned a
scornful and defiant message. Governor Magoffin replied that
Kentucky "would furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing
her sister States of the South." Governor Letcher declared that
"the militia of Virginia would not be furnished to the powers at
Washington for any such use or purpose as they had in view, which
was the subjugation of the Southern States," and that "the civil
war which the powers at Washington had chosen to inaugurate would
be met by the South in a spirit as determined." Governor Jackson
considered "the call to be illegal, unconstitutional, and revolutionary;
its objects to be inhuman and diabolical," and it "would not be
complied with by Missouri." Governor Harris said that Tennessee
"would not furnish a single man for coercion, but would raise fifty
thousand men for the defense of her rights, and those of her Southern
brethren." Governor Ellis of North Carolina answered that he "could
be no party to the wicked violation of the laws of the country and
to the war upon the liberties of a free people." Governor Rector
declared that the President's call for troops was only "adding
insult to injury, and that the people of Arkansas would defend, to
the last extremity, their honor and their property against Northern
mendacity and usurpation." Governor Hicks for prudential reasons
excused Maryland at the time from responding to the President's
call, and when a month afterwards he notified the War Department
of his readiness to comply with the request of the Government, he
was informed that three-months' men were not needed, and that
arrangements had been made for accepting three-years' volunteers
from Maryland. Governor Burton of Delaware replied that "there
was no organized militia in the State, and no law authorizing such
organization." Indisposition to respond to the President was
therefore in different degrees manifest in every part of the Union
where Slavery had wrought its demoralizing influence. Mr. Lincoln
was disappointed at this proof of the sectional character of the
contest, and he realized that if American nationality was to be
preserved, it must look for help to the abounding resources and
the patriotic loyalty of the free States.
THE GOVERNORS OF LOYAL STATES.
It fortunately happened that the governors of the free States were
devoted to the Union in as great degree as the Southern governors
were devoted to the Confederacy. It may well be doubted whether
at any time in history of the government there had been so large
a number of able men occupying the gubernatorial chairs of the
Northern States. They were not only eminent in an intellectual
point of view, but they had a special fitness for the arduous and
patriotic duties so unexpectedly devolved upon them. They became
popularly known as the "War Governors," and they exercised a
beneficent and decisive influence upon the fortunes of the Union.
The Governor of Massachusetts, John A. Andrew, added fervor to the
patriotism of the whole people, and nobly led his State in her
generous outpouring of aid and comfort to the loyal cause. The
vigor which Massachusetts had imparted to the Revolution against
the Crown was surpassed by the ardor with which she now threw
herself into the contest for the Union. She had been often reproached
for urging forward the anti-slavery agitation, which was the excuse
of the South for rebelling against the National authority. A
somewhat similar accusation had been lodged against her by the
Royal Governors and by the Tories a century before. But the men
who found this fault with Massachusetts--a fault wholly on virtue's
side--will not deny that when the hour of trial came, when convictions
of conscience were to be maintained by the strength of the right
arm, and faith in principle was to be attested by a costly sacrifice
of blood, her sons added imperishable honor to their ancestral
record of heroism in the cause of human Liberty and Constitutional
Government.
The other New-England States were not less ardent than Massachusetts.
Israel Washburn, the Governor of Maine, impulsive, energetic,
devoted to the cause of the Union, was sustained by the people of
the State without regard to party and with the noblest enthusiasm.
William A. Buckingham of Connecticut, of mature years and stainless
life, was a young man once more when his country demanded his best
energies. The young Governor of Rhode Island, William Sprague,
laid aside the civilian's dress for the uniform of a soldier, and
led the troops of his State to the National Capital. Ichabod
Goodwin of New Hampshire and Erastus Fairbanks of Vermont, two of
their most honored and useful men, filled out the list of New
England's worthy Executives. Throughout the six States there was
but one anxiety, one resolve,--anxiety for the safety of the
government, resolve to subdue the revolt against it.
New England is not mentioned first except in a geographical sense.
More important even than her patriotic action was the course of
the great Central and Western States. New York and Pennsylvania
of themselves constituted no mean power, with a population of seven
millions, with their boundless wealth, and their ability to produce
the material of war. Edwin D. Morgan was the Executive of New
York. He was a successful merchant of high character, of the
sturdiest common sense and soundest judgment. A man of wealth
himself, he possessed the entire confidence of the bankers and
capitalists of the metropolis. His influence in aid of the finances
of the government in its early period of depression was given
without stint and was of incalculable value. In the neighboring
State of New Jersey, Governor Charles Olden was ready for hearty
co-operation, and seconded with patriotic zeal every movement in
aid of the loyal cause.
Of a different type from Governor Morgan, but equally valuable and
more enthusiastic, was the Governor of Pennsylvania, Andrew G.
Curtin. Circumstances had thrown him into close and cordial
relations with Mr. Lincoln,--relations which had their origin at
the time of the Chicago Convention, and which had grown more intimate
after Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated. Before the firing on Sumter,
but when the States of the Confederacy were evidently preparing
for war, Mr. Lincoln earnestly desired a counter signal of readiness
on the part of the North. Such a movement in New England would
have been regarded in the South merely as a fresh ebullition of
radicalism. In New York the tone was too conservative and Governor
Morgan too cautious to permit the demonstration to be made there.
Governor Curtin undertook to do it in Pennsylvania at the President's
special request. On the eleventh day of April, one day before the
South precipitated the conflict, the Legislature of Pennsylvania
passed an Act for the better organization of the militia, and
appropriated five hundred thousand dollars to carry out the details
of the measure. The manifest reference to the impending trouble
was in the words prescribing the duty of the Adjutant-General of
the State in case the President should call out the militia. It
was the first official step in the loyal States to defend the Union,
and the generous appropriation, made in advance of any blow struck
by the Confederacy, enabled Governor Curtin to rally the forces of
the great Commonwealth to the defense of the Union with marvelous
promptness. His administration was vigorous, and his support of
the Union cause was in the highest degree efficient, patriotic,
and successful. He attained an exceptional popularity with the
soldiers, and against the most bitter attacks never lost his hold
on the confidence and personal regard of Mr. Lincoln.
GOVERNORS OF LOYAL STATES.
In the West the commanding figure among a number of distinguished
Executives was Oliver P. Morton of Indiana. He was of stalwart
frame, full health, and the highest physical vigor. His energy
was untiring, his will unconquerable. In the closely balanced
condition of parties in his State, he had been trained to the most
aggressive and exacting form of leadership, so that he entered upon
his gubernatorial duties with a certain experience in the control
of men which was of marked value. He possessed a mind of extraordinary
strength; and in frequent contests at the bar and upon the stump,
he had thoroughly disciplined his faculties. In debate he was
formidable. It cannot be said that he exhibited striking originality
of thought, or that he possessed in large degree the creative power.
But in the art of presenting with force and clearness a subject
which he had studied, of analyzing it and simplifying it to the
comprehension of the common mind, of clothing it in language as
plain and forcible as the diction of John Bunyan, he has had few
equals among the public men of America.
The Governor of Iowa was Samuel J. Kirkwood, a man of truth, courage,
and devoted love of country. Distinguished for comprehensive
intelligence, for clear foresight, for persuasive speech, for
spotless integrity, for thorough acquaintance with the people, he
was a model of executive efficiency. Alexander Ramsey, the first
governor of the Territory of Minnesota, was now governor of that
State. As strong in character as he was in popularity, as able as
he was patriotic, he broadened by his executive career a personal
fame already enviable. Austin Blair of Michigan was a worthy
compeer of these eminent officials, and administered his high trust
with honor to himself and with advantage to his country. Richard
Yates of Illinois had been chosen governor the day Mr. Lincoln was
elected President, and enjoyed an exceptional popularity with the
people of his State. William Dennison had succeeded Salmon P.
Chase in the gubernatorial chair of Ohio, and was unremitting in
his labor for the Union. Alexander W. Randall of Wisconsin had
contributed in no small degree by public and attractive speech to
the triumph of Mr. Lincoln, and was now intrusted with an important
duty, to which he gave himself with genuine zeal.
In these sixteen States--all the non-slaveholding Commonwealths
east of the Rocky Mountains--the governors were members of the
Republican party. They were in political accord, and in complete
personal sympathy with the administration. This was regarded by
Mr. Lincoln as not in all respects a fortunate circumstance. It
was his belief, as it was the belief of many others, that if loyal
Democrats had been in the executive chairs of some of the largest
States, the effect would have been more impressive. It would have
suggested a more absolute unity of the Northern people in support
of the government. It would in some degree have relieved the
struggle for national life from the opprobrium contained in the
reproach which subsequently became too common, that after all it
was "a Republican war," waged merely for the abolition of slavery.
The two States on the Pacific coast had Democratic governors, and,
by reason of the strong influence which the Southern Democrats had
exercised in both under the influence of William M. Gwin and Joseph
Lane, there was deep solicitude as to the course of event in that
important outpost of the Union. The loyal adherence of those States
to the National Government was a profound disappointment to the
Confederacy. Jefferson Davis had expected, with a confidence
amounting to certainty, and based, it is believed, on personal
pledges, that the Pacific Coast, if it did not actually join the
South, would be disloyal to the Union, and would, from its remoteness
and its superlative importance, require a large contingent of the
national forces to hold it in subjection. It was expected by the
South that California and Oregon would give at least as much trouble
as Kentucky and Missouri, and would thus indirectly but powerfully
aid the Southern cause. The enthusiastic devotion which these
distant States showed to the Union was therefore a surprise to the
South and a most welcome relief to the National Government. The
loyalty of the Pacific Coast was in the hearts of its people, but
it was made more promptly manifest and effective by the patriotic
conduct of Governor Downey and Governor Whittaker, and by the fervid
and persuasive eloquence of Thomas Starr King.
The war wrought a great change in the relative position of parties
in California. In the autumn of 1861 the Republican candidate,
Leland Stanford, was chosen Governor of the State. He received
56,036 votes, while John Conness, a war Democrat, received 30,944,
and McConnell who was the representative of the Gwin Democracy,
which had so long controlled the State, received 32,750. The men
who supported Conness, if driven to the choice, would have supported
Stanford as against McConnell, thus showing the overwhelming
sentiment of California in favor of the Union. Two years before,
in the election of 1859, Mr. Stanford, as the Republican candidate,
received but 10,110 votes, while Milton S. Latham, representing
the Buchanan administration, received 62,255, and Curry, the Douglas
candidate, 31,298. The majority of the Douglas men, if forced to
choose, would have voted for Latham as against Stanford. In the
Presidential election of 1860 California gave Mr. Lincoln 38,734
votes, Mr. Douglas 38,120, Mr. Breckinridge 33,975, Mr. Bell 9,136.
The vote which Governor Stanford received in September, 1861, shows
how rapid, radical, and complete was the political revolution caused
in California by the Southern Rebellion.
THE ELECTION IN KENTUCKY.
In the eager desire of the loyal people to hasten all measures of
preparation for the defense of the Union, fault was found with Mr.
Lincoln for so long postponing the session of Congress. Between
the date of his proclamation and the date of the assembling of
Congress, eighty days were to elapse. Zealous and impatient
supporters of the loyal cause feared that the Confederacy would be
enabled to consolidate its power, and to gather its forces for a
more serious conflict than they could make if more promptly confronted
with the power of the Union. But Mr. Lincoln judged wisely that
time was needed for the growth and consolidation of Northern opinion,
and that senators and representatives, after the full development
of patriotic feeling in the free States, would meet in a frame of
mind better suited to the discharge of the weighty duties devolving
upon them. An additional and conclusive reason with the President
was, that Kentucky had not yet elected her representatives to the
Thirty-seventh Congress, and would not do so, under the constitution
and laws, until the ensuing August. Mr. Lincoln desired to give
ample time for canvassing Kentucky for the special election, which
was immediately ordered by the governor of the State for the
twentieth of June. From the first, Mr. Lincoln had peculiar interest
in the course and conduct of Kentucky. It was his native State,
and Mr. Clay had been his political exemplar and ideal. He believed
also that in the action of her people would be found the best index
and the best test of the popular opinion of the Border slave States.
He did every thing therefore that he could properly do, to aid
Kentucky in reaching a conclusion favorable to the Union. He was
rewarded with a great victory. Of the ten representatives chosen,
nine were decided friends of the Union, with the venerable Crittenden
at their head, ably seconded by Robert Mallory and William H.
Wadsworth. Only one member, Henry C. Burnett, was disloyal to the
government, and he, after a few months' tarry in the Union councils,
went South and joined the Rebellion. The popular vote showed 92,365
for the Union candidates, and 36,995 for the Secession candidates,
giving a Union majority of more than 55,000. Mr. Lincoln regarded
the result in Kentucky as in the highest degree auspicious, and as
amply vindicating the wisdom of delaying the extra session of
Congress. The effect was to stimulate a rapidly developing loyalty
in the western part of Virginia, to discourage rebellious movements
in Missouri, and to arrest Disunion tendencies in Maryland.
Under the protection of the administration, and inspired by the
confidence of its support, the Union men of Kentucky had done for
that State what her Union men might have done for Tennessee if John
Bell and his Whig associates had been as bold and as true to their
old principles and John J. Crittenden and Garrett Davis had proved
in Kentucky. The conduct of Mr. Bell was a sad surprise to his
Northern friends, and a keen mortification to those Southern Whigs
who had remained firm in their attachment to the Union. The vote
which he had received in the South at the Presidential election
was very nearly as large as that given to Breckinridge. The vote
of Bell and Douglas united, exceeded that given to Breckinridge in
the slave States by more than a hundred thousand. The popular
judgment in the North had been that the Disunion element in the
South was massed in support of Breckinridge, and that all who
preferred the candidacy of Bell or Douglas might be relied upon in
the supreme crisis as friends of the Union. Two Southern States,
Kentucky and Tennessee, had given popular majorities for Mr. Bell,
and there was no reason for supposing that the Union sentiment of
Tennessee was any less pronounced than that of Kentucky. Indeed,
Tennessee had the advantage of Mr. Bell's citizenship and long
identification with her public service, while Kentucky encountered
the personal influence and wide-spread popularity of Mr. Breckinridge,
who took part against the Union.
If Mr. Bell had taken firm ground for the Union, the Secession
movement would have been to a very great extent paralyzed in the
South. Mr. Badger of North Carolina, of identically similar
principles with Crittenden, could have given direction to the old
Whig sentiment of his State, and could have held it steadily as
Kentucky was held to the Union. The Bell and Everett campaign had
been conducted upon the single and simple platform of the Union
and the Constitution,--devotion to the Union, obedience to the
Constitution. Mr. Everett, whose public life of grace, eloquence,
and purity had not been especially distinguished for courage,
pronounced with zeal and determination in favor of Mr. Lincoln's
administration, and lent his efforts on the stump to the cause of
the Union with wonderful effect through the Northern States. The
eagerness of Virginia Democrats never could have swept their State
into the whirlpool of Secession if the supporters of Mr. Bell in
Tennessee and North Carolina had thrown themselves between the Old
Dominion and the Confederacy. With that aid, the former Whigs of
Virginia, led by Stuart and Botts and Wickham and Baldwin, and
united with the loyal Democrats of the mountain and the valley,
could have held the State firmly to the support of the Union, and
could have effectively nullified the secret understanding between
Mr. Mason and the Montgomery government, that Virginia should secede
as soon as her open co-operation was needed for the success of the
Southern revolt.
THE WHIGS OF THE SOUTH.
A large share of the responsibility for the dangerous development
of the Rebellion must therefore be attributed to John Bell and his
half million Southern supporters, who were all of the old Whig
party. At the critical moment they signally failed to vindicate
the principles upon which they had appealed in the preceding canvass
for popular support. They are not justly chargeable with original
Disunion proclivities. Sentiments of that kind had been consolidated
in the Breckinridge party. But they are responsible for permitting
a party whose rank and file did not outnumber their own to lead
captive the public opinion of the South, and for permitting themselves
to be pressed into a disavowal of their political principles, and
to the adoption of the extreme views against which they had always
warred. The precipitate manner in which the Southern men of the
ancient Whig faith yielded their position as friends of the Union
was an instructive illustration of the power which a compact and
desperate minority can wield in a popular struggle. In a secret
ballot, where every man could have voted according to his own
convictions and desires, the Secession scheme would have been
defeated in Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and
Arkansas. But the men who led the Disunion movement, understood
the practical lesson taught by the French revolutionist, that
"audacity" can overcome numbers. In such a contest conservatism
always goes down, and radicalism always triumphs. The conservative
wishes to temporize and to debate. The radical wishes to act, and
is ready to shoot. By reckless daring a minority of Southern men
raised a storm of sectional passion to which the friends of the
Union bowed their heads and surrendered.
It would be incorrect to speak of a Whig party in the South at the
outbreak of the civil war. There were many Whigs, but their
organization was gone. It was the destruction of that party which
had prepared the way for a triumph of the Democratic Disunionists.
In the day of their strength the Whigs could not have been overborne
in the South by the Secessionists, nor would the experiment have
been tried. No party in the United States ever presented a more
brilliant array of talent than the Whigs. In the South, though
always resting under the imputation of not being so devoted to the
support of Slavery as their opponents, they yet maintained themselves,
by the power of intellect and by the prestige of chivalric leadership,
in some extraordinary political battles. Many of their eminent
men have a permanent place in our history. Others, with less
national renown, were recognized at home as possessing equal power.
In their training, in their habits of mind, in their pride and
independence, in their lack of discipline and submission, they were
perhaps specially fitted for opposition, and not so well adapted
as men of less power, to the responsibility and detail of
administration. But an impartial history of American statesmanship
will give some of the most brilliant chapters to the Whig party
from 1830 to 1850. If their work cannot be traced in the National
statute-books as prominently as that of their opponents, they will
be credited by the discriminating reader of our political annals
as the English of to-day credit Charles James Fox and his Whig
associates--for the many evils which they prevented.
[* Baillie Peyton is erroneously described as uniting with the
South. He remained true to the Union throughout the contest.]