SLAVERY'S SETTING, AND FREEDOM'S DAWN.
On that long last night of the 36th Congress--and of the Democratic
Administration--to the proceedings of which reference was made in the
preceding Chapter, several notable speeches were made, but there was
substantially nothing done, in the line of Compromise. The only thing
that had been accomplished was the passage, as we have seen, by
two-thirds majority in both Houses, of the Joint Resolution proposing a
Constitutional Amendment prohibiting Congress from meddling with Slavery
in Slave States. There was no Concession nor Compromise in this,
because Republicans, as well as Democrats, had always held that Congress
had no such power. It is true that the Pro-slavery men had charged the
Republicans with ultimate designs, through Congress, upon Slavery in the
Slave States; and Mr. Crittenden pleaded for its passage as exhibiting a
spirit, on their part, of reconciliation; that was all.
In his speech that night--that memorable and anxious night preceding the
Inauguration of President Lincoln--the venerable Mr. Crittenden,
speaking before the Resolution was agreed to, well sketched the
situation when he said in the Senate: "It is an admitted fact that our
Union, to some extent, has already been dismembered; and that further
dismemberment is impending and threatened. It is a fact that the
Country is in danger. This is admitted on all hands. It is our duty,
if we can, to provide a remedy for this. We are, under the Constitution
and by the election of the People, the great guardians, as well as the
administrators of this Government. To our wisdom they have trusted this
great chart. Remedies have been proposed; resolutions have been
offered, proposing for adoption measures which it was thought would
satisfy the Country, and preserve as much of the Union as remained to us
at least, if they were not enough at once to recall the Seceding States
to the Union. We have passed none of these measures. The differences
of opinion among Senators have been such that we have not been able to
concur in any of the measures which have been proposed, even by bare
majorities, much less by that two-thirds majority which is necessary to
carry into effect some of the pacific measures which have been proposed.
We are about to adjourn. We have done nothing. Even the Senate of the
United States, beholding this great ruin around them, beholding
Dismemberment and Revolution going on, and Civil War threatened as the
result, have been able to do nothing; we have absolutely done nothing.
Sir, is not this a remarkable spectacle? * * * How does it happen that
not even a bare majority here, when the Country trusted to our hands is
going to ruin, have been competent to devise any measure of public
safety? How does it happen that we have not had unanimity enough to
agree on any measure of that kind? Can we account for it to ourselves,
gentlemen? We see the danger; we acknowledge our duty, and yet, with
all this before us, we are acknowledging before the world that we can do
nothing; acknowledging before the world, or appearing to all the world,
as men who do nothing! Sir, this will make a strange record in the
history of Governments and in the history of the world. Some are for
Coercion; yet no army has been raised, no navy has been equipped. Some
are for pacification; yet they have been able to do nothing; the dissent
of their colleagues prevents them; and here we are in the midst of a
falling Country, in the midst of a falling State, presenting to the eyes
of the World the saddest spectacle it has ever seen. Cato is
represented by Addison as a worthy spectacle, 'a great man falling with
a falling State,' but he fell struggling. We fall with the ignominy on
our heads of doing nothing, like the man who stands by and sees his
house in flames, and says to himself, 'perhaps the fire will stop before
it consumes all.'"
One of the strong pleas made in the Senate that night, was by Mr.
Douglas, when he said: "The great issue with the South has been that
they would not submit to the Wilmot proviso. The Republican Party
affirmed the doctrine that Congress must and could prohibit Slavery in
the Territories. The issue for ten years was between Non-intervention
on the part of Congress, and prohibition by Congress. Up to two years
ago, neither the Senator (Mason) from Virginia, nor any other Southern
Senator, desired affirmative legislation to protect Slavery. Even up to
this day, not one of them has proposed affirmative legislation to
protect it. Whenever the question has come up, they have decided that
affirmative legislation to protect it was unnecessary; and hence, all
that the South required on the Territorial question was 'hands off;
Slavery shall not be prohibited by Act of Congress.' Now, what do we
find? This very session, in view of the perils which surround the
Country, the Republican Party, in both Houses of Congress, by a
unanimous vote, have backed down from their platform and abandoned the
doctrine of Congressional prohibition. This very week three Territorial
Bills have been passed through both Houses of Congress without the
Wilmot proviso, and no man proposed to enact it; not even one man on the
other side of the Chamber would rise and propose the Wilmot proviso."
"In organizing three Territories," continued he, "two of them South of
the very line where they imposed the Wilmot proviso twelve years ago, no
one on the other side of the Chamber proposed it. They have abandoned
the doctrine of the President-elect upon that point. He said, and it is
on record, that he had voted for the Wilmot proviso forty-two times, and
would do it forty-two times more if he ever had a chance. Not one of
his followers this year voted for it once. The Senator from New York
(Mr. Seward) the embodiment of the Party, sat quietly and did not
propose it. What more? Last year we were told that the Slave Code of
New Mexico was to be repealed. I denounced the attempted interference.
The House of Representatives passed the Bill, but the Bill remains on
your table; no one Republican member has proposed to take it up and pass
it. Practically, therefore, the Chicago platform is abandoned; the
Philadelphia platform is abandoned; the whole doctrine for which the
Republican Party contended, as to the Territories, is abandoned,
surrendered, given up. Non-intervention is substituted in its place.
Then, when we find that, on the Territorial question, the Republican
Party, by a unanimous vote, have surrendered to the South all they ask,
the Territorial question ought to be considered pretty well settled.
The only question left was that of the States; and after having
abandoned their aggressive policy as to the Territories, a portion of
them are willing to unite with us, and deprive themselves of the power
to do it in the States."
"I submit," said he, "that these two great facts--these startling,
tremendous facts--that they have abandoned their aggressive policy in
the Territories, and are willing to give guarantees in the States, ought
to be accepted as an evidence of a salutary change in Public Opinion at
the North. All I would ask now of the Republican Party is, that they
would insert in the Constitution the same principle that they have
carried out practically in the Territorial Bills for Colorado, Dakota,
and Nevada, by depriving Congress of the power hereafter to do what
there cannot be a man of them found willing to do this year; but we
cannot ask them to back down too much. I think they have done quite as
much within one year, within three months after they have elected a
President, as could be expected."
That Douglas and his followers were also patriotically willing to
sacrifice a favorite theory in the face of a National peril, was brought
out, at the same time, by Mr. Baker, when he said to Mr. Douglas: "I
desire to suggest (and being a little of a Popular Sovereignty man, it
comes gracefully from me) that others of us have backed down too, from
the idea that Congress has not the power to prohibit Slavery in the
Territories; and we are proposing some of us in the Crittenden
proposition, and some in the Amendment now before the Senate--to
prohibit Slavery by the Constitution itself, in the Territories;"--and
by Mr. Douglas, when he replied: "I think as circumstances change, the
action of public men ought to change in a corresponding degree. * * * I
am willing to depart from my cherished theory, by an Amendment to the
Constitution by which we shall settle this question on the principles
prescribed in the Resolutions of the Senator from Kentucky."
In the House, Mr. Logan, had, on the 5th of February, 1861, said:
"Men, Sir, North and South, who love themselves far better than
their Country, have brought us to this unhappy condition. * * *
Let me say to gentlemen, that I will go as far as any man in the
performance of a Constitutional duty to put down Rebellion, to
suppress Insurrection, and to enforce the laws; but when we
undertake the performance of these duties, let us act in such a
manner as will be best calculated to preserve and not destroy the
Government, and keep ourselves within the bounds of the
Constitution. * * * Sir, I have always denied, and do yet deny,
the Right of Secession. There is no warrant for it in the
Constitution. It is wrong, it is unlawful, unconstitutional, and
should be called by the right name, Revolution. No good, Sir, can
result from it, but much mischief may. It is no remedy for any
grievance.
"I hold that all grievances can be much easier redressed inside the
Union than out of it. * * * If a collision must ensue between
this Government and any of our own people, let it come when every
other means of settlement has been tried and exhausted; and not
then, except when the Government shall be compelled to repel
assaults for the protection of its property, flag, and the honor of
the Country. * * *
"I have been taught to believe that the preservation of this
glorious Union, with its broad flag waving over us, as the shield
for our protection on land and on sea, is paramount to all the
Parties and platforms that ever have existed, or ever can exist. I
would, to-day, if I had the power, sink my own Party, and every
other one, with all their platforms, into the vortex of ruin,
without heaving a sigh or shedding a tear, to save the Union, or
even stop the Revolution where it is."
After enumerating the various propositions for adjustment, then
pending in the House, to wit: that of Senator Crittenden; that of
Senator Douglas; that of the Committee of Thirty-three; that of the
Border States; and those of Representatives McClernand, Kellogg,
and Morris, of Illinois, Mr. Logan took occasion to declare that
"in a crisis like this" he was "willing to give his support to any
of them," but his preference was for that of Mr. Morris.
Said he: "He (Morris) proposes that neither Congress nor a
Territorial Legislature shall interfere with Slavery in the
Territories at all; but leaves the people, when they come to form
their State Constitution, to determine the question for themselves.
I think this is the best proposition, because it is a fair
concession on all sides. The Republicans give up their
Congressional intervention; those who are styled 'Squatter
Sovereigns' give up their Territorial legislative policy; and the
Southern (Slave) protectionists give up their protection-
intervention policy; thus every Party yields something. With this
proposition as an Article in the Constitution, it would satisfy
every conservative man in this Union, both North and South, I do
seriously and honestly believe.
"Having indicated my preference of these propositions, and my
reasons for that preference, I have said all I desire to say on the
point, except to repeat again, that I will willingly vote for any
of them, or make any other sacrifice necessary to save the Union.
It makes no kind of difference to me what the sacrifice; if it will
save my Country, I am ready to make it." * * *
"There are some in this Hall," said he, "that are almost ready to
strike the Party fetters from their limbs, and assist in measures
of Peace. Halt not; take the step; be independent and free at
once! Let us overcome Party passion and error; allow virtue and
good sense in this fateful hour to be triumphant; let us invoke
Deity to interpose and prepare the way for our Country's escape
from the perils by which we are now surrounded; and in view of our
present greatness and future prospects, our magnificent and growing
cities, our many institutions of learning, our once happy and
prosperous People, our fruitful fields and golden forests, our
enjoyment of all civil and religious blessings--let Parties die
that these be preserved. Such noble acts of patriotism and
concession, on your part, would cause posterity to render them
illustrious, and pause to contemplate the magnitude of the events
with which they were connected. * * * In the name of the patriotic
sires who breasted the storms and vicissitudes of the Revolution;
by all the kindred ties of this Country; in the name of the many
battles fought for your Freedom; in behalf of the young and the
old; in behalf of the Arts and Sciences, Civilization, Peace,
Order, Christianity, and Humanity, I appeal to you to strike from
your limbs the chains that bind them! Come forth from that
loathsome prison, Party Caucus; and in this hour--the most gloomy
and disheartening to the lovers of Free Institutions that has ever
existed during our Country's history--arouse the drooping spirits
of our countrymen, by putting forth your good strong arms to assist
in steadying the rocking pillars of the mightiest Republic that has
ever had an existence."
"Mr. Speaker," continued he, "a word or two more, and I am done.
Revolution stalks over the Land. States have rebelled against the
constituted authorities of the Union, and now stand, sword in hand,
prepared to vindicate their new nationality. Others are preparing
to take a similar position. Rapidly transpiring events are
crowding on us with fearful velocity. Soon, circumstances may
force us into an unnatural strife, in which the hand of brother
shall be uplifted against brother, and father against son. My God,
what a spectacle! If all the evils and calamities that have ever
happened since the World began, could be gathered in one great
Catastrophe, its horrors could not eclipse, in their frightful
proportions, the Drama that impends over us. Whether this black
cloud that drapes in mourning the whole political heavens, shall
break forth in all the frightful intensity of War, and make
Christendom weep at the terrible atrocities that will be enacted
--or, whether it will disappear, and the sky resume its wonted
serenity, and the whole Earth be irradiated by the genial sunshine
of Peace once more--are the alternatives which this Congress, in my
judgment, has the power to select between."
In this same broad spirit, Mr. Seward, in his great speech of January
12th, had said: "Republicanism is subordinate to Union, as everything
else is and ought to be--Republicanism, Democracy, every other political
name and thing; all are subordinate-and they ought to disappear in the
presence of the great question of Union." In another part of it, he had
even more emphatically said: "I therefore * * * avow my adherence to the
Union in its integrity and with all its parts, with my friends, with my
Party, with my State, with my Country, or without either, as they may
determine, in every event, whether of Peace or War, with every
consequence of honor or dishonor, of life or death. Although I lament
the occasion, I hail with cheerfulness the duty of lifting up my voice
among distracted debates, for my whole Country and its inestimable
Union." And as showing still more clearly the kindly and conciliatory
attitude of the great Republican leader, when speaking of those others
who seemed to be about to invoke revolutionary action to oppose--and
overthrow the Government--he said: "In such a case I can afford to meet
prejudice with Conciliation, exaction with Concession which surrenders
no principle, and violence with the right hand of Peace."
In the House of Representatives, too, the voice of patriotism was often
heard through the loud clamor and disorder of that most disorderly and
Treason-uttering session--was heard from the lips of statesmen, who rose
high above Party, in their devotion to the Union. The calm,
dispassionate recital by Henry Winter Davis (of Maryland), of the
successive steps by which the Southern leaders had themselves created
that very "North" of whose antagonism they complained, was one of the
best of these, in some respects. He was one of the great Select
Committee of Thirty-three, and it was (February 5th) after the
Resolutions, heretofore quoted, had been reported by it, that he
condensed the history of the situation into a nutshell, as follows:
"We are at the end of the insane revel of partisan license which, for
thirty years, has, in the United States, worn the mask of Government.
We are about to close the masquerade by the dance of death. The Nations
of the World look anxiously to see if the People, ere they tread that
measure, will come to themselves.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Southern politicians have created a North. Let us trace the process
and draw the moral.
"The laws of 1850 calmed and closed the Slavery agitation; and President
Pierce, elected by the almost unanimous voice of the States, did not
mention Slavery in his first two Messages. In 1854, the repeal of the
Missouri Compromise, at the instance of the South, reopened the
agitation.
"Northern men, deserted by Southern Whigs, were left to unite for
self-defense.
"The invasion of Kansas, in 1855 and 1856, from Missouri; the making a
Legislature and laws for that Territory, by the invaders; still further
united the Northern people. The election of 1856 measured its extent.
"The election of Mr. Buchanan and his opening policy in Kansas, soothed
the irritation, and was rapidly demoralizing the new Party, when the
Pro-Slavery Party in Kansas perpetrated, and the President and the South
accepted, the Lecompton fraud, and again united the North more
resolutely in resistance to that invasion of the rights of
self-government.
"The South for the first time failed to dictate terms; and the People
vindicated by their votes the refusal of the Constitution.
"Ere this result was attained, the opinions of certain Judges of the
Supreme Court scattered doubts over the law of Slavery in the
Territories; the South, while repudiating other decisions, instantly
made these opinions the criterion of faithfulness to the Constitution;
while the North was agitated by this new sanction of the extremest
pretensions of their opponents.
"The South did not rest satisfied with their Judicial triumph.
"Immediately the claim was pressed for protection by Congress to
Slavery, declared by the Supreme Court, they said, to exist in all the
Territories.
"This completed the union of the Free States in one great defensive
league; and the result was registered in November. That result is now
itself become the starting point of new agitation--the demand of new
rights and new guarantees. The claim to access to the Territories was
followed by the claim to Congressional protection, and that is now
followed by the hitherto unheard of claim to a Constitutional Amendment
establishing Slavery, not merely in territory now held, but in all
hereafter held from the line of 36 30' to Cape Horn, while the debate
foreshadows in the distance the claim of the right of transit and the
placing of property in Slaves in all respects on the footing of other
property--the topics of future agitation. How long the prohibition of
the importation of Slaves will be exempted from the doctrine of
equality, it needs no prophet to tell.
"In the face of this recital, let the imputation of autocratic and
tyrannical aspirations cease to be cast on the people of the Free
States; let the Southern people dismiss their fears, return to their
friendly confidence in their fellow-citizens of the North, and accept,
as pledges of returning Peace, the salutary amendments of the law and
the Constitution offered as the first fruits of Reconciliation."
But calmness, kindness, and courtesy were alike thrown away in both
Houses upon the implacable Southern leaders. As the last day of that
memorable session, which closed in the failure of all peaceful measures
to restore the Union, slowly dawned--with but a few hours lacking of the
time when Mr. Lincoln would be inaugurated President of the United
States--Mr. Wigfall thought proper, in the United States Senate, to
sneer at him as "an ex-rail-splitter, an ex-grocery keeper, an
ex-flatboat captain, and an ex-Abolition lecturer"--and proceeded
to scold and rant at the North with furious volubility.
"Then, briefly," said he, "a Party has come into power that represents
the antagonism to my own Section of the Country. It represents two
million men who hate us, and who, by their votes for such a man as they
have elected, have committed an overt act of hostility. That they have
done."
"You have won the Presidency," said he, to the Republicans, "and you are
now in the situation of the man who had won the elephant at a raffle.
You do not know what to do with the beast now that you have it; and
one-half of you to-day would give your right arms if you had been
defeated. But you succeeded, and you have to deal with facts. Our
objection to living in this Union, and therefore the difficulty of
reconstructing it, is not your Personal Liberty bills, not the
Territorial question, but that you utterly and wholly misapprehend
the Form of Government."
"You deny," continued he, "the Sovereignty of the States; you deny the
right of self-government in the People; you insist upon Negro Equality;
your people interfere impertinently with our Institutions and attempt to
subvert them; you publish newspapers; you deliver lectures; you print
pamphlets, and you send them among us, first, to excite our Slaves to
insurrection against their masters, and next, to array one class of
citizens against the other; and I say to you, that we cannot live in
peace, either in the Union or out of it, until you have abolished your
Abolition societies; not, as I have been misquoted, abolish or destroy
your school-houses; but until you have ceased in your schoolhouses
teaching your children to hate us; until you have ceased to convert your
pulpits into hustings; until you content yourselves with preaching
Christ, and Him crucified, and not delivering political harangues on the
Sabbath; until you have ceased inciting your own citizens to make raids
and commit robberies; until you have done these things we cannot live in
the same Union with you. Until you do these things, we cannot live out
of the Union at Peace."
Such were the words--the spiteful, bitter words--with which this chosen
spokesman of the South saluted the cold and cloudy dawn of that day
which was to see the sceptre depart from the hands of the Slave Power
forever.
A few hours later, under the shadow of the main Pastern Portico of the
Capitol at Washington--with the retiring President and Cabinet, the
Supreme Court Justices, the Foreign Diplomatic Corps, and hundreds of
Senators, Representatives and other distinguished persons filling the
great platform on either side and behind them--Abraham Lincoln stood
bareheaded before full thirty thousand people, upon whose uplifted faces
the unveiled glory of the mild Spring sun now shone--stood reverently
before that far greater and mightier Presence termed by himself, "My
rightful masters, the American People"--and pleaded in a manly, earnest,
and affectionate strain with "such as were dissatisfied," to listen to
the "better angels" of their nature.
Temperate, reasonable, kindly, persuasive--it seems strange that Mr.
Lincoln's Inaugural Address did not disarm at least the personal
resentment of the South toward him, and sufficiently strengthen the
Union-loving people there, against the red-hot Secessionists, to put the
"brakes" down on Rebellion. Said he:
"Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States,
that by the accession of a Republican Administration, their Property and
their Peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never
been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample
evidence to the contrary has all the while existed, and been open to
their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of
him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches,
when I declare that 'I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to
interfere with the Institution of Slavery in the States where it
exists.' I believe I have no lawful right to do so; and I have no
inclination to do so. Those who nominated and elected me, did so with
the full knowledge that I had made this, and many similar declarations,
and had never recanted them. * * *
"I now reiterate these sentiments; and in doing so, I only press upon
the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is
susceptible, that the Property, Peace, and Security of no Section are to
be in any wise endangered by the now incoming Administration. I add,
too, that all the protection which, consistently with the Constitution
and the laws, can be given, will be cheerfully given to all the States,
when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause--as cheerfully to one Section
as to another.
"I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservations, and with
no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical
rules. * * *
"A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now
formidably attempted. I hold that, in contemplation of Universal Law,
and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual.
Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all
National Governments. It is safe to assert that no Government proper
ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination.
Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National
Constitution, and the Union will endure forever--it being impossible to
destroy it, except by some action not provided for in the instrument
itself.
"Again, if the United States be not a Government proper, but an
Association of States in the nature of a contract merely, can it, as a
contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it?
One party to a contract may violate it--break it, so to speak; but does
it not require all, to lawfully rescind it?
"Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that,
in legal contemplation, the Union is perpetual, confirmed by the history
of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It
was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was
matured and continued in the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It
was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States
expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the
Articles of Confederation, in 1778; and, finally, in 1787, one of the
declared objects, for ordaining and establishing the Constitution, was
'to form a more perfect Union.' But, if destruction of the Union by
one, or by a part only, of the States, be lawfully possible, the Union
is less perfect than before, the Constitution having lost the vital
element of perpetuity.
"It follows, from these views, that no State, upon its own mere motion,
can lawfully get out of the Union; that Resolves and Ordinances to that
effect, are legally void; and that acts of violence within any State or
States against the authority of the United States, are insurrectionary
or revolutionary, according to circumstances.
"I therefore consider that, in view of the Constitution and the laws,
the Union is unbroken, and, to the extent of my ability, I shall take
care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the
laws of the Union shall be faithfully executed in all the States. * * *
"I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared
purpose of the Union, that it will Constitutionally defend and maintain
itself.
"In doing this, there need be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall
be none, unless it is forced upon the National Authority.
"The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the
property and places belonging to the Government, and to collect the
duties and imposts; but, beyond what may be necessary for these objects,
there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the People
anywhere.
"The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished in all parts
of the Union.
* * * * * * *
"Is there such perfect identity of interests among the States to compose
a new Union, as to produce harmony only, and prevent renewed Secession?
Plainly, the central idea of Secession is the essence of anarchy. A
majority, held in restraint by Constitutional checks and limitations and
always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and
sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a Free People. Whoever
rejects it, does, of necessity, fly to anarchy, or to despotism.
Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent
arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority
principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.
* * * * * * *
"Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our
respective Sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall
between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out of the
presence and beyond the reach of each other; but the different parts of
our Country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face; and
intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is
it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more
satisfactory after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties,
easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully
enforced between aliens, than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to
War, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides,
and no gain on either you cease fighting, the identical old questions,
as to terms of intercourse, are again upon you.
"This Country, with its Institutions, belongs to the People who inhabit
it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can
exercise their Constitutional right of amending it, or their
Revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. I cannot be ignorant
of the fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of
having the National Constitution amended. While I make no
recommendations of Amendments, I fully recognize the rightful authority
of the People over the whole subject, to be exercised in either of the
modes prescribed in the instrument itself; and I should, under existing
circumstances, favor, rather than oppose, a fair opportunity being
afforded the People to act upon it. * * *
"The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the People, and
they have conferred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the
States. The People themselves can do this also, if they choose; but the
Executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is to
administer the present Government, as it came to his hands, and to
transmit it, unimpaired by him, to his successor.
* * * * * * *
" * * * While the People retain their virtue and vigilance, no
Administration, by any extreme of weakness or folly, can very seriously
injure the Government in the short space of four years.
"My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole
subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an
object to hurry any of you, in hot haste, to a step which you would
never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time;
but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now
dissatisfied, still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the
sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new
Administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change
either. If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied, hold the
right side in the dispute, there still is no single good reason for
precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm
reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored Land, are still
competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty.
"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is
the momentous issue of Civil War. The Government will not assault you.
You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You
have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the Government, while I
shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect, and defend it'.
"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be
enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds
of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every
battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone,
all over this broad Land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when
again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our
nature."
Strange, indeed, must have been the thoughts that crowded through the
brain and oppressed the heart of Abraham Lincoln that night--his first
at the White House!
The city of Washington swarmed with Rebels and Rebel sympathizers, and
all the departments of Government were honey-combed with Treason and
shadowed with treachery and espionage. Every step proposed or
contemplated by the Government would be known to the so-called
Government of the Confederate States almost as soon as thought of. All
means, to thwart and delay the carrying out of the Government's
purposes, that the excuses of routine and red-tape admitted of, would be
used by the Traitors within the camp, to aid the Traitors without.
No one knew all this, better than Mr. Lincoln. With no Army, no Navy,
not even a Revenue cutter left--with forts and arsenals, ammunition and
arms in possession of the Rebels, with no money in the National
Treasury, and the National credit blasted--the position must, even to
his hopeful nature, have seemed at this time desperate. To be sure,
despite threats, neither few nor secret, which had been made, that he
should not live to be inaugurated, he had passed the first critical
point--had taken the inaugural oath--and was now duly installed in the
White House. That was something, of course, to be profoundly thankful
for. But the matter regarded by him of larger moment--the safety of the
Union--how about that?
How that great, and just, and kindly brain, in the dim shadows of that
awful first night at the White House, must have searched up and down and
along the labyrinths of history and "corridors of time," everywhere in
the Past, for any analogy or excuse for the madness of this Secession
movement--and searched in vain!
With his grand and abounding faith in God, how Abraham Lincoln must have
stormed the very gates of Heaven that night with prayer that he might be
the means of securing Peace and Union to his beloved but distracted
Country! How his great heart must have been racked with the
alternations of hope and foreboding--of trustfulness and doubt!
Anxiously he must have looked for the light of the morrow, that he might
gather from the Press, the manner in which his Inaugural had been
received. Not that he feared the North--but the South; how would the
wayward, wilful, passionate South, receive his proffered olive-branch?
Surely, surely,--thus ran his thoughts--when the brave, and gallant, and
generous people of that Section came to read his message of Peace and
Good-will, they must see the suicidal folly of their course! Surely
their hearts must be touched and the mists of prejudice dissolved, so
that reason would resume her sway, and Reconciliation follow! A little
more time for reflection would yet make all things right. The young men
of the South, fired by the Southern leaders' false appeals, must soon
return to reason. The prairie fire is terrible while it sweeps along,
but it soon burns out. When the young men face the emblem of their
Nation's glory--the flag of the land of their birth--then will come the
reaction and their false leaders will be hurled from place and power,
and all will again be right. Yea, when it comes to firing on the old,
old flag, they will not, cannot, do it! Between the Compromise within
their reach, and such Sacrilege as this, they cannot waver long.
So, doubtless, all the long night, whether waking or sleeping, the mind
of this true-hearted son of the West, throbbed with the mighty weight of
the problem entrusted to him for solution, and the vast responsibilities
which he had just assumed toward his fellow-men, his Nation, and his
God.
And when, at last, the long lean frame was thrown upon the couch, and
"tired Nature's sweet restorer" held him briefly in her arms, the smile
of hopefulness on the wan cheek told that, despite all the terrible
difficulties of the situation, the sleeper was sustained by a strong and
cheerful belief in the Providence of God, the Patriotism of the People,
and the efficacy of his Inaugural Peace-offering to the South. But alas,
and alas, for the fallibility of human judgment and human hopes!
Instead of a message of Peace, the South chose to regard it as a message
of Menace;* and it was not received in a much better spirit by some of
the Northern papers, which could see no good in it--"no Union spirit in
it"--but declared that it breathed the spirit of Sectionalism and
mischief, and "is the knell and requiem of the Union, and the death of
hope."
["Mr. Lincoln fondly regarded his Inaugural as a resistless
proffering of the olive branch to the South; the Conspirators
everywhere interpreted it as a challenge to War."--Greeley's Am.
Conflict, vol. i., p. 428.]
Bitter indeed must have been President Lincoln's disappointment and
sorrow at the reception of his Inaugural. With the heartiest
forgiveness, in the noblest spirit of paternal kindness, he had
generously held out his arms, as far as they could reach, to clasp to
his heart--to the great heart of the Union--the rash children of the
South, if they would but let him. It was more with sorrow, than in
anger, that he looked upon their contemptuous repulsion of his advances;
and his soul still reproachfully yearned toward these his Southern
brethren, as did that of a higher than he toward His misguided brethren,
when He cried: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets,
and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have
gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens
under her wings, and ye would not!"
On the day following his Inauguration, President Lincoln sent to the
United States Senate the names of those whom he had chosen to constitute
his Cabinet, as follows: William H. Seward, of New York, Secretary of
State; Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, Secretary of the Treasury; Simon
Cameron, of Pennsylvania, Secretary of War; Gideon Welles, of
Connecticut, Secretary of the Navy; Caleb B. Smith, of Indiana,
Secretary of the Interior; Edward Bates, of Missouri, Attorney General;
and Montgomery Blair, of Maryland, Postmaster General.
On the other hand, the President of the rebellious Confederacy,
Jefferson Davis, had partly constituted his Cabinet already, as follows:
Robert Toombs, of Georgia, Secretary of State; Charles G. Memminger, of
South Carolina, Secretary of the Treasury; Leroy Pope Walker, of
Alabama, Secretary of War; to whom he afterwards added: Stephen R.
Mallory, of Florida, Secretary of the Navy; and John H. Reagan, of
Texas, Postmaster-General.