THE CONSPIRACY PROCLAIMED
To a great majority of the people the hopes and chances of a successful
compromise seemed still cheering and propitious. There was indeed a
prevailing agitation in the Southern part of the Union, but it had
taken a virulent form in less than half a dozen States. In most of
these a decided majority still deprecated disunion. Three of the great
political parties of the country were by the voice of their leaders
pledged to peace and order; the fourth, apparently controlled as yet by
the powerful influences of official subordination and patronage, must,
so it seemed, yield to the now expressed and public advice of the
President in favor of Union and the enforcement of the law; especially
in view of the forbearance and kindness he was personally exercising
towards the unruly elements of his faction. Throughout the Northern
States the folly and evils of disunion appeared so palpable that it was
not generally regarded as an imminent danger, but rather as merely a
possible though not probable event. The hasty and seemingly earnest
action of the people and authorities of South Carolina was looked upon
as a historical repetition of the nullification crisis of 1831-32; and
without examining too closely the real present condition of affairs,
men hoped, rather than intelligently expected, that the parallel would
continue to the end. Some sort of compromise of the nature of that of
1850 was the prevailing preoccupation in politics.
This was the popular view of the situation. But it was an erroneous
view, because it lacked the essential information necessary to form a
correct and solid judgment. The deep estrangement between the sections
was imperfectly realized. The existence of four parties, a very unusual
occurrence in American politics, had seriously weakened party cohesion,
and more than quadrupled party prejudice and mistrust. There was a
strong undercurrent of conviction and purpose, not expressed in
speeches and platforms. But the most serious ignorance was in respect
to the character and fidelity of the high officers of the Government.
Of the timidity of Mr. Buchanan, of the treachery of three members of
the Cabinet, of the exclusion of General Scott from military councils,
of the President's refusal to send troops to Anderson, of his
stipulation with the South Carolina Members, of the intrigue which
drove General Cass from the head of the State Department and from the
Cabinet, the people at large knew nothing, or so little that they could
put no intelligent construction upon the events. The debates of
Congress shed the first clear light upon the situation, but the very
violence and bitterness of the secession speeches caused the multitude
to doubt their sincerity, or placed their authors in the category of
fanatics who would gain no followers.
While, therefore, the Republicans in Congress and in the country
maintained, as a rule, an expectant and watchful silence, the
conservatives, made up for the greater part of the supporters of Bell
and Everett, were active in setting on foot a movement for compromise,
in the final success of which they had the fullest confidence; and it
is but justice to their integrity and ability to add that this
confidence was warranted by the delusive indications of surface
politics. Highly patriotic in purpose and prudent in act, their leading
men in Congress had promptly opposed secession, had moved a Senate
Committee of Thirteen, and secured the appointment and the organization
of the House Committee of Thirty-three. Already some twenty-three
different propositions of adjustment had been submitted to this
committee, and under the circumstances it actually seemed as if only a
little patience and patriotic earnestness were needed to find a
compromise,--perhaps an amendment of the Constitution,--which the
feverish unrest and impatience of the nation would compel Congress to
enact or propose, and the different States and sections, willing or
unwilling, to accept arid ratify.
Superior political wisdom and more thorough information, as well as a
finer strategy, a quicker enthusiasm, and a more unremitting industry,
must be accorded to the conspirators who now labored night and day in
the interest of disunion. They discerned more clearly than their
opponents the demoralization of parties at the North, the latent
revolutionary discontent at the South, the influence of brilliant and
combined leadership, and the social, commercial, and political
conditions which might be brought into action. They recognized that
they were but a minority, a faction; but they also realized that as
such they had a substantial control of from six to eleven States
whenever they chose to make that control effective, and that, for
present uses at least, the President was, under their influence, but as
clay in the hands of the potter.
Better than the Republicans from the North, or even the conservatives
from the border States, they knew that in the Cotton States a
widespread change of popular sentiment was then being wrought and might
very soon be complete. Except upon the extreme alternative of disunion,
the people of the border States were eager to espouse their quarrel,
and join them in a contest for alleged political rights. Nearly half
the people of the North were ready to acknowledge the justness of their
complaints. The election of Lincoln was indeed a flimsy pretext for
separation, but it had the merit of universal publicity, and of
rankling irritation among the unthinking masses of the South.
Agriculture was depressed, commerce was in panic, manufacturing
populations were in want, the national treasury was empty, the army was
dispersed, the navy was scattered. The national prestige was humbled,
the national sentiment despondent, the national faith disturbed.
Meanwhile their intrigues had been successful beyond hope. The
Government was publicly committed to the fatal doctrine of
non-coercion, and was secretly pursuing the equally fatal policy of
concession. Reënforeements had been withheld from Charleston, and must,
from motives of consistency, be withheld from all other forts and
stations. An unofficial stipulation, with the President, and a
peremptory order to Anderson, secured beyond chance the safe and early
secession of South Carolina, and the easy seizure of the Government
property. The representatives of foreign governments were already
secretly coquetting for the favor of a free port and an advantageous
cotton-market. Friendly voices came to the South from the North, in
private correspondence, in the public press, even in the open debates
of Congress, promising that cities should go up in flames and the fair
country be laid waste before a single Northern bayonet should molest
them in their meditated secession.
Upon such a real or assumed state of facts the conspirators based their
theory, and risked their chances of success in dismembering the
republic,--and it must be admitted that they chose their opportunity
with a skill and foresight which for a considerable period of time gave
them immense advantages over the friends of the Union. One vital
condition of success, however, they strangely overlooked, or rather,
perhaps, deliberately crowded out of their problem--the chance of civil
war, without foreign intervention. For the present their whole plan
depended upon the assumption that they could accomplish their end by
means of the single instrumentality of peaceable secession; and with
this view they proceeded to put their scheme into prompt execution.
[Sidenote] Correspondence New York "Tribune", Dec. 10, 1860.
The House Committee of Thirty-three had been organized by the selection
of Thomas Corwin as its chairman, and had entered hopefully upon the
task confided to it. A caucus of active conspirators was said to have
been held the week previous, to intimidate the members from the Cotton
States and induce them to refuse to serve on the committee, but this
coercive movement only partly succeeded. The Committee of Thirty-three
held a long meeting on December 12, and now, on the morning of the
13th, was once more convened for work. The informal propositions and
discussions of the day previous were renewed, but resulted only in
calling out views and schemes too vague on the one hand or too extreme
on the other. The subject was about to be laid over to the following
Saturday, when Albert Rust, of Arkansas, startled the committee with
the information that the extremists were obtaining signatures to a
paper to announce to the South that no further concession was expected
from the North, and that any adjustment of pending difficulties had
become impossible. He, therefore, offered a resolution to meet this
unexpected crisis, but accepted the following substitute, offered by
William McKee Dunn, of Indiana:
_Resolved_, That in the opinion of this Committee, the existing
discontent among the Southern people and the growing hostility
among them to the Federal Government are greatly to be regretted,
and that whether such discontent and hostility are without just
cause or not, any reasonable, proper, and constitutional remedies
and effectual guarantees of their peculiar rights and interests,
as recognized by the Constitution, necessary to preserve the peace
of the country and the perpetuation of the Union, should be
promptly and cheerfully granted.
[Sidenote] Proceedings of the committee and card of Hon. Reuben Davis,
"National Intelligencer," Dec. 14 and 15, 1860.
[Sidenote] Gen. Scott, "Autobiography," Vol. II., p. 613.
Other amendments were voted down, and this proposition was adopted by a
vote of twenty-two to eight, and thus, in good faith, a tender of
reasonable concession and honorable and satisfactory compromise was
made by the North to the South. But the peace-offering was a waste of
patience and good-will. Caucus after caucus of the secession leaders
had only grown more aggressive, and deepened and strengthened their
inflexible purpose to push the country into disunion. The presence of
General Scott, who after a long illness had come from New York to
Washington, on December 12, to give his urgent advice to the work of
counteracting secession by vigorous military preparation, did not
disconcert or hinder the secession leaders. His patriotic appeal to the
Secretary of War on the 13th naturally fell without effect upon the
ears of one of their active confederates. Neither the temporizing
concession of the President nor the conciliatory and half-apologetic
resolution of the Committee of Thirty-three for one instant changed or
affected the determination to destroy the Government and dissolve the
Union.
Friday, December 14, 1860, was a day of gloom and despondency in Mr.
Buchanan's office, bringing to his mind more forcibly than he had ever
before realized the utter wreck into which he had guided his
Administration. To the jubilant secessionists it was not only a day of
triumph achieved, but also of apparently assured successes yet to come.
The hitherto official organ of the Administration in its issue of the
following morning contained two publications which gave startling
notice to the country of the weakness of the right and the strength of
the wrong in the swiftly approaching struggle for national existence.
The first of these documents was a proclamation from the President of
the United States, saying that in response to numerous appeals he
designated the fourth day of January, proximo, as a day of humiliation,
fasting, and prayer. The "dangerous and distracted condition of our
country" was therein thus set forth:
[Sidenote] Washington "Constitution," Dec. 15, 1860.
The Union of the States is at the present moment threatened with
alarming and immediate danger--panic and distress of a fearful
character prevail throughout the land--our laboring population
are without employment, and consequently deprived of the means of
earning their bread--indeed, hope seems to have deserted the
minds of men. All classes are in a state of confusion and dismay,
and the wisest counsels of our best and purest men are wholly
disregarded.... Humbling ourselves before the Most High, ... let
us implore him to remove from our hearts that false pride of
opinion which would impel us to persevere in wrong for the sake
of consistency, rather than yield a just submission to the
unforeseen exigencies by which we are now surrounded.... An
omnipotent Providence may overrule existing evils for permanent
good.
The second manifesto was more practical and resolute. As the first
public and combined action of the conspirators, it forms the hinge upon
which they well-nigh turned the fate of the New World Republic. It was
a brief document, but contained and expressed all the essential
purposes of the conspiracy. It was signed by about one-half the
Senators and Representatives of the States of North Carolina, South
Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and
Arkansas. It precedes every ordinance of secession, and is the
"official" beginning of the subsequent "Confederate States," just as
Governor Gist's October circular was the "official" beginning of South
Carolina secession.
[Sidenote] Washington "Constitution," Dec. 15, 1860.
ADDRESS OF CERTAIN SOUTHERN MEMBERS OF CONGRESS.
TO OUR CONSTITUENTS.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 1860.
The argument is exhausted. All hope of relief in the Union
through the agency of committees, Congressional legislation, or
constitutional amendments is extinguished, and we trust the South
will not be deceived by appearances or the pretense of new
guarantees. In our judgment the Republicans are resolute in the
purpose to grant nothing that will or ought to satisfy the South.
We are satisfied the honor, safety, and independence of the
Southern people require the organization of a Southern
Confederacy--a result to be obtained only by separate State
secession--that the primary object of each slave-holding State
ought to be its speedy and absolute separation from a Union with
hostile States.
J.L. Pugh of Alabama.
David Clopton of Alabama.
Sydenham Moore of Alabama.
J.L.M. Curry of Alabama.
J.A. Stallworth of Alabama.
J.W.H. Underwood of Georgia.
L.J. Gartrell of Georgia.
James Jackson of Georgia.
John J. Jones of Georgia.
Martin J. Crawford of Georgia.
Alfred Iverson, U.S. Senator, Georgia.
George S. Hawkins of Florida.
T.C. Hindman of Arkansas.
Jefferson Davis, U.S. Senator, Mississippi.
A.G. Brown, U.S. Senator, Mississippi.
Wm. Barksdale of Mississippi.
O.R. Singleton of Mississippi.
Reuben Davis of Mississippi.
Burton Craige of North Carolina.
Thomas Ruffin of North Carolina.
John Slidell, U.S. Senator, Louisiana.
J.P. Benjamin, U.S. Senator, Louisiana.
J.M. Landrum of Louisiana.
Louis T. Wigfall, U.S. Senator, Texas.
John Hemphill, U.S. Senator, Texas.
J.H. Reagan of Texas.
M.L. Bonham of South Carolina.
Wm. Porcher Miles of South Carolina.
John McQueen of South Carolina.
John D. Ashmore of South Carolina.
This proclamation of revolution, when analyzed, reveals with sufficient
clearness the design and industry with which the conspirators were step
by step building up their preconcerted movement of secession and
rebellion. Every justifying allegation in the document was notoriously
untrue.
Instead of the argument being exhausted, it was scarcely begun. So far
from Congressional or constitutional relief having been refused, the
Southern demand for them had not been formulated. Not only had no
committee denied hearing or action, but the Democratic Senate, at the
instance of a Southern State, had ordered the Committee of Thirteen,
which the Democratic and Southern Vice-President had not yet even
appointed; and when the names were announced a week later, Jefferson
Davis, one of the signers of this complaint of non-action, was the only
man who refused to serve on the committee--a refusal he withdrew when
persuaded by his co-conspirators that he could better aid their designs
by accepting. On the other hand, the Committee of Thirty-three, raised
by the Republican House, appointed by a Northern Speaker, and presided
over by a Northern chairman, had the day before by more than a
two-thirds vote distinctly tendered the Southern people "any reasonable,
proper, and constitutional remedies and effectual guarantees."
Outside of Congressional circles there was the same absence of any new
complications, any new threats, any new dangers from the North. Since
the day when Abraham Lincoln was elected President there had been
absolutely no change of word or act in the attitude and intention of
himself or his followers. By no possibility could they exert a particle
of adverse political power, executive, legislative, or judicial, for
nearly three months. Not only was executive authority in the hands of a
Democratic Administration, which had made itself the peculiar champion
of the Southern party, but it had yielded every successive demand of
administrative policy made by the conspirators themselves. The signers
of this address to their Southern constituents had not one single
excuse.