THE SENATE COMMITTEE OF THIRTEEN
The President's message provoked immediate and heated controversy
in Congress. In the Senate the battle was begun by the radical
secessionists, who at once avowed their main plans and purposes. Mr.
Clingman, of North Carolina, opening the debate, predicted that the
same political organization which had elected Lincoln must soon
control the entire Government, and being guided by a sentiment hostile
to the Southern States would change the whole character of the
Government without abolishing its forms. A number of States would
secede within the next sixty days.
Mr. Brown, of Mississippi, said the accumulating wrongs of years had
finally culminated in the triumph of principles to which they could
not and would not submit. All they asked was to be allowed to depart
in peace.
[Illustration: GENERAL ROBERT TOOMBS.]
[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 5 1860, p. 11.
Mr. Iverson, of Georgia, invoking not only secession, but revolution
and assassination, announced specifically the hopes of the conspirators.
"I am satisfied that South Carolina will resolve herself into a separate
sovereign and independent State before the Ides of January; that Florida
and Mississippi, whose conventions are soon to meet, will follow the
example of South Carolina, and that Alabama ... will go out of the
Union on the 7th of January. Then the Georgia Convention follows on the
16th of that month; and if these other surrounding sisters shall take
the step, Georgia will not be behind ... I speak what I believe on this
floor, that before the 4th of March five of the Southern States at
least will have declared their independence; and I am satisfied that
three others of the Cotton States will follow as soon as the action of
the people can be had. Arkansas, whose Legislature is now in session,
will in all probability call a convention at an early day. Louisiana
will follow. Her Legislature is to meet; and although there is a clog
in the way of the lone star State of Texas, in the person of her
Governor, ... if he does not yield to public sentiment, some Texan
Brutus will arise to rid his country of the hoary-headed incubus that
stands between the people and their sovereign will. We intend, Mr.
President, to go out peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must."
[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 5, 1860, p. 14.
Senator Wigfall, of Texas, took a high revolutionary attitude. "We
simply say that a man who is distasteful to us has been elected and we
choose to consider that as a sufficient ground for leaving the Union."
He said he should "introduce a resolution at an early moment to
ascertain what are the orders that have gone from the War Department to
the officers in command of those forts" at Charleston. If the people of
South Carolina believed that this Government would hold those forts,
and collect the revenues from them, after they had ceased to be one of
the States of this Union, his judgment was that the moment they became
satisfied of that fact they would take the forts, and blood would then
begin to flow.
[Sidenote] Ibid., Dec. 10, 1860, p. 35.
Mr. Mason, of Virginia, said he looked upon the evil as a war of
sentiment and opinion by one form of society against another form of
society. The remedy rested in the political society and State councils
of the several States and not in Congress. His State and a great many
others of the slaveholding States were going into convention with a
view to take up the subject for themselves, and as separate sovereign
communities to determine what was best for their safety.
[Sidenote] Ibid., Dec. 5, 1860, p. 12.
Senator Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, was more reticent and politic,
though no less positive and significant in his brief expressions. As a
Senator of the United States he said he was there to perform his
functions as such; that before a declaration of war was made against
the State of which he was a citizen he expected to be out of the
Chamber; that when that declaration was made his State would be found
ready and quite willing to meet it.
[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 5, 1860, p. 9.
The Republican Senators maintained for the greater part a discreet
silence. To exult in their triumph would be undignified; to hasten
forward officiously with offers of pacification or submission, and
barter away the substantial fruits of their victory, would not only
make them appear pusillanimous in the eyes of their own party, but
bring down upon them the increased contempt of their assailants. There
remained therefore nothing but silence and the feeble hope that this
first fury of the disunion onset might spend itself in angry words, and
be followed by calmer counsels. Nevertheless, it was difficult to keep
entirely still under the irritating provocation. On the third day of
the session, Senator Hale, of New Hampshire, replied to both the
President's message and Clingman's speech. Mr. Hale thought "this state
of affairs looks to one of two things; it looks to absolute submission,
not on the part of our Southern friends and the Southern States but of
the North--to the abandonment of their position; it looks to a
surrender of that popular sentiment which has been uttered through the
constituted forms of the ballot-box; or it looks to open war. We need
not shut our eyes to the fact. It means war, and it means nothing else;
and the State which has put herself in the attitude of secession so
looks upon it.... If it is preannounced and determined that the voice
of the majority expressed through the regular and constituted forms of
the Constitution will not be submitted to, then, sir, this is not a
Union of equals; it is a Union of a dictatorial oligarchy on the one
side, and a herd of slaves and cowards on the other. That is it, sir;
nothing more, nothing less."
While the Southern Democratic party and the Republican party thus
drifted into defiant attitudes the other two parties to the late
Presidential contest naturally fell into the rôle of peacemakers. In
this work they were somewhat embarrassed by their party record, for
they had joined loudly in the current charge of "abolitionism" against
the people of the North, and especially against the Republican party.
Nevertheless, they not only came forward to tender the olive branch,
and to deprecate and rebuke the threats and extreme measures of the
disunionists, but even went so far as to deny and disapprove the staple
complaints of the conspirators.
[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 4, 1860, p. 5.
It must be remembered to the lasting honor of Senator Crittenden that
at the very outset of the discussion he repudiated the absurd theory of
noncoercion. "I do not agree that there is no power in the President to
preserve the Union; I will say that now. If we have a Union at all, and
if, as the President thinks, there is no right to secede on the part of
any State (and I agree with him in that), I think there is a right to
employ our power to preserve the Union."
[Sidenote] Ibid., Dec. 11, 1860, pp. 51, 52.
Senator Pugh, of Ohio, saying that he lived on the border of the
slave-holding and non-slave-holding States, contended that the
fugitive-slave law was executed every day, or nearly every day. It was
in constant operation. He would venture to say that the slave-States
had not lost $100,000 worth of slave property since they had been in
the Union, through negligence or refusal to execute it.
[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 11, 1860, p. 52.
Senator Douglas, of Illinois, said he supposed the fugitive-slave law
was enforced with quite as much fidelity as that in regard to the
African slave trade or the laws on many other subjects. "It so happens
that there is the greatest excitement upon this question just in
proportion as you recede from the line between the free and the
slave-States.... If you go North, up into Vermont where they scarcely
ever see a slave and would not know how he looked, they are disturbed
by the wrongs of the poor slave just in proportion as they are ignorant
of the South. When you get down South, into Georgia and Alabama, where
they never lose any slaves, they are disturbed by the outrages and
losses under the non-fulfillment of the fugitive-slave law just in
proportion as they have no interest in it, and do not know what they
are talking about."
[Sidenote] Ibid., Dec. 10, 1860, p. 24.
Meanwhile, Senator Powell, of Kentucky, having given notice on the 5th,
had on the 6th of December introduced a resolution to raise a special
committee (afterwards known as the Senate Committee of Thirteen) to
concert measures of compromise or pacification, either through
legislation or Constitutional amendments. He said, however, he did not
believe any legislation would be a remedy. Unequivocal constitutional
guarantees upon the points indicated in the resolution under
consideration were in his judgment the only remedies that would reach
and eradicate the disease, give permanent security, and restore
fraternal feeling between the people, North and South, and save the
Union from speedy dissolution. "Let us never despair of the republic,
but go to work promptly and so amend the Constitution as to give
certain and full guarantees to the rights of every citizen, in every
State and Territory of the Union."
[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 10, 1860, p. 25.
[Sidenote] Ibid.
[Sidenote] Ibid., p. 28.
[Sidenote] Ibid., p. 34.
The Republicans on this resolution generally offered only verbal
criticisms or expressed their full approbation of its provisions.
Senator King, of New York, offering an amendment, explained that while
we hear occasionally of a mob destroying property, we also hear
occasionally of a mob which assails an individual. He thought the
security of person as important as that of property, and would
therefore extend the inquiry to all these objects, if made at all.
Senator Collamer, of Vermont, suggested striking out all about the
condition of the country and the rights of property, and simply
referring that part of the message which relates to the state of the
Union to a special committee. Senator Foster, of Connecticut, said if
there was a disposition here to promote the peace and harmony of the
country, the resolution was a most appropriate one under which to make
the effort. Senator Hale, of New Hampshire, said he was willing to meet
any and everybody and say that if there can be pointed out anything in
which the State that he represented had come short of her whole
constitutional duty in letter and in spirit, she will do what she never
did in the face of an enemy, and that is take a backward step. She was
ready to perform her whole constitutional duty, and to stand there.
[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 1860, pp. 25, 26.
Senator Green, of Missouri, while he joined in the general cry of
Northern anti-slavery aggression and neglect of constitutional
obligations, deemed it his duty to assist in making a united effort to
save the Union. If he believed the present state of public sentiment of
the North was to be enduring, he would say it is folly to talk about
patching up the Union; but he looked forward to a reaction of public
sentiment. Amendments to the Constitution, legal enactments, or repeal
of personal liberty laws are not worth a straw unless the popular
sentiment or the strong arm of the Government goes with them. He
proposed to employ adequate physical force to maintain existing
constitutional rights. He did not want any additional constitutional
rights. He offered a resolution to inquire into the propriety of
providing by law for establishing an armed police force, upon all
necessary points along the line separating the slave-holding States
from the non-slave-holding States, for the purpose of maintaining the
general peace between those States; of preventing the invasion of one
State by the citizens of another, and also for the efficient execution
of the fugitive-slave law.
[Sidenote] Ibid., pp. 28-30.
Senator Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, denounced this proposition as
a quack nostrum. He feared it was to rear a monster which would break
the feeble chain provided, and destroy the rights it was intended to
guard. Establishing military posts along the borders of States
conferred a power upon this Federal Government, which it does not now
possess, to coerce a State; it was providing, under the name of Union,
to carry on war against States. From the history and nature of our
government no power of coercion exists in it.
[Sidenote] Ibid., p. 33.
Senator Brown, also of Mississippi, was no less emphatic in his
condemnation of the scheme. He said, that a Southern Senator
representing a State as much exposed as Missouri should deliberately,
in times like these, propose to arm the Federal Government for the
purpose of protecting the frontier, to establish military posts all
along the line, struck him with astonishment. He saw in this
proposition the germ of a military despotism. He did not know what was
to become of these armies, or what was to be done with these military
posts. He feared in the hands of the enemy they might be turned against
the South; they would hardly ever be turned against the North.
[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 10, 1860, pp. 30, 31.
Senator Green, in his reply, justly exposed the whole animus and thinly
concealed import of these rough criticisms, by retorting that, to call
that a military despotism amounts to just this: we are going out of the
Union, right or wrong, and we will misrepresent every proposition made
to save the Union. Who has fought the battles of the South for the last
twenty-five years, and borne the brunt of the difficulty upon the
border? Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, and Maryland, while Mississippi
and Louisiana have been secure; and while you have lost but one
boxed-up negro, sent on board a vessel, that I remember, we have lost
thousands and thousands. He knew it was unpopular in some sections to
say a word for the Union. He hoped that feeling would react. Means to
enforce and carry out the Constitution ought not to be ridiculed by
calling it a quack remedy.
It is more likely that we may find in the response of Senator Iverson,
of Georgia, the true reason which actuated the Cotton-State leaders in
driving their people into revolution, regardless of the remonstrances
of the border States.
Sir, the border slave-States of this Union complain of the Cotton
States for the movement which is now in progress. They say that we
have no right to take them out of the Union against their will. I
want to know what right they have to keep us in the Union against
our will. If we want to go out let us go. If they want to stay let
them stay. They are sovereign and independent States, and have a
right to decide these questions for themselves. For one, I shall
not complain when, where, or how they go. I am satisfied, however,
that they will go, when the time comes for them to decide. But,
sir, they complain of us that we make so much noise and confusion
on the subject of fugitive slaves, when we are not affected by the
vitiated public sentiment of the Northern States. They say that we
do not lose fugitive slaves; but they suffer the burden. We heard
that yesterday. I know that we do not suffer in this respect; it
is not the want of good faith in the Northern people, so far as
the reclamation of fugitive slaves is concerned, that is causing
the Southern States around the Gulf of Mexico and the Southern
Atlantic coast to move in this great revolution now progressing.
Sir, we look infinitely beyond this petty loss of a few negroes.
We know what is coming in this Union. It is universal emancipation
and the turning loose upon society in the Southern States of the
mass of corruption which will be made by emancipation. We intend
to avoid it if we can. These border States can get along without
slavery. Their soil and climate are appropriate to white labor;
they can live and nourish without African slavery; but the Cotton
States cannot. We are obliged to have African slavery to cultivate
our cotton, our rice, and our sugar fields. African slavery is
essential not only to our prosperity, but to our existence as a
people....
[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 11, 1860, pp. 49-51.
I understand one of the motives which influence the tardy action
of these two States [Virginia and Maryland], They are a little
afraid of the opening of the African slave trade, and the
cheapening of negroes. Now, sir, while I state here that I am
opposed to the opening of the African slave-trade, because our
negroes will increase fast enough, God knows, for our interest and
protection and security; and while I believe that the great masses
of the Southern people are opposed to it, yet I will not stand
security that if the Cotton States alone form a confederacy they
will not open the African slave-trade; and then what will become
of the great monopoly of the negro market which Virginia and
Maryland and North Carolina now possess?
The disunion Senators, while indulging in the violent and uncompromising
language already quoted, had nevertheless here and there interjected
phrases indicating a willingness to come to an understanding and
adjustment, but their object in this seemed to be twofold: for a few
days longer it would serve as a partial screen to their more active
conspiracy, and in the possible event (which they evidently did not
expect) of a complete surrender and abdication of their political
victory by the Republican party, it would leave them in the
advantageous condition of accepting triumph as a fruit of compromise.
[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 4, 1860, p. 4.
[Sidenote] Ibid., Dec. 10, 1860, p. 29.
[Sidenote] Ibid., p. 34.
[Sidenote] Ibid., Dec. 12, 1860, p. 72.
Thus, Senator Clingman said, "If gentlemen on the other side have
anything to propose of a decisive and satisfactory character, I have no
doubt the section from which I come would be willing to hear it."
Senator Davis said, "If we are mistaken as to your feelings and
purposes, give a substantial proof, that here may begin that circle
which hence may spread out and cover the whole land with proofs of
fraternity, of a reaction in public sentiment, and the assurance of a
future career in conformity with the principles and purposes of the
Constitution." Senator Brown said he never intimated they would not
listen to appeals; he never said this case could not be adjusted; but
he said there was no disposition on the Republican side to do it.
Senator Wigfall said, "What is the use of our discussing on this side
of the Chamber what we would be satisfied with when nothing has been
offered us!"
It requires a minute search to find these scattered words of moderation
in the torrent of defiance which characterized the speeches of the
extreme disunionists during the first ten days of the session of
Congress, and indications were not lacking that even these were wholly
insincere, and meant only to mislead their opponents and the public.
Strong proof of this is found in the careful speech of Senator
Jefferson Davis, in which he lays down the issue without reserve, at
the same time dealing in such vague and intangible complaints as showed
intention and desire to remain unanswered and unsatisfied.. He said
he believed the danger to be that a sectional hostility had been
substituted for the general fraternity, and thus the Government
rendered powerless for the ends for which it was instituted.
The hearts of a portion of the people have been perverted by that
hostility, so that the powers delegated by the compact of union
are regarded not as means to secure the welfare of all, but as
instruments for the destruction of a part--the minority section.
How, then, have we to provide a remedy? By strengthening this
Government? By instituting physical force to overawe the States,
to coerce the people living under them as members of sovereign
communities to pass under the yoke of the Federal Government?...
[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 10, 1860, p. 29.
Then where is the remedy, the question may be asked. In the hearts
of the people is the ready reply; and therefore it is that I turn
to the other side of the Chamber, to the majority section, to the
section in which have been committed the acts that now threaten
the dissolution of the Union.... These are offenses such as no
people can bear; and the remedy for these is in the patriotism and
the affection of the people, if it exists; and if it does not
exist, it is far better, instead of attempting to preserve a
forced and therefore fruitless union, that we should peacefully
part, and each pursue his separate course.... States in their
sovereign capacity have now resolved to judge of the infractions
of the Federal compact and of the mode and measure of redress....
I would not give the parchment on which the bill would be written
which is to secure our constitutional rights within the limits of
a State where the people are all opposed to the execution of that
law. It is a truism in free governments that laws rest upon public
opinion, and fall powerless before its determined opposition.
To all that had so far been said, Senator Wade, of Ohio, made, on the
17th day of December, a frank and direct as well as strong and eloquent
reply, which was at once generally accepted by the Republican party of
the Senate and the country as their well-considered and unalterable
position on the crisis. Said he:
I have already said that these gentlemen who make these complaints
have for a long series of years had this Government in their own
keeping. They belong to the dominant majority.... Therefore, if
there is anything in the legislation of the Federal Government
that is not right, you and not we are responsible for it.... You
have had the legislative power of the country, and you have had
the executive of the country, as I have said already. You own the
Cabinet, you own the Senate, and I may add, you own the President
of the United States, as much as you own the servant upon your own
plantation. I cannot see then very clearly why it is that Southern
men can rise here and complain of the action of this
Government.... Are we the setters forth of any new doctrines under
the Constitution of the United States? I tell you nay. There is no
principle held to-day by this great Republican party that has not
had the sanction of your Government in every department for more
than seventy years. You have changed your opinions. We stand where
we used to stand, That is the only difference.... Sir, we stand
where Washington stood, where Jefferson stood, where Madison
stood, where Monroe stood. We stand where Adams and Jackson and
even Polk stood. That revered statesman, Henry Clay, of blessed
memory, with his dying breath asserted the doctrine that we hold
to-day.... As to compromises, I had supposed that we were all
agreed that the day of compromises was at an end. The most solemn
compromises we have ever made have been violated without a
_whereas_. Since I have had a seat in this body, one of
considerable antiquity, that had stood for more than thirty years,
was swept away from your statute books.... We nominated our
candidates for President and Vice-President, and you did the same
for yourselves. The issue was made up and we went to the people
upon it; ... and we beat you upon the plainest and most palpable
issue that ever was presented to the American people, and one that
they understood the best. There is no mistaking it; and now when
we come to the capitol, I tell you that our President and our
Vice-President must be inaugurated and administer the government
as all their predecessors have done. Sir, it would be humiliating
and dishonorable to us if we were to listen to a compromise [only]
by which he who has the verdict of the people in his pocket should
make his way to the Presidential chair. When it comes to that you
have no government.... If a State secedes, although we will not
make war upon her, we cannot recognize her right to be out of the
Union, and she is not out until she gains the consent of the Union
itself; and the chief magistrate of the nation, be he who he may,
will find under the Constitution of the United States that it is
his sworn duty to execute the law in every part and parcel of this
Government; that he cannot be released from that obligation....
Therefore, it will be incumbent on the chief magistrate to proceed
to collect the revenue of ships entering their ports precisely in
the same way and to the same extent that he does now in every
other State of the Union. We cannot release him from that
obligation. The Constitution in thunder tones demands that he
shall do it alike in the ports of every State. What follows? Why,
sir, if he shuts up the ports of entry so that a ship cannot
discharge her cargo there, or get papers for another voyage, then
ships will cease to trade; or, if he undertakes to blockade her,
and thus collect it, she has not gained her independence by
secession. What must she do? If she is contented to live in this
equivocal state, all would be well perhaps; but she could not live
there. No people in the world could live in that condition. What
will they do? They must take the initiative and declare war upon
the United States; and the moment that they levy war, force must
be met by force; and they must, therefore, hew out their
independence by violence and war. There is no other way under the
Constitution, that I know of, whereby a chief magistrate of any
politics could be released from this duty. If this State, though
seceding, should declare war against the United States, I do not
suppose there is a lawyer in this body but what would say that the
act of levying war is treason against the United States. That is
where it results. We might just as well look the matter right in
the face....
[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 17, 1860, pp. 100-104.
I say, sir, I stand by the Union of these States. Washington and
his compatriots fought for that good old flag. It shall never be
hauled down, but shall be the glory of the Government to which I
belong, as long as my life shall continue.... It is my inheritance.
It was my protector in infancy, and the pride and glory of my riper
years; and although it may be assailed by traitors on every side,
by the grace of God, under its shadow I will die.
[Sidenote] Ibid., Dec. 20, 1860, p. 158.
The Senate Committee of Thirteen was duly appointed on December 20 as
follows: Lazarus W. Powell and John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky; R.M.T.
Hunter, of Virginia; Wm. H. Seward, of New York; Robert Toombs, of
Georgia; Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois; Jacob Collamer, of Vermont;
Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi; Benjamin F. Wade, of Ohio; William
Bigler, of Pennsylvania; Henry M. Rice, of Minnesota; James E.
Doolittle, of Wisconsin, and James W. Grimes, of Iowa.
It was a strong and representative committee, chosen from the four
great political parties to the late Presidential election, and
embracing recognized leaders in each, We shall see in a future chapter
how this eminent committee failed to report a compromise, which was the
object of its appointment. But compromise was impossible, because the
conspiracy had resolved upon disunion, as already announced in the
proclamation of a Southern Confederacy, signed and published a week
before by Jefferson Davis and others.