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diff --git a/2836.txt b/2836.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..20d2a8f --- /dev/null +++ b/2836.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5613 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Abraham Lincoln and the Union, by Nathaniel W. Stephenson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Abraham Lincoln and the Union + A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The + Chronicles Of America Series + +Author: Nathaniel W. Stephenson + +Editor: Allen Johnson + +Posting Date: December 6, 2008 [EBook #2836] +Release Date: September, 2001 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE UNION *** + + + + +Produced by The James J. Kelly Library Of St. Gregory's +University, Alev Akman, Dianne Bean, and Alison Henry + + + + + + +ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE UNION, + +A CHRONICLE OF THE EMBATTLED NORTH + +Volume 29 In The Chronicles Of America Series + +By Nathaniel W. Stephenson + +Allen Johnson, Editor + + +New Haven: Yale University Press Toronto: Glasgow + +Brook & Co. London: Humphrey Milford + +Oxford University Press + +1918 + + + + +PREFACE + +In spite of a lapse of sixty years, the historian who attempts to +portray the era of Lincoln is still faced with almost impossible demands +and still confronted with arbitrary points of view. It is out of the +question, in a book so brief as this must necessarily be, to meet all +these demands or to alter these points of view. Interests that are +purely local, events that did not with certainty contribute to the final +outcome, gossip, as well as the mere caprice of the scholar--these must +obviously be set aside. + +The task imposed upon the volume resolves itself, at bottom, into just +two questions: Why was there a war? Why was the Lincoln Government +successful? With these two questions always in mind I have endeavored, +on the one hand, to select and consolidate the pertinent facts; on the +other, to make clear, even at the cost of explanatory comment, their +relations in the historical sequence of cause and effect. This purpose +has particularly governed the use of biographical matter, in which the +main illustration, of course, is the career of Lincoln. Prominent as it +is here made, the Lincoln matter all bears in the last analysis on one +point--his control of his support. On that the history of the North +hinges. The personal and private Lincoln it is impossible to present +within these pages. The public Lincoln, including the character of his +mind, is here the essential matter. + +The bibliography at the close of the volume indicates the more important +books which are at the reader's disposal and which it is unfortunate not +to know. + +NATHANIEL W. STEPHENSON. Charleston, S. C., March, 1918. + + + +ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE UNION + + + +INDEX + + +I. THE TWO NATIONS OF THE REPUBLIC + +II. THE PARTY OF POLITICAL EVASION + +III. THE POLITICIANS AND THE NEW DAY + +IV. THE CRISIS + +V. SECESSION + +VI. WAR + +VII. LINCOLN + +VIII. THE RULE OF LINCOLN + +IX. THE CRUCIAL MATTER + +X. THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY + +XI. NORTHERN LIFE DURING THE WAR + +XII. THE MEXICAN EPISODE + +XIII. THE PLEBISCITE OF 1864 + +XIV. LINCOLN'S FINAL INTENTIONS + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE TWO NATIONS OF THE REPUBLIC + + +"There is really no Union now between the North and the South.... No two +nations upon earth entertain feelings of more bitter rancor toward each +other than these two nations of the Republic." + +This remark, which is attributed to Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio, +provides the key to American politics in the decade following the +Compromise of 1850. To trace this division of the people to its ultimate +source, one would have to go far back into colonial times. There was a +process of natural selection at work, in the intellectual and economic +conditions of the eighteenth century, which inevitably drew together +certain types and generated certain forces. This process manifested +itself in one form in His Majesty's plantations of the North, and in +another in those of the South. As early as the opening of the nineteenth +century, the social tendencies of the two regions were already so far +alienated that they involved differences which would scarcely admit of +reconciliation. It is a truism to say that these differences gradually +were concentrated around fundamentally different conceptions of +labor--of slave labor in the South, of free labor in the North. + +Nothing, however, could be more fallacious than the notion that this +growing antagonism was controlled by any deliberate purpose in either +part of the country. It was apparently necessary that this Republic in +its evolution should proceed from confederation to nationality through +an intermediate and apparently reactionary period of sectionalism. In +this stage of American history, slavery was without doubt one of the +prime factors involved, but sectional consciousness, with all its +emotional and psychological implications, was the fundamental impulse of +the stern events which occurred between 1850 and 1865. + +By the middle of the nineteenth century the more influential Southerners +had come generally to regard their section of the country as a distinct +social unit. The next step was inevitable. The South began to regard +itself as a separate political unit. It is the distinction of Calhoun +that he showed himself toward the end sufficiently flexible to become +the exponent of this new political impulse. With all his earlier fire +he encouraged the Southerners to withdraw from the so-called national +parties, Whig and Democratic, to establish instead a single Southern +party, and to formulate, by means of popular conventions, a single +concerted policy for the entire South. + +At that time such a policy was still regarded, from the Southern point +of view, as a radical idea. In 1851, a battle was fought at the polls +between the two Southern ideas--the old one which upheld separate state +independence, and the new one which virtually acknowledged Southern +nationality. The issue at stake was the acceptance or the rejection of +a compromise which could bring no permanent settlement of fundamental +differences. + +Nowhere was the battle more interesting than in South Carolina, for it +brought into clear light that powerful Southern leader who ten years +later was to be the masterspirit of secession--Robert Barnwell Rhett. In +1851 he fought hard to revive the older idea of state independence +and to carry South Carolina as a separate state out of the Union. +Accordingly it is significant of the progress that the consolidation +of the South had made at this date that on this issue Rhett encountered +general opposition. This difference of opinion as to policy was not +inspired, as some historians have too hastily concluded, by national +feeling. Scarcely any of the leaders of the opposition considered the +Federal Government supreme over the State Government. They opposed Rhett +because they felt secession to be at that moment bad policy. They saw +that, if South Carolina went out of the Union in 1851, she would go +alone and the solidarity of the South would be broken. They were not +lacking in sectional patriotism, but their conception of the best +solution of the complex problem differed from that advocated by Rhett. +Their position was summed up by Langdon Cheves when he said, "To secede +now is to secede from the South as well as from the Union." On the basis +of this belief they defeated Rhett and put off secession for ten years. + +There is no analogous single event in the history of the North, +previous to the war, which reveals with similar clearness a sectional +consciousness. On the surface the life of the people seemed, indeed, to +belie the existence of any such feeling. The Northern capitalist class +aimed steadily at being non-sectional, and it made free use of the word +national. We must not forget, however, that all sorts of people talked +of national institutions, and that the term, until we look closely +into the mind of, the person using it, signifies nothing. Because the +Northern capitalist repudiated the idea of sectionalism, it does not +follow that he set up any other in its place. Instead of accomplishing +anything so positive, he remained for the most part a negative quantity. + +Living usually somewhere between Maine and Ohio, he made it his chief +purpose to regulate the outflow of manufactures from that industrial +region and the inflow of agricultural produce. The movement of the +latter eastward and northward, and the former westward and southward, +represents roughly but graphically the movement of the business of that +time. The Easterner lived in fear of losing the money which was owed him +in the South. As the political and economic conditions of the day made +unlikely any serious clash of interest between the East and the West, he +had little solicitude about his accounts beyond the Alleghanies. But a +gradually developing hostility between North and South was accompanied +by a parallel anxiety on the part of Northern capital for its Southern +investments and debts. When the war eventually became inevitable, +$200,000,000 were owed by Southerners to Northerners. For those days +this was an indebtedness of no inconsiderable magnitude. The Northern +capitalists, preoccupied with their desire to secure this account, were +naturally eager to repudiate sectionalism, and talked about national +interests with a zeal that has sometimes been misinterpreted. Throughout +the entire period from 1850 to 1865, capital in American politics played +for the most part a negative role, and not until after the war did it +become independent of its Southern interests. + +For the real North of that day we must turn to those Northerners who +felt sufficient unto themselves and whose political convictions were +unbiased by personal interests which were involved in other parts of the +country. We must listen to the distinct voices that gave utterance to +their views, and we must observe the definite schemes of their political +leaders. Directly we do this, the fact stares us in the face that the +North had become a democracy. The rich man no longer played the role +of grandee, for by this time there had arisen those two groups which, +between them, are the ruin of aristocracy--the class of prosperous +laborers and the group of well-to-do intellectuals. Of these, the latter +gave utterance, first, to their faith in democracy, and then, with all +the intensity of partisan zeal, to their sense of the North as the +agent of democracy. The prosperous laborers applauded this expression +of an opinion in which they thoroughly believed and at the same time gave +their willing support to a land policy that was typically Northern. + +American economic history in the middle third of the century is +essentially the record of a struggle to gain possession of public land. +The opposing forces were the South, which strove to perpetuate by this +means a social system that was fundamentally aristocratic, and the +North, which sought by the same means to foster its ideal of democracy. +Though the South, with the aid of its economic vassal, the Northern +capitalist class, was for some time able to check the land-hunger of +the Northern democrats, it was never able entirely to secure the control +which it desired, but was always faced with the steady and continued +opposition of the real North. On one occasion in Congress, the heart +of the whole matter was clearly shown, for at the very moment when the +Northerners of the democratic class were pressing one of their frequent +schemes for free land, Southerners and their sympathetic Northern +henchmen were furthering a scheme that aimed at the purchase of Cuba. +From the impatient sneer of a Southerner that the Northerners sought to +give "land to the landless" and the retort that the Southerners seemed +equally anxious to supply "niggers to the niggerless," it can be seen +that American history is sometimes better summed up by angry politicians +than by historians. + +We must be on our guard, however, against ascribing to either side +too precise a consciousness of its own motives. The old days when the +American Civil War was conceived as a clear-cut issue are as a watch in +the night that has passed, and we now realize that historical movements +are almost without exception the resultants of many motives. We have +come to recognize that men have always misapprehended themselves, +contradicted themselves, obeyed primal impulses, and then deluded +themselves with sophistications upon the springs of action. In a word, +unaware of what they are doing, men allow their aesthetic and dramatic +senses to shape their conceptions of their own lives. + +That "great impersonal artist," of whom Matthew Arnold has so much to +say, is at work in us all, subtly making us into illusions, first to +ourselves and later to the historian. It is the business of history, as +of analytic fiction, both to feel the power of these illusions and to +work through them in imagination to the dim but potent motives on which +they rest. We are prone to forget that we act from subconscious quite as +often as from conscious influences, from motives that arise out of the +dim parts of our being, from the midst of shadows that psychology has +only recently begun to lift, where senses subtler than the obvious make +use of fear, intuition, prejudice, habit, and illusion, and too often +play with us as the wind with blown leaves. + +True as this is of man individually, it is even more fundamentally true +of man collectively, of parties, of peoples. It is a strikingly accurate +description of the relation of the two American nations that now found +themselves opposed within the Republic. Neither fully understood the +other. Each had a social ideal that was deeper laid than any theory of +government or than any commercial or humanitarian interest. Both knew +vaguely but with sure instinct that their interests and ideals +were irreconcilable. Each felt in its heart the deadly passion of +self-preservation. It was because, in both North and South, men were +subtly conscious that a whole social system was the issue at stake, and +because on each side they believed in their own ideals with their whole +souls, that, when the time came for their trial by fire, they went to +their deaths singing. + +In the South there still obtained the ancient ideal of territorial +aristocracy. Those long traditions of the Western European peoples +which had made of the great landholder a petty prince lay beneath the +plantation life of the Southern States. The feudal spirit, revived in a +softer world and under brighter skies, gave to those who participated in +it the same graces and somewhat the same capacities which it gave to the +knightly class in the days of Roland--courage, frankness, generosity, +ability in affairs, a sense of responsibility, the consciousness +of caste. The mode of life which the planters enjoyed and which the +inferior whites regarded as a social paradise was a life of complete +deliverance from toil, of disinterested participation in local +government, of absolute personal freedom--a life in which the mechanical +action of law was less important than the more human compulsion of +social opinion, and in which private differences were settled under the +code of honor. + +This Southern life was carried on in the most appropriate environment. +On a landed estate, often larger than many of Europe's baronies, stood +the great house of the planter, usually a graceful example of colonial +architecture, surrounded by stately gardens. This mansion was the center +of a boundless hospitality; guests were always coming and going; the +hostess and her daughters were the very symbols of kindliness and ease. +To think of such houses was to think of innumerable joyous days; +of gentlemen galloping across country after the hounds; of coaches +lumbering along avenues of noble oaks, bringing handsome women to visit +the mansion; of great feastings; of nights of music and dancing; above +all, of the great festival of Christmas, celebrated much as had been the +custom in "Merrie England" centuries before. + +Below the surface of this bright world lay the enslaved black race. In +the minds of many Southerners--it was always a secret burden from which +they saw no means of freeing themselves. To emancipate the slaves, and +thereby to create a population of free blacks, was generally considered, +from the white point of view, an impossible solution of the problem. +The Southerners usually believed that the African could be tamed only +in small groups and when constantly surrounded by white influence, as in +the case of house servants. Though a few great capitalists had taken +up the idea that the deliberate exploitation of the blacks was the high +prerogative of the whites, the general sentiment of the Southern people +was more truly expressed by Toombs when he said: "The question is not +whether we could be more prosperous and happy with these three and a +half million slaves in Africa, and their places filled with an equal +number of hardy, intelligent, and enterprising citizens of the superior +race; but it is simply whether, while we have them among us, we would be +most prosperous with them in freedom or in bondage." + +The Southern people, in the majority of instances, had no hatred of the +blacks. In the main they led their free, spirited, and gracious life, +convinced that the maintenance of slavery was but making the best of +circumstances which were beyond their control. It was these Southern +people who were to hear from afar the horrible indictment of all +their motives by the Abolitionists and who were to react in a growing +bitterness and distrust toward everything Northern. + +But of these Southern people the average Northerner knew nothing. +He knew the South only on its least attractive side of professional +politics. For there was a group of powerful magnates, rich planters or +"slave barons," who easily made their way into Congress, and who played +into the hands of the Northern capitalists, for a purpose similar to +theirs. It was these men who forced the issue upon slavery; they warned +the common people of the North to mind their own business; and for doing +so they were warmly applauded by the Northern capitalist class. It was +therefore in opposition to the whole American world of organized capital +that the Northern masses demanded the use of "the Northern hammer"--as +Sumner put it, in one of his most furious speeches--in their aim to +destroy a section where, intuitively, they felt their democratic ideal +could not be realized. + +And what was that ideal? Merely to answer democracy is to dodge the +fundamental question. The North was too complex in its social structure +and too multitudinous in its interests to confine itself to one type +of life. It included all sorts and conditions of men--from the most +gracious of scholars who lived in romantic ease among his German and +Spanish books, and whose lovely house in Cambridge is forever associated +with the noble presence of Washington, to the hardy frontiersman, +breaking the new soil of his Western claim, whose wife at sunset shaded +her tired eyes, under a hand rough with labor, as she stood on the +threshold of her log cabin, watching for the return of her man across +the weedy fields which he had not yet fully subdued. Far apart as were +Longfellow and this toiler of the West, they yet felt themselves to be +one in purpose. + +They were democrats, but not after the simple, elementary manner of the +democrats at the opening of the century. In the North, there had come +to life a peculiar phase of idealism that had touched democracy with +mysticism and had added to it a vague but genuine romance. This new +vision of the destiny of the country had the practical effect of making +the Northerners identify themselves in their imaginations with all +mankind and in creating in them an enthusiastic desire, not only to give +to every American a home of his own, but also to throw open the gates of +the nation and to share the wealth of America with the poor of all the +world. In very truth, it was their dominating passion to give "land to +the landless." Here was the clue to much of their attitude toward the +South. Most of these Northern dreamers gave little or no thought to +slavery itself; but they felt that the section which maintained such a +system so committed to aristocracy that any real friendship with it was +impossible. + +We are thus forced to conceive the American Republic in the years +immediately following the Compromise of 1850 as, in effect, a dual +nation, without a common loyalty between the two parts. Before long the +most significant of the great Northerners of the time was to describe +this impossible condition by the appropriate metaphor of a house +divided against itself. It was not, however, until eight years after the +division of the country had been acknowledged in 1850 that these +words were uttered. In those eight years both sections awoke to the +seriousness of the differences that they had admitted. Both perceived +that, instead of solving their problem in 1850, they had merely drawn +sharply the lines of future conflict. In every thoughtful mind there +arose the same alternative questions: Is there no solution but fighting +it out until one side destroys the other, or we end as two nations +confessedly independent? Or is there some conceivable new outlet for +this opposition of energy on the part of the sections, some new mode of +permanent adjustment? + +It was at the moment when thinking men were asking these questions that +one of the nimblest of politicians took the center of the stage. Stephen +A. Douglas was far-sighted enough to understand the land-hunger of +the time. One is tempted to add that his ear was to the ground. The +statement will not, however, go unchallenged, for able apologists have +their good word to say for Douglas. Though in the main, the traditional +view of him as the prince of political jugglers still holds its own, let +us admit that his bold, rough spirit, filled as it was with political +daring, was not without its strange vein of idealism. And then let us +repeat that his ear was to the ground. Much careful research has indeed +been expended in seeking to determine who originated the policy which, +about 1853, Douglas decided to make his own. There has also been much +dispute about his motives. Most of us, however, see in his course of +action an instance of playing the game of politics with an audacity that +was magnificent. + +His conduct may well have been the result of a combination of motives +which included a desire to retain the favor of the Northwest, a wish +to pave the way to his candidacy for the Presidency, the intention to +enlist the aid of the South as well as that of his own locality, and +perhaps the hope that he was performing a service of real value to his +country. That is, he saw that the favor of his own Northwest would be +lavished upon any man who opened up to settlement the rich lands beyond +Iowa and Missouri which were still held by the Indians, and for which +the Westerners were clamoring. Furthermore, they wanted a railroad that +would reach to the Pacific. There were, however, local entanglements and +political cross-purposes which involved the interests of the free State +of Illinois and those of the slave State of Missouri. + +Douglas's great stroke was a programme for harmonizing all these +conflicting interests and for drawing together the West and the South. +Slaveholders were to be given what at that moment they wanted most--an +opportunity to expand into that territory to the north and west of +Missouri which had been made free by the Compromise of 1820, while the +free Northwest was to have its railroad to the coast and also its chance +to expand into the Indian country. Douglas thus became the champion of a +bill which would organize two new territories, Kansas and Nebraska, but +which would leave the settlers in each to decide whether slavery or free +labor should prevail within their boundaries. This territorial scheme +was accepted by a Congress in which the Southerners and their Northern +allies held control, and what is known as the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was +signed by President Pierce on May 30,1854.* + + *The origin of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill has been a much + discussed subject among historians in recent years. The + older view that Douglas was simply playing into the hands of + the "slavepower" by sacrificing Kansas, is no longer + tenable. This point has been elaborated by Allen Johnson in + his study of Douglas ("Stephen A. Douglas: a Study in + American Politics"). In his "Repeal of the Missouri + Compromise", P.O. Ray contends that the legislation of 1854 + originated in a factional controversy in Missouri, and that + Douglas merely served the interests of the proslavery group + led by Senator David R. Atchinson of Missouri. Still + another point of view is that presented in the "Genesis of + the Kansas-Nebraska Act," by F. H. Hodder, who would explain + not only the division of the Nebraska Territory into Kansas + and Nebraska, but the object of the entire bill by the + insistent efforts of promoters of the Pacific railroad + scheme to secure a right of way through Nebraska. This + project involved the organization of a territorial + government and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. + Douglas was deeply interested in the western railroad + interests and carried through the necessary legislation. + + + +CHAPTER II. THE PARTY OF POLITICAL EVASION + +In order to understand Douglas one must understand the Democratic party +of 1854 in which Douglas was a conspicuous leader. The Democrats boasted +that they were the only really national party and contended that their +rivals, the Whigs and the Know-Nothings, were merely the representatives +of localities or classes. Sectionalism was the favorite charge which the +Democrats brought against their enemies; and yet it was upon these very +Democrats that the slaveholders had hitherto relied, and it was upon +certain members of this party that the label, "Northern men with +Southern principles," had been bestowed. + +The label was not, however, altogether fair, for the motives of the +Democrats were deeply rooted in their own peculiar temperament. In the +last analysis, what had held their organization together, and what had +enabled them to dominate politics for nearly the span of a generation, +was their faith in a principle that then appealed powerfully, and that +still appeals, to much in the American character. This was the principle +of negative action on the part of the government--the old idea that the +government should do as little as possible and should confine itself +practically to the duties of the policeman. This principle has seemed +always to express to the average mind that traditional individualism +which is an inheritance of the Anglo-Saxon race. In America, in the +middle of the nineteenth century, it reenforced that tradition of local +independence which was strong throughout the West and doubly strong in +the South. Then, too, the Democratic party still spoke the language of +the theoretical Democracy inherited from Jefferson. And Americans have +always been the slaves of phrases! + +Furthermore, the close alliance of the Northern party machine with +the South made it, generally, an object of care for all those Northern +interests that depended on the Southern market. As to the Southerners, +their relation with this party has two distinct chapters. The first +embraced the twenty years preceding the Compromise of 1850, and may +be thought of as merging into the second during three or four years +following the great equivocation. In that period, while the antislavery +crusade was taking form, the aim of Southern politicians was mainly +negative. "Let us alone," was their chief demand. Though aggressive +in their policy, they were too far-sighted to demand of the North any +positive course in favor of slavery. The rise of a new type of Southern +politician, however, created a different situation and began a second +chapter in the relation between the South and the Democratic party +machine in the North. But of that hereafter. + +Until 1854, it was the obvious part of wisdom for Southerners to +cooperate as far as possible with that party whose cardinal idea was +that the government should come as near as conceivable to a system +of non-interference; that it should not interfere with business, and +therefore oppose a tariff; that it should not interfere with local +government, and therefore applaud states rights; that it should not +interfere with slavery, and therefore frown upon militant abolition. +Its policy was, to adopt a familiar phrase, one of masterly inactivity. +Indeed it may well be called the party of political evasion. It was a +huge, loose confederacy of differing political groups, embracing paupers +and millionaires, moderate anti-slavery men and slave barons, all of +whom were held together by the unreliable bond of an agreement not to +tread on each other's toes. + +Of this party Douglas was the typical representative, both in strength +and weakness. He had all its pliability, its good humor, its broad and +easy way with things, its passion for playing politics. Nevertheless, in +calling upon the believers in political evasion to consent for this +once to reverse their principle and to endorse a positive action, he had +taken a great risk. Would their sporting sense of politics as a gigantic +game carry him through successfully? He knew that there was a hard fight +before him, but with the courage of a great political strategist, +and proudly confident in his hold upon the main body of his party, he +prepared for both the attacks and the defections that were inevitable. + +Defections, indeed, began at once. Even before the bill had been passed, +the "Appeal of the Independent Democrats" was printed in a New York +paper, with the signatures of members of Congress representing both the +extreme anti-slavery wing of the Democrats and the organized Free-Soil +party. The most famous of these names were those of Chase and Sumner, +both of whom had been sent to the Senate by a coalition of Free-Soilers +and Democrats. With them was the veteran abolitionist, Giddings of +Ohio. The "Appeal" denounced Douglas as an "unscrupulous politician" +and sounded both the warcries of the Northern masses by accusing him of +being engaged in "an atrocious plot to exclude from a vast unoccupied +region immigrants from the Old World and free laborers from our own +States." + +The events of the spring and summer of 1854 may all be grouped under +two heads--the formation of an anti-Nebraska party, and the quick rush +of sectional patriotism to seize the territory laid open by the +Kansas-Nebraska Act. The instantaneous refusal of the Northerners to +confine their settlement to Nebraska, and their prompt invasion of +Kansas; the similar invasion from the South; the support of both +movements by societies organized for that purpose; the war in Kansas +all the details of this thrilling story have been told elsewhere.* The +political story alone concerns us here. + + *See Jesse Macy, "The Anti-Slavery Crusade". (In "The + Chronicles of America".) + +When the fight began there were four parties in the field: the +Democrats, the Whigs, the Free-Soilers, and the Know-Nothings. + +The Free-Soil party, hitherto a small organization, had sought to make +slavery the main issue in politics. Its watchword was "Free soil, free +speech, free labor, and free men." It is needless to add that it was +instantaneous in its opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. + +The Whigs at the moment enjoyed the greatest prestige, owing to the +association with them of such distinguished leaders as Webster and Clay. +In 1854, however, as a party they were dying, and the very condition +that had made success possible for the Democrats made it impossible for +the Whigs, because the latter stood for positive ideas, and aimed to be +national in reality and not in the evasive Democratic sense of the term. +For, as a matter of fact, on analysis all the greater issues of the day +proved to be sectional. The Whigs would not, like the Democrats, adopt a +negative attitude toward these issues, nor would they consent to become +merely sectional. Yet at the moment negation and sectionalism were the +only alternatives, and between these millstones the Whig organization +was destined to be ground to bits and to disappear after the next +Presidential election. + +Even previous to 1854, numbers of Whigs had sought a desperate outlet +for their desire to be positive in politics and had created a new party +which during a few years was to seem a reality and then vanish together +with its parent. The one chance for a party which had positive ideas +and which wished not to be sectional was the definite abandonment of +existing issues and the discovery of some new issue not connected with +sectional feeling. Now, it happened that a variety of causes, social and +religious, had brought about bad blood between native and foreigner, in +some of the great cities, and upon the issue involved in this condition +the failing spirit of the Whigs fastened. A secret society which had +been formed to oppose the naturalization of foreigners quickly became a +recognized political party. As the members of the Society answered all +questions with "I do not know," they came to be called "Know-Nothings," +though they called themselves "Americans." In those states where +the Whigs had been strongest--Massachusetts, New York, and +Pennsylvania--this last attempt to apply their former temper, though not +their principles, had for a moment some success; but it could not escape +the fierce division which was forced on the country by Douglas. As a +result, it rapidly split into factions, one of which merged with the +enemies of Douglas, while the other was lost among his supporters. + +What would the great dying Whig party leave behind it? This was the +really momentous question in 1854. Briefly, this party bequeathed +the temper of political positivism and at the same time the dread of +sectionalism. The inner clue to American politics during the next few +years is, to many minds, to be found largely in the union of this old +Whig temper with a new-born sectional patriotism, and, to other minds, +in the gradual and reluctant passing of the Whig opposition to a +sectional party. But though this transformation of the wrecks of +Whiggism began immediately, and while the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was +still being hotly debated in Congress, it was not until 1860 that it was +completed. + +In the meantime various incidents had shown that the sectional +patriotism of the North, the fury of the abolitionists, and the positive +temper in politics, were all drawing closer together. Each of these +tendencies can be briefly illustrated. For example, the rush to Kansas +had begun, and the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Society was preparing to +assist settlers who were going west. In May, there occurred at Boston +one of the most conspicuous attempts to rescue a fugitive slave, in +which a mob led by Thomas Wentworth Higginson attacked the guards of +Anthony Burns, a captured fugitive, killed one of them, but failed to +get the slave, who was carried to a revenue cutter between lines of +soldiers and returned to slavery. Among numerous details of the hour the +burning of Douglas in effigy is perhaps worth passing notice. In duly +the anti-Nebraska men of Michigan held a convention, at which they +organized as a political party and nominated a state ticket. Of their +nominees, two had hitherto ranked themselves as Free-Soilers, three as +anti-slavery Democrats, and five as Whigs. For the name of their party +they chose "Republican," and as the foundation of their platform the +resolution "That, postponing and suspending all differences with +regard to political economy or administrative policy," they would "act +cordially and faithfully in unison," opposing the extension of slavery, +and would "cooperate and be known as 'Republicans' until the contest be +terminated." + +The history of the next two years is, in its main outlines, the story +of the war in Kansas and of the spread of this new party throughout the +North. It was only by degrees, however, that the Republicans absorbed +the various groups of anti-Nebraska men. What happened at this time in +Illinois may be taken as typical, and it is particularly noteworthy +as revealing the first real appearance of Abraham Lincoln in American +history. + +Though in 1854 he was not yet a national figure, Lincoln was locally +accredited with keen political insight, and was, regarded in Illinois as +a strong lawyer. The story is told of him that, while he was attending +court on the circuit, he heard the news of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in +a tavern and sat up most of the night talking about it. Next morning +he used a phrase destined to become famous. "I tell you," said he to a +fellow lawyer, "this nation cannot exist half slave and half free." + +Lincoln, however, was not one of the first to join the Republicans. +In Illinois, in 1854, Lincoln resigned his seat in the legislature to +become the Whig candidate for United States senator, to succeed the +Democratic colleague of Douglas. But there was little chance of +his election, for the real contest was between the two wings of the +Democrats, the Nebraska men and the anti-Nebraska men, and Lincoln +withdrew in favor of the candidate of the latter, who was elected. + +During the following year, from the midst of his busy law practice, +Lincoln watched the Whig party go to pieces. He saw a great part of its +vote lodge temporarily among the Know-Nothings, but before the end of +the year even they began to lose their prominence. In the autumn, from +the obscurity of his provincial life, he saw, far off, Seward, the most +astute politician of the day, join the new movement. In New York, the +Republican state convention and the Whig state convention merged into +one, and Seward pronounced a baptismal oration upon the Republican party +of New York. + +In the House of Representatives which met in December, 1855, the +anti-Nebraska men were divided among themselves, and the Know-Nothings +held the balance of power. No candidate for the speakership, however, +was able to command a majority, and finally, after it had been agreed +that a plurality would be sufficient, the contest closed, on the one +hundred and thirty-third ballot, with the election of a Republican, N. +P. Banks. Meanwhile in the South, the Whigs were rapidly leaving the +party, pausing a moment with the Know-Nothings, only to find that their +inevitable resting-place, under stress of sectional feeling, was with +the Democrats. + +On Washington's birthday, 1856, the Know-Nothing national convention met +at Philadelphia. It promptly split upon the subject of slavery, and +a portion of its membership sent word offering support to another +convention which was sitting at Pittsburgh, and which had been called to +form a national organization for the Republican party. A third assembly +held on this same day was composed of the newspaper editors of Illinois, +and may be looked upon as the organization of the Republican party in +that state. At the dinner following this informal convention, Lincoln, +who was one of the speakers, was toasted as "the next United States +Senator." + +Some four months afterward, in Philadelphia, the Republicans held their +first national convention. Only a few years previous its members +had called themselves by various names--Democrats, Free-Soilers, +Know-Nothings, Whigs. The old hostilities of these different groups had +not yet died out. Consequently, though Seward was far and away the most +eminent member of the new party, he was not nominated for President. +That dangerous honor was bestowed upon a dashing soldier and explorer of +the Rocky Mountains and the Far West, John C. Fremont.* + + *For an account of Fremont, see Stewart Edward White, "The + Forty-Niners" (in "The Chronicles of America"), Chapter II. + +The key to the political situation in the North, during that momentous +year, was to be found in the great number of able Whigs who, seeing +that their own party was lost but refusing to be sidetracked by the +make-believe issue of the Know-Nothings, were now hesitating what to do. +Though the ordinary politicians among the Republicans doubtless wished +to conciliate these unattached Whigs, the astuteness of the leaders was +too great to allow them to succumb to that temptation. They seem to have +feared the possible effect of immediately incorporating in their ranks, +while their new organization was still so plastic, the bulk of those +conservative classes which were, after all, the backbone of this +irreducible Whig minimum. + +The Republican campaign was conducted with a degree of passion that had +scarcely been equaled in America before that day. To the well-ordered +spirit of the conservative classes the tone which the Republicans +assumed appeared shocking. Boldly sectional in their language, sweeping +in their denunciation of slavery, the leaders of the campaign made +bitter and effective use of a number of recent events. "Uncle Tom's +Cabin", published in 1852, and already immensely popular, was used as a +political tract to arouse, by its gruesome picture of slavery, a hatred +of slaveholders. Returned settlers from Kansas went about the North +telling horrible stories of guerrilla warfare, so colored as to throw +the odium all on one side. The scandal of the moment was the attack made +by Preston Brooks on Sumner, after the latter's furious diatribe in the +Senate, which was published as "The Crime Against Kansas". With double +skill the Republicans made equal capital out of the intellectual +violence of the speech and the physical violence of the retort. In +addition to this, there was ready to their hands the evidence of +Southern and Democratic sympathy with a filibustering attempt to conquer +the republic of Nicaragua, where William Walker, an American adventurer, +had recently made himself dictator. Walker had succeeded in having his +minister acknowledged by the Democratic Administration, and in obtaining +the endorsement of a great Democratic meeting which was held in New +York. It looked, therefore, as if the party of political evasion had an +anchor to windward, and that, in the event of their losing in Kansas, +they intended to placate their Southern wing by the annexation of +Nicaragua. + +Here, indeed, was a stronger political tempest than Douglas, weatherwise +though he was, had foreseen. How was political evasion to brave it? With +a courage quite equal to the boldness of the Republicans, the Democrats +took another tack and steered for less troubled waters. Their convention +at Cincinnati was temperate and discreet in all its expressions, and for +President it nominated a Northerner, James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, a +man who was wholly dissociated in the public mind from the struggle over +Kansas. + +The Democratic party leaders knew that they already had two strong +groups of supporters. Whatever they did, the South would have to go +along with them, in its reaction against the furious sectionalism of the +Republicans. Besides the Southern support, the Democrats counted upon +the aid of the professional politicians--those men who considered +politics rather as a fascinating game than as serious and difficult work +based upon principle. Upon these the Democrats could confidently rely, +for they already had, in Douglas in the North and Toombs in the South, +two master politicians who knew this type and its impulses intimately, +because they themselves belonged to it. But the Democrats needed the +support of a third group. If they could only win over the Northern +remnant of the Whigs that was still unattached, their position would be +secure. In their efforts to obtain this additional and very necessary +reinforcement, they decided to appear as temperate and restrained as +possible--a well bred party which all mild and conservative men could +trust. + +This attitude they formulated in connection with Kansas, which at that +time had two governments: one, a territorial government, set up by +emigrants from the South; the other, a state government, under the +constitution drawn up at Topeka by emigrants from the North. One +authorized slavery; the other prohibited slavery; and both had appealed +to Washington for recognition. It was with this quite definite issue +that Congress was chiefly concerned in the spring of 1856. During the +summer Toombs introduced a bill securing to the settlers of Kansas +complete freedom of action and providing for an election of delegates +to a convention to draw up a state constitution which would determine +whether slavery or freedom was to prevail--in other words, whether +Kansas was to be annexed to the South or to the North. This bill was +merely the full expression of what Douglas had aimed at in 1854 and of +what was nicknamed "popular sovereignty"--the right of the locality to +choose for itself between slave and free labor. + +Two years before, such a measure would have seemed radical. But in +politics time is wonderfully elastic. Those two years had been packed +with turmoil. Kansas had been the scene of a bloody conflict. Regardless +of which side had a majority on the ground, extremists on each side had +demanded recognition for the government set up by their own party. By +contrast, Toombs's offer to let the majority rule appeared temperate. + +The Republicans saw instantly that they must discredit the proposal +or the ground would be cut from under them. Though the bill passed the +Senate, they were able to set it aside in the House in favor of a bill +admitting Kansas as a free state with the Topeka constitution. The +Democrats thereupon accused the Republicans of not wanting peace and of +wishing to keep up the war-cry "Bleeding Kansas" until election time. + +That, throughout the country, the two parties continued on the lines +of policy they had chosen may be seen from an illustration. A House +committee which had gone to Kansas to investigate submitted two reports, +one of which, submitted by a Democratic member, told the true story of +the murders committed by John Brown at Pottawatomie. And yet, while +the Republicans spread everywhere their shocking tales of murders of +free-state settlers, the Democrats made practically no use of this +equally shocking tale of the murder of slaveholders. Apparently they +were resolved to appear temperate and conservative to the bitter end. + +And they had their reward. Or, perhaps the fury of the Republicans had +its just deserts. From either point of view, the result was a choice of +evils on the part of the reluctant Whigs, and that choice was expressed +in the following words by as typical a New Englander as Rufus Choate: +"The first duty of Whigs," wrote Choate to the Maine State central +committee, "is to unite with some organization of our countrymen +to defeat and dissolve the new geographical party calling itself +Republican.... The question for each and every one of us is...by what +vote can I do most to prevent the madness of the times from working its +maddest act the very ecstasy of its madness--the permanent formation and +the actual triumph of a party which knows one half of America only +to hate and dread it. If the Republican party," Choate continued, +"accomplishes its object and gives the government to the North, I turn +my eyes from the consequences. To the fifteen states of the South that +government will appear an alien government. It will appear worse. It +will appear a hostile government. It will represent to their eye a +vast region of states organized upon anti-slavery, flushed by triumph, +cheered onward by the voice of the pulpit, tribune, and press; +its mission, to inaugurate freedom and put down the oligarchy; its +constitution, the glittering and sounding generalities of natural +right which make up the Declaration of Independence.... Practically the +contest, in my judgment, is between Mr. Buchanan and Colonel Fremont. In +these circumstances, I vote for Mr. Buchanan." + +The party of political evasion thus became the refuge of the old +original Whigs who were forced to take advantage of any port in a storm. +Buchanan was elected by an overwhelming majority. To the careless +eye, Douglas had been justified by results; his party had triumphed as +perhaps never before; and yet, no great political success was ever +based upon less stable foundations. To maintain this position, those +Northerners who reasoned as Choate did were a necessity; but to keep +them in the party of political evasion would depend upon the ability of +this party to play the game of politics without acknowledging sectional +bias. Whether this difficult task could be accomplished would depend +upon the South. Toombs, on his part, was anxious to continue making the +party of evasion play the great American game of politics, and in +his eagerness he perhaps overestimated his hold upon the South. This, +however, remains to be seen. + +Already another faction had formed around William L. Yancey of +Alabama--a faction as intolerant of political evasion as the Republicans +themselves, and one that was eager to match the sectional Northern party +by a sectional Southern party. It had for the moment fallen into line +with the Toombs faction because, like the Whigs, it had not the courage +to do otherwise. The question now was whether it would continue fearful, +and whether political evasion would continue to reign. + +The key to the history of the next four years is in the growth of this +positive Southern party, which had the inevitable result of forcing the +Whig remainder to choose, not as in 1856 between a positive sectional +policy and an evasive nonsectional policy, but in 1860 between two +policies both of which were at once positive and sectional. + + + +CHAPTER III. THE POLITICIANS AND THE NEW DAY + +The South had thus far been kept in line with the cause of political +evasion by a small group of able politicians, chief among whom were +Robert Toombs, Howell Cobb, and Alexander H. Stephens. Curiously enough +all three were Georgians, and this might indeed be called the day of +Georgia in the history of the South. + +A different type of man, however, and one significant of a divergent +point of view, had long endeavored to shake the leadership of the +Georgian group. Rhett in South Carolina, Jefferson Davis in Mississippi, +and above all Yancey in Alabama, together with the interests and +sentiment which they represented, were almost ready to contest the +orthodoxy of the policy of "nothing doing." To consolidate the interests +behind them, to arouse and fire the sentiment on which they relied, was +now the confessed purpose of these determined men. So little attention +has hitherto been given to motive in American politics that the modern +student still lacks a clear-cut and intelligent perception of these +various factions. In spite of this fact, however, these men may safely +be regarded as being distinctly more intellectual, and as having +distinctly deeper natures, than the men who came together under +the leadership of Toombs and Cobb, and who had the true provincial +enthusiasm for politics as the great American sport. + +The factions of both Toombs and Yancey were intensely Southern and, +whenever a crisis might come, neither meant to hesitate an instant over +striking hard for the South. Toombs, however, wanted to prevent such a +situation, while Yancey was anxious to force one. The former conceived +felicity as the joy of playing politics on the biggest stage, and he +therefore bent all his strength to preserving the so-called national +parties; the latter, scornful of all such union, was for a separate +Southern community. + +Furthermore, no man could become enthusiastic about political evasion +unless by nature he also took kindly to compromise. So, Toombs and his +followers were for preserving the negative Democratic position of 1856. +In a formal paper of great ability Stephens defended that position when +he appeared for reelection to Congress in 1857. Cobb, who had entered +Buchanan's Cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury, and who spoke hopefully +of making Kansas a slave state, insisted nevertheless that such a change +must be "brought about by the recognized principles of carrying out the +will of the majority which is the great doctrine of the Kansas Bill." +To Yancey, as to the Republicans, Kansas was a disputed border-land for +which the so-called two nations were fighting. + +The internal Southern conflict between these two factions began anew +with the Congressional elections of 1857. It is worth observing that the +make-up of these factions was almost a resurrection of the two groups +which, in 1850, had divided the South on the question of rejecting the +Compromise. In a letter to Stephens in reference to one of the Yancey +men, Cobb prophesied: "McDonald will utterly fail to get up a new +Southern Rights party. Burnt children dread the fire, and he cannot get +up as strong an organization as he did in 1850. Still it is necessary +to guard every point, as McDonald is a hard hand to deal with." For the +moment, he foretold events correctly. The Southern elections of 1857 did +not break the hold of the moderates. + +Yancey turned to different machinery, quite as useful for his purpose. +This he found in the Southern commercial conventions, which were held +annually. At this point there arises a vexed question which has, of +late, aroused much discussion. Was there then what we should call +today a slave "interest"? Was organized capital deliberately exploiting +slavery? And did Yancey play into its hands?* The truth seems to be +that, between 1856 and 1860, both the idealist parties, the Republicans +and the Secessionists, made peace with, shall we say, the Mammon of +unrighteousness, or merely organized capital? The one joined hands with +the iron interest of the North; the other, with the slave interest of +the South. The Republicans preached the domination of the North and a +protective tariff; the Yancey men preached the independence of the South +and the reopening of the slave trade. + + * For those who would be persuaded that there was such a + slave interest, perhaps the best presentation is to be found + in Professor Dodd's Life of Jefferson Davis. + +These two issues Yancey, however, failed to unite, though the commercial +convention of 1859 at last gave its support to a resolution that all +laws, state or federal, prohibiting the African slave trade ought to be +repealed. That great body of Northern capital which had dealings with +the South was ready, as it always had been, to finance any scheme that +Southern business desired. Slavers were fitted out in New York, and +the city authorities did not prevent their sailing. Against this somber +background stands forth that much admired action of Lewis Cass of +Michigan, Buchanan's Secretary of State. Already the slave trade was +in process of revival, and the British Navy, impelled by the powerful +anti-slavery sentiment in England, was active in its suppression. +American ships suspected of being slavers were visited and searched. +Cass seized his opportunity, and declaring that such things "could not +be submitted to by an independent nation without dishonor," sent out +American warships to prevent this interference. Thereupon the British +government consented to give up trying to police the ocean against +slavers. It is indeed true, therefore, that neither North nor South has +an historical monopoly of the support of slavery! + +It is but fair to add that, so far as the movement to reopen the slave +trade found favor outside the slave barons and their New York allies, +it was advocated as a means of political defense, of increasing Southern +population as an offset to the movement of free emigration into the +North, and of keeping the proportion of Southern representation in +Congress. Stephens, just after Cass had successfully twisted the lion's +tail, took this position in a speech that caused a sensation. In a +private letter he added, "Unless we get immigration from abroad, we +shall have few more slave states. This great truth seems to take the +people by surprise. Some shrink from it as they would from death. Still, +it is as true as death." The scheme, however, never received general +acceptance; and in the constitution of the Southern Confederacy there +was a section prohibiting the African slave trade. On the other of +these two issues--the independence of the South--Yancey steadily +gained ground. With each year from 1856 to 1860, a larger proportion of +Southerners drew out of political evasion and gave adherence to the +idea of presenting an ultimatum to the North, with secession as an +alternative. + +Meanwhile, Buchanan sent to Kansas, as Governor, Robert J. Walker, +one of the most astute of the Democrats of the opposite faction and a +Mississippian. The tangled situation which Walker found, the details +of his attempt to straighten it out, belong in another volume.* It is +enough in this connection merely to mention the episode of the Lecompton +convention in the election of which the Northern settlers refused to +participate, though Walker had promised that they should have full +protection and a fair count as well as that the work of the convention +should be submitted to a popular vote. This action of Walker's was one +more cause of contention between the warring factions in the South. The +fact that he had met the Northerners half-way was seized upon by the +Yancey men as evidence of the betrayal of the South by the Democratic +moderates. On the other hand, Cobb, writing of the situation in Kansas, +said that "a large majority are against slavery and... our friends regard +the fate of Kansas as a free state pretty well fixed... the pro-slavery +men, finding that Kansas was likely to become a Black Republican State, +determined to unite with the free-state Democrats." Here is the clue to +Walker's course. As a strict party man, he preferred to accept Kansas +free, with Democrats in control, rather than risk losing it altogether. + + * See Jesse Macy, "The Anti-Slavery Crusade". (In "The + Chronicles of America".) + +The next step in the affair is one of the unsolved problems in American +history. Buchanan suddenly changed front, disgraced Walker, and threw +himself into the arms of the Southern extremists. Though his reasons +for doing so have been debated to this day, they have not yet been +established beyond dispute. What seems to be the favorite explanation +is that Buchanan was in a panic. What brought him to that condition may +have been the following events. + +The free-state men, by refusing to take part in electing the convention, +had given control to the slaveholders, who proved they were not slow to +seize their opportunity. They drew up a constitution favoring slavery, +but this constitution, Walker had promised, was to be submitted in +referendum. If the convention decided, however, not to submit the +constitution, would not Congress have the right to accept it and admit +Kansas as a Mate? This question was immediately raised. It now became +plain that, by refusing to take part in the election, the free-state +Kansans had thrown away a great tactical advantage. Of this blunder in +generalship the Yancey men took instant advantage. It was known that +the proportion of Free-Soilers in Kansas was very great--perhaps a +majority--and the Southerners reasoned that they should not be obliged +to give up the advantage they had won merely to let their enemies +retrieve their mistake. Jefferson Davis formulated this position in +an address to the Mississippi Legislature in which he insisted that +Congress, not the Kansas electorate, was entitled to create the Kansas +constitution, that the Convention was a properly chosen body, and that +its work should stand. What Davis said in a stately way, others said in +a furious way. Buchanan stated afterward that he changed front because +certain Southern States had threatened that, if he did not abandon +Walker, they would secede. + +Be that as it may, Buchanan did abandon Walker and threw all the +influence of the Administration in favor of admitting Kansas with the +Lecompton constitution. But would this be true to that principle of +"popular sovereignty" which was the very essence of the Kansas-Nebraska +Act? Would it be true to the principle that each locality should decide +for itself between slavery and freedom? On this issue the Southerners +were fairly generally agreed and maintained that there was no obligation +to go behind the work of the convention. Not so, however, the great +exponent of popular sovereignty, Douglas. Rising in his place in the +Senate, he charged the President with conspiring to defeat the will of +the majority in Kansas. "If Kansas wants a slave state constitution," +said he, "she has a right to it; if she wants a free state constitution, +she has a right to it. It is none of my business which way the slavery +clause is decided. I care not whether it is voted up or down." + +There followed one of those prolonged legislative battles for which the +Congress of the United States is justly celebrated. Furious oratory, +propositions, counter-propositions, projected compromises, other +compromises, and at the end nothing positive. But Douglas had defeated +the attempt to bring in Kansas with the Lecompton constitution. As to +the details of the story, they include such distinguished happenings as +a brawling, all-night session when "thirty men, at least, were engaged +in the fisticuff," and one Representative knocked another down. + +Douglas was again at the center of the stage, but his term as Senator +was nearing its end. He and the President had split their party. Pursued +by the vengeful malice of the Administration, Douglas went home in +1858 to Illinois to fight for his reelection. His issue, of course, +was popular sovereignty. His temper was still the temper of political +evasion. How to hold fast to his own doctrine, and at the same time +keep to his programme of "nothing doing"; how to satisfy the negative +Democrats of the North without losing his last hold on the positive +men of the South--such were his problems, and they were made still more +difficult by a recent decision of the Supreme Court. + +The now famous case of Dred Scott had been decided in the previous +year. Its bewildering legal technicalities may here be passed over; +fundamentally, the real question involved was the status of a negro, +Dred Scott. A slave who had been owned in Missouri, and who had been +taken by his master to the State of Illinois, to the free territory +of Minnesota, and then back to Missouri, now claimed to be free. The +Supreme Court undertook to decide whether his residence in Minnesota +rendered him free, and also whether any negro of slave descent could +be a citizen of the United States. The official opinion of the Court, +delivered by Chief Justice Taney, decided both questions against +the suppliant. It was held that the "citizens" recognized by the +Constitution did not include negroes. So, even if Scott were free, he +could not be considered a citizen entitled to bring suit in the Federal +Courts. Furthermore, he could not be considered free, in spite of his +residence in Minnesota, because, as the Court now ruled, Congress, when +it enacted the Missouri Compromise, had exceeded its authority; +the enactment had never really been in force; there was no binding +prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern territories. + +If this decision was good law, all the discussion about popular +sovereignty went for nothing, and neither an act of Congress nor the +vote of the population of a territory, whether for or against slavery, +was of any value whatsoever. Nothing mattered until the newmade state +itself took action after its admission to the Union. Until that time, no +power, national or local, could lawfully interfere with the introduction +of slaves. In the case of Kansas, it was no longer of the least +importance what became of the Lecompton constitution or of any other +that the settlers might make. The territory was open to settlement +by slaveholders and would continue to be so as long as it remained +a territory. The same conditions existed in Nebraska and in all the +Northwest. The Dred Scott decision was accepted as orthodox Democratic +doctrine by the South, by the Administration, and by the "Northern men +with Southern principles." The astute masters of the game of politics +on the Democratic side struck the note of legality. This was law, the +expression of the highest tribunal of the Republic; what more was to be +said? Though in truth there was but one other thing to be said, and that +revolutionary, the Republicans, nevertheless, did not falter over it. +Seward announced it in a speech in Congress on "Freedom in Kansas," when +he uttered this menace: "We shall reorganize the Court and thus reform +its political sentiments and practices." + +In the autumn of 1858 Douglas attempted to perform the acrobatic feat +of reconciling the Dred Scott decision, which as a Democrat he had +to accept, with that idea of popular sovereignty without which his +immediate followers could not be content. In accepting the Republican +nomination as Douglas's opponent for the senatorship, Lincoln used these +words which have taken rank among his most famous utterances: "A house +divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot +endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union +to be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fall but I do expect it +will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. +Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, +and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it +is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it +forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well +as new--North as well as South." + +No one had ever so tellingly expressed the death-grapple of the sections: +slavery the weapon of one, free labor the weapon of the other. Though +Lincoln was at that time forty-nine years old, his political experience, +in contrast with that of Douglas, was negligible. He afterward aptly +described his early life in that expressive line from Gray, "The short +and simple annals of the poor." He lacked regular schooling, and it +was altogether from the practice of law that he had gained such formal +education as he had. In law, however, he had become a master, and his +position, to judge from the class of cases entrusted to him, was second +to none in Illinois. To that severe yet wholesome cast of mind which +the law establishes in men naturally lofty, Lincoln added the +tonic influence of a sense of style--not the verbal acrobatics of a +rhetorician, but that power to make words and thought a unit which +makes the artist of a man who has great ideas. How Lincoln came by this +literary faculty is, indeed, as puzzling as how Burns came by it. But +there it was, disciplined by the court room, made pungent by familiarity +with plain people, stimulated by constant reading of Shakespeare, and +chastened by study of the Bible. + +It was arranged that Douglas and Lincoln should tour the State together +in a series of joint debates. As a consequence there followed a most +interesting opposition of methods in the use of words, a contest between +the method formed in Congress at a time when Congress was a perfect +rhetorical academy, and that method of using words which was based on +an arduous study of Blackstone, Shakespeare, and Isaiah. Lincoln issued +from the debates one of the chief intellectual leaders of America, and +with a place in English literature; Douglas came out a Senator from +Illinois. + +But though Douglas kept his following together, and though Lincoln was +voted down, to Lincoln belonged the real strategic victory. In order +to save himself with his own people, Douglas had been forced to make +admissions that ruined him with the South. Because of these admissions +the breach in the party of political evasion became irreparable. It was +in the debate at Freeport that Douglas's fate overtook him, for Lincoln +put this question: "Can the people of a United States territory, in +any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, +exclude slavery from its limits, prior to the formation of a state +constitution?" + +Douglas answered in his best style of political thunder. "It matters +not," he said, "what way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to +the abstract question whether slavery may or may not go into a territory +under the Constitution; the people have the lawful means to introduce it +or exclude it as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist +a day or an hour anywhere unless it is supported by local police +regulations. Those police regulations can only be established by the +local legislatures; and if the people are opposed to slavery, they will +elect representatives to that body who will by unfriendly legislation +effectually prevent the introduction of it into their midst. If, on the +contrary, they are for it, their legislation will favor its extension. +Hence, no matter what the decision of the Supreme Court may be on +that abstract question, still the right of the people to make a slave +territory or a free territory is perfect and complete under the Nebraska +Bill." + +As to the moral aspect of his actions, Douglas must ultimately be judged +by the significance which this position in which he placed himself +assumed in his own mind. Friendly critics excuse him: an interpretation +of the Dred Scott decision which explained it away as an irresponsible +utterance on a subject outside the scope of the case, a mere obiter +dictum, is the justification which is called in to save him from +the charge of insincerity. His friends, today, admit that this +interpretation was bad law, but maintain that it may have been good +morals, and that Douglas honestly held it. But many of us have not yet +advanced so far in critical generosity, and cannot help feeling that +Douglas's position remains political legerdemain--an attempt by a great +officer of the government, professing to defend the Supreme Court, to +show the people how to go through the motions of obedience to the Court +while defeating its intention. If not double-dealing in a strict sense, +it must yet be considered as having in it the temper of double-dealing.* +This was, indeed, the view of many men of his own day and, among them, +of Lincoln. Yet the type of man on whom the masters of the game of +politics relied saw nothing in Douglas's position at which to be +disturbed. It was merely playing politics, and if that absorbing sport +required one to carry water on both shoulders, why--play the game! +Douglas was the man for people like that. They cheered him to the echo +and sent him back to the Senate. So well was this type understood by +some of Lincoln's friends that they had begged him, at least according +to tradition, not to put the question at Freeport, as by doing so he +would enable Douglas to save himself with his constituency. Lincoln saw +further, however. He understood better than they the forces then at work +in America. The reply reported of him was: "If Douglas answers, he can +never be President, and the battle of 1860 is worth a hundred of this." + + * There are three ways of regarding Douglas's position: (1) + As a daring piece of evasion designed to hold all the + Democrats together; (2) as an attempt to secure his locality + at all costs, taking his chances on the South; (3) as a + sincere expression of the legal interpretation mentioned + above. It is impossible in attempting to choose among these + to escape wholly one's impression of the man's character. + +Well might Yancey and his followers receive with a shout of joy the +"Freeport Doctrine," as Douglas's supreme evasion was called. Should +Southerners trust any longer the man who had evolved from the principle +of let-'em-alone to the principle of double-dealing? However, the +Southerners were far from controlling the situation. Though the events +of 1858 had created discord in the Democratic party, they had not +consolidated the South. Men like Toombs and Stephens were still hopeful +of keeping the States together in the old bond of political evasion. The +Democratic machine, damaged though it was, had not yet lost its hold on +the moderate South, and while that continued to be the case, there was +still power in it. + + + +CHAPTER IV. THE CRISIS + +The Southern moderates in 1859 form one of those political groups, +numerous enough in history, who at a crisis arrest our imagination +because of the irony of their situation. Unsuspecting, these men went +their way, during the last summer of the old regime, busy with the +ordinary affairs of state, absorbed in their opposition to the Southern +radicals, never dreaming of the doom that was secretly moving toward +them through the plans of John Brown. In the soft brilliancy of the +Southern summer when the roses were in bloom, many grave gentlemen +walked slowly up and down together under the oaks of their plantation +avenues, in the grateful dusk, talking eagerly of how the scales +trembled in Southern politics between Toombs and Yancey, and questioning +whether the extremists could ride down the moderate South and reopen the +slave trade. In all their wondering whether Douglas would ever come back +to them or would prove the blind Samson pulling down their temple about +their ears, there was never a word about the approaching shadow which +was so much more real than the shades of the falling night, and yet so +entirely shut away from their observation. + +In this summer, Stephens withdrew as he thought from public life. +With an intensely sensitive nature, he had at times flashes of strange +feeling which an unsophisticated society would regard as prophetic +inspirations. When he left Washington "on the beautiful morning of the +5th of March, 1859, he stood at the stern of the boat for some minutes +gazing back at the capital." He had announced his intention of not +standing again as a Representative, and one of his fellow-passengers +asked jokingly whether he was thinking of his return as a Senator. +Stephen's reply was full of emotion, "No, I never expect to see +Washington again unless I am brought here as a prisoner of war." During +the summer he endeavored to cast off his intuition of approaching +disaster. At his plantation, "Liberty Hall," he endeavored to be content +with the innumerable objects associated with his youth; he tried to feel +again the grace of the days that were gone, the mysterious loveliness of +the Southern landscape with its immense fields, its forests, its great +empty spaces filled with glowing sunshine. He tried to possess his +troubled soul with the severe intellectual ardor of the law. But his +gift of second sight would not rest. He could not overcome his intuition +that, for all the peace and dreaminess of the outward world, destiny +was upon him. Looking out from his spiritual seclusion, he beheld what +seemed to him complete political confusion, both local and national. His +despairing mood found expression a little later in the words: "Indeed +if we were now to have a Southern convention to determine upon the true +policy of the South either in the Union or out of it, I should expect to +see just as much profitless discussion, disagreement, crimination, and +recrimination amongst the members of it from different states and from +the same state, as we witness in the present House of Representatives +between Democrats, Republicans, and Americans." + +Among the sources of confusion Stephens saw, close at home, was the +Southern battle over the reopening of the slave trade. The reality +of that issue had been made plain in May, 1859, when the Southern +commercial congress at Vicksburg entertained at the same time two +resolutions: one, that the convention should urge all Southern States +to amend their constitutions by a clause prohibiting the increase +of African slavery; the other, that the convention urge all the +Legislatures of Southern States to present memorials to Congress asking +the repeal of the law against African slave trade. Of these opposed +resolutions, the latter was adopted on the last day of the convention*, +though the moderates fought hard against it. + + *It is significant that the composition of these Southern + commercial congresses and the Congress of the whole Southern + people was strikingly different in personnel. Very few + members of the commercial congresses reappear in the + Confederate Congress. + +The split between Southern moderates and Southern radicals was further +indicated by their differing attitudes toward the adventurers from +the United States in Central America. The Vicksburg Convention +adopted resolutions which were thinly veiled endorsements of southward +expansion. In the early autumn another Nicaraguan expedition was nipped +in the bud by the vigilance of American naval forces. Cobb, prime factor +in the group of Southern moderates as well as Secretary of the Treasury, +wrote to Buchanan expressing his satisfaction at the event, mentioning +the work of his own department in bringing it about, and also alluding +to his arrangements to prevent slave trading off the Florida coast. + +But the spirit of doubt was strong even among the moderates. Douglas was +the target. Stephens gives a glimpse of it in a letter written during +his last session in Congress. "Cobb called on me Saturday night," he +writes. "He is exceedingly bitter against Douglas. I joked him a good +deal, and told him he had better not fight, or he would certainly be +whipped; that is, in driving Douglas out of the Democratic party. +He said that if Douglas ever was restored to the confidence of the +Democracy of Georgia, it would be over his dead body politically. This +shows his excitement, that is all. I laughed at him, and told him he +would run his feelings and his policy into the ground." The anger +of Cobb, who was himself a confessed candidate for the Democratic +nomination, was imperiling the Democratic national machine which Toombs +was still struggling so resolutely to hold together. Indeed, as late as +the autumn of 1859 the machine still held together. + +Then came the man of destiny, the bolt from the blue, the end of the +chapter. A marvelous fanatic--a sort of reincarnation of the grimmest +of the Covenanters--by one daring act shattered the machine and made +impossible any further coalition on the principle of "nothing doing." +This man of destiny was John Brown, whose attack on Harper's Ferry took +place October 16th, and whose execution by the authorities of Virginia +on the charges of murder and treason occurred on the 2nd of December. + +The incident filled the South with consternation. The prompt +condemnation of it by many Republican leaders did not offset, in the +minds of Southerners, the fury of praise accorded by others. The South +had a ghastly tradition derived chiefly from what is known as Nat +Turner's Rebellion in Virginia, a tradition of the massacre of white +women and children by negroes. As Brown had set opt to rouse a slave +rebellion, every Southerner familiar with his own traditions shuddered, +identifying in imagination John Brown and Nat Turner. Horror became rage +when the Southerners heard of enthusiastic applause in Boston and of +Emerson's description of Brown as "that new saint" who was to "make the +gallows glorious like the cross." In the excitement produced by remarks +such as this, justice was not done to Lincoln's censure. In his speech +at Cooper Institute in New York, in February, 1860, Lincoln had said: +"John Brown's effort...in its philosophy corresponds with the many +attempts related in history at the assassination of kings and emperors. +An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people, until he fancies +himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He ventures the attempt +which ends in little else than in his own execution." A few months +afterwards, the Republican national convention condemned the act of +Brown as "among the gravest of crimes." + +An immediate effect of the John Brown episode was a passionate outburst +from all the radical press of the South in defense of slavery. The +followers of Yancey made the most of their opportunity. The men who +voted at Vicksburg to reopen the slave trade could find no words to +measure their hatred of every one who, at this moment of crisis, would +not declare slavery a blessing. Many of the men who opposed the slave +traders also felt that, in the face of possible slave insurrection, +the peril of their families was the one paramount consideration. +Nevertheless, it is easy for the special pleader to give a +wrong impression of the sentiment of the time. A grim desire for +self-preservation took possession of the South, as well as a deadly fear +of any person or any thing that tended directly or indirectly to incite +the blacks to insurrection. Northerners of abolitionist sympathies were +warned to leave the country, and in some cases they were tarred and +feathered. + +Great anger was aroused by the detection of book-agents who were +distributing a furious polemic against slavery, "The Impending Crisis +of the South: How to Meet It", by Hinton Rowan Helper, a Southerner of +inferior social position belonging to the class known as poor whites. +The book teemed with such sentences as this, addressing slaveholders: +"Do you aspire to become victims of white non-slave-holding vengeance by +day and of barbarous massacres by the negroes at night?" It is scarcely +strange, therefore, that in 1859 no Southerner would hear a good word of +anyone caught distributing the book. And yet, in the midst of all this +vehement exaltation of slavery, the fight to prevent a reopening of +the slave trade went bravely on. Stephens, writing to a friend who was +correspondent for the "Southern Confederacy", in Atlanta, warned him in +April, 1860, "neither to advocate disunion or the opening of the slave +trade. The people here at present I believe are as much opposed to it +as they are at the North; and I believe the Northern people could be +induced to open it sooner than the Southern people." + +The winter of 1859-1860 witnessed a famous congressional battle over +the speakership. The new Congress which met in December contained +109 Republicans, 101 Democrats, and 27 Know-Nothings. The Republican +candidate for speaker was John Sherman of Ohio. As the first ballot +showed that he could not command a majority, a Democrat from Missouri +introduced this resolution "Whereas certain members of this House, now +in nomination for speaker, did endorse the book hereinafter mentioned, +resolved, That the doctrines and sentiments of a certain book, called +'The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It', are insurrectionary +and hostile to the peace and tranquillity of the country, and that no +member of this House, who has indorsed or recommended it, is fit to be +speaker of the House." + +During two months there were strange scenes in the House, while the +clerk acted as temporary speaker and furious diatribes were thundered +back and forth across the aisle that separated Republicans from +Democrats, with a passage of fisticuffs or even a drawn pistol to add +variety to the scene. The end of it all was a deal. Pennington, of the +"People's Party" of New Jersey, who had supported Sherman but had not +endorsed Helper, was given the Republican support; a Know-Nothing was +made sergeant-at-arms; and Know-Nothing votes added to the Republican +votes made Pennington speaker. In many Northern cities the news of his +election was greeted with the great salute of a hundred guns, but at +Richmond the papers came out in mourning type. + +Two great figures now advanced to the center of the Congressional +stage--Jefferson Davis, Senator from Mississippi, a lean eagle of a man +with piercing blue eyes, and Judah P. Benjamin, Senator from Louisiana, +whose perpetual smile cloaked an intellect that was nimble, keen, and +ruthless. Both men were destined to play leading roles in the lofty +drama of revolution; each was to experience a tragic ending of his +political hope, one in exile, the other in a solitary proscription amid +the ruins of the society for which he had sacrificed his all. These men, +though often spoken of as mere mouthpieces of Yancey, were in reality +quite different from him both in temper and in point of view. + +Davis, who was destined eventually to become the target of Yancey's +bitterest enmity, had refused ten years before to join in the secession +movement which ignored Calhoun's doctrine that the South had become a +social unit. Though a believer in slavery under the conditions of the +moment, Davis had none of the passion of the slave baron for slavery at +all costs. Furthermore, as events were destined to show in a startlingly +dramatic way, he was careless of South Carolina's passion for state +rights. He was a practical politician, but not at all the old type of +the party of political evasion, the type of Toombs. No other man of the +moment was on the whole so well able to combine the elements of Southern +politics against those more negative elements of which Toombs was the +symbol. The history of the Confederacy shows that the combination which +Davis now effected was not as thorough as he supposed it was. But at the +moment he appeared to succeed and seemed to give common purpose to the +vast majority of the Southern people. With his ally Benjamin, he struck +at the Toombs policy of a National Democratic party. + +On the day following the election of Pennington, Davis introduced in +the Senate a series of resolutions which were to serve as the Southern +ultimatum, and which demanded of Congress the protection of slavery +against territorial legislatures. This was but carrying to its logical +conclusion that Dred Scott decision which Douglas and his followers +proposed to accept. If Congress could not restrict slavery in the +territories, how could its creature, a territorial legislature do so? +And yet the Douglas men attempted to take away the power from Congress +and to retain it for the territorial legislatures. Senator Pugh of Ohio +had already locked horns with Davis on this point, and had attempted to +show that a territorial Legislature was independent of Congress. "Then +I would ask the Senator further," retorted the logical Davis, "why it is +he makes an appropriation to pay members of the territorial legislature; +how it is that he invests the Governor with veto power over their acts; +and how it is that he appoints judges to decide upon the validity of +their acts." + +In the Democratic convention which met at Charleston in April, 1860, the +waning power of political evasion made its last real stand against the +rising power of political positivism. To accept Douglas and the idea +that somehow territorial legislatures were free to do what Congress +could not do, or to reject Douglas and endorse Davis's ultimatum--that +in substance was the issue. "In this convention where there should be +confidence and harmony," said the "Charleston Mercury", "it is plain +that men feel as if they were going into a battle." In the committee on +resolutions where the States were equally represented, the majority were +anti-Douglas; they submitted a report affirming Davis's position that +territorial legislatures had no right to prohibit slavery and that the +Federal Government should protect slavery against them. The minority +refused to go further than an approval of the Dred Scott case and a +pledge to abide by all future decisions of the Supreme Court. After +both reports had been submitted, there followed the central event of the +convention--the now famous speech by Yancey which repudiated political +evasion from top to bottom, frankly defended slavery, and demanded +either complete guarantees for its continued existence or, as an +alternative, Southern independence. Pugh instantly replied and summed up +Yancey's speech as a demand upon Northern Democrats to say that slavery +was right, and that it was their duty not only to let slavery alone but +to aid in extending it. "Gentlemen of the South," he exclaimed, "you +mistake us--you mistake us--we will not do it." + +In the full convention, where the representation of the States was not +equal, the Douglas men, after hot debate, forced the adoption of the +minority report. Thereupon the Alabama delegation protested and formally +withdrew from the convention, and other delegations followed. There was +wild excitement in Charleston, where that evening in the streets Yancey +addressed crowds that cheered for a Southern republic. The remaining +history of the Democratic nominations is a matter of detail. The +Charleston convention adjourned without making nominations. Each of +its fragments reorganized as a separate convention, and ultimately +two Democratic tickets were put into the field, with Breckinridge of +Kentucky as the candidate on the Yancey ticket and Douglas on the other. + +While the Democrats were thus making history through their fateful +break-up into separate parties, a considerable number of the so-called +best people of the country determined that they had nowhere politically +to lay their heads. A few of the old Whigs were still unable to +consort either with Republicans or with Democrats, old or new. The +Know-Nothings, likewise, though their number had been steadily melting +away, had not entirely disappeared. To unite these political remnants +in any definite political whole seemed beyond human ingenuity. A common +sentiment, however, they did have--a real love of the Union and a +real unhappiness, because its existence appeared to be threatened. +The outcome was that they organized the Constitutional Union Party, +nominating for President John Bell of Tennessee, and for Vice President +Edward Everett of Massachusetts. Their platform was little more than +a profession of love of the Union and a condemnation of sectional +selfishness. + +This Bell and Everett ticket has a deeper significance than has +generally been admitted. It reveals the fact that the sentiment of +Union, in distinction from the belief in the Union, had become a real +force in American life. There could be no clearer testimony to the +strength of this feeling than this spectacle of a great congregation of +moderate people, unable to agree upon anything except this sentiment, +stepping between the sectional parties like a resolute wayfarer going +forward into darkness along a perilous strand between two raging seas. +That this feeling of Union was the same thing as the eager determination +of the Republicans, in 1860, to control the Government is one of those +historical fallacies that have had their day. The Republican party +became, in time and under stress of war, the refuge of this sentiment +and proved sufficiently far-sighted to merge its identity temporarily in +the composite Union party of 1864. But in 1860 it was still a sectional +party. Among its leaders Lincoln was perhaps the only Unionist in the +same sense as Bell and Everett. + +Perhaps the truest Unionists of the North, outside the Constitutional +Union Party, in 1860, were those Democrats in the following of Douglas +who, after fighting to the last ditch against both the sectional +parties, were to accept, in 1861, the alternative of war rather than +dissolution. The course of Douglas himself, as we shall see hereafter, +showed that in his mind there was a fixed limit of concession beyond +which he could not go. When circumstances forced him to that limit, +the sentiment of Union took control of him, swept aside his political +jugglery, abolished his time-serving, and drove him into cooperation +with his bitterest foes that the Union might be saved. Nor was the pure +sentiment of Union confined to the North and West. Though undoubtedly +the sentiment of locality was more powerful through the South, yet when +the test came in the election of 1860, the leading candidate of the +upper South, in Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, was John Bell, the +Constitutional Unionist. In every Southern State this sentiment was able +to command a considerable part of the vote.* + + *A possible exception was South Carolina. As the + presidential electors were appointed by the legislature, + there is no certain record of minority sentiment. + +Widely different in temper were those stern and resolute men whose +organization, in perfect fighting trim, faced eagerly the divided +Democrats. The Republicans had no division among themselves upon +doctrine. Such division as existed was due to the ordinary rivalry +of political leaders. In the opinion of all his enemies and of most +Americans, Seward was the Republican man of the hour. During much of +1859 he had discreetly withdrawn from the country and had left to his +partisans the conduct of his campaign, which seems to have been going +well when he returned in the midst of the turmoil following the death +of John Brown. Nevertheless he was disturbed over his prospects, for he +found that in many minds, both North and South, he was looked upon +as the ultimate cause of all the turmoil. His famous speech on the +"irrepressible conflict" was everywhere quoted as an exultant prophecy +of these terrible latter days. + +It was long the custom to deny to Seward any good motive in a speech +which he now delivered, just as it was to deny Webster any good motive +for his famous 7th of March speech. But such criticism is now less +frequent than it used to be. Both men were seeking the Presidency; +both, we may fairly believe, were shocked by the turmoil of political +currents; each tried oiling the waters, and in the attempt each +ruined his candidacy. Seward's speech in condemnation of John Brown +in February, 1860, was an appeal to the conservative North against the +radical North, and to many of his followers it seemed a change of front. +It certainly gained him no new friends and it lost him some old ones, so +that his star as a presidential candidate began its decline. + +The first ballot in the Republican convention surprised the country. +Of the votes, 233 were necessary for a choice. Seward had only 173 1/2. +Next to him, with 102 votes, stood none of the leading candidates, but +the comparatively obscure Lincoln. A gap of more than 50 votes separated +Lincoln from Cameron, Chase, and Bates. On the second ballot Seward +gained 11 votes, while Lincoln gained 79. The enemies of Seward, finding +it impossible to combine on any of the conspicuous candidates, were +moving toward Lincoln, the man with fewest enemies. The third ballot +gave Lincoln the nomination. + +We have seen that one of the basal questions of the time was which new +political group should absorb the Whig remainder. The Constitutional +Union party aimed to accomplish this. The Republicans sought to +out-maneuver them. They made their platform as temperate as they could +and yet consistent with the maintenance of their opposition to Douglas +and popular sovereignty; and they went no further in their anti-slavery +demands than that the territories should be preserved for free labor. + +Another basal question had been considered in the Republican platform. +Where would Northern capital stand in the reorganization of parties? +Was capital, like men, to become frankly sectional or would it remain +impersonal, careless how nations rose or fell, so long as dividends +continued? To some extent capital had given an answer. When, in the +excitement following the John Brown incident, a Southern newspaper +published a white list of New York merchants whose political views +should commend them to Southerners, and a black list of those who +were objectionable, many New Yorkers sought a place in the white list. +Northern capital had done its part in financing the revived slave trade. +August Belmont, the New York representative of the Rothschilds, was one +of the close allies of Davis, Yancey, and Benjamin in their war upon +Douglas. In a word, a great portion of Northern capital had its heart +where its investments were--in the South. But there was other capital +which obeyed the same law, and which had investments in the North; +and with this capital the Republicans had been trafficking. They had +succeeded in winning over the powerful manufacturing interests of +Pennsylvania, the pivotal State that had elected Buchanan in 1856. + +The steps by which the new party of enthusiasm made its deal with the +body of capital which was not at one with Belmont and the Democrats are +not essential to the present narrative. Two facts suffice. In 1857 a +great collapse in American business--"the panic of fifty-seven"--led +the commercial world to turn to the party in power for some scheme of +redress. But their very principles, among which was non-intervention in +business, made the Democrats feeble doctors for such a need, and +they evaded the situation. The Republicans, with their insistence on +positivism in government, had therefore an opportunity to make a new +application of the doctrine of governmental aid to business. In the +spring of 1860, the Republican House of Representatives passed the +Morrill tariff bill, consideration of which was postponed by the +Democratic Senate. But it served its purpose: it was a Republican +manifesto. The Republicans felt that this bill, together with their +party platform, gave the necessary guarantee to the Pennsylvania +manufacturers, and they therefore entered the campaign confident they +would carry Pennsylvania nor was their confidence misplaced. + +The campaign was characterized by three things: by an ominous quiet +coupled with great intensity of feeling; by the organization of huge +party societies in military form--"Wide-awakes" for Lincoln, numbering +400,000, and "Minute Men" for Breckenridge, with a membership chiefly +Southern; and by the perfect frankness, in all parts of the South, of +threats of secession in case the Republicans won. + +In none of the States which eventually seceded were any votes cast for +Lincoln, with the exception of a small number in Virginia. In almost all +the other Southern States and in the slave-holding border States, all +the other candidates made respectable showings. In Virginia, Tennessee, +and Kentucky, Bell led. But everywhere else in the other slave-holding +States Breckinridge led, excepting in Missouri where Douglas won by a +few hundred. Every free State except New Jersey went for Lincoln. +And yet he did not have a majority of the popular vote, which stood: +Lincoln, 1,866,459; Douglas, 1,376,957; Breckinridge, 849,781; Bell, +588,879*. The majority against Lincoln was nearly a million. The +distribution of the votes was such that Lincoln had in the Electoral +College, 180 electors; Breckinridge, 72; Bell, 39; Douglas, 12. In +neither House of Congress did the Republicans have a majority. + + *The figures of the popular vote are variously given by + different compilers. These are taken from Stanwood, "A + History of the Presidency". + + + +CHAPTER V. SECESSION + +In tracing American history from 1854 to 1860 we cannot fail to observe +that it reduces itself chiefly to a problem in that science which +politicians understand so well--applied psychology. Definite types +of men moulded by the conditions of those days are the determining +factors--not the slavery question in itself; not, primarily, economic +forces; not a theory of government, nor a clash of theories; not any one +thing; but the fluid, changeful forces of human nature, battling with +circumstances and expressing themselves in the fashion of men's minds. +To say this is to acknowledge the fatefulness of sheer feeling. Davis +described the situation exactly when he said, in 1860, "A sectional +hostility has been substituted for a general fraternity." To his own +question, "Where is the remedy?" he gave the answer, "In the hearts of +the people." There, after all, is the conclusion of the whole matter. +The strife between North and South had ceased to be a thing of the head; +it had become a thing of the heart. Granted the emotions of 1860, +the way in which our country staggered into war has all the terrible +fascination of a tragedy on the theme of fate. + +That a secession movement would begin somewhere in the South before the +end of 1860 was a foregone conclusion. South Carolina was the logical +place, and in South Carolina the inevitable occurred. The presidential +election was quickly followed by an election of delegates, on the 6th of +December, to consider in convention the relations of the State with the +Union. The arguments before the Convention were familiar and had been +advocated since 1851. The leaders of the disunionists were the same +who had led the unsuccessful movement of ten years before. The central +figure was Rhett, who never for a moment had wavered. Consumed his life +long by the one idea of the independence of South Carolina, that stern +enthusiast pressed on to a triumphant conclusion. The powers which had +defeated him in 1851 were now either silent or converted, so that +there was practically no opposition. In a burst of passionate zeal the +independence of South Carolina was proclaimed on December 20, 1860, by +an ordinance of secession. + +Simultaneously, by one of those dramatic coincidences which make history +stranger than fiction, Lincoln took a step which supplemented this +action and established its tragic significance. What that step was will +appear in a moment. + +Even before the secession began, various types of men in politics had +begun to do each after his kind. Those whom destiny drove first into a +corner were the lovers of political evasion. The issue was forced upon +them by the instantaneous demand of the people of South Carolina for +possession of forts in Charleston Harbor which were controlled by the +Federal Government. Anticipating such a demand, Major Robert Anderson, +the commandant at Charleston, had written to Buchanan on the 23d of +November that "Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney must be garrisoned +immediately, if the Government determines to keep command of this +harbor." + +In the mind of every American of the party of political evasion, there +now began a sad, internal conflict. Every one of them had to choose +among three courses: to shut his eyes and to continue to wail that the +function of government is to do nothing; to make an end of political +evasion and to come out frankly in approval of the Southern position; +or to break with his own record, to emerge from his evasions on the +opposite side, and to confess himself first and before all a supporter +of the Union. One or another of these three courses, sooner or later, +every man of the President's following chose. We shall see presently the +relative strength of the three groups into which that following broke +and what strange courses sometimes tragic, sometimes comic--two of the +three pursued. For the moment our concern is how the division manifested +itself among the heads of the party at Washington. + +The President took the first of the three courses. He held it with the +nervous clutch of a weak nature until overmastered by two grim men who +gradually hypnotized his will. The turning-point for Buchanan, and the +last poor crisis in his inglorious career, came on Sunday, December +30th. Before that day arrived, his vacillation had moved his friends to +pity and his enemies to scorn. One of his best friends wrote privately, +"The President is pale with fear"; and the hostile point of view found +expression in such comments as this, "Buchanan, it is said, divides +his time between praying and crying. Such a perfect imbecile never held +office before." + +With the question what to do about the forts hanging over his bewildered +soul, Buchanan sent a message to Congress on December 4, 1860, in which +he sought to defend the traditional evasive policy of his party. He +denied the constitutional right of secession, but he was also denied his +own right to oppose such a course. Seward was not unfair to the mental +caliber of the message when he wrote to his wife that Buchanan showed +"conclusively that it is the duty of the President to execute the +laws--unless somebody opposes him; and that no State has a right to go +out of the Union unless it wants to." + +This message of Buchanan's hastened the inevitable separation of the +Democratic party into its elements. The ablest Southern member of the +Cabinet, Cobb, resigned. He was too strong an intellect to continue +the policy of "nothing doing" now that the crisis had come. He was too +devoted a Southerner to come out of political evasion except on one +side. On the day Cobb resigned the South Carolina Representatives called +on Buchanan and asked him not to make any change in the disposition +of troops at Charleston, and particularly not to strengthen Sumter, +a fortress on an island in the midst of the harbor, without at least +giving notice to the state authorities. What was said in this interview +was not put in writing but was remembered afterward in different ways +with unfortunate consequences. + +Every action of Buchanan in this fateful month continued the +disintegration of his following. Just as Cobb had to choose between his +reasonings as a Democratic party man and his feelings as a Southerner, +so the aged Cass, his Secretary of State, and an old personal friend, +now felt constrained to choose between his Democratic reasoning and +his Northern sympathies, and resigned from the Cabinet on the 11th of +December. Buchanan then turned instinctively to the strongest natures +that remained among his close associates. It is a compliment to the +innate force of Jeremiah S. Black, the Attorney-General, that Buchanan +advanced him to the post of Secretary of State and allowed him to name +as his successor in the Attorney-Generalship Edwin M. Stanton. Both were +tried Democrats of the old style, "let-'em-alone" sort; and both had +supported the President in his Kansas policy. But each, like every +other member of his party, was being forced by circumstances to make his +choice among the three inevitable courses, and each chose the Northern +side. At once the question of the moment was whether the new Secretary +of State and his powerful henchmen would hypnotize the President. + +For a couple of weeks the issue hung in the balance. Then there +appeared at Washington commissioners from South Carolina "empowered to +treat...for the delivery of forts...and other real estate" held by +the Federal Government within their State. On the day following their +arrival, Buchanan was informed by telegraph that Anderson had dismantled +Fort Moultrie on the north side of the harbor, had spiked its guns, +and had removed its garrison to the island fortress, Sumter, which +was supposed to be far more defensible. At Charleston his action was +interpreted as preparation for war; and all South Carolinians saw in +it a violation of a pledge which they believed the President had given +their congressmen, three weeks previous, in that talk which had not been +written down. Greatly excited and fearful of designs against them, the +South Carolina commissioners held two conferences with the President +on the 27th and 28th of December. They believed that he had broken his +word, and they told him so. Deeply agitated and refusing to admit +that he had committed himself at the earlier conference, he said that +Anderson had acted on his own responsibility, but he refused to order +him back to the now ruined Fort Moultrie. One remark which he let fall +has been remembered as evidence of his querulous state of mind: "You +are pressing me too importunately" exclaimed the unhappy President; +"you don't give me time to consider; you don't give me time to say my +prayers; I always say my prayers when required to act upon any great +state affair." One remembers Hampden "seeking the Lord" about ship +money, and one realizes that the same act may have a vastly different +significance in different temperaments. + +Buchanan, however, was virtually ready to give way to the demand of the +commissioners. He drew up a paper to that effect and showed it to the +Cabinet. Then the turning-point came. In a painful interview, Black, +long one of his most trusted friends, told him of his intention to +resign, and that Stanton would go with him and probably also the +Postmaster-General, Holt. The idea of losing the support of these strong +personalities terrified Buchanan, who immediately fell into a panic. +Handing Black the paper he had drawn up, Buchanan begged him to retain +office and to alter the paper as he saw fit. To this Black agreed. The +demand for the surrender of the forts was refused; Anderson was not +ordered back to Moultrie; and for the brief remainder of Buchanan's +administration Black acted as prime minister. + +A very powerful section of the Northern democracy, well typified by +their leaders at Washington, had thus emerged from political evasion +on the Northern side. These men, known afterwards as War Democrats, +combined with the Republicans to form the composite Union party which +supported Lincoln. It is significant that Stanton eventually reappeared +in the Cabinet as Lincoln's Secretary of War, and that along with him +appeared another War Democrat, Gideon Welles, Lincoln's Secretary of the +Navy. With them, at last, Douglas, the greatest of all the old Democrats +of the North, took his position. What became of the other factions of +the old Democratic party remains to be told. + +While Buchanan, early in the month, was weeping over the pitilessness +of fate, more practical Northerners were grappling with the question +of what was to be done about the situation. In their thoughts they +anticipated a later statesman and realized that they were confronted by +a condition and not by a theory. Secession was at last a reality. Which +course should they take? + +What strikes us most forcibly, as we look back upon that day, is the +widespread desire for peace. The abolitionists form a conspicuous +example. Their watchword was "Let the erring sisters go in peace." +Wendell Phillips, their most gifted orator, a master of spoken style at +once simple and melodious, declaimed splendidly against war. Garrison, +in "The Liberator", followed his example. Whittier put the same feeling +into his verse: + +They break the links of Union; shall we light The flames of hell to weld +anew the chain On that red anvil where each blow is pain? + +Horace Greeley said in an editorial in the "New York Tribune": "If the +cotton states shall decide that they can do better out of the Union +than in it, we shall insist on letting them go in peace. Whenever a +considerable section of our Union shall deliberately resolve to go out, +we shall resist all coercive measures designed to keep them in. We hope +never to live in a republic where one section is pinned to the residue +by bayonets." + +The Democrats naturally clung to their traditions, and, even when they +went over, as Black and Stanton did, to the Anti-Southern group, they +still hoped that war would not be the result. Equally earnest against +war were most of the Republicans, though a few, to be sure, were ready +to swing the "Northern hammer." Summer prophesied that slavery would +"go down in blood." But the bulk of the Republicans were for a sectional +compromise, and among them there was general approbation of a scheme +which contemplated reviving the line of the Missouri Compromise, and +thus frankly admitting the existence of two distinct sections, and +guaranteeing to each the security of its own institutions. The greatest +Republican boss of that day, Thurlow Weed, came out in defense of this +plan. + +No power was arrayed more zealously on the side of peace of any kind +than the power of money. It was estimated that two hundred millions of +dollars were owed by Southerners to Northerners. War, it was reasoned, +would cause the cancellation of these obligations. To save their +Southern accounts, the moneyed interests of the North joined the +extremists of Abolition in pleading to let the erring sisters go +in peace, if necessary, rather than provoke them to war and the +confiscation of debts. It was the dread of such an outcome--which +finally happened and ruined many Northern firms--that caused the +stock-market in New York to go up and down with feverish uncertainty. +Banks suspended payment in Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. +The one important and all-engrossing thing in the mind's eye of all +the financial world at this moment was that specter of unpaid Southern +accounts. + +At this juncture, Senator Crittenden of Kentucky submitted to the Senate +a plan which has been known ever since as the Crittenden Compromise. It +was similar to Weed's plan, but it also provided that the division of +the country on the Missouri Compromise line should be established by +a constitutional amendment, which would thus forever solidify +sectionalism. Those elements of the population generally called the +conservative and the responsible were delighted. Edward Everett wrote to +Crittenden, "I saw with great satisfaction your patriotic movement, and +I wish from the bottom of my heart it might succeed"; and August Belmont +in a letter to Crittenden spoke for the moneyed interest: "I have yet +to meet the first Union-loving man, in or out of politics, who does not +approve your compromise proposition...." + +The Senate submitted the Compromise to a Committee of Thirteen. In this +committee the Southern leaders, Toombs and Davis, were both willing to +accept the Compromise, if a majority of the Republican members would +agree. Indeed, if the Republicans would agree to it, there seemed +no reason why a new understanding between the sections might not be +reached, and no reason why sectionalism, if accepted as the basis of the +government, might not solve the immediate problem and thus avert war. + +In this crisis all eyes were turned to Seward, that conspicuous +Republican who was generally looked upon as the real head of his +party. And Seward, at that very moment, was debating whether to accept +Lincoln's offer of the Secretaryship of State, for he considered it +vital to have an understanding with Lincoln on the subject of the +Compromise. He talked the matter over with Weed, and they decided that +Weed should go to Springfield and come to terms with Lincoln. It was the +interview between Weed and Lincoln held, it seems, on the very day on +which the Ordinance of Secession was adopted--which gave to that day its +double significance. + +Lincoln refused point-blank to accept the compromise and he put his +refusal in writing. The historic meaning of his refusal, and the +significance of his determination not to solve the problem of the hour +by accepting a dual system of government based on frankly sectional +assumptions, were probably, in a measure, lost on both Weed and Seward. +They had, however, no misunderstanding of its practical effect. This +crude Western lawyer had certain ideas from which he would not budge, +and the party would have to go along with him. Weed and Seward therefore +promptly fell into line, and Seward accepted the Secretaryship and came +out in opposition to the Compromise. Other Republicans with whom Lincoln +had communicated by letter made known his views, and Greeley announced +them in The Tribune. The outcome was the solid alignment of all the +Republicans in Congress against the Compromise. As a result, this last +attempt to reunite the sections came to nothing. + +Not more than once or twice, if ever, in American history, has there +been such an anxious New Year's Day as that which ushered in 1861. A +few days before, a Republican Congressman had written to one of his +constituents: "The heavens are indeed black and an awful storm is +gathering...I see no way that either North or South can escape its +fury." Events were indeed moving fast toward disaster. The garrison at +Sumter was in need of supplies, and in the first week of the new year +Buchanan attempted to relieve its wants. But a merchant vessel, the Star +of the West, by which supplies were sent, was fired upon by the South +Carolina authorities as it approached the harbor and was compelled to +turn back. This incident caused the withdrawal from the Cabinet of the +last opposition members--Thompson, of Mississippi, the Secretary of the +Interior, and Thomas, of Maryland, the Secretary of the Treasury. In the +course of the month five Southern States followed South Carolina out +of the Union, and their Senators and Representatives resigned from the +Congress of the United States. + +The resignation of Jefferson Davis was communicated to the Senate in a +speech of farewell which even now holds the imagination of the student, +and which to the men of that day, with the Union crumbling around +them, seemed one of the most mournful and dramatic of orations. Davis +possessed a beautiful, melodious voice; he had a noble presence, tall, +erect, spare, even ascetic, with a flashing blue eye. He was deeply +moved by the occasion; his address was a requiem. That he withdrew in +sorrow but with fixed determination, no one who listened to him could +doubt. Early in February, the Southern Confederacy was formed with Davis +as its provisional President. With the prophetic vision of a logical +mind, he saw that war was inevitable, and he boldly proclaimed his +vision. In various speeches on his way South, he had assured the +Southern people that war was coming, and that it would be long and +bloody. + +The withdrawal of these Southern members threw the control of the House +into the hands of the Republicans. Their realization of their power +was expressed in two measures which also passed the Senate; Kansas was +admitted--as a State with an anti-slavery constitution; and the Morrill +tariff, which they had failed to pass the previous spring, now +became law. Thus the Republicans began redeeming their pledges to the +anti-slavery men on the one hand and to the commercial interest on the +other. The time had now arrived for the Republican nominee to proceed +from Springfield to Washington. The journey was circuitous in order to +enable Lincoln to speak at a number of places. Never before, probably, +had the Northern people felt such tense strain as at that moment; never +had they looked to an incoming President with such anxious doubt. +Would he prevent war? Or, if he could not do that, would he be able +to extricate the country--Heaven alone knew how!--without a terrible +ordeal? Since his election, Lincoln had remained quietly at Springfield. +Though he had influenced events through letters to Congressmen, his one +conspicuous action during that winter was the defeat of the Crittenden +Compromise. The Southern President had called upon his people to put +their house in order as preparation for war. What, now, had Lincoln to +say to the people of the North? + +The biographers of Lincoln have not satisfactorily revealed the state of +his mind between election and inauguration. We may safely guess that his +silence covered a great internal struggle. Except for his one action in +defeating the Compromise, he had allowed events to drift; but by that +one action he had taken upon himself the responsibility for the drift. +Though the country at that time did not fully appreciate this aspect of +the situation, who now can doubt that Lincoln did? His mind was always a +lonely one. His very humor has in it, so often, the note of solitude, +of one who is laughing to make the best of things, of one who is +spiritually alone. During those months when the country drifted from +its moorings, and when war was becoming steadily more probable, Lincoln, +after the manner of the prophets, wrestled alone with the problems which +he saw before him. From the little we know of his inward state, it is +hard for us to conclude that he was happy. A story which is told by his +former partner, Mr. Herndon, seems significant. As Lincoln was leaving +his unpretentious law-office for the last time, he turned to Mr. Herndon +and asked him not to take down their old sign. "Let it hang there +undisturbed," said he. "Give our clients to understand that the election +of a President makes no difference in the firm.... If I live, I'm coming +back some time, and then we'll go right on practising law as if nothing +had happened." + +How far removed from self-sufficiency was the man whose thoughts, on +the eve of his elevation to the Presidency, lingered in a provincial law +office, fondly insistent that only death should prevent his returning +some time and resuming in those homely surroundings the life he had +led previous to his greatness. In a mood of wistfulness and of intense +preoccupation, he began his journey to Washington. It was not the mood +from which to strike fire and kindle hope. To the anxious, listening +country his speeches on the journey to Washington were disappointing. +Perhaps his strangely sensitive mind felt too powerfully the fatefulness +of the moment and reacted with a sort of lightness that did not really +represent the real man. Be that as it may, he was never less convincing +than at that time. Nor were people impressed by his bearing. Often he +appeared awkward, too much in appearance the country lawyer. He acted as +a man who was ill at ease and he spoke as a man who had nothing to say. +Gloom darkened the North as a consequence of these unfortunate speeches, +for they expressed an optimism which we cannot believe he really felt, +and which hurt him in the estimation of the country. "There is no +crisis but an artificial one," was one of his ill-timed assurances, and +another, "There is nothing going wrong.... There is nothing that really +hurts any one." Of his supporters some were discouraged; others were +exasperated; and an able but angry partisan even went so far as to write +in a private letter, "Lincoln is a Simple Susan." + +The fourth of March arrived, and with it the end of Lincoln's +blundering. One good omen for the success of the new Administration was +the presence of Douglas on the inaugural platform. He had accepted fate, +deeply as it wounded him, and had come out of the shattered party of +evasion on the side of his section. For the purpose of showing his +support of the administration at this critical time, he had taken a +place on the stand where Lincoln was to speak. By one of those curious +little dramatic touches with which chance loves to embroider history, +the presence of Douglas became a gracious detail in the memory of the +day. Lincoln, worn and awkward, continued to hold his hat in his hand. +Douglas, with the tact born of social experience, stepped forward and +took it from him without--exposing Lincoln's embarrassment. + +The inaugural address which Lincoln now pronounced had little similarity +to those unfortunate utterances which he had made on the journey to +Washington. The cloud that had been over him, whatever it was, had +lifted. Lincoln was ready for his great labor. The inaugural contained +three main propositions. Lincoln pledged himself not to interfere +directly or indirectly with slavery in the States where it then existed; +he promised to support the enforcement of the fugitive slave law; and he +declared he would maintain the Union. "No State," said he, "upon its own +mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union.... To the extent of my +ability I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins +upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the +States.... In doing this, there need be no bloodshed or violence; and +there shall be none, unless it be 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." Addressing the +Southerners, he said: "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, +and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government +will not assail you.... We are not enemies but friends.... The mystic +cords of memory, stretching from every battlefield 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." + +Gentle, as was the phrasing of the inaugural, it was perfectly firm, and +it outlined a policy which the South would not accept, and which, in the +opinion of the Southern leaders, brought them a step nearer war. Wall +Street held the same belief, and as a consequence the price of stocks +fell. + + + +CHAPTER VI. WAR + +On the day following the inauguration, commissioners of the newly formed +Confederacy appeared at Washington and applied to the Secretary of State +for recognition as envoys of a foreign power. Seward refused them such +recognition. But he entered into a private negotiation with them which +is nearly, if not quite, the strangest thing in our history. Virtually, +Seward intrigued against Lincoln for control of the Administration. The +events of the next five weeks have an importance out of all proportion +to the brevity of the time. This was Lincoln's period of final +probation. The psychological intensity of this episode grew from the +consciousness in every mind that now, irretrievably, destiny was to be +determined. War or peace, happiness or adversity, one nation or two--all +these were in the balance. Lincoln entered the episode a doubtful +quantity, not with certainty the master even in his own Cabinet. He +emerged dominating the situation, but committed to the terrible course +of war. + +One cannot enter upon this great episode, truly the turning point in +American history, without pausing for a glance at the character of +Seward. The subject is elusive. His ablest biographer* plainly is so +constantly on guard not to appear an apologist that he ends by reducing +his portrait to a mere outline, wavering across a background of +political details. The most recent study of Seward** surely reveals +between the lines the doubtfulness of the author about pushing his +points home. The different sides of the man are hard to reconcile. Now +he seemed frank and honest; again subtle and insincere. As an active +politician in the narrow sense, he should have been sagacious and +astute, yet he displayed at the crisis of his life the most absolute +fatuity. At times he had a buoyant and puerile way of disregarding +fact and enveloping himself in a world of his own imagining. He could +bluster, when he wished, like any demagogue; and yet he could be +persuasive, agreeable, and even personally charming. + + *Frederic Bancroft, "Life of William H. Seward". + + ** Gamaliel Bradford, "Union Portraits". + +But of one thing with regard to Seward, in the first week of March, +1861, there can be no doubt: he thought himself a great statesman--and +he thought Lincoln "a Simple Susan." He conceived his role in the new +administration to involve a subtle and patient manipulation of his +childlike superior. That Lincoln would gradually yield to his spell +and insensibly become his figurehead; that he, Seward, could save the +country and would go down to history a statesman above compare, he took +for granted. Nor can he fairly be called conceited, either; that is part +of his singularity. + +Lincoln's Cabinet was, as Seward said, a compound body. With a view to +strengthening his position, Lincoln had appointed to cabinet positions +all his former rivals for the Republican nomination. Besides Seward, +there was Chase as Secretary of the Treasury; Simon Cameron of +Pennsylvania as Secretary of War; Edward Bates of Missouri as +Attorney-General. The appointment of Montgomery Blair of Maryland as +Postmaster-General was intended to placate the border Slave States. The +same motive dictated the later inclusion of James Speed of Kentucky in +the Cabinet. The Black-Stanton wing of the Democrats was represented in +the Navy Department by Gideon Welles, and in course of time in the War +Department also, when Cameron resigned and Stanton succeeded him. The +West of that day was represented by Caleb B. Smith of Indiana. + +Seward disapproved of the composition of the Cabinet so much that, +almost at the last moment, he withdrew his acceptance of the State +Department. It was Lincoln's gentleness of argument which overcame his +reluctance to serve. We may be sure, however, that Seward failed to +observe that Lincoln's tactlessness in social matters did not extend to +his management of men in politics; we may feel sure that what remained +in his mind was Lincoln's unwillingness to enter office without William +Henry Seward as Secretary of State. + +The promptness with which Seward assumed the role of prime minister +bears out this inference. The same fact also reveals a puzzling detail +of Seward's character which amounted to obtuseness--his forgetfulness +that appointment to cabinet offices had not transformed his old +political rivals Chase and Cameron, nor softened the feelings of an +inveterate political enemy, Welles, the Secretary of the Navy. The +impression which Seward made on his colleagues in the first days of the +new Government has been thus sharply recorded by Welles: "The Secretary +of State was, of course, apprised of every meeting [of ministers] and +never failed in his attendance, whatever was the subject-matter, +and though entirely out of his official province. He was vigilantly +attentive to every measure and movement in other Departments, however +trivial--as much so as to his own--watched and scrutinized every +appointment that was made, or proposed to be made, but was not +communicative in regard to the transaction of the State Department." +So eager was Seward to keep all the threads of affairs in his own hands +that he tried to persuade Lincoln not to hold cabinet meetings but +merely to consult with particular ministers, and with the Secretary +of State, as occasion might demand. A combined protest from the other +Secretaries, however, caused the regular holding of Cabinet meetings. + +With regard to the Confederacy, Seward's policy was one of +non-resistance. For this he had two reasons. The first of these was +his rooted delusion that the bulk of the Southerners were opposed to +secession and, if let alone, would force their leaders to reconsider +their action. He might have quoted the nursery rhyme, "Let them alone +and they'll come home"; it would have been like him and in tune with +a frivolous side of his nature. He was quite as irresponsible when he +complacently assured the North that the trouble would all blow over +within ninety days. He also believed that any display of force would +convert these hypothetical Unionists of the South from friends to +enemies and would consolidate opinion in the Confederacy to produce +war. In justice to Seward it must be remembered that on this point time +justified his fears. + +His dealings with the Confederate commissioners show that he was playing +to gain time, not with intent to deceive the Southerners but to acquire +that domination over Lincoln which he felt was his by natural right. +Intending to institute a peace policy the moment he gained this +ascendency, he felt perfectly safe in making promises to the +commissioners through mutual friends. He virtually told them that Sumter +would eventually be given up and that all they need do was to wait. + +Seward brought to bear upon the President the opinions of various +military men who thought the time had passed when any expedition for the +relief of Sumter could succeed. For some time Lincoln seemed about +to consent, though reluctantly, to Seward's lead in the matter of the +forts. He was pulled up standing, however, by the threatened resignation +of the Postmaster-General, Blair. After a conference with leading +Republican politicians the President announced to his Cabinet that +his policy would include the relief of Sumter. "Seward," says Welles, +"...was evidently displeased." + +Seward now took a new tack. Fort Pickens, at Pensacola, was a problem +similar to that of Sumter at Charleston. Both were demanded by the +Confederates, and both were in need of supplies. But Fort Pickens lay +to one side, so to speak, of the public mind, and there was not +conspicuously in the world's eye the square issue over it that there +was over Sumter. Seward conceived the idea that, if the President's +attention were diverted from Sumter to Pickens and a relief expedition +were sent to the latter but none to the former, his private negotiations +with the Confederates might still be kept going; Lincoln might yet be +hypnotized; and at last all would be well. + +On All-Fools' Day, 1861, in the midst of a press of business, he +obtained Lincoln's signature to some dispatches, which Lincoln, it +seems, discussed with him hurriedly and without detailed consideration. +There were now in preparation two relief expeditions, one to carry +supplies to Pensacola, the other to Charleston. Neither was to fight +if it was not molested. Both were to be strong enough to fight if +their commanders deemed it necessary. As flagship of the Charleston +expedition, Welles had detailed the powerful warship Powhatan, which +was rapidly being made ready at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Such was the +situation as Welles understood it when he was thinking of bed late on +the night of the 6th of April. Until then he had not suspected that +there was doubt and bewilderment about the Powhatan at Brooklyn. One +of those dispatches which Lincoln had so hastily signed provided for +detaching the Powhatan from the Charleston expedition and sending it +safe out of harm's way to Pensacola. The commander of the ship had +before him the conflicting orders, one from the President, one from the +Secretary of the Navy. He was about to sail under the President's +orders for Pensacola; but wishing to make sure of his authority, he +had telegraphed to Washington. Gideon Welles was a pugnacious man. His +dislike for Seward was deepseated. Imagine his state of mind when it was +accidently revealed to him that Seward had gone behind his back and had +issued to naval officers orders which were contradictory to his own! +The immediate result was an interview that same night between Seward and +Welles in which, as Welles coldly admitted in after days, the Secretary +of the Navy showed "some excitement." Together they went, about +midnight, to the White House. Lincoln had some difficulty recalling the +incident of the dispatch on the 1st of April; but when he did remember, +he took the responsibility entirely upon himself, saying he had had +no purpose but to strengthen the Pickens expedition, and no thought of +weakening the expedition to Charleston. He directed Seward to telegraph +immediately cancelling the order detaching the Powhatan. Seward made a +desperate attempt to put him off, protesting, it was too late to send +a telegram that night. "But the President was imperative," writes +Secretary Welles, in describing the incident, and a dispatch was sent. + +Seward then, doubtless in his agitation, did a strange thing. Instead +of telegraphing in the President's name, the dispatch which he sent read +merely, "Give up the Powhatan...Seward." When this dispatch was received +at Brooklyn, the Powhatan was already under way and had to be overtaken +by a fast tug. In the eyes of her commander, however, a personal +telegram from the Secretary of State appeared as of no weight against +the official orders of the President, and he continued his voyage to +Pensacola. + +The mercurial temper of Seward comes out even in the caustic narrative +written afterwards by Welles. Evidently Seward was deeply mortified and +depressed by the incident. He remarked, says Welles, that old as he was +he had learned a lesson, and that was that he had better attend to his +own business. "To this," commented his enemy, "I cordially assented." + +Nevertheless Seward's loss of faith in himself was only momentary. A +night's sleep was sufficient to restore it. His next communication to +the commissioners shows that he was himself again, sure that destiny +owed him the control of the situation. On the following day the +commissioners had got wind of the relief expedition and pressed him for +information, recalling his assurance that nothing would be done to their +disadvantage. In reply, still through a third person, Seward sent them +the famous message, over the precise meaning of which great debate has +raged: "Faith as to Sumter fully kept; wait and see." If this infatuated +dreamer still believed he could dominate Lincoln, still hoped at the +last moment to arrest the expedition to Charleston, he was doomed to +bitterest disappointment. + +On the 9th of April, the expedition to Fort Sumter sailed, but without, +as we have seen, the assistance of the much needed warship, the +Powhatan. As all the world knows, the expedition had been too long +delayed and it accomplished nothing. Before it arrived, the surrender +of Sumter had been demanded and refused--and war had begun. During the +bombardment of Sumter, the relief expedition appeared beyond the bar, +but its commander had no vessels of such a character as to enable him +to carry aid to the fortress. Furthermore, he had not been informed that +the Powhatan had been detached from his squadron, and he expected to +meet her at the mouth of the harbor. There his ships lay idle until the +fort was surrendered, waiting for the Powhatan--for whose detachment +from the squadron Seward was responsible. + +To return to the world of intrigue at Washington, however, it must not +be supposed, as is so often done, that Fort Sumter was the one concern +of the new government during its first six weeks. In fact, the subject +occupied but a fraction of Lincoln's time. Scarcely second in importance +was that matter so curiously bound up with the relief of the forts--the +getting in hand of the strangely vain glorious Secretary of State. +Mention has already been made of All-Fools' Day, 1861. Several marvelous +things took place on that day. Strangest of all was the presentation of +a paper by the Secretary of State to his chief, entitled "Thoughts for +the President's Consideration". Whether it be regarded as a state paper +or as a biographical detail in the career of Seward, it proves to be +quite the most astounding thing in the whole episode. The "Thoughts" +outlined a course of policy by which the buoyant Secretary intended to +make good his prophecy of domestic peace within ninety days. Besides +calmly patronizing Lincoln, assuring him that his lack of "a policy +either domestic or foreign" was "not culpable and... even unavoidable," +the paper warned him that "policies...both domestic and foreign" must +immediately be adopted, and it proceeded to point out what they ought to +be. Briefly stated, the one true policy which he advocated at home was +to evacuate Sumter (though Pickens for some unexplained reason might be +safely retained) and then, in order to bring the Southerners back into +the Union, to pick quarrels with both Spain and France; to proceed as +quickly as possible to war with both powers; and to have the ultimate +satisfaction of beholding the reunion of the country through the general +enthusiasm that was bound to come. Finally, the paper intimated that the +Secretary of State was the man to carry this project through to success. + +All this is not opera bouffe, but serious history. It must have taxed +Lincoln's sense of humor and strained his sense of the fitness of things +to treat such nonsense with the tactful forbearance which he showed and +to relegate it to the pigeonhole without making Seward angry. Yet this +he contrived to do; and he also managed, gently but firmly, to make it +plain that the President intended to exercise his authority as the chief +magistrate of the nation. His forbearance was further shown in passing +over without rebuke Seward's part in the affair of Sumter, which might +so easily have been made to appear treacherous, and in shouldering +himself with all responsibility for the failure of the Charleston +expedition. In the wave of excitement following the surrender, even so +debonair a minister as Seward must have realized how fortunate it was +for him that his chief did not tell all he knew. About this time Seward +began to perceive that Lincoln had a will of his own, and that it was +not safe to trifle further with the President. Seward thereupon ceased +his interference. + +It was in the dark days preceding the fall of Sumter that a crowd of +office-seekers gathered at Washington, most of them men who had little +interest in anything but the spoils. It is a distressing commentary on +the American party system that, during the most critical month of the +most critical period of American history, much of the President's time +was consumed by these political vampires who would not be put off, even +though a revolution was in progress and nations, perhaps, were dying +and being born. "The scramble for office," wrote Stanton, "is +terrible." Seward noted privately: "Solicitants for office besiege the +President.... My duties call me to the White House two or three times a +day. The grounds, halls, stairways, closets, are filled with applicants +who render ingress and egress difficult." + +Secretary Welles has etched the Washington of that time in his coldly +scornful way: + +"A strange state of things existed at that time in Washington. +The atmosphere was thick with treason. Party spirit and old party +differences prevailed, however, amidst these accumulated dangers. +Secession was considered by most persons as a political party question, +not as rebellion. Democrats to a large extent sympathized with the +Rebels more than with the Administration, which they opposed, not that +they wished Secession to be successful and the Union divided, but they +hoped that President Lincoln and the Republicans would, overwhelmed by +obstacles and embarrassments, prove failures. The Republicans on the +other hand, were scarcely less partisan and unreasonable. Patriotism was +with them no test, no shield from party malevolence. They demanded +the proscription and exclusion of such Democrats as opposed the Rebel +movement and clung to the Union, with the same vehemence that they +demanded the removal of the worst Rebels who advocated a dissolution of +the Union. Neither party appeared to be apprehensive of, or to realize +the gathering storm." + +Seen against such a background, the political and diplomatic frivolity +of the Secretary of State is not so inexplicable as it would otherwise +be. This background, as well as the intrigue of the Secretary, helps +us to understand Lincoln's great task inside his Cabinet. At first the +Cabinet was a group of jealous politicians new to this sort of office, +drawn from different parties, and totally lacking in a cordial sense +of previous action together. None of them, probably, when they first +assembled had any high opinion of their titular head. He was looked upon +as a political makeshift. The best of them had to learn to appreciate +the fact that this strange, ungainly man, sprung from plainest origin, +without formal education, was a great genius. By degrees, however, the +large minds in the Cabinet became his cordial admirers. While Lincoln +was quietly, gradually exercising his strong will upon Seward, he was +doing the same with the other members of his council. Presently they +awoke--the majority of them at least--to the truth that he, for all his +odd ways, was their master. + +Meanwhile the gradual readjustment of all factions in the North was +steadily going forward. The Republicans were falling into line behind +the Government; and by degrees the distinction between Seward and +Lincoln, in the popular mind, faded into a sort of composite picture +called "the Administration." Lincoln had the reward of his long +forbearance with his Secretary. For Seward it must be said that, however +he had intrigued against his chief at Washington, he did not intrigue +with the country. Admitting as he had, too, that he had met his master, +he took the defeat as a good sportsman and threw all his vast party +influence into the scale for Lincoln's fortunes. Thus, as April wore on, +the Republican party settled down to the idea that it was to follow the +Government at Washington upon any course that might develop. + +The Democrats in the North were anti-Southern in larger proportion, +probably, than at any other time during the struggle of the sections. +We have seen that numbers of them had frankly declared for the Union. +Politics had proved weaker than propinquity. There was a moment when it +seemed--delusively, as events proved--that the North was united as one +man to oppose the South. + +There is surely not another day in our history that has witnessed so +much nervous tension as Saturday, April 13, 1861, for on that morning +the newspapers electrified the North with the news that Sumter had been +fired on from Confederate batteries on the shore of Charleston Harbor. +In the South the issue was awaited confidently, but many minds at +least were in that state of awed suspense natural to a moment which the +thoughtful see is the stroke of fate. In the North, the day passed for +the most part in a quiet so breathless that even the most careless could +have foretold the storm which broke on the following day. The account +of this crisis which has been given by Lincoln's private secretary is +interesting: + +"That day there was little change in the business routine of the +Executive office. Mr. Lincoln was never liable to sudden excitement +or sudden activity.... So while the Sumter telegrams were on every +tongue...leading men and officials called to learn or impart the news. +The Cabinet, as by common impulse, came together and deliberated. All +talk, however, was brief, sententious, formal. Lincoln said but little +beyond making inquiries about the current reports and criticizing the +probability or accuracy of their details, and went on as usual +receiving visitors, listening to suggestions, and signing routine papers +throughout the day." Meanwhile the cannon were booming at Charleston. +The people came out on the sea-front of the lovely old city and watched +the duel of the cannon far down the harbor, and spoke joyously of the +great event. They saw the shells of the shore batteries ignite +portions of the fortress on the island. They watched the fire of the +defenders--driven by the flames into a restricted area--slacken and +cease. At last the flag of the Union fluttered down from above Fort +Sumter. + +When the news flashed over the North, early Sunday morning, April 14th, +the tension broke. For many observers then and afterward, the only North +discernible that fateful Sabbath was an enraged, defiant, impulsive +nation, forgetful for the moment of all its differences, and uniting all +its voices in one hoarse cry for vengeance. There seemed to be no other +thought. Lincoln gave it formal utterance, that same day, by assembling +his Cabinet and drawing up a proclamation which called for 75,000 +volunteer troops. + +An incident of this day which is as significant historically as any +other was on the surface no more than a friendly talk between two men. +Douglas called at the White House. For nearly two hours he and Lincoln +conferred in private. Hitherto it had been a little uncertain what +course Douglas was going to take. In the Senate, though condemning +disunion, he had opposed war. Few matters can have troubled Lincoln more +deeply than the question which way Douglas's immense influence would be +thrown. The question was answered publicly in the newspapers of Monday, +April 15th. Douglas announced that while he was still "unalterably +opposed to the Administration on all its political issues, he +was prepared to sustain the President in the exercise of all his +constitutional functions to preserve the Union, and maintain the +Government, and defend the federal capital." + +There remained of Douglas's life but a few months. The time was filled +with earnest speechmaking in support of the Government. He had started +West directly following his conference with Lincoln. His speeches in +Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, were perhaps the greatest single force in +breaking up his own following, putting an end to the principle of doing +nothing, and forcing every Democrat to come out and show his colors. +In Shakespeare's phrase, it was--"Under which king, Bezonian? speak or +die!" In Douglas's own phrase: "There can be no neutrals in this war; +ONLY PATRIOTS--OR TRAITORS." + +Side by side with Douglas's manifesto to the Democrats there appeared in +the Monday papers Lincoln's call for volunteers. The militia of several +Northern States at once responded. + +On Wednesday, the 17th of April, the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment +entrained for Washington. Two days later it was in Baltimore. There it +was attacked by a mob; the soldiers fired; and a number of civilians +were killed as well as several soldiers. + +These shots at Baltimore aroused the Southern party in Maryland. Led +by the Mayor of the city, they resolved to prevent the passage of other +troops across their State to Washington. Railway tracks were torn up +by order of the municipal authorities, and bridges were burnt. The +telegraph was cut. As in a flash, after issuing his proclamation, +Lincoln found himself isolated at Washington with no force but a handful +of troops and the government clerks. And while Maryland rose against him +on one side, Virginia joined his enemies on the other. The day the Sixth +Massachusetts left Boston, Virginia seceded. The Virginia militia were +called to their colors. Preparations were at once set on foot for the +seizure of the great federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry and the Navy Yard +at Norfolk. The next day a handful of federal troops, fearful of being +overpowered at Harper's Ferry, burned the arsenal and withdrew to +Washington. For the same reason the buildings of the great Navy Yard +were blown up or set on fire, and the ships at anchor were sunk. So +desperate and unprepared were the Washington authorities that they took +these extreme measures to keep arms and ammunition out of the hands of +the Virginians. So hastily was the destruction carried out, that it was +only partially successful and at both places large stores of ammunition +were seized by the Virginia troops. While Washington was isolated, +and Lincoln did not know what response the North had made to his +proclamation, Robert E. Lee, having resigned his commission in the +federal army, was placed in command of the Virginia troops. + +The secretaries of Lincoln have preserved a picture of his desperate +anxiety, waiting, day after day, for relief from the North which +he hoped would speedily come by sea. Outwardly he maintained his +self-control. But once, on the afternoon of the 23d, the business of +the day being over, the Executive office being deserted, after walking +the floor alone in silent thought for nearly half an hour, he stopped +and gazed long and wistfully out of the window down the Potomac in the +direction of the expected ships; and, unconscious of other presence in +the room, at length broke out with irrepressible anguish in the repeated +exclamation, "Why don't they come! Why don't they come!" + +During these days of isolation, when Washington, with the telegraph +inoperative, was kept in an appalling uncertainty, the North rose. +There was literally a rush to volunteer. "The heather is on fire," wrote +George Ticknor, "I never before knew what a popular excitement can +be." As fast as possible militia were hurried South. The crack New York +regiment, the famous, dandified Seventh, started for the front amid +probably the most tempestuous ovation which until that time was ever +given to a military organization in America. Of the march of the +regiment down Broadway, one of its members wrote, "Only one who passed +as we did, through the tempest of cheers two miles long, can know the +terrible enthusiasm of the occasion." + +To reach Washington by rail was impossible. The Seventh went by boat +to Annapolis. The same course was taken by a regiment of Massachusetts +mechanics, the Eighth. Landing at Annapolis, the two regiments, dandies +and laborers, fraternized at once in the common bond of loyalty to the +Union. A branch railway led from Annapolis to the main line between +Washington and Baltimore. The rails had been torn up. The Massachusetts +mechanics set to work to relay them. The Governor of Maryland protested. +He was disregarded. The two regiments toiled together a long day and +through the night following, between Annapolis and the Washington +junction, bringing on their baggage and cannon over relaid tracks. +There, a train was found which the Seventh appropriated. At noon, on +the 25th of April, that advance guard of the Northern hosts entered +Washington, and Lincoln knew that he had armies behind him. + + + +CHAPTER VII. LINCOLN + +The history of the North had virtually become, by April, 1861, the +history of Lincoln himself, and during the remaining four years of the +President's life it is difficult to separate his personality from the +trend of national history. Any attempt to understand the achievements +and the omissions of the Northern people without undertaking an +intelligent estimate of their leader would be only to duplicate the +story of "Hamlet" with Hamlet left out. According to the opinion of +English military experts*, "Against the great military genius of certain +Southern leaders fate opposed the unbroken resolution and passionate +devotion to the Union, which he worshiped, of the great Northern +President. As long as he lived and ruled the people of the North, there +could be no turning back." + + * Wood and Edmonds. "The Civil War in the United States." + +Lincoln has been ranked with Socrates; but he has also been compared +with Rabelais. He has been the target of abuse that knew no mercy; but +he has been worshiped as a demigod. The ten big volumes of his official +biography are a sustained, intemperate eulogy in which the hero does +nothing that is not admirable; but as large a book could be built up +out of contemporaneous Northern writings that would paint a picture of +unmitigated blackness--and the most eloquent portions of it would be +signed by Wendell Phillips. + +The real Lincoln is, of course, neither the Lincoln of the official +biography nor the Lincoln of Wendell Phillips. He was neither a saint +nor a villain. What he actually was is not, however, so easily stated. +Prodigious men are never easy to sum up; and Lincoln was a prodigious +man. The more one studies him, the more individual he appears to be. By +degrees one comes to understand how it was possible for contemporaries +to hold contradictory views of him and for each to believe frantically +that his views were proved by facts. For anyone who thinks he can hit +off in a few neat generalities this complex, extraordinary personality, +a single warning may suffice. Walt Whitman, who was perhaps the most +original thinker and the most acute observer who ever saw Lincoln face +to face has left us his impression; but he adds that there was something +in Lincoln's face which defied description and which no picture had +caught. After Whitman's conclusion that "One of the great portrait +painters of two or three hundred years ago is needed," the mere +historian should proceed with caution. + +There is historic significance in his very appearance. His huge, +loose-knit figure, six feet four inches high, lean, muscular, ungainly, +the evidence of his great physical strength, was a fit symbol of those +hard workers, the children of the soil, from whom he sprang. His face +was rugged like his figure, the complexion swarthy, cheek bones high, +and bushy black hair crowning a great forehead beneath which the eyes +were deep-set, gray, and dreaming. A sort of shambling powerfulness +formed the main suggestion of face and figure, softened strangely by the +mysterious expression of the eyes, and by the singular delicacy of the +skin. The motions of this awkward giant lacked grace; the top hat and +black frock coat, sometimes rusty, which had served him on the western +circuit continued to serve him when he was virtually the dictator of his +country. It was in such dress that he visited the army, where he towered +above his generals. + +Even in a book of restricted scope, such as this, one must insist upon +the distinction between the private and public Lincoln, for there is +as yet no accepted conception of him. What comes nearest to an accepted +conception is contained probably in the version of the late Charles +Francis Adams. He tells us how his father, the elder Charles Francis +Adams, ambassador to London, found Lincoln in 1861 an offensive +personality, and he insists that Lincoln under strain passed through a +transformation which made the Lincoln of 1864 a different man from the +Lincoln of 1861. Perhaps; but without being frivolous, one is tempted +to quote certain old-fashioned American papers that used to label their +news items "important if true." + +What then, was the public Lincoln? What explains his vast success? As +a force in American history, what does he count for? Perhaps the most +significant detail in an answer to these questions is the fact that he +had never held conspicuous public office until at the age of fifty-two +he became President. Psychologically his place is in that small group of +great geniuses whose whole significant period lies in what we commonly +think of as the decline of life. There are several such in history: +Rome had Caesar; America had both Lincoln and Lee. By contrasting these +instances with those of the other type, the egoistic geniuses such as +Alexander or Napoleon, we become aware of some dim but profound dividing +line separating the two groups. The theory that genius, at bottom, is +pure energy seems to fit Napoleon; but does it fit these other minds who +appear to meet life with a certain indifference, with a carelessness of +their own fate, a willingness to leave much to chance? That irresistible +passion for authority which Napoleon had is lacking in these others. +Their basal inspiration seems to resemble the impulse of the artist to +express, rather than the impulse of the man of action to possess. Had +it not been for secession, Lee would probably have ended his days as an +exemplary superintendent of West Point. And what of Lincoln? He dabbled +in politics, early and without success; he left politics for the law, +and to the law he gave during many years his chief devotion. But the +fortuitous break-up of parties, with the revival of the slavery issue, +touched some hidden spring; the able provincial lawyer felt again the +political impulse; he became a famous maker of political phrases; and on +this literary basis he became the leader of a party. + +Too little attention has been paid to this progression of Lincoln +through literature into politics. The ease with which he drifted from +one to the other is also still to be evaluated. Did it show a certain +slackness, a certain aimlessness, at the bottom of his nature? Had +it, in a way, some sort of analogy--to compare homespun with things +Olympian--to the vein of frivolity in the great Caesar? One is +tempted to think so. Surely, here was one of those natures which need +circumstance to compel them to greatness and which are not foredoomed, +Napoleon-like, to seize greatness. Without encroaching upon the +biographical task, one may borrow from biography this insistent echo: +the anecdotes of Lincoln sound over and over the note of easy-going good +nature; but there is to be found in many of the Lincoln anecdotes an +overtone of melancholy which lingers after one's impression of his good +nature. Quite naturally, in such a biographical atmosphere, we find +ourselves thinking of him at first as a little too good-humored, a +little too easy-going, a little prone to fall into reverie. We are not +surprised when we find his favorite poem beginning "Oh, why should the +spirit of mortal be proud." + +This enigmatical man became President in his fifty-second year. We +have already seen that his next period, the winter of 1860-61, has its +biographical problems. The impression which he made on the country as +President-elect was distinctly unfavorable. Good humor, or opportunism, +or what you will, brought together in Lincoln's Cabinet at least three +men more conspicuous in the ordinary sense than he was himself. We +forget, today, how insignificant he must have seemed in a Cabinet that +embraced Seward, Cameron, and Chase--all large national figures. What +would not history give for a page of self-revelation showing us how he +felt in the early days of that company! Was he troubled? Did he doubt +his ability to hold his own? Was he fatalistic? Was his sad smile his +refuge? Did he merely put things by, ignoring tomorrow until tomorrow +should arrive? + +However we may guess at the answers to such questions, one thing now +becomes certain. His quality of good humor began to be his salvation. +It is doubtful if any President except Washington had to manage so +difficult a Cabinet. Washington had seen no solution to the problem but +to let Jefferson go. Lincoln found his Cabinet often on the verge of a +split, with two powerful factions struggling to control it and neither +ever gaining full control. Though there were numerous withdrawals, no +resigning secretary really split Lincoln's Cabinet. By what turns and +twists and skillful maneuvers Lincoln prevented such a division and +kept such inveterate enemies as Chase and Seward steadily at their +jobs--Chase during three years, Seward to the end--will partly appear +in the following pages; but the whole delicate achievement cannot be +properly appreciated except in detailed biography. + +All criticism of Lincoln turns eventually on one question: Was he an +opportunist? Not only his enemies in his own time but many politicians +of a later day were eager to prove that he was the latter--indeed, +seeking to shelter their own opportunism behind the majesty of his +example. A modern instance will perhaps make vivid this long standing +debate upon Lincoln and his motives. Merely for historic illumination +and without becoming invidious, we may recall the instance of President +Wilson and the resignation of his Secretary of War in 1916 because +Congress would not meet the issue of preparedness. The President +accepted the resignation without forcing the issue, and Congress went +on fiddling while Rome burned. Now, was the President an opportunist, +merely waiting to see what course events would take, or was he a +political strategist, astutely biding his time? Similar in character +is this old debate upon Lincoln, which is perhaps best focussed in the +removal of Secretary Blair which we shall have to note in connection +with the election of 1864. + +It is difficult for the most objective historian to deal with such +questions without obtruding his personal views, but there is nothing +merely individual in recording the fact that the steady drift of opinion +has been away from the conception of Lincoln as an opportunist. What +once caused him to be thus conceived appears now to have been a failure +to comprehend intelligently the nature of his undertaking. More and +more, the tendency nowadays is to conceive his career as one of +those few instances in which the precise faculties needed to solve a +particular problem were called into play at exactly the critical moment. +Our confusions with regard to Lincoln have grown out of our failure +to appreciate the singularity of the American people, and their +ultra-singularity during the years in which he lived. It remains to be +seen hereafter what strange elements of sensibility, of waywardness, +of lack of imagination, of undisciplined ardor, of selfishness, of +deceitfulness, of treachery, combined with heroic ideality, made up +the character of that complex populace which it was Lincoln's task to +control. But he did more than control it: he somehow compounded much of +it into something like a unit. To measure Lincoln's achievement in this +respect, two things must be remembered: on the one hand, his task was +not as arduous as it might have been, because the most intellectual part +of the North had definitely committed itself either irretrievably for, +or irreconcilably against, his policy. Lincoln, therefore, did not have +to trouble himself with this portion of the population. On the +other hand, that part which he had to master included such emotional +rhetoricians as Horace Greeley; such fierce zealots as Henry Winter +Davis of Maryland, who made him trouble indeed, and Benjamin Wade, whom +we have met already; such military egoists as McClellan and Pope; such +crafty double-dealers as his own Secretary of the Treasury; such astute +grafters as Cameron; such miserable creatures as certain powerful +capitalists who sacrificed his army to their own lust for profits +filched from army contracts. + +The wonder of Lincoln's achievement is that he contrived at last to +extend his hold over all these diverse elements; that he persuaded some, +outwitted others, and overcame them all. The subtlety of this task would +have ruined any statesman of the driving sort. Explain Lincoln by any +theory you will, his personality was the keystone of the Northern arch; +subtract it, and the arch falls. The popular element being as complex +and powerful as it was, how could the presiding statesman have mastered +the situation if he had not been of so peculiar a sort that he could +influence all these diverse and powerful interests, slowly, by degrees, +without heat, without the imperative note, almost in silence, with the +universal, enfolding irresistibility of the gradual things in nature, +of the sun and the rain. Such was the genius of Lincoln--all but +passionless, yet so quiet that one cannot but believe in the great depth +of his nature. + +We are, even today, far from a definitive understanding of Lincoln's +statecraft, but there is perhaps justification for venturing upon one +prophecy. The farther from him we get and the more clearly we see him in +perspective, the more we shall realize his creative influence upon his +party. A Lincoln who is the moulder of events and the great creator of +public opinion will emerge at last into clear view. In the Lincoln +of his ultimate biographer there will be more of iron than of a less +enduring metal in the figure of the Lincoln of present tradition. Though +none of his gentleness will disappear, there will be more emphasis +placed upon his firmness, and upon such episodes as that of December, +1860, when his single will turned the scale against compromise; upon +his steadiness in the defeat of his party at the polls in 1862; or his +overruling of the will of Congress in the summer of 1864 on the question +of reconstruction; or his attitude in the autumn of that year when +he believed that he was losing his second election. Behind all his +gentleness, his slowness, behind his sadness, there will eventually +appear an inflexible purpose, strong as steel, unwavering as fate. + +The Civil War was in truth Lincoln's war. Those modern pacifists who +claim him for their own are beside the mark. They will never get over +their illusions about Lincoln until they see, as all the world is +beginning to see, that his career has universal significance because of +its bearing on the universal modern problem of democracy. It will not do +ever to forget that he was a man of the people, always playing the hand +of the people, in the limited social sense of that word, though playing +it with none of the heat usually met with in the statesmen of successful +democracy from Cleon to Robespierre, from Andrew Jackson to Lloyd +George. His gentleness does not remove Lincoln from that stern category. +Throughout his life, besides his passion for the Union, besides his +antipathy to slavery, there dwelt in his very heart love of and faith +in the plain people. We shall never see him in true historic perspective +until we conceive him as the instrument of a vast social idea--the +determination to make a government based on the plain people successful +in war. + +He did not scruple to seize power when he thought the cause of the +people demanded it, and his enemies were prompt to accuse him of holding +to the doctrine that the end justified the means--a hasty conclusion +which will have to be reconsidered; what concerns us more closely is the +definite conviction that he felt no sacrifice too great if it advanced +the happiness of the generality of mankind. + +The final significance of Lincoln as a statesman of democracy is brought +out most clearly in his foreign relations. Fate put it into the hands of +England to determine whether his Government should stand or fall. Though +it is doubtful how far the turning of the scale of English policy in +Lincoln's favor was due to the influence of the rising power of English +democracy, it is plain that Lincoln thought of himself as having one +purpose with that movement which he regarded as an ally. Beyond all +doubt among the most grateful messages he ever received were the New +Year greetings of confidence and sympathy which were sent by English +workingmen in 1863. A few sentences in his "Letter to the Workingmen +of London" help us to look through his eyes and see his life and its +struggles as they appeared to him in relation to world history: + +"As these sentiments [expressed by the English workmen] are manifestly +the enduring support of the free institutions of England, so am I sure +that they constitute the only reliable basis for free institutions +throughout the world.... The resources, advantages, and power of the +American people are very great, and they have consequently succeeded to +equally great responsibilities. It seems to have devolved upon them to +test whether a government established on the principles of human freedom +can be maintained against an effort to build one upon the exclusive +foundation of human bondage. They will rejoice with me in the new +evidence which your proceedings furnish that the magnanimity they +are exhibiting is justly estimated by the true friends of freedom and +humanity in foreign countries." + +Written at the opening of that terrible year, 1863, these words are a +forward link with those more celebrated words spoken toward its close +at Gettysburg. Perhaps at no time during the war, except during the few +days immediately following his own reelection a year later, did Lincoln +come so near being free from care as then. Perhaps that explains why +his fundamental literary power reasserted itself so remarkably, why this +speech of his at the dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg +on the 19th of November, 1863, remains one of the most memorable +orations ever delivered: + +"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this +continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the +proposition that all men are created equal. + +"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, +or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met +on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion +of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their +lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper +that we should do this. + +"But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we +cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled +here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The +world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can +never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to +be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have +thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to +the great task remaining before us: that from these honored dead we +take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full +measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall +not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new +birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, and +for the people, shall not perish from the earth." + + + +CHAPTER VIII. THE RULE OF LINCOLN + +The fundamental problem of the Lincoln Government was the raising of +armies, the sudden conversion of a community which was essentially +industrial into a disciplined military organization. The accomplishment +of so gigantic a transformation taxed the abilities of two Secretaries +of War. The first, Simon Cameron, owed his place in the Cabinet to +the double fact of being one of the ablest of political bosses and +of standing high among Lincoln's competitors for the Presidential +nomination. Personally honest, he was also a political cynic to whom +tradition ascribes the epigram defining an honest politician as one who +"when he is bought, will stay bought." As Secretary of War he showed no +particular ability. + +In 1861, when the tide of enthusiasm was in flood, and volunteers +in hosts were responding to acts of Congress for the raising and +maintenance of a volunteer army, Cameron reported in December that the +Government had on foot 660,971 men and could have had a million except +that Congress had limited the number of volunteers to be received. When +this report was prepared, Lincoln was, so to speak, in the trough of two +seas. The devotion which had been offered to him in April, 1861, when +the North seemed to rise as one man, had undergone a reaction. Eight +months without a single striking military success, together with +the startling defeat at Bull Run, had had their inevitable effect. +Democracies are mercurial; variability seems to be part of the price of +freedom. With childlike faith in their cause, the Northern people, +in midsummer, were crying, "On to Richmond!" In the autumn, stung by +defeat, they were ready to cry, "Down with Lincoln." + +In a subsequent report, the War Department confessed that at the +beginning of hostilities, "nearly all our arms and ammunition" came from +foreign countries. One great reason why no military successes relieve +the gloom of 1861 was that, from a soldier's point of view, there +were no armies. Soldiers, it is true, there were in myriads; but arms, +ammunition, and above all, organization were lacking. The supplies +in the government arsenals had been provided for an army of but a few +thousand. Strive as they would, all the factories in the country could +not come anywhere near making arms for half a million men; nor did the +facilities of those days make it possible for munition plants to spring +up overnight. Had it not been that the Confederacy was equally hard +pushed, even harder pushed, to find arms and ammunition, the war would +have ended inside Seward's ninety days, through sheer lack of powder. + +Even with the respite given by the unpreparedness of the South, and +while Lincoln hurriedly collected arms and ammunition from abroad, the +startled nation, thus suddenly forced into a realization of what +war meant, lost its head. From its previous reckless trust in sheer +enthusiasm, it reacted to a distrust of almost everything. Why were the +soldiers not armed? Why did not millions of rounds of cartridges fall +like manna out of the sky? Why did not the crowds of volunteers become +armies at a word of command? One of the darkest pages in American +history records the way in which the crowd, undisciplined to endure +strain, turned upon Lincoln in its desire to find in the conduct of +their leader a pretext for venting upon him the fierceness of their +anxiety. Such a pretext they found in his treatment of Fremont. + +The singular episode of Fremont's arrogance in 1861 is part of the +story of the border States whose friendship was eagerly sought by both +sides--Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and those mountainous counties +which in time were to become West Virginia. To retain Maryland and thus +to keep open the connection between the Capital and the North was one +of Lincoln's deepest anxieties. By degrees the hold of the Government +in Maryland was made secure, and the State never seceded. Kentucky, too, +held to the Union, though, during many anxious months in 1861, Lincoln +did not know whether this State was to be for him or against him. The +Virginia mountains, from the first, seemed a more hopeful field, for the +mountaineers had opposed the Virginia secession and, as soon as it was +accomplished, had begun holding meetings of protest. In the meantime +George B. McClellan, with the rank of general bestowed upon him by the +Federal Government, had been appointed to command the militia of Ohio. +He was sent to assist the insurgent mountaineers, and with him went the +Ohio militia. From this situation and from the small engagements with +Confederate forces in which McClellan was successful, there resulted the +separate State of West Virginia and the extravagant popular notion that +McClellan was a great general. His successes were contrasted in the +ordinary mind with the crushing defeat at Bull Run, which happened at +about the same time. + +The most serious of all these struggles in the border States, however, +was that which took place in Missouri, where, owing to the strength +of both factions and their promptness in organizing, real war began +immediately. A Union army led by General Nathaniel Lyon attacked the +Confederates with great spirit at Wilson's Creek but was beaten back in +a fierce and bloody battle in which their leader was killed. + +Even before these events Fremont had been appointed to chief command +in Missouri, and here he at once began a strange course of dawdling and +posing. His military career must be left to the military historians--who +have not ranked him among the great generals. Civil history accuses him, +if not of using his new position to make illegitimate profits, at least +of showing reckless favoritism toward those who did. It is hardly unfair +to say that Lincoln, in bearing with Fremont as long as he did, showed +a touch of amiable weakness; and yet, it must be acknowledged that the +President knew that the country was in a dangerous mood, that Fremont +was immensely popular, and that any change might be misunderstood. +Though Lincoln hated to appear anything but a friend to a fallen +political rival, he was at last forced to act. Frauds in government +contracts at St. Louis were a public scandal, and the reputation of the +government had to be saved by the removal of Fremont in November, 1861. +As an immediate consequence of this action the overstrained nerves of +great numbers of people snapped. Fremont's personal followers, as well +as the abolitionists whom he had actively supported while in command in +Missouri, and all that vast crowd of excitable people who are unable to +stand silent under strain, clamored against Lincoln in the wildest and +most absurd vein. He was accused of being a "dictator"; he was called an +"imbecile"; he ought to be impeached, and a new party, with Fremont as +its leader, should be formed to prosecute the war. But through all this +clamor Lincoln kept his peace and let the heathen rage. + +Toward the end of the year, popular rage turned suddenly on Cameron, +who, as Secretary of War, had taken an active but proper part in the +investigation of Fremont's conduct. It was one of those tremulous +moments when people are desperately eager to have something done and are +ready to believe anything. Though McClellan, now in chief command of +the Union forces, had an immense army which was fast getting properly +equipped, month faded into month without his advancing against the +enemy. Again the popular cry was raised, "On to Richmond!" It was at +this moment of military inactivity and popular restlessness that charges +of peculation were brought forward against Cameron. + +These charges both were and were not well founded. Himself a rich +man, it is not likely that Cameron profited personally by government +contracts, even though the acrimonious Thad Stevens said of his +appointment as Secretary that it would add "another million to his +fortune." There seems little doubt, however, that Cameron showered +lucrative contracts upon his political retainers. And no boss has ever +held the State of Pennsylvania in a firmer grip. His tenure of the +Secretaryship of War was one means to that end. + +The restless alarm of the country at large expressed itself in such +extravagant words as these which Senator Grimes wrote to Senator +Fessenden: "We are going to destruction as fast as imbecility, +corruption, and the wheels of time can carry us." So dissatisfied, +indeed, was Congress with the conduct of the war that it appointed a +committee of investigation. During December, 1861, and January, 1862, +the committee was summoning generals before it, questioning them, +listening to all manner of views, accomplishing nothing, but rendering +more and more feverish an atmosphere already surcharged with anxiety. +On the floors of Congress debate raged as to who was responsible for +the military inaction--for the country's "unpreparedness," we should say +today--and as to whether Cameron was honest. Eventually the House in a +vote of censure condemned the Secretary of War. + +Long before this happened, however, Lincoln had interfered and very +characteristically removed the cause of trouble, while taking upon +himself the responsibility for the situation, by nominating Cameron +minister to Russia, and by praising him for his "ability, patriotism, +and fidelity to the public trust." Though the President had not +sufficient hold upon the House to prevent the vote of censure, his +influence was strong in the Senate, and the new appointment of Cameron +was promptly confirmed. + +There was in Washington at this time that grim man who had served +briefly as Attorney-General in the Cabinet of Buchanan--Edwin M. +Stanton. He despised the President and expressed his opinion in such +words as "the painful imbecility of Lincoln." The two had one personal +recollection in common: long before, in a single case, at Cincinnati, +the awkward Lincoln had been called in as associate counsel to serve the +convenience of Stanton, who was already a lawyer of national repute. +To his less-known associate Stanton showed a brutal rudeness that was +characteristic. It would have been hard in 1861 to find another man more +difficult to get on with. Headstrong, irascible, rude, he had a sharp +tongue which he delighted in using; but he was known to be inflexibly +honest, and was supposed to have great executive ability. He was also +a friend of McClellan, and if anybody could rouse that tortoise-like +general, Stanton might be supposed to be the man. He had been a valiant +Democrat, and Democratic support was needed by the government. Lincoln +astonished him with his appointment as Secretary of War in January, +1862. Stanton justified the President's choice, and under his strong +if ruthless hand the War Department became sternly efficient. The whole +story of Stanton's relations to his chief is packed, like the Arabian +genius in the fisherman's vase, into one remark of Lincoln's. "Did +Stanton tell you I was a fool?" said Lincoln on one occasion, in the +odd, smiling way he had. "Then I expect I must be one, for he is almost +always right, and generally says what he means." + +In spite of his efficiency and personal force, Stanton was unable to +move his friend McClellan, with whom he soon quarreled. Each now sought +in his own way to control the President, though neither understood +Lincoln's character. From McClellan, Lincoln endured much condescension +of a kind perilously near impertinence. To Stanton, Lincoln's patience +seemed a mystery; to McClellan--a vain man, full of himself--the +President who would merely smile at this bullyragging on the part of +one of his subordinates seemed indeed a spiritless creature. Meanwhile +Lincoln, apparently devoid of sensibility, was seeking during the +anxious months of 1862, in one case, merely how to keep his petulant +Secretary in harness; in the other, how to quicken his tortoise of a +general. + +Stanton made at least one great blunder. Though he had been three months +in office, and McClellan was still inactive, there were already several +successes to the credit of the Union arms. The Monitor and Virginia +(Merrimac) had fought their famous duel, and Grant had taken Fort +Donelson. The latter success broke through the long gloom of the North +and caused, as Holmes wrote, "a delirium of excitement." Stanton rashly +concluded that he now had the game in his hands, and that a sufficient +number of men had volunteered. This civilian Secretary of War, who had +still much to learn of military matters, issued an order putting a stop +to recruiting. Shortly afterwards great disaster befell the Union arms. +McClellan, before Richmond, was checked in May. Early in July, his +peninsula campaign ended disastrously in the terrible "Seven Days' +Battle." + +Anticipating McClellan's failure, Lincoln had already determined to call +for more troops. On July 1st, he called upon the Governors of the +States to provide him with 300,000 men to serve three years. But the +volunteering enthusiasm--explain it as you will--had suffered a check. +The psychological moment had passed. So slow was the response to the +call of July 1st, that another appeal was made early in August, this +time for 300,000 men to serve only nine months. But this also failed +to rouse the country. A reinforcement of only 87,000 men was raised in +response to this emergency call. The able lawyer in the War Department +had still much to learn about men and nations. + +After this check, terrible incidents of war came thick and fast--the +defeat at Second Manassas, in late August; the horrible drawn battle +of Antietam-Sharpsburg, in September; Fredericksburg, that carnival of +slaughter, in December; the dearly bought victory of Murfreesboro, which +opened 1863. There were other disastrous events at least as serious. +Foreign affairs* were at their darkest. Within the political coalition +supporting Lincoln, contention was the order of the day. There was +general distrust of the President. Most alarming of all, that ebb of the +wave of enthusiasm which began in midsummer, 1861, reached in the autumn +of 1862 perhaps its lowest point. The measure of the reaction against +Lincoln was given in the Congressional election, in which, though the +Government still retained a working majority, the Democrats gained +thirty-three seats. + + * See Chapter IX. + +If there could be such a thing as a true psychological history of the +war, one of its most interesting pages would determine just how far +Stanton was responsible, through his strange blunder over recruiting, +for the check to enthusiasm among the Northern people. With this +speculation there is connected a still unsolved problem in statistics. +To what extent did the anti-Lincoln vote, in 1862, stand for sympathy +with the South, and how far was it the hopeless surrender of Unionists +who felt that their cause was lost? Though certainty on this point is +apparently impossible, there can be no doubt that at the opening of +1863, the Government felt it must apply pressure to the flagging spirits +of its supporters. In order to reenforce the armies and to push the war +through, there was plainly but one course to be followed--conscription. + +The government leaders in Congress brought in a Conscription Act early +in the year. The hot debates upon this issue dragged through a month's +time, and now make instructive reading for the present generation +that has watched the Great War*. The Act of 1863 was not the work of +soldiers, but was literally "made in Congress." Stanton grimly made +the best of it, though he unwaveringly condemned some of its most +conspicuous provisions. His business was to retrieve his blunder of +the previous year, and he was successful. Imperfect as it was, the +Conscription Act, with later supplementary legislation, enabled him to +replace the wastage of the Union armies and steadily to augment them. +At the close of the war, the Union had on foot a million men with an +enrolled reserve of two millions and a half, subject to call. + + * The battle over conscription in England was anticipated in + America sixty-four years ago. Bagot says that the average + British point of view may be expressed thus: "What I am + sayin' is this here as I was a sayin' yesterday." The + Anglo-Saxon mind is much the same the world over. In + America, today, the enemies of effective military + organization would do well to search the arguments of their + skillful predecessors in 1888, who fought to the last ditch + for a military system that would make inescapable "peace at + any price." For the modern believers in conscription, one + of their best bits of political thunder is still the defense + of it by Lincoln. + +The Act provided for a complete military census, for which purpose the +country was divided into enrollment districts. Every able-bodied +male citizen, or intending citizen, between the ages of twenty and +forty-five, unless exempted for certain specified reasons, was to be +enrolled as a member of the national forces; these forces were to be +called to the colors--"drafted," the term was--as the Government found +need of them; each successive draft was to be apportioned among the +districts in the ratio of the military population, and the number +required was to be drawn by lot; if the district raised its quota +voluntarily, no draft would be made; any drafted man could offer a +substitute or could purchase his discharge for three hundred dollars. +The latter provision especially was condemned by Stanton. It was seized +upon by demagogues as a device for giving rich men an advantage over +poor men. + +American politics during the war form a wildly confused story, so +intricate that it cannot be made clear in a brief statement. But +this central fact may be insisted upon: in the North, there were two +political groups that were the poles around which various other groups +revolved and combined, only to fly asunder and recombine, with all the +maddening inconstancy of a kaleidoscope. The two irreconcilable elements +were the "war party" made up of determined men resolved to see things +through, and the "copperheads"* who for one reason or another united +in a faithful struggle for peace at any price. Around the copperheads +gathered the various and singular groups who helped to make up the ever +fluctuating "peace party." It is an error to assume that this peace +party was animated throughout by fondness for the Confederacy. Though +many of its members were so actuated, the core of the party seems to +have been that strange type of man who sustained political evasion +in the old days, who thought that sweet words can stop bullets, whose +programme in 1863 called for a cessation of hostilities and a general +convention of all the States, and who promised as the speedy result of +a debauch of talk a carnival of bright eyes glistening with the tears +of revived affection. With these strange people in 1863 there combined +a number of different types: the still stranger, still less creditable +visionary, of whom much hereafter; the avowed friends of the principle +of state rights; all those who distrusted the Government because of its +anti-slavery sympathies; Quakers and others with moral scruples against +war; and finally, sincere legalists to whom the Conscription Act +appeared unconstitutional. In the spring of 1863 the issue of +conscription drew the line fairly sharply between the two political +coalitions, though each continued to fluctuate, more or less, to the end +of the war. + + * The term arose, it has been said, from the use of the + copper cent with its head of Liberty as a peace button. But + a more plausible explanation associates the peace advocates + with the deadly copperhead snake. + +The peace party of 1863 has been denounced hastily rather than carefully +studied. Its precise machinations are not fully known, but the ugly fact +stands forth that a portion of the foreign population of the North was +roused in 1863 to rebellion. The occasion was the beginning of the first +draft under the new law, in July, 1863, and the scene of the rebellion +was the City of New York. The opponents of conscription had already +made inflammatory attacks on the Government. Conspicuous among them was +Horatio Seymour, who had been elected Governor of New York in that wave +of reaction in the autumn of 1862. Several New York papers joined the +crusade. In Congress, the Government had already been threatened with +civil war if the act was enforced. Nevertheless, the public drawing +by lot began on the days announced. In New York the first drawing took +place on Saturday, July 12th, and the lists were published in the Sunday +papers. As might be expected, many of the men drawn were of foreign +birth, and all day Sunday, the foreign quarter of New York was a +cauldron boiling. + +On Monday, the resumption of the drawing was the signal for revolt. +A mob invaded one of the conscription offices, drove off the men in +charge, and set fire to the building. In a short while, the streets were +filled with dense crowds of foreignborn workmen shouting, "Down with +the rich men," and singing, "We'll hang Horace Greeley on a sour apple +tree." Houses of prominent citizens were attacked and set on fire, and +several drafting offices were burned. Many negroes who were seized were +either clubbed to death or hanged to lamp posts. Even an orphan asylum +for colored children was burned. The office of the "Tribune" was raided, +gutted, and set on fire. Finally a dispatch to Stanton, early in the +night, reported that the mob had taken possession of the city. + +The events of the next day were no less shocking. The city was almost +stripped of soldiers, as all available reserves had already been hurried +south when Lee was advancing toward Gettysburg. But such militia as +could be mustered, with a small force of federal troops, fought the mob +in the streets. Barricades were carried by storm; blood was freely shed. +It was not, however, until the fourth day that the rebellion was finally +quelled, chiefly by New York regiments, hurried north by Stanton--among +them the famous Seventh--which swept the streets with cannon. + +The aftermath of the New York riots was a correspondence between Lincoln +and Seymour. The latter had demanded a suspension of the draft until the +courts could decide on the constitutionality of the Conscription Act. +Lincoln refused. With ten thousand troops now assembled in New York, the +draft was resumed, and there was no further trouble. + +The resistance to the Government in New York was but the most terrible +episode in a protracted contention which involves, as Americans are +beginning to see, one of the most fundamental and permanent questions +of Lincoln's rule: how can the exercise of necessary war powers by +the President be reconciled with the guarantees of liberty in the +Constitution? It is unfortunate that Lincoln did not draw up a fully +rounded statement of his own theory regarding this problem, instead +of leaving it to be inferred from detached observations and from his +actions. Apparently, he felt there was nothing to do but to follow the +Roman precedent and, in a case of emergency, frankly permit the use +of extraordinary power. We may attribute to him that point of view +expressed by a distinguished Democrat of our own day: "Democracy has to +learn how to use the dictator as a necessary war tool."* Whether Lincoln +set a good model for democracy in this perilous business is still to be +determined. His actions have been freely labeled usurpation. The first +notorious instance occurred in 1861, during the troubles in Maryland, +when he authorized military arrests of suspected persons. For the +release of one of these, a certain Merryman, Chief Justice Taney +issued a writ of habeas corpus**. Lincoln authorized his military +representatives to disregard the writ. In 1862 he issued a proclamation +suspending the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus in cases of +persons charged with "discouraging volunteer enlistments, resisting +military drafts, or guilty of any disloyal practice...." Such persons +were to be tried by military commissions. + + *President Edwin A. Alderman, of the University of Virginia. + + ** The Constitution permits the suspension of the privileges + of the writ of habeas corpus "when in cases of rebellion or + invasion the public safety may require it," but fails to + provide a method of suspension. Taney held that the power + to suspend lay with Congress. Five years afterward, when + Chase was Chief Justice, the Supreme Court, in ex parte + Milligan, took the same view and further declared that even + Congress could not deprive a citizen of his right to trial + by jury so long as the local civil courts are in operation. + The Confederate experience differed from the Federal + inasmuch as Congress kept control of the power to suspend + the writ. But both governments made use of such suspension + to set up martial law in districts where the local courts + were open but where, from one cause or another, the + Administration had not confidence in their effectiveness. + Under ex parte Milligan, both Presidents and both Congresses + were guilty of usurpation. The mere layman waits for the + next great hour of trial to learn whether this + interpretation will stand. In the Milligan case the Chief + Justice and three others dissented. + +There can be little doubt that this proclamation caused something like +a panic in many minds, filled them with the dread of military despotism, +and contributed to the reaction against Lincoln in the autumn of 1862. +Under this proclamation many arrests were made and many victims were +sent to prison. So violent was the opposition that on March 3, 1863, +Congress passed an act which attempted to bring the military and civil +courts into cooperation, though it did not take away from the President +all the dictatorial power which he had assumed. The act seems; however, +to have had little general effect, and it was disregarded in the +most celebrated of the cases of military arrest, that of Clement L. +Vallandigham. + +A representative from Ohio and one of the most vituperative anti-Lincoln +men in Congress, Vallandigham in a sensational speech applied to the +existing situation Chatham's words, "My lords, you cannot conquer +America." He professed to see before him in the future nothing "but +universal political and social revolution, anarchy, and bloodshed, +compared with which the Reign of Terror in France was a merciful +visitation." To escape such a future, he demanded an armistice, to be +followed by a friendly peace established through foreign mediation. + +Returning to Ohio after the adjournment of Congress, Vallandigham spoke +to a mass-meeting in a way that was construed as rank treason by General +Burnside who was in command at Cincinnati. Vallandigham was arrested, +tried by court martial, and condemned to imprisonment. There was an +immediate hue and cry, in consequence of which Burnside, who reported +the affair, felt called upon also to offer to resign. Lincoln's reply +was characteristic: "When I shall wish to supersede you I shall let +you know. All the Cabinet regretted the necessity for arresting, for +instance, Vallandigham, some perhaps doubting there was a real necessity +for it; but being done, all were for seeing you through with it." +Lincoln, however, commuted the sentence to banishment and had +Vallandigham sent through the lines into the Confederacy. + +It seems quite plain that the condemnation of Lincoln on this issue of +usurpation was not confined to the friends of the Confederacy, nor has +it been confined to his enemies in later days. One of Lincoln's +most ardent admirers, the historian Rhodes, condemns his course +unqualifiedly. "There can be no question," he writes, "that from the +legal point of view the President should have rescinded the sentence and +released Vallandigham." Lincoln, he adds, "stands responsible for +the casting into prison of citizens of the United States on orders as +arbitrary as the lettres-de-cachet of Louis XIV." Since Mr. Rhodes, +uncompromising Unionist, can write as he does upon this issue, it is +plain that the opposition party cannot be dismissed as through and +through disunionist. + +The trial of Vallandigham made him a martyr and brought him the +Democratic nomination for Governor of Ohio*. His followers sought to +make the issue of the campaign the acceptance or rejection of military +despotism. In defense of his course Lincoln wrote two public letters in +which he gave evidence of the skill which he had acquired as a lawyer +before a jury by the way in which he played upon the emotions of his +readers. + + * Edward Everett Hale's famous story "The Man Without a + Country", though it got into print too late to affect the + election, was aimed at Vallandigham. That quaint allegory + on the lack of patriotism became a temporary classic. + +"Long experience [he wrote] has shown that armies cannot be maintained +unless desertion shall be punished by the severe penalty of death. +The case requires, and the law and the Constitution sanction, this +punishment. Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while +I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert? +This is none the less injurious when effected by getting a father, or +brother, or friend into a public meeting, and there working upon his +feelings till he is persuaded to write the soldier boy that he is +fighting in a bad cause for a wicked administration and a contemptible +government, too weak to arrest and punish him if he shall desert. I +think that in such a case to silence the agitator and save the boy is +not only constitutional, but, withal, a great mercy." + +His real argument may be summed up in these words of his: + +"You ask, in substance, whether I really claim that I may override all +the guaranteed rights of individuals, on the plea of conserving the +public safety--when I may choose to say the public safety requires it. +This question, divested of the phraseology calculated to represent me as +struggling for an arbitrary prerogative, is either simply a question +who shall decide, or an affirmation that nobody shall decide, what the +public safety does require in cases of rebellion or invasion. + +"The Constitution contemplates the question as likely to occur for +decision, but it does not expressly declare who is to decide it. By +necessary implication, when rebellion or invasion comes, the decision is +to be made, from time to time; and I think the man, whom for the time, +the people have under the Constitution, made the commander-in-chief +of their army and navy, is the man who holds the power and bears the +responsibility of making it. If he uses the power justly, the same +people will probably justify him; if he abuses it, he is in their hands +to be dealt with by all the modes they have reserved to themselves in +the Constitution." + +Lincoln virtually appealed to the Northern people to secure efficiency +by setting him momentarily above all civil authority. He asked them +in substance, to interpret their Constitution by a show of hands. No +thoughtful person can doubt the risks of such a method; yet in Ohio, +in 1863, the great majority--perhaps everyone who believed in the +war--accepted Lincoln's position. Between their traditional system of +legal juries and the new system of military tribunals the Ohio voters +made their choice without hesitation. They rejected Vallandigham +and sustained the Lincoln candidate by a majority of over a hundred +thousand. That same year in New York the anti-Lincoln candidate for +Secretary of State was defeated by twenty-nine thousand votes. + +Though these elections in 1863 can hardly be called the turning-point in +the history of the Lincoln Government, yet it was clear that the tide +of popularity which had ebbed so far away from Lincoln in the autumn of +1862 was again in the flood. Another phase of his stormy course may be +thought of as having ended. And in accounting for this turn of the tide +it must not be forgotten that between the nomination and the defeat of +a Vallandigham the bloody rebellion in New York had taken place, +Gettysburg had been fought, and Grant had captured Vicksburg. The autumn +of 1863 formed a breathing space for the war party of the North. + + + +CHAPTER IX. THE CRUCIAL MATTER + +It is the custom of historians to measure the relative strength of North +and South chiefly in terms of population. The North numbered 23,000,000 +inhabitants; the South, about 9,000,000, of which the slave population +amounted to 3,500,000. But these obvious statistics only partially +indicate the real situation. Not what one has, but what one is capable +of using is, of course, the true measure of strength. If, in 1861, +either side could have struck swiftly and with all its force, the story +of the war would have been different. The question of relative strength +was in reality a question of munitions. Both powers were glaringly +unprepared. Both had instant need of great supplies of arms and +ammunition, and both turned to European manufacturers for aid. Those +Americans who, in a later war, wished to make illegal the neutral trade +in munitions forgot that the international right of a belligerent to buy +arms from a neutral had prevented their own destruction in 1861. In +the supreme American crisis, agents of both North and South hurried to +Europe in quest of munitions. On the Northern side the work was done +chiefly by the three ministers, Charles Francis Adams, at London; +William L. Dayton, at Paris; and Henry S. Sanford, at Brussels; by +an able special agent, Colonel George L. Schuyler; and by the famous +banking-house of Baring Brothers, which one might almost have called the +European department of the United States Treasury. + +The eager solicitude of the War Department over the competition of the +two groups of agents in Europe informs a number of dispatches that are, +today, precious admonitions to the heedless descendants of that dreadful +time. As late as October, 1861, the Acting Secretary of War wrote to +Schuyler, one of whose shipments had been delayed: "The Department +earnestly hopes to receive...the 12,000 Enfield rifles and the remainder +of the 27,000, which you state you have purchased, by the earliest +steamer following. Could you appreciate the circumstances by which we +are surrounded, you would readily understand the urgent necessity there +is for the immediate delivery of all the arms you are authorized to +purchase. The Department expects to hear that you have been able +to conclude the negotiations for the 48,000 rifles from the French +government arsenals." That the Confederate Government acted even more +promptly than the Union Government appears from a letter of Sanford to +Seward in May: "I have vainly expected orders," he complains, "for +the purchase of arms for the Government, and am tempted to order from +Belgium all they can send over immediately.... Meanwhile the workshops +are filling with orders from the South.... It distresses me to think +that while we are in want of them, Southern money is taking them away to +be used against us." + +At London, Adams took it upon himself to contract for arms in advance of +instructions. He wrote to Seward: "Aware of the degree to which I exceed +my authority in taking such a step, nothing but a conviction of the need +in which the country stands of such assistance and the joint opinion of +all the diplomatic agents of the United States...in Paris, has induced +me to overcome my scruples." How real was the necessity of which this +able diplomat was so early conscious, is demonstrated at every turn +in the papers of the War Department. Witness this brief dispatch from +Harrisburg: "All ready to leave but no arms. Governor not willing to +let us leave State without them, as act of Assembly forbids. Can arms +be sent here?" When this appeal was made, in December, 1861, arms were +pouring into the country from Europe, and the crisis had passed. But if +this appeal had been made earlier in the year, the inevitable answer may +be guessed from a dispatch which the Ordnance Office sent, as late as +September, to the authorities of West Virginia, refusing to supply +them with arms because the supplies were exhausted, and adding, "Every +possible exertion is being made to obtain additional supplies by +contract, by manufacture, and by purchase, and as soon as they can be +procured by any means, in any way, they will be supplied." + +Curiously enough, not only the Confederacy but various States of the +North were more expeditious in this all-important matter than Cameron +and the War Department. Schuyler's first dispatch from London gives +this singular information: "All private establishments in Birmingham +and London are now working for the States of Ohio, Connecticut, and +Massachusetts, except the London Armory, whose manufacture is supposed +to go to the Rebels, but of this last fact I am not positively informed. +I am making arrangements to secure these establishments for our +Government, if desirable after the present State contracts expire. On +the Continent, Messrs, Dayton and Sanford...have been making contracts +and agreements of various kinds, of which you are by this time +informed." Soon afterward, from Paris, he made a long report detailing +the difficulties of his task, the limitations of the existing munitions +plants in Europe, and promising among other things those "48,000 rifles +from the French government arsenals" for which, in the letter already +quoted, the War Department yearned. It was an enormous labor; and, +strive as he would, Schuyler found American mail continuing to bring him +such letters as this from the Assistant Secretary of War in October: "I +notice with much regret that [in the latest consignment] there were no +guns sent, as it was confidently expected that 20,000 would arrive by +the [steamship] Fulton, and accordingly arrangements had been made to +distribute them through the different States. Prompt and early shipments +of guns are desirable. We hope to hear by next steamer that you have +shipped from 80,000 to 100,000 stand." + +The last word on the problem of munitions, which was so significant +a factor in the larger problem, is the report of the United States +Ordnance Office for the first year of the war. It shows that between +April, 1861, and June, 1862, the Government purchased from American +manufacturers somewhat over 30,000 rifles, and that from European makers +it purchased 726,000. + +From these illustrations it is therefore obvious that the true measure +of the immediate strength of the American contestants in 1861 was the +extent of their ability to supply themselves from Europe; and this, +stated more concretely, became the question as to which was the better +able to keep its ports open and receive the absolutely essential +European aid. Lincoln showed his clear realization of the situation +when he issued, immediately after the first call for volunteers, a +proclamation blockading the Southern coasts. Whether the Northern people +at the time appreciated the significance of this order is a question. +Amid the wild and vain clamor of the multitude in 1861, with its +conventional and old-fashioned notion of war as a thing of trumpets and +glittering armies, the North seems wholly to have ignored its fleet; and +yet in the beginning this resource was its only strength. + +The fleet was small, to be sure, but its task was at first also small. +There were few Southern ports which were doing a regular business with +Europe, and to close these was not difficult. As other ports opened and +the task of blockade grew, the Northern navy also increased. Within a +few months, to the few observers who did not lose their heads, it was +plain that the North had won the first great contest of the war. It had +so hampered Southern trade that Lincoln's advantage in arming the North +from Europe was ten to one. At the very time when detractors of Lincoln +were hysterical over the removal of Fremont, when Grimes wrote to +Fessenden that the country was going to the dogs as fast as imbecility +could carry it, this great achievement had quietly taken place. An +expedition sailing in August from Fortress Monroe seized the forts which +commanded Hatteras Inlet off the coast of North Carolina. In November, +Commander Dupont, U. S. N., seized Port Royal, one of the best harbors +on the coast of South Carolina, and established there a naval base. +Thenceforth, while the open Northern ports received European munitions +without hindrance, it was a risky business getting munitions into the +ports of the South. Only the boldest traders would attempt to "run the +blockade," to evade the Federal patrol ships by night and run into a +Southern port. + +However, for one moment in the autumn of 1861, it seemed as if all the +masterful work of the Northern navy would be undone by the Northern +people themselves in backing up the rashness of Captain Charles Wilkes, +of the war-ship San Jacinto. On the high seas he overhauled the British +mail steamer, Trent. Aboard her were two Confederate diplomatic +agents, James M. Mason and John Slidell, who had run the blockade from +Charleston to Havana and were now on their way to England. Wilkes took +off the two Confederates as prisoners of war. The crowd in the North +went wild. "We do not believe," said the New York Times, "that the +American heart ever thrilled with more sincere delight." + +The intemperate joy of the crowd over the rashness of Wilkes was due in +part to a feeling of bitterness against the British Government. In +May, 1861, the Queen had issued a proclamation of neutrality, whose +justification in international law was hotly debated at the time and was +generally denied by Northerners. England was the great cotton market of +the world. To the excited Northern mind, in 1861, there could be but one +explanation of England's action: a partisan desire to serve the South, +to break up the blockade, and to secure cotton. Whether such was the +real purpose of the ministry then in power is now doubted; but at +that time it was the beginning of a sharp contention between the two +Governments. The Trent affair naturally increased the tension. So keen +was the indignation of all classes of Englishmen that it seemed, for a +moment, as if the next step would be war. + +In America, the prompt demand for the release of Mason and Slidell was +met, at first, in a spirit equally bellicose. Fortunately there were +cool and clear heads that at once condemned Wilkes's action as a gross +breach of international law. Prominent among these was Sumner. The +American Government, however, admitted the justice of the British demand +and the envoys were released. + +Relations with the United States now became a burning issue in +English politics. There were three distinct groups in Parliament. The +representatives of the aristocracy, whether Liberals or Conservatives, +in the main sympathized with the South. So did most of the large +manufacturers whose business interests were affected by cotton. Great +bitterness grew up among the Northerners against both these groups, +partly because in the past many of their members had condemned slavery +and had said scornful things about America for tolerating it. To these +Northerners the Englishmen replied that Lincoln himself had declared +the war was not over slavery; that it was an ordinary civil war not +involving moral issues. Nevertheless, the third Parliamentary group +insisted that the American war, no matter what the motives of the +participants, would, in the event of a Northern victory, bring about the +abolition of slavery, whereas, if the South won, the result would be +the perpetuation of slavery. This third group, therefore, threw all its +weight on the side of the North. In this group Lincoln recognized his +allies, and their cause he identified with his own in his letter to +English workmen which was quoted in the previous chapter. Their leaders +in Parliament were Richard Cobden, W. E. Forster, and John Bright. +All these groups were represented in the Liberal party, which, for the +moment, was in power. + +In the Cabinet itself there was a "Northern" and a "Southern" faction. +Then, too, there were some who sympathized with the North but who felt +that its cause was hopeless--so little did they understand the relative +strength of the two sections--and who felt that the war was a terrible +proof of the uselessness of mere suffering. Gladstone, in later days, +wished to be thought of as having been one of these, though at the time, +a famous utterance of his was construed in the North as a declaration +of hostility. To a great audience at Newcastle he said in October, 1862: +"We may have our own opinions about slavery; we may be for or against +the South; but there is no doubt that Jefferson Davis and other leaders +of the South have made an army; they are making, it appears, a navy; and +they have made, what is more than either--they have made a nation." + +The Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, wished to intervene in the American +war and bring about an amicable separation into two countries, and so, +apparently, did the Foreign Secretary, Lord John Russell. Recently, the +American minister had vainly protested against the sailing of a ship +known as 290 which was being equipped at Liverpool presumably for the +service of the Confederacy, and which became the famous Alabama. For two +years it roved the ocean destroying Northern commerce, and not until +it was sunk at last in a battle with the U. S. S. Kearsarge did all the +maritime interests of the North breathe again freely. In time and as a +result of arbitration, England paid for the ships sunk by the Alabama. +But in 1862, the protests of the American minister fell on deaf ears. + +It must be added that the sailing of the Alabama from Liverpool was +due probably to the carelessness of British officials rather than to +deliberate purpose. And yet the fact is clear that about the first of +October, 1862, the British ministry was on the verge of intervening to +secure recognition of the independence of the Southern confederacy. The +chief motive pressing them forward was the distress in England caused by +the lack of cotton which resulted from the American blockade. In 1860, +the South had exported 615,000 bales; in 1861, only 10,127 bales. In +1862 half the spindles of Manchester were idle; the workmen were out of +employment; the owners were without dividends. It was chiefly by these +manufacturing capitalists that pressure was put upon the ministry, +and it was in the manufacturing district that Gladstone, thinking the +Government was likely to intervene, made his allusion to the South as a +nation. + +Meanwhile the Emperor of the French was considering a proposal to +England and Russia to join with him in mediation between the American +belligerents. On October 28, 1862, Napoleon III gave audience to the +Confederate envoy at Paris, discussed the Southern cause in the most +friendly manner, questioned him upon the Maryland campaign, plainly +indicated his purpose to attempt intervention, and at parting cordially +shook hands with him. Within a few days the Emperor made good his +implied promise. + +The month of November, 1862, is one of the turning-points in American +foreign relations. Both Russia and England rejected France's proposal. +The motive usually assigned to the Emperor Alexander is his hatred of +everything associated with slavery. His own most famous action was the +liberation of the Russian serfs. The motives of the British ministry, +however, appear more problematical. + +Mr. Rhodes thinks he can discern evidence that Adams communicated +indirectly to Palmerston the contents of a dispatch from Seward which +indicated that the United States would accept war rather than mediation. +Palmerston had kept his eyes upon the Maryland campaign, and Lee's +withdrawal did not increase his confidence in the strength of the South. +Lord Russell, two months previous, had flatly told the Confederate envoy +at London that the South need not hope for recognition unless it could +establish itself without aid, and that "the fluctuating events of +the war, the alternation of defeat and victory," composed such a +contradictory situation that "Her Majesty's Government are still +determined to wait." + +Perhaps the veiled American warning--assuming it was conveyed to +Palmerston, which seems highly probable--was not the only diplomatic +innuendo of the autumn of 1862 that has escaped the pages of history. +Slidell at Paris, putting together the statements of the British +Ambassador and those of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, found in +them contradictions as to what was going on between the two governments +in relation to America. He took a hand by attempting to inspire M. +Drouyn de L'huys with distrust of England, telling him he "HAD SEEN...a +letter from a leading member of the British Cabinet...in which he very +plainly insinuated that France was playing an unfair game," trying to +use England as Napoleon's catspaw. Among the many motives that may +well have animated the Palmerston Government in its waiting policy, a +distrust of Napoleon deserves to be considered. + +It is scarcely rash, however, to find the chief motive in home politics. +The impetuous Gladstone at Newcastle lost his head and spoke too soon. +The most serious effect of his premature utterance was the prompt +reaction of the "Northern party" in the Cabinet and in the country. +Whatever Palmerston's secret desires were, he was not prepared to take +the high hand, and he therefore permitted other members of the Cabinet +to state in public that Gladstone had been misunderstood. In an +interview with Adams, Lord Russell, "whilst endeavoring to excuse Mr. +Gladstone," assured him that "the policy of the Government was to adhere +to a strict neutrality and leave the struggle to settle itself." In the +last analysis, the Northern party in England was gaining ground. The +news from America, possibly, and Gladstone's rashness, certainly, roused +it to increased activity. Palmerston, whose tenure of power was none too +secure, dared not risk a break that might carry the disaffected into the +ranks of the Opposition. + +From this time forward the North rapidly grew in favor in British public +opinion, and its influence upon the Government speedily increased. + +Says Lord Charnwood in his recent life of Lincoln: "The battle of +Antietam was followed within five days by an event which made it +impossible for any government of this country to take action unfriendly +to the North." He refers of course to the Emancipation Proclamation, +which was issued on September 23, 1862. Lord Charnwood's remark may +be too dramatic. But there can be no doubt that the Emancipation +Proclamation was the turning-point in Lincoln's foreign policy; and +because of it, his friends in England eventually forced the Government +to play into his hands, and so frustrated Napoleon's scheme for +intervention. Consequently Lincoln was able to maintain the blockade +by means of which the South was strangled. Thus, at bottom, the crucial +matter was Emancipation. + +Lincoln's policy with regard to slavery passed through three distinct +stages. As we have seen, he proposed, at first, to pledge the Government +not to interfere with slavery in the States where it then existed. This +was his maximum of compromise. He would not agree to permitting its +extension into new territory. He maintained this position through 1861, +when it was made an accusation against him by the Abolitionists and +contributed to the ebb of his popularity. It also played a great part +in the episode of Fremont. At a crucial moment in Fremont's career, when +his hold upon popularity seemed precarious, he set at naught the +policy of the President and issued an order (August 30, 1861), which +confiscated all property and slaves of those who were in arms against +the United States or actively aiding the enemy, and which created a +"bureau of abolition." Whether Fremont was acting from conviction or +"playing politics" may be left to his biographers. In a most tactful +letter Lincoln asked him to modify the order so as to conform to the +Confiscation Act of Congress; and when Fremont proved obdurate, Lincoln +ordered him to do so. In the outcry against Lincoln when Fremont was at +last removed, the Abolitionists rang the changes on this reversal of his +policy of military abolition. + +Another Federal General, Benjamin F. Butler, in the course of 1861, also +raised the issue, though not in the bold fashion of Fremont. Runaway +slaves came to his camp on the Virginia coast, and he refused to +surrender them to the owners. He took the ground that, as they had +probably been used in building Confederate fortifications, they might be +considered contraband of war. He was sustained by Congress, which passed +what is commonly called the First Confiscation Act providing that slaves +used by Confederate armies in military labor should, if captured, be +"forfeited"--which of course meant that they should be set free. But +this did not settle what should be done with runaways whose masters, +though residents of seceded States, were loyal to the Union. The War +Department decided that they should be held until the end of the war, +when probably there would be made "just compensation to loyal masters." + +This first stage of Lincoln's policy rested upon the hope that the Union +might be restored without prolonged war. He abandoned this hope about +the end of the year. Thereupon, his policy entered its second stage. In +the spring of 1862 he formulated a plan for gradual emancipation with +compensation. The slaves of Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, and +the District of Columbia were to be purchased at the rate of $400 each, +thus involving a total expenditure of $173,000,000. Although Congress +adopted the joint resolution recommended by the President, the "border +States" would not accept the plan. But Congress, by virtue of its +plenary power, freed the slaves by purchase in the District of Columbia, +and prohibited slavery in all the territories of the United States. + +During the second stage of his policy Lincoln again had to reverse the +action of an unruly general. The Federal forces operating from their +base at Port Royal had occupied a considerable portion of the Carolina +coast. General Hunter issued an order freeing all the slaves in South +Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. In countermanding the order, Lincoln +made another futile appeal to the people of the border States to adopt +some plan of compensated emancipation. + +"I do not argue," he said; "I beseech you to make arguments for +yourselves. You cannot, if you would be blind to the signs of the times. +I beg of you a calm and enlarged consideration of them, ranging, if it +may be, far above personal and partisan politics. This proposal makes +common cause for a common object, casting no reproaches upon any. It +acts not the Pharisee. The change it contemplates would come gently +as the dews of heaven, not rending or wrecking anything. Will you not +embrace it? So much good has not been done by one effort in all past +time, as in the providence of God it is now your high privilege to do. +May the vast future not have to lament that you neglected it." + +This persuasive attitude and reluctance to force the issue had greatly +displeased the Abolitionists. Their most gifted orator, Wendell +Phillips, reviled Lincoln with all the power of his literary genius, +and with a fury that might be called malevolent. Meanwhile, a Second +Confiscation Act proclaimed freedom for the slaves of all those who +supported the Confederate Government. Horace Greeley now published in +the "New York Tribune" an editorial entitled, "The Prayer of Twenty +Millions." He denounced Lincoln's treatment of Fremont and Hunter and +demanded radical action. Lincoln replied in a letter now famous. "I +would save the Union," said he, "I would save it the shortest way under +the Constitution.... If I could save the Union without freeing any +slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving +others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the +colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and +what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save +the Union." + +However, at the very time when he wrote this remarkable letter, he had +in his own mind entered upon the third stage of his policy. He had +even then discussed with his Cabinet an announcement favoring general +emancipation. The time did not seem to them ripe. It was decided to wait +until a Federal victory should save the announcement from appearing +to be a cry of desperation. Antietam, which the North interpreted as a +victory, gave Lincoln his opportunity. + +The Emancipation Proclamation applied only to the States in arms against +the Federal Government. Such States were given three months in which to +return to the Union. Thereafter, if they did not return, their slaves +would be regarded by that Government as free. No distinction was made +between slaves owned by supporters of the Confederacy and those whose +owners were in opposition to it. The Proclamation had no bearing on +those slave States which had not seceded. Needless to add, no +seceded State returned, and a second Proclamation making their slaves +theoretically free was in due time issued on the first of January, 1863. + +It must not be forgotten that this radical change of policy was made in +September, 1862. We have already heard of the elections which took +place soon after--those elections which mark perhaps the lowest ebb of +Lincoln's popularity, when Seymour was elected Governor of New York, and +the peace party gained over thirty seats in Congress. It is a question +whether, as a purely domestic measure, the Emancipation Proclamation was +not, for the time, an injury to the Lincoln Government. And yet it was +the real turning-point in the fortunes of the North. It was the central +fact in the maintenance of the blockade. + +In England at this time the cotton famine was at its height. Nearly a +million people in the manufacturing districts were wholly dependent +upon charity. This result of the blockade had been foreseen by the +Confederate Government which was confident that the distress of +England's working people would compel the English ministry to intervene +and break the blockade. The employers in England whose loss was wholly +financial, did as the Confederates hoped they would do. The workmen, +however, took a different course. Schooled by a number of able debaters, +they fell into line with that third group of political leaders who +saw in the victory of the North, whatever its motives, the eventual +extinction of slavery. To these people, the Emancipation Proclamation +gave a definite programme. It was now, the leaders argued, no longer a +question of eventual effect; the North had proclaimed a motive and that +motive was the extinction of slavery. Great numbers of Englishmen of all +classes who had hitherto held back from supporting Cobden and Bright now +ranged themselves on their side. Addresses of praise and sympathy "began +to pour into the Legation of the United States in a steady and ever +swelling stream." An immense popular demonstration took place at Exeter +Hall. Cobden, writing to Sumner, described the new situation in British +politics, in a letter amounting to an assurance that the Government +never again would attempt to resist the popular pressure in favor of the +North. + +On the last day of 1862 a meeting of workingmen at Manchester, where the +cotton famine was causing untold misery, adopted one of those New +Year greetings to Lincoln. Lincoln's reply expressed with his usual +directness his own view of the sympathetic relation that had been +established between the democratic classes of the two countries: + +"I know and deeply deplore the sufferings which the workingmen at +Manchester, and in all Europe, are called to endure in this crisis. It +has been often and studiously represented that the attempt to overthrow +this Government, which was built upon the foundation of human rights, +and to substitute for it one which should rest exclusively on the basis +of human slavery, was likely to obtain the favor of Europe. Through +the action of our disloyal citizens, the workingmen of Europe have been +subjected to severe trials, for the purpose of forcing their sanction to +that attempt. Under the circumstances, I cannot but regard your decisive +utterances upon the question as an instance of sublime Christian heroism +which has not been surpassed in any age or in any country. It is indeed +an energetic and reinspiring assurance of the inherent power of truth, +and of the ultimate triumph of justice, humanity, and freedom. I do not +doubt that the sentiments you have expressed will be sustained by your +great nation; and, on the other hand, I have no hesitation in assuring +you that they will excite admiration, esteem, and the most reciprocal +feelings of friendship among the American people. I hail this +interchange of sentiment, therefore, as an augury that whatever else may +happen, whatever misfortune may befall your country or my own, the peace +and friendship which now exists between the two nations will be, as it +shall be my desire to make them, perpetual." + + + +CHAPTER X. THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY + +Though the defeat of the Democrats at the polls in 1863 and the now +definitely friendly attitude of England had done much to secure the +stability of the Lincoln Government, this success was due in part to +a figure which now comes to the front and deserves attentive +consideration. Indeed the work of Salmon Portland Chase, Secretary of +the Treasury, forms a bridge, as one might say, between the first and +second phases of Lincoln's administration. + +The interesting Englishman who is the latest biographer of Lincoln says +of Chase: "Unfortunately, this imposing person was a sneak." But is +Lord Charnwood justified in that surprising characterization? He finds +support in the testimony of Secretary Welles, who calls Chase, "artful +dodger, unstable, and unreliable." And yet there is another side, for +it is the conventional thing in America to call him our greatest finance +minister since Hamilton, and even a conspicuous enemy said of him, at a +crucial moment, that his course established his character "as an honest +and frank man." + +Taking these contradictory estimates as hints of a contradiction in the +man, we are forced to the conclusion that Chase was a professional +in politics and an amateur in finance. Perhaps herein is the whole +explanation of the two characteristics of his financial policy--his +reluctance to lay taxes, and his faith in loans. His two eyes did not +see things alike. One was really trying to make out the orthodox path +of finance; the other was peering along the more devious road of popular +caprice. + +The opening of the war caught the Treasury, as it caught all branches of +the Government, utterly unprepared. Between April and July, 1861, Chase +had to borrow what he could. When Congress met in July, his real career +as director of financial policy began--or, as his enemies think, failed +to begin. At least, he failed to urge upon Congress the need of new +taxes and appeared satisfied with himself asking for an issue of +$240,000,000 in bonds bearing not less than seven per cent interest. +Congress voted to give him $250,000,000 of which $50,000,000 might be +interest-bearing treasury notes; made slight increases in duties; and +Prepared for excise and direct taxation the following year. Later in +the year Congress laid a three per cent tax on all incomes in excess of +$800. + +When Congress reassembled in December, 1861, expenditures were racing +ahead of receipts, and there was a deficit of $143,000,000. It must not +be forgotten that this month was a time of intense excitability and of +nervous reaction. Fremont had lately been removed, and the attack on +Cameron had begun. At this crucial moment the situation was made still +more alarming by the action of the New York banks, followed by all other +banks, in suspending specie payments. They laid the responsibility upon +Chase. A syndicate of banks in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia had +come to the aid of the Government, but when they took up government +bonds, Chase had required them to pay the full value cash down, though +they had asked permission to hold the money on deposit and to pay it as +needed on requisition by the Government. Furthermore, in spite of their +protest, Chase issued treasury notes, which the banks had to receive +from their depositors, who nevertheless continued to demand specie. +On January 1, 1862, the banks owed $459,000,000 and had in specie only +$87,000,000. Chase defended his course by saying that the financial +crisis was not due to his policy--or lack of policy, as it would now +seem--but to a general loss of faith in the outcome of the war. + +There now arose a moral crisis for this "imposing person" who was +Secretary of the Treasury--a crisis with regard to which there are +still differences of opinion. While he faced his problem silently, the +Committee on Ways and Means in the House took the matter in hand: Its +solution was an old one which all sound theorists on finance unite in +condemning--the issue of irredeemable paper money. And what did the +Secretary of the Treasury do? Previously, as Governor of Ohio, he had +denounced paper money as, in effect, a fraud upon society. Long after, +when the tide of fortune had landed him in the high place of Supreme +Justice, he returned to this view and condemned as unconstitutional the +law of 1862 establishing a system of paper money. But at the time +when that law was passed Chase, though he went through the form of +protesting, soon acquiesced. Before long he was asking Congress to allow +a further issue of what he had previously called "fraudulent" money. + +The answer to the question whether Chase should have stuck to his +principles and resigned rather than acquiesce in the paper money +legislation turns on that other question--how were the politician and +the financier related in his make-up? + +Before Congress and the Secretary had finished, $450,000,000 were +issued. Prices naturally rose, and there was speculation in gold. Even +before the first issue of paper money, the treasury notes had been +slightly below par. In January, 1863, a hundred dollars in paper would +bring, in New York, only $69.00 in gold; a year later, after falling, +rising, and falling again, the value was $64.00; in July and August, +1864, it was at its lowest, $39.00; when the war closed, it had risen to +$67.00. There was powerful protest against the legislation responsible +for such a condition of affairs. Justin Morrill, the author of the +Morrill tariff, said, "I would as soon provide Chinese wooden guns +for the army as paper money alone for the army. It will be a breach of +public faith. It will injure creditors; it will increase prices; it will +increase many fold the cost of the war." Recent students agree, in the +main, that his prophecies were fulfilled; and a common estimate of the +probable increase in the cost of the war through the use of paper money +and the consequent inflation of prices is $600,000,000. + +There was much more financial legislation in 1862; but Chase continued +to stand aside and allow Congress the lead in establishing an excise +law, an increase in the income tax, and a higher tariff--the last of +which was necessitated by the excise law which has been described as a +bill "that taxed everything." To enable American manufacturers to bear +the excise duties levied upon their business, protection was evoked +to secure them the possession of their field by excluding foreign +competition. All these taxes, however, produced but a fraction of the +Government's revenue. Borrowing, the favorite method of the Secretary, +was accepted by Congress as the main resource. It is computed that +by means of taxation there was raised in the course of the war +$667,163,247.00, while during the same period the Government borrowed +$2,621,916,786.00. + +Whatever else he may think of Chase, no one denies that in 1862 he had +other interests besides finance. Lincoln's Cabinet in those days was +far from an harmonious body. All through its history there was a Chase +faction and a Seward faction. The former had behind them the Radical +Republicans, while the latter relied upon the support of the moderates. +This division in the Republican party runs deep through the politics +of the time. There seems to be good reason to think that Chase was not +taken by surprise when his radical allies in Congress, in December, +1862, demanded of Lincoln the removal of Seward. It will be remembered +that the elections of the autumn of 1862 had gone against Lincoln. At +this moment of dismay, the friends of Chase struck their blow. Seward +instantly offered his resignation. But Lincoln skillfully temporized. +Thereupon, Chase also resigned. Judging from the scanty evidence we have +of his intention, we may conclude that he thought he had Lincoln in +a corner and that he expected either to become first minister or the +avowed chief of an irresistible opposition. But he seems to have gone +too fast for his followers. Lincoln had met them, together with his +Cabinet, in a conference in December, 1862, and frankly discussed the +situation, with the result that some of them wavered. When Lincoln +informed both Seward and Chase that he declined to accept their +resignations, both returned--Seward with alacrity, Chase with +reluctance. One of the clues to Lincoln's cabinet policy was his +determination to keep both these factions committed to the Government, +without allowing himself to be under the thumb of either. + +During the six months following the cabinet crisis Chase appears at +his best. A stupendous difficulty lay before him and he attacked it +manfully. The Government's deficit was $276,900,000. Of the loans +authorized in 1862--the "five-twenties" as they were called, bringing +six per cent and to run from five to twenty years at the Government's +pleasure---the sales had brought in, to December, 1862, only +$23,750,000, though five hundred million had been expected. The banks in +declining to handle these bonds laid the blame on the Secretary, who had +insisted that all purchasers should take them at par. + +It is not feasible, in a work of this character, to enter into the +complexities of the financial situation of 1863, or to determine just +what influences caused a revolution in the market for government bonds. +But two factors must be mentioned. Chase was induced to change his +attitude and to sell to banks large numbers of bonds at a rate below +par, thus enabling the banks to dispose of them at a profit. He also +called to his aid Jay Cooke, an experienced banker, who was allowed a +commission of one-half per cent on all bonds sold up to $10,000,000 and +three-eighths of one per cent after that. Cooke organized a countrywide +agency system, with twenty-five hundred subagents through whom he +offered directly to the people bonds in small denominations. By all +manner of devices, patriotism and the purchase of bonds were made to +appear the same thing, and before the end of the year $400,000,000 +in five-twenty bonds had been sold. This campaign to dispose of the +five-twenties was the turning-point in war finance, and later borrowings +encountered no such difficulties as those of 1862 and 1863. + +Better known today than this precarious legislation is the famous Act +of 1863, which was amended in the next year and which forms the basis +of our present system of national banks. To Chase himself the credit for +this seems to be due. Even in 1861 he advised Congress to establish +a system of national banks, and he repeated the advice before it was +finally taken. The central feature of this system which he advocated is +one with which we are still familiar: permission to the banks accepting +government supervision to deposit government bonds in the Treasury and +to acquire in return the right to issue bank-notes to the amount of +ninety per cent of the value of the bonds. + +There can be no doubt that Chase himself rated very highly his own +services to his country. Nor is there any doubt that, alone among +Lincoln's close associates, he continued until the end to believe +himself a better man than the President. He and his radical following +made no change in their attitude to Lincoln, though Chase pursued +a course of confidential criticism which has since inspired the +characterization of him as a "sneak," while his followers were more +outspoken. In the summer of 1863 Chase was seriously talked of as the +next President, and before the end of the year Chase clubs were being +organized in all the large cities to promote his candidacy. Chase +himself took the adroit position of not believing that any President +should serve a second term. + +Early in 1864 the Chase organization sent out a confidential circular +signed by Senator Pomeroy of Kansas setting forth the case against +Lincoln as a candidate and the case in favor of Chase. Unfortunately +for Chase, this circular fell into the hands of a newspaper and was +published. Chase at once wrote to Lincoln denying any knowledge of the +circular but admitting his candidacy and offering his resignation. No +more remarkable letter was written by Lincoln than his reply to Chase, +in which he showed that he had long fully understood the situation, and +which he closed with these words: "Whether you shall remain at the head +of the Treasury Department is a question which I do not allow myself +to consider from any standpoint other than my judgment of the public +service, and, in that view, I do not perceive occasion for change." + +The Chase boom rapidly declined. The deathblow was given by a caucus of +the Union members of the legislature of his own State nominating Lincoln +"at the demand of the people and the soldiers of Ohio." The defeat +embittered Chase. For several months, however, he continued in the +Cabinet, and during this time he had the mortification of seeing Lincoln +renominated in the National Union Convention amid a great display of +enthusiasm. + +More than once in the past, Chase had offered his resignation. On one +occasion Lincoln had gone to his house and had begged him to reconsider +his decision. Soon after the renomination, Chase again offered his +resignation upon the pretext of a disagreement with the President over +appointments to office. This time, however, Lincoln felt the end had +come and accepted the resignation. Chase's successor in the Treasury was +William Pitt Fessenden, Senator from Maine. During most of the summer +of 1864 Chase stood aside, sullen and envious, watching the progress of +Lincoln toward a second election. So much did his bitterness affect his +judgment that he was capable of writing in his diary his belief that +Lincoln meant to reverse his policy and consent to peace with slavery +reestablished. + + + +CHAPTER XI. NORTHERN LIFE DURING THE WAR + +The real effects of war on the life of nations is one of those old and +complicated debates which lie outside the scope of a volume such as +this. Yet in the particular case of the Northern people it is imperative +to answer two questions both of which have provoked interminable +discussion: Was the moral life of the North good or bad in the war +years? Was its commercial life sound? + +As to the moral question, contemporary evidence seems at first sight +contradictory. The very able Englishman who represented the "Times", +William H. Russell, gives this ugly picture of an American city in 1863: + +"Every fresh bulletin from the battlefield of Chickamauga, during my +three weeks' stay in Cincinnati, brought a long list of the dead and +wounded of the Western army, many of whom, of the officers, belonged to +the best families of the place. Yet the signs of mourning were hardly +anywhere perceptible; the noisy gaiety of the town was not abated one +jot." + +On the other hand, a private manuscript of a Cincinnati family describes +the "intense gloom hanging over the city like a pall" during the period +of that dreadful battle. The memories of old people at Cincinnati in +after days--if they had belonged to the "loyal" party--contained only +sad impressions of a city that was one great hospital where "all +our best people" worked passionately as volunteer assistants of the +government medical corps. + +A third fact to be borne in mind in connection with this apparent +contradiction in evidence is the source of the greater fortunes of +Cincinnati, a large proportion of which are to be traced, directly or +indirectly to government contracts during the war. In some cases the +merciless indifference of the Cincinnati speculators to the troubles +of their country are a local scandal to this day, and it is still told, +sometimes with scorn, sometimes with amusement, how perhaps the greatest +of these fortunes was made by forcing up the price of iron at a time +when the Government had to have iron, cost what it might. + +Thus we no sooner take up the moral problem of the times than we find +ourselves involved in the commercial question, for here, as always, +morals and business are intertwined. Was the commercial management of +the North creditable to the Government and an honor to the people? The +surest way to answer such questions is to trace out with some fullness +the commercial and industrial conditions of the North during the four +years of war. + +The general reader who looks for the first time into the matter is +likely to be staggered by what statistics seem to say. Apparently they +contradict what he is accustomed to hear from popular economists about +the waste of war. He has been told in the newspapers that business is +undermined by the withdrawal of great numbers of men from "productive" +consumption of the fruits of labor and their engagement as soldiers in +"unproductive" consumption. But, to his astonishment, he finds that the +statistics of 1861-1865 show much increase in Northern business--as, +for example, in 1865, the production of 142 million pounds of wool +against 60 million in 1860. The government reports show that 13 million +tons of coal were mined in 1860 and 21 million in 1864; in 1860, the +output of pig iron was 821,000 tons, and 1,014,282 tons in 1864; the +petroleum production rose from 21 million gallons in 1860 to 128 +million in 1862; the export of corn, measured in money, shows for 1860 +a business of $2,399,808 compared with $10,592,704 for 1863; wheat +exporting showed, also, an enormous increase, rising from 14 millions +in 1860 to 46 millions in 1863. There are, to be sure, many statistics +which seem to contradict these. Some of them will be mentioned +presently. And yet, on the whole, it seems safe to conclude that the +North, at the close of the third year of war was producing more and was +receiving larger profits than in 1860. + +To deal with this subject in its entirety would lead us into the +labyrinths of complex economic theory, yet two or three simple facts +appear so plain that even the mere historian may venture to set them +forth. When we look into the statistics which seem to show a general +increase of business during the war, we find that in point of fact this +increase was highly specialized. All those industries that dealt with +the physical necessities of life and all those that dealt peculiarly +with armies flourished amazingly. And yet there is another side to the +story, for there were other industries that were set back and some that +almost, if not entirely, disappeared. A good instance is the manufacture +of cotton cloth. When the war opened, 200,000 hands were employed in +this manufacture in New England. With the sealing up of the South and +the failure of the cotton supply, their work temporarily ceased. What +became of the workmen? Briefly, one of three things happened: some went +into other trades, such as munitions, in which the war had created an +abnormal demand for labor; a great number of them became soldiers; and +many of them went West and became farmers or miners. Furthermore, +many whose trades were not injured by the war left their jobs and fled +westward to escape conscription. Their places were left open to be +filled by operatives from the injured trades. In one or another of +these ways the laborer who was thrown out of work was generally able to +recover employment. But it is important to remember that the key to the +labor situation at that time was the vast area of unoccupied land which +could be had for nothing or next to nothing. This fact is brought +home by a comparison of the situation of the American with that of the +English workman during the cotton famine. According to its own ideas +England was then fully cultivated. There was no body of land waiting +to be thrown open, as an emergency device, to a host of new-made +agriculturists. When the cotton-mills stopped at Manchester, their +operatives had practically no openings but in other industrial +occupations. As such opportunities were lacking, they became objects of +charity until they could resume their work. As a country with a great +reserve of unoccupied land, the United States was singularly fortunate +at this economic crisis. + +One of the noteworthy features of Northern life during the war is that +there was no abnormal increase in pauperism. A great deal has been +written upon the extensive charities of the time, but the term is +wrongly applied, for what is really referred to is the volunteer aid +given to the Government in supporting the armies. This was done on +a vast scale, by all classes of the population--that is, by all who +supported the Union party, for the separation between the two parties +was bitter and unforgiving. But of charity in the ordinary sense of the +care of the destitute there was no significant increase because there +was no peculiar need. Here again the fact that the free land could +be easily reached is the final explanation. There was no need for the +unemployed workman to become a pauper. He could take advantage of the +Homestead Act*, which was passed in 1862, and acquire a farm of 160 +acres free; or he could secure at almost nominal cost farm-land +which had been given to railways as an inducement to build. Under the +Homestead Act, the Government gave away land amounting to 2,400,000 +acres before the close of the war. The Illinois Central alone sold to +actual settlers 221,000 acres in 1863 and 264,000 in 1864. It was during +the war, too, that the great undertaking of the transcontinental railway +was begun, partly for military and partly for commercial reasons. In +this project, both as a field of labor and as a stimulus to Western +settlement, there is also to be found one more device for the relief of +the labor situation in the East. + + *This Act, which may be regarded as the culmination of the + long battle of the Northern dreamers to win "land for the + landless," provided that every settler who was, or intended + to be, a citizen might secure 180 acres of government land + by living on it and cultivating it for five years. + +There is no more important phenomenon of the time than the shifting of +large masses of population from the East to the West, while the war was +in progress. This fact begins to indicate why there was no shortage in +the agricultural output. The North suffered acutely from inflation of +prices and from a speculative wildness that accompanied the inflation, +but it did not suffer from a lack of those things that are produced by +the soil--food, timber, metals, and coal. In addition to the reason just +mentioned--the search for new occupation by Eastern labor which had +been thrown out of employment--three other causes helped to maintain the +efficiency of work in the mines, in the forests, and on the farms. These +three factors were immigration, the labor of women, and labor-saving +machines. + +Immigration, naturally, fell off to a certain degree but it did not +become altogether negligible. It is probable that 110,000 able-bodied +men came into the country while war was in progress--a poor offset +to the many hundred thousand who became soldiers, but nevertheless a +contribution that counted for something. + +Vastly more important, in the work of the North, was the part taken by +women. A pathetic detail with which in our own experience the world has +again become familiar was the absence of young men throughout most +of the North, and the presence of women new to the work in many +occupations, especially farming. A single quotation from a home +missionary in Iowa tells the whole story: + +"I will mention that I met more women driving teams on the road and saw +more at work in the fields than men. They seem to have said to their +husbands in the language of a favorite song, + + 'Just take your gun and go; + For Ruth can drive the oxen, John, + And I can use the hoe!' + +"I went first to Clarinda, and the town seemed deserted. Upon inquiry +for former friends, the frequent answer was, 'In the army.' From +Hawleyville almost all the thoroughly loyal male inhabitants had gone; +and in one township beyond, where I formerly preached, there are but +seven men left, and at Quincy, the county seat of Adams County, but +five." + +Even more important than the change in the personnel of labor were the +new machines of the day. During the fifteen years previous to the war +American ingenuity had reached a high point. Such inventions as the +sewing machine and the horse-reaper date in their practical forms from +that period, and both of these helped the North to fight the war. Their +further improvement, and the extension of the principles involved to +many new forms of machinery, sprang from the pressing need to make up +for the loss of men who were drained by the army from the farms and the +workshops. It was the horse-reaper, the horse-rake, the horse-thresher +that enabled women and boys to work the farms while husbands, fathers, +and elder brothers were at the front. + +All these causes maintained Northern farming at a high pitch of +productivity. This efficiency is implied in some of the figures already +quoted, but many others could be cited. For example, in 1859, the total +production of wheat for the whole country was 173 million bushels; in +1862, the North alone produced 177 millions; even in 1864, with over a +million men under arms, it still produced 160 million bushels. + +It must be remembered that the great Northern army produced nothing +while it consumed the products of agriculture and manufacture--food, +clothing, arms, ammunition, cannon, wagons, horses, medical stores--at +a rate that might have led a poetical person to imagine the army as +a devouring dragon. Who, in the last analysis, provided all these +supplies? Who paid the soldiers? Who supplemented their meager pay and +supported their families? The people, of course; and they did so both +directly and indirectly. In taxes and loans they paid to the Government +about three thousand millions of dollars. Their indirect assistance was +perhaps as great, though it is impossible today to estimate with any +approach to accuracy the amount either in money or service. Among +obvious items are the collections made by the Sanitary Commission for +the benefit of the hospital service, amounting to twenty-five million +dollars, and about six millions raised by the Christian Commission. In +a hundred other ways both individuals and localities strained their +resources to supplement those of the Government. Immense subscription +lists were circulated to raise funds for the families of soldiers. The +city of Philadelphia alone spent in this way in a single year $600,000. +There is also evidence of a vast amount of unrecorded relief of +needy families by the neighbors, and in the farming districts, such +assistance, particularly in the form of fuel during winter, was very +generally given. + +What made possible this enormous total of contributions was, in a word, +the general willingness of those supporting the war to forego luxuries. +They ceased buying a great multitude of unnecessary things. But +what became of the labor that had previously supplied the demand for +luxuries? A part of it went the way of all other Northern labor--into +new trades, into the army, or to the West--and a part continued to +manufacture luxuries: for their market, though curtailed, was not +destroyed. There were, indeed, two populations in the North, and they +were separated by an emotional chasm. Had all the North been a unit in +feeling, the production of articles of luxury might have ceased. +Because of this emotional division of the North, however, this business +survived; for the sacrifice of luxurious expenditure was made by only a +part of the population, even though it was the majority. + +Furthermore, the whole matter was adjusted voluntarily without +systematic government direction, since there was nothing in the +financial policy of the Government to correspond to conscription. +Consequently, both in the way of loans and in the way of contributions, +as well as in the matter of unpaid service, the entire burden fell +upon the war party alone. In the absence of anything like economic +conscription, if such a phrase may be used, those Northerners who did +not wish to lend money, or to make financial sacrifice, or to give +unpaid service, were free to pursue their own bent. The election of 1864 +showed that they formed a market which amounted to something between six +and nine millions. There is no reason to suppose that these millions in +1864 spent less on luxuries than they did in 1860. Two or three items +are enough. In 1860, the importation of silk amounted to 32 million +dollars; in 1862, in spite of inflated prices, it had shrunk to 7 +millions; the consumption of malt liquors shrank from 101 million +gallons in 1860 to 62 million gallons in 1863; of coffee, hardly to be +classed as a luxury, there were consumed in 1861, 184 million pounds and +in 1863, 80 millions. + +The clue to the story of capital is to be found in this fact, too often +forgotten, that there was an economic-political division cutting deep +through every stratum of the Northern people. Their economic life +as well as their political life was controlled on the one hand by a +devotion to the cause of the war, and on the other hand by a hatred +of that cause or by cynical indifference. And we cannot insist too +positively that the Government failed very largely to take this fact +into account. The American spirit of invention, so conspicuous at that +time in mechanics, did not apply itself to the science of government. +Lincoln confessedly was not a financier; his instinct was at home only +in problems that could be stated in terms of men. Witness his acceptance +of conscription and his firmness in carrying it through, as a result +of which he saved the patriotic party from bearing the whole burden of +military service. But there was no parallel conservation of power in the +field of industry. The financial policy, left in the hands of Chase, may +truly be described as barren of ideas. Incidentally, it may be mentioned +that the "loyal" North was left at the mercy of its domestic enemies and +a prey to parasites by Chase's policy of loans instead of taxes and of +voluntary support instead of enforced support. + +The consequence of this financial policy was an immense opportunity for +the "disloyally" and the parasites to make huge war profits out of the +"loyals" and the Government. Of course, it must not be supposed that +everyone who seized the chance to feather his nest was so careless or so +impolitic as to let himself be classed as a "disloyal." An incident of +the autumn of 1861 shows the temper of those professed "loyals" who were +really parasites. The background of the incident is supplied by a report +of the Quartermaster-General: + +"Governors daily complain that recruiting will stop unless clothing is +sent in abundance and immediately to the various recruiting camps and +regiments. With every exertion, this department has not been able to +obtain clothing to supply these demands, and they have been so urgent +that troops before the enemy have been compelled to do picket duty in +the late cold nights without overcoats, or even coats, wearing only thin +summer flannel blouses.... Could 150,000 suits of clothing, overcoats, +coats, and pantaloons be placed today, in depot, it would scarce supply +the calls now before us. They would certainly leave no surplus." + +The Government attempted to meet this difficulty in the shortest +possible time by purchasing clothing abroad. But such disregard of home +industry, the "patriotism" of the New England manufacturers could not +endure. Along with the report just quoted, the Quartermaster-General +forwarded to the Secretary of War a long argumentative protest from +a committee of the Boston Board of Trade against the purchase of army +clothing in Europe. Any American of the present day can guess how +the protest was worded and what arguments were used. Stripped of its +insincerity, it signified this: the cotton mills were inoperative for +lack of material; their owners saw no chance to save their dividends +except by re-equipment as woolen mills; the existing woolen mills also saw +a great chance to force wool upon the market as a substitute for cotton. +In Ohio, California, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, the growers of wool saw +the opportunity with equal clearness. But, one and all, these various +groups of parasites saw that their game hinged on one condition: the +munitions market must be kept open until they were ready to monopolize +government contracts. If soldiers contracted pneumonia doing picket duty +on cold nights, in their summer blouses, that was but an unfortunate +incident of war. + +Very different in spirit from the protest of the Boston manufacturers +is a dispatch from the American minister at Brussels which shows what +American public servants, in contrast with American manufacturers, were +about. Abroad the agents of North and South were fighting a commercial +duel in which each strove to monopolize the munitions market. The United +States Navy, seeing things from an angle entirely different from that of +the Boston Board of Trade, ably seconded the ministers by blockading the +Southern ports and by thus preventing the movement of specie and cotton +to Europe. As a consequence, fourmonth notes which had been given by +Southern agents with their orders fell due, had to be renewed, and +began to be held in disfavor. Agents of the North, getting wind of +these hitches in negotiations, eagerly sought to take over the unpaid +Confederate orders. All these details of the situation help to explain +the jubilant tone of this dispatch from Brussels late in November, 1861: + +"I have now in my hands complete control of the principal rebel +contracts on the continent, viz.: 206,000 yards of cloth ready for +delivery, already commencing to move forward to Havre; gray but can +be dyed blue in twenty days; 100,000 yards deliverable from 15th of +December to 26th of January, light blue army cloth, same as ours; +100,000 blankets; 40,000 guns to be shipped in ten days; 20,000 saber +bayonets to be delivered in six weeks.... The winter clothing for +100,000 men taken out of their hands, when they cannot replace it, would +almost compensate for Bull Run. There is no considerable amount of cloth +to be had in Europe; the stocks are very short." + +The Secretary of War was as devoid of ideas as the Secretary of the +Treasury was and even less equipped with resisting power. Though he +could not undo the work already done by the agents of the Government +abroad, he gave way as rapidly as possible to the allied parasites whose +headquarters, at the moment, were in Boston. The story grows uglier +as we proceed. Two powerful commercial combinations took charge of the +policy of the woolen interests--the National Woolgrowers' Association +and the National Association of Wool Manufacturers, which were soon in +control of this immense industry. Woolen mills sprang up so fast that +a report of the New York Chamber of Commerce pronounced their increase +"scarcely credible." So great was the new market created by the +Government demand, and so ruthless were the parasites in forcing up +prices, that dividends on mill stock rose to 10, 15, 25, and even 40 per +cent. And all the while the wool growers and the wool manufacturers were +clamoring to Congress for protection of the home industry, exclusion +of the wicked foreign competition, and all in the name of their devoted +"patriotism"--patriotism with a dividend of 40 per cent! + +Of course, it is not meant that every wool grower and every woolen +manufacturer was either a "disloyal" or a parasite. By no means. Numbers +of them were to be found in that great host of "loyals" who put their +dividends into government bonds and gave their services unpaid as +auxiliaries of the Commissary Department or the Hospital Service of +the Army. What is meant is that the abnormal conditions of industry, +uncorrected by the Government, afforded a glaring opportunity for +unscrupulous men of business who, whatever their professions, cared a +hundred times more for themselves than for their country. To these +was due the pitiless hampering of the army in the interest of the +wool-trade. For example, many uniforms paid for at outrageous prices, +turned out to be made of a miserable cheap fabric, called "shoddy," +which resisted weather scarcely better than paper. This fraud gave +the word "shoddy" its present significance in our American speech and +produced the phrase--applied to manufacturers newly become rich--"shoddy +aristocracy." An even more shameful result of the selfishness of the +manufacturers and of the weakness of the Government was the use of cloth +for uniforms not of the regulation colors, with the result that soldiers +sometimes fired upon their comrades by mistake. + +The prosperity of the capitalists who financed the woolen business did +not extend to the labor employed in it. One of the ugliest details of +the time was the resolute attempt of the parasites to seize the whole +amount of the abnormal profits they wrung from the Government and from +the people. For it must not be forgotten that the whole nation had to +pay their prices. It is estimated that prices in the main advanced about +100 per cent while wages were not advanced more than sixty per cent. +It is not strange that these years of war form a period of bitter +antagonism between labor and capital. + +What went on in the woolen business is to be found more or less in every +business. Immense fortunes sprang up over night. They had but two +roots: government contracts and excessive profits due to war prices. The +gigantic fortunes which characterized the North at the end of the war +are thus accounted for. The so-called prosperity of the time was a +class prosperity and was absorbed by parasites who fattened upon the +necessities of the Government and the sacrifices of the people. + + + +CHAPTER XII. THE MEXICAN EPISODE + +That French demagogue whom Victor Hugo aptly called Napoleon the Little +was a prime factor in the history of the Union and the Confederacy. The +Confederate side of his intrigue will be told in its proper place. Here, +let us observe him from the point of view of Washington. + +It is too much to attempt to pack into a sentence or two the complicated +drama of deceit, lies, and graft, through which he created at last a +pretext for intervention in the affairs of Mexico; it is enough that in +the autumn of 1862 a French army of invasion marched from Vera Cruz upon +Mexico City. We have already seen that about this same time Napoleon +proposed to England and Russia a joint intervention with France between +North and South--a proposal which, however, was rejected. This Mexican +venture explains why the plan was suggested at that particular time. + +Disappointed in England and Russia, Napoleon unexpectedly received +encouragement, as he thought, from within the United States through the +medium of the eccentric editor of the "New York Tribune". We shall +have occasion to return later to the adventures of Horace Greeley--that +erratic individual who has many good and generous acts to his credit, as +well as many foolish ones. For the present we have to note that toward +the close of 1862 he approached the French Ambassador at Washington +with a request for imperial mediation between the North and the South. +Greeley was a type of American that no European can understand: he +believed in talk, and more talk, and still more talk, as the cure for +earthly ills. He never could understand that anybody besides himself +could have strong convictions. When he told the Ambassador that the +Emperor's mediation would lead to a reconciliation of the sections, he +was doubtless sincere in his belief. The astute European diplomat, who +could not believe such simplicity, thought it a mask. When he asked for, +and received, permission to pass the Federal lines and visit Richmond, +he interpreted the permit in the light of his assumption about Greeley. +At Richmond, he found no desire for reunion. Putting this and that +together, he concluded that the North wanted to give up the fight +and would welcome mediation to save its face. The dreadful defeat at +Fredericksburg fell in with this reasoning. His reports on American +conditions led Napoleon, in January, 1863, to attempt alone what he had +once hoped to do supported by England and Russia. He proposed his good +offices to the Government at Washington as a mediator between North and +South. + +Hitherto, Washington had been very discreet about Mexico. Adroit hints +not to go too far had been given Napoleon in full measure, but there was +no real protest. The State Department now continued this caution and in +the most polite terms declined Napoleon's offer. Congress, however, took +the matter more grimly, for throughout the dealings with Napoleon, it +had been at odds with Lincoln. It now passed the first of a series of +resolutions which expressed the will of the country, if not quite +the will of the President, by resolving that any further proposal of +mediation would be regarded by it as "an unfriendly act." + +Napoleon then resumed his scheming for joint intervention, while in +the meantime his armies continued to fight their way until they entered +Mexico City in June, 1863. The time had now come when Napoleon thought +it opportune to show his hand. Those were the days when Lee appeared +invincible, and when Chancellorsville crowned a splendid series of +triumphs. In England, the Southern party made a fresh start; and +societies were organized to aid the Confederacy. At Liverpool, +Laird Brothers were building, ostensibly for France, really for the +Confederacy, two ironclads supposed to outclass every ship in the +Northern navy. In France, 100,000 unemployed cotton hands were rioting +for food. To raise funds for the Confederacy the great Erlanger +banking-house of Paris negotiated a loan based on cotton which was to +be delivered after the breaking of the blockade. Napoleon dreamed of a +shattered American union, two enfeebled republics, and a broad way for +his own scheme in Mexico. + +In June an English politician of Southern sympathies, Edward Roebuck, +went over to France, was received by the Emperor, and came to an +understanding with him. Roebuck went home to report to the Southern +party that Napoleon was ready to intervene, and that all he waited for +was England's cooperation. A motion "to enter into negotiations with the +Great Powers of Europe for the purpose of obtaining their cooperation +in the recognition" of the Confederacy was introduced by Roebuck in the +House of Commons. + +The debate which followed was the last chance of the Southern party +and, as events proved, the last chance of Napoleon. How completely the +British ministry was now committed to the North appears in the fact that +Gladstone, for the Government, opposed Roebuck's motion. John Bright +attacked it in what Lord Morley calls "perhaps the most powerful and the +noblest speech of his life." The Southern party was hardly resolute in +their support of Roebuck and presently he withdrew his motion. + +But there were still the ironclads at Liverpool. We have seen that +earlier in the war, the carelessness of the British authorities had +permitted the escape of ship 290, subsequently known as the Confederate +commerce-destroyer, Alabama. The authorities did not wish to allow a +repetition of the incident. But could it be shown that the Laird +ships were not really for a French purchaser? It was in the course +of diplomatic conversations that Mr. Adams, speaking of the possible +sailing of the ships, made a remark destined to become famous: "It would +be superfluous in me to point out to your lordship that this is war." At +jest, the authorities were satisfied. The ships were seized and in the +end bought for the British Navy. + +Again Napoleon stood alone. Not only had he failed to obtain aid +from abroad, but in France itself his Mexican schemes were widely and +bitterly condemned. Yet he had gone too far to recede, and what he +had been aiming at all along was now revealed. An assembly of Mexican +notables, convened by the general of the invaders, voted to set up an +imperial government and offered the crown to Napoleon's nominee, the +Archduke Maximilian of Austria. + +And now the Government at Washington was faced with a complicated +problem. What about the Monroe Doctrine? Did the Union dare risk war +with France? Did it dare pass over without protest the establishment +of monarchy on American soil by foreign arms? Between these horns of +a dilemma, the Government maintained its precarious position during +another year. Seward's correspondence with Paris was a masterpiece of +evasion. He neither protested against the intervention of Napoleon +nor acknowledged the authority of Maximilian. Apparently, both he +and Lincoln were divided between fear of a French alliance with the +Confederacy and fear of premature action in the North that would render +Napoleon desperate. Just how far they comprehended Napoleon and his +problems is an open question. + +Whether really comprehending or merely trusting to its instinct, +Congress took a bolder course. Two men prove the antagonists of a +parliamentary duel--Charles Sumner, chairman of the Senate Committee on +Foreign Relations, and Henry Winter Davis, chairman of the corresponding +committee of the House. Sumner played the hand of the Administration. +Fiery resolutions demanding the evacuation of Mexico or an American +declaration of war were skillfully buried in the silence of Sumner's +committee. But there was nevertheless one resolution that affected +history: it was a ringing condemnation of the attempt to establish +a monarchy in Mexico. In the House, a joint resolution which Davis +submitted was passed without one dissenting vote. When it came to the +Senate, Sumner buried it as he had buried earlier resolutions. None the +less it went out to the world attended by the news of the unanimous vote +in the House. + +Shortly afterwards, the American Ambassador at Paris called upon the +imperial Foreign Secretary, M. Drouyn de L'huys. News of this resolution +had preceded him. He was met by the curt question, "Do you bring peace +or war?" Again, the Washington Government was skillfully evasive. The +Ambassador was instructed to explain that the resolution had not been +inspired by the President and "the French Government would be seasonably +apprized of any change of policy...which the President might at any +future time think it proper to adopt." + +There seems little doubt that Lincoln's course was very widely condemned +as timid. When we come to the political campaign of 1864, we shall +meet Henry Winter Davis among his most relentless personal enemies. +Dissatisfaction with Lincoln's Mexican policy has not been sufficiently +considered in accounting for the opposition to him, inside the war +party, in 1864. To it may be traced an article in the platform of the +war party, adopted in June, 1864, protesting against the establishment +of monarchy "in near proximity to the United States." In the same month +Maximilian entered Mexico City. + +The subsequent moves of Napoleon are explained elsewhere.* The central +fact in the story is his virtual change of attitude, in the summer of +1864. The Confederate agent at Paris complained of a growing coolness. +Before the end of the summer, the Confederate Secretary of State was +bitter in his denunciation of Napoleon for having deserted the South. +Napoleon's puppet Maximilian refused to receive an envoy from the +Confederacy. Though Washington did not formally protest against +the presence of Maximilian in Mexico, it declined to recognize his +Government, and that Government continued unrecognized at Washington +throughout the war. + + *Nathaniel W. Stephenson, "The Day of the Confederacy". (In + "The Chronicles of America"). + + + +CHAPTER XIII. THE PLEBISCITE OF 1864 + +Every great revolution among Anglo-Saxon people--perhaps among all +people--has produced strange types of dreamers. In America, however, +neither section could claim a monopoly of such types, and even the +latter-day visionaries who can see everything in heaven and earth, +excepting fact, had their Northern and Southern originals in the time +of the great American war. Among these is a strange congregation which +assembled in the spring of 1864 and which has come to be known, from its +place of meeting, as the Cleveland Convention. Its coming together was +the result of a loose cooperation among several minor political groups, +all of which were for the Union and the war, and violently opposed to +Lincoln. So far as they had a common purpose, it was to supplant Lincoln +by Fremont in the next election. + +The Convention was notable for the large proportion of agnostics among +its members. A motion was made to amend a resolution that "the Rebellion +must be put down" by adding the words "with God's assistance." This +touch of piety was stormily rejected. Another group represented at +Cleveland was made up of extreme abolitionists under the leadership of +that brilliant but disordered genius, Wendell Phillips. He sent a letter +denouncing Lincoln and pledging his support of Fremont because of the +latter's "clearsighted statesmanship and rare military ability." The +convention declared itself a political party, under the style of the +Radical Democracy, and nominated Fremont for President. + +There was another body of dreamers, still more singular, who were also +bitter opponents of Lincoln. They were, however, not in favor of war. +Their political machinery consisted of secret societies. As early as +1860, the Knights of the Golden Circle were active in Indiana, where +they did yeoman service for Breckinridge. Later this society acquired +some underground influence in other States, especially in Ohio, and did +its share in bringing about the victories at the polls in the autumn of +1862, when the Democrats captured the Indiana legislature. + +The most serious charge against the Golden Circle was complicity in an +attempt to assassinate Oliver P. Morton, Governor of Indiana, who was +fired at, one night, as he was leaving the state house. When Morton +demanded an investigation of the Golden Circle, the legislature refused +to sanction it. On his own authority and with Federal aid he made +investigations and published a report which, if it did not actually +prove treason, came dangerously near to proof. Thereafter, this society +drops out of sight, and its members appear to have formed the new Order +of the American Knights, which in its turn was eclipsed by the Sons +of Liberty. There were several other such societies all organized on a +military plan and with a great pretense of arming their members. This, +however, had to be done surreptitiously. Boxes of rifles purchased +in the East were shipped West labeled "Sunday-school books," and +negotiations were even undertaken with the Confederacy to bring in arms +by way of Canada. At a meeting of the supreme council of the Sons of +Liberty, in New York, February 22, 1864, it was claimed that the order +had nearly a million members, though the Government secret service +considered half a million a more exact estimate. + +As events subsequently proved, the societies were not as formidable as +these figures would imply. Most of the men who joined them seem to have +been fanciful creatures who loved secrecy for its own sake. While real +men, North and South, were laying down their lives for their principles, +these make-believe men were holding bombastic initiations and taking +oaths such as this from the ritual of the American Knights: "I do +further solemnly promise and swear, that I will ever cherish the sublime +lessons which the sacred emblems of our order suggest, and will, so far +as in me lies, impart those lessons to the people of the earth, where +the mystic acorn falls from its parent bough, in whose visible firmament +Orion, Arcturus, and the Pleiades ride in their cold resplendent +glories, and where the Southern Cross dazzles the eye of degraded +humanity with its coruscations of golden light, fit emblem of Truth, +while it invites our sacred order to consecrate her temples in the four +corners of the earth, where moral darkness reigns and despotism holds +sway.... Divine essence, so help me that I fail not in my troth, lest +I shall be summoned before the tribunal of the order, adjudged and +condemned to certain and shameful death, while my name shall be recorded +on the rolls of infamy. Amen." + +The secret orders fought hard to prevent the Lincoln victory in the +elections of 1863. Even before that time their leaders had talked +mysteriously of another disruption of the Union and the formation of +a Northwestern Confederacy in alliance with the South. The scheme was +known to the Confederates, allusions to it are to be found in Southern +newspapers, and even the Confederate military authorities considered it. +Early in 1863, General Beauregard thought the Confederates might "get +into Ohio and call upon the friends of Vallandigham to rise for his +defense and support; then...call upon the whole Northwest to join in the +movement, form a confederacy of their own, and join us by a treaty +of alliance, offensive and defensive." Reliance on the support of the +societies was the will-o'-the-wisp that deceived General John Morgan +in his desperate attempt to carry out Beauregard's programme. Though +brushed aside as a mere detail by military historians, Morgan's raid, +with his force of irregular cavalry, in July, 1863, through Indiana and +Ohio, was one of the most romantic episodes of the war. But it ended +in his defeat and capture. While his gallant troopers rode to their +destruction, the men who loved to swear by Arcturus and to gabble about +the Pleiades showed the fiber to be expected of such people, and stayed +snug in their beds. + +But neither their own lack of hardihood nor the disasters of their +Southern friends could dampen their peculiar ardor. Their hero was +Vallandigham. That redoubtable person had fixed his headquarters in +Canada, whence he directed his partisans in their vain attempt to elect +him Governor of Ohio. Their next move was to honor him with the office +of Supreme Commander of the Sons of Liberty, and now Vallandigham +resolved to win the martyr's crown in very fact. In June, 1864, he +prepared for the dramatic effect by carefully advertising his intention +and came home. But to his great disappointment Lincoln ignored him, and +the dramatic martyrdom which he had planned did not come off. + +There still existed the possibility of a great uprising, and to that +end arrangements were made with Southern agents in Canada. Confederate +soldiers, picked men, made their way in disguise to Chicago. There the +worshipers of Arcturus were to join them in a mighty multitude; the +Confederate prisoners at Camp Douglas in Chicago were to be liberated; +around that core of veterans, the hosts of the Pleiades were to +rally. All this was to coincide with the assembling at Chicago of the +Democratic national convention, in which Vallandigham was to appear. The +organizers of the conspiracy dreamed that the two events might coalesce; +that the convention might be stampeded by their uprising; that a +great part, if not the whole, of the convention would endorse the +establishment of a Northwestern Confederacy. + +Alas for him who builds on the frame of mind that delights in cheap +rhetoric while Rome is afire! At the moment of hazard, the Sons of +Liberty showed the white feather, were full of specious words, would not +act. The Confederate soldiers, indignant at this second betrayal, had to +make their escape from the country. + +It must not be supposed that this Democratic national convention was +made up altogether of Secessionists. The peace party was still, as +in the previous year, a strange complex, a mixture of all sorts and +conditions. Its cohesion was not so much due to its love of peace as to +its dislike of Lincoln and its hatred of his party. Vallandigham was +a member of the committee on resolutions. The permanent chairman was +Governor Seymour of New York. The Convention was called to order by +August Belmont, a foreigner by birth, the American representative of the +Rothschilds. He was the head and front of that body of Northern capital +which had so long financed the South and which had always opposed the +war. In opening the Convention he said: "Four years of misrule by a +sectional, fanatical, and corrupt party have brought our country to the +verge of ruin." In the platform Lincoln was accused of a list of crimes +which it had become the habit of the peace party to charge against +him. His administration was described as "four years of failure," and +McClellan was nominated for President. + +The Republican managers called a convention at Baltimore in June, 1864, +with a view to organizing a composite Union Party in which the War +Democrats were to participate. Their plan was successful. The second +place on the Union ticket was accepted by a War Democrat, Andrew +Johnson, of Tennessee. Lincoln was renominated, though not without +opposition, and he was so keenly aware that he was not the unanimous +choice of the Union Party that he permitted the fact to appear in a +public utterance soon afterward. "I do not allow myself," he said, in +addressing a delegation of the National Union League, "to suppose that +either the Convention or the League have concluded to decide that I am +either the greatest or the best man in America, but rather they have +concluded it is not best to swap horses while crossing the river, and +have further concluded that I am not so poor a horse that they might not +make a botch of it in trying to swap." + +But the Union Party was so far from being a unit that during the summer +factional quarrels developed within its ranks. All the elements +that were unfriendly to Lincoln took heart from a dispute between the +President and Congress with regard to reconstruction in Louisiana, over +a large part of which Federal troops had established a civil government +on the President's authority. As an incident in the history of +reconstruction, this whole matter has its place in another volume.* But +it also has a place in the history of the presidential campaign of +1864. Lincoln's plan of reconstruction was obnoxious to the Radicals in +Congress inasmuch as it did not definitely abolish slavery in Louisiana, +although it required the new Government to give its adherence to the +Emancipation Proclamation. Congress passed a bill taking reconstruction +out of the President's hands and definitely requiring the reconstructed +States to abolish slavery. Lincoln took the position that Congress had +no power over slavery in the States. When his Proclamation was thrown in +his teeth, he replied, "I conceive that I may in an emergency do things +on military grounds which cannot be done constitutionally by Congress." +Incidentally there was a further disagreement between the President and +the Radicals over negro suffrage. Though neither scheme provided for +it, Lincoln would extend it, if at all, only to the exceptional negroes, +while the Radicals were ready for a sweeping extension. But Lincoln +refused to sign their bill and it lapsed. Thereupon Benjamin Wade of +Ohio and Henry Winter Davis of Maryland issued a savage denunciation of +Lincoln which has been known ever since as the "Wade-Davis Manifesto". + + * Walter L. Fleming, "The Sequel of Appomattox". In "The + Chronicles of America". + +There was a faction in the Union Party which we may justly name the +Vindictives. The "Manifesto" gave them a rallying cry. At a conference +in New York they decided to compel the retirement of Lincoln and the +nomination of some other candidate. For this purpose a new convention +was to be called at Cincinnati in September. In the ranks of the +Vindictives at this time was the impetuous editor of the "New York +Tribune", Horace Greeley. His presence there calls for some explanation. +Perhaps the most singular figure of the time, he was one of the most +irresponsible and yet, through his paper, one of the most influential. +He had a trick of phrase which, somehow, made him appear oracular to the +plain people, especially in the rural districts--the very people on whom +Lincoln relied for a large part of his support. Greeley knew his +power, and his mind was not large enough to carry the knowledge well. +Furthermore, his was the sort of nature that relates itself to life +above all through the sensibilities. Kipling speaks scornfully of people +who if their "own front door is shut will swear the world is warm." They +are relations in the full blood of Horace Greeley. + +In July, when the breach between the President and the Vindictives was +just beginning to be evident, Greeley was pursuing an adventure of his +own. Among the least sensible minor incidents of the war were a number +of fantastic attempts of private persons to negotiate peace. With +one exception they had no historic importance. The exception is a +negotiation carried on by Greeley, which seems to have been the ultimate +cause of his alliance with the Vindictives. + +In the middle of July, 1864, gold was selling in New York at 285. +There was distress and discontent throughout the country. The horrible +slaughter of the Wilderness, still fresh in everybody's mind, had put +the whole Union Party into mourning. The impressionable Greeley became +frantic for peace peace at any price. At the psychological moment word +was conveyed to him that two persons in Canada held authority from +the Confederacy to enter into negotiations for peace. Greeley wrote to +Lincoln demanding negotiations because "our bleeding, bankrupt, almost +dying country longs for peace, shudders at the prospect of fresh +conscriptions, of further wholesale devastations, and of new rivers of +human blood." + +Lincoln consented to a negotiation but stipulated that Greeley himself +should become responsible for its conduct. Though this was not what +Greeley wanted for his type always prefers to tell others what to +do--he sullenly accepted. He proceeded to Niagara to meet the reputed +commissioners of the Confederacy. The details of the futile conference +do not concern us. The Confederate agents were not empowered to treat +for peace--at least not on any terms that would be considered at +Washington. Their real purpose was far subtler. Appreciating the +delicate balance in Northern politics, they aimed at making it appear +that Lincoln was begging for terms. Lincoln, who foresaw this possible +turn of events, had expressly limited Greeley to negotiations for "the +integrity of the whole Union and the abandonment of slavery." Greeley +chose to believe that these instructions, and not the subtlety of the +Confederate agents and his own impulsiveness, were the cause of the +false position in which the agents now placed him. They published an +account of the episode, thus effecting an exposure which led to sharp +attacks upon Greeley by the Northern press. In the bitterness of his +mortification Greeley then went from one extreme to the other and joined +the Vindictives. + +Less than three weeks after the conference at Niagara, the "Wade-Davis +Manifesto" appeared. It was communicated to the country through the +columns of Greeley's paper on the 5th of August. Greeley, who so short +a time before was for peace at any price, went the whole length of +reaction by proclaiming that "Mr. Lincoln is already beaten.... We must +have another ticket to save us from utter overthrow. If we had such +a ticket as could be made by naming Grant, Butler, or Sherman for +President and Farragut for Vice, we could make a fight yet." + +At about this same time the chairman of the Republican national +committee, who was a Lincoln man, wrote to the President that the +situation was desperate. Lincoln himself is known to have made a private +memorandum containing the words, "It seems extremely probable that this +Administration will not be reelected." On the 1st of September, 1864, +with three presidential candidates in the field, Northern politics were +bewildering, and the country was shrouded in the deepest gloom. The +Wilderness campaign, after slaughter unparalleled, had not in the +popular mind achieved results. Sherman, in Georgia, though his losses +were not as terrible as Grant's, had not yet done anything to lighten +the gloom. Not even Farragut's victory in Mobile Bay, in August, +far-reaching as it proved to be, reassured the North. A bitter cry for +peace went up even from lovers of the Union whose hearts had failed. + +Meanwhile, the brilliant strategist in Georgia was pressing his drive +for political as well as for military effect. To rouse those Unionists +who had lost heart was part of his purpose when he hurled his columns +against Atlanta, from which Hood was driven in one of the most +disastrous of Confederate defeats. On the 3rd of September Lincoln +issued a proclamation appointing a day of thanksgiving for these great +victories of Sherman and Farragut. + +On that day, it would seem, the tide turned in Northern politics. Some +historians are content with Atlanta as the explanation of all that +followed; but there are three separate events of importance that now +occurred as incidents in the complicated situation. In the first place, +three weeks later the radical opposition had collapsed; the plan for a +new convention was abandoned; the Vindictive leaders came out in support +of Lincoln. Almost simultaneously occurred the remaining two surprising +events. Fremont withdrew from his candidacy in order to do his "part +toward preventing the election of the Democratic candidate." And Lincoln +asked for the resignation of a member of his Cabinet, Postmaster-General +Montgomery Blair, who was the especial enemy of the Vindictives. + +The official biographers of Lincoln* keep these three events separate. +They hold that Blair's removal was wholly Lincoln's idea, and that from +chivalrous reasons he would not abandon his friend as long as he seemed +to be losing the game. The historian Rhodes writes confidently of a +bargain with Fremont, holding that Blair was removed to terminate a +quarrel with Fremont which dated back even to his own removal in 1861. +A possible third theory turns upon Chase, whose hostility to Blair was +quite equal to that of the illbalanced Fremont. It had been stimulated +the previous winter by a fierce arraignment of Chase made by Blair's +brother in Congress, in which Chase was bluntly accused of fraud and +of making money, or allowing his friends to make money, through illicit +trade in cotton. And Chase was a man of might among the Vindictives. The +intrigue, however, never comes to the foreground in history, but lurks +in the background thick with shadows. Once or twice among those +shadows we seem to catch a glimpse of the figure of Thurlow Weed, the +master-politician of the time. Taking one thing with another, we may +risk the guess that somehow the two radical groups which were both +relentless against Blair were led to pool their issues, and that Blair's +removal was the price Lincoln paid not to one faction of radicals but to +the whole unmerciful crowd. + + *His private secretaries, John G. Nicolay and John Hay. + +Whatever complex of purposes lay back of the triple coincidence, the +latter part of September saw a general reunion of the factions within +the Union Party, followed by a swift recovery of strength. When the +election came, Lincoln received an electoral vote of 212 against 21, and +a popular vote of 2,330,552 against 1,835,985. + +The inevitable question arises as to what was the real cause of this +success. It is safe to say that the political campaign contained some +adroit strategy; that Sherman was without doubt an enormous factor; that +the Democrats made numerous blunders; and that the secret societies had +an effect other than they intended. However, the real clue seems to be +found in one sentence from a letter written by Lowell to Motley when the +outlook for his party was darkest: "The mercantile classes are longing +for peace, but I believe that the people are more firm than ever." Of +the great, silent mass of the people, the true temper seems to be struck +off in a popular poem of the time, written in response to one of the +calls for more troops, a poem with refrains built on the model of this +couplet: + +"We're coming from the hillside, we're coming from the shore, We're +coming, Father Abraham, six hundred thousand more." + + + +CHAPTER XIV. LINCOLN'S FINAL INTENTIONS + +The victory of the Union Party in November enabled Lincoln to enjoy for +a brief period of his career as President what may be thought of as a +lull in the storm. He knew now that he had at last built up a firm +and powerful support. With this assured, his policy, both domestic and +foreign--the key to which was still the blockade--might be considered +victorious at all points. There remains to be noticed, however, one +event of the year 1864 which was of vital importance in maintaining the +blockade. + +It is a principle of international law that a belligerent must itself +attend to the great task of suppressing contraband trade with its enemy. +Lincoln was careful to observe this principle. Though British merchants +were frankly speculating in contraband trade, he made no demand upon +the British Government to relieve him of the difficulty of stopping it. +England also took the legitimate position under international law +and warned her merchants that, while it was none of the Government's +business to prevent such trade, they practised it at their own risk, +subject to well-understood penalties agreed upon among nations. The +merchants nevertheless continued to take the risk, while both they and +the authorities of the Confederacy thought they saw a way of minimizing +the danger. Instead of shipping supplies direct to the Confederate ports +they shipped them to Matamoros, in Mexico, or to the West Indies. As +these ports were in neutral territory, the merchants thought their goods +would be safe against capture until they left the Mexican or West +Indian port on their brief concluding passage to the territory of the +Confederacy. Nassau, then a petty West India town, was the chief depot +of such trade and soon became a great commercial center. To it came vast +quantities of European goods which were then transferred to swift, small +vessels, or "blockade-runners," which took a gambler's chance and often +succeeded in eluding the Federal patrol ships and in rushing their +cargoes safe into a Confederate port. + +Obviously, it was a great disadvantage to the United States to allow +contraband supplies to be accumulated, without interference, close to +the blockaded coast, and the Lincoln Government determined to remove +this disadvantage. With this end in view it evoked the principle of the +continuous voyage, which indeed was not new, but which was destined to +become fixed in international law by the Supreme Court of the United +States. American cruisers were instructed to stop British ships sailing +between the British ports of Liverpool and Nassau; they were to use the +recognized international rights of visit and search; and if there was +evidence that the cargo was not destined for actual consumption at +Nassau, they were to bring the ship into an American port to be dealt +with by an American prize court. When such arrests began, the owners +clamored to the British Government, and both dealers in contraband and +professional blockade-runners worked themselves into a fury because +American cruisers watched British ports and searched British ships on +the high seas. With regard to this matter, the British Government and +the Government at Washington had their last important correspondence +during the war. The United States stood firm for the idea that when +goods were ultimately intended for the Confederacy, no matter how +roundabout the journey, they could be considered as making a single +continuous voyage and were liable to capture from the day they left +Liverpool. Early in 1865, the Supreme Court of the United States fully +developed the principle of continuous voyage in four celebrated cases +that are now among the landmarks of international law.* + + * The Great war has once again led to controversy over this + subject, so vital to neutral states. + +This was the last step in making the blockade effective. Thereafter, it +slowly strangled the South. The Federal armies enormously overmatched +the Southern, and from November, 1864, their continuance in the field +was made sure. Grim work still lay before Lincoln, but the day of +anxiety was past. In this moment of comparative ease, the aged Chief +Justice Taney died, and Lincoln appointed to that high position his +ungenerous rival, Chase. + +Even now Lincoln had not established himself as a leader superior to +party, but he had the satisfaction, early in 1865, of seeing the ranks +of the opposition begin to break. Naturally, the Thirteenth Amendment +to the Constitution, abolishing slavery throughout the United States, +appeared to Lincoln as in a way the consummation of his labors. When +the House voted on the resolution to send this amendment to the States, +several Democrats joined the government forces. Two nights afterward, +speaking to a serenading party at the White House, Lincoln made a brief +speech, part of which is thus reported by his secretaries: "He thought +this measure was a very fitting if not an indispensable adjunct to the +winding up of the great difficulty. He wished the reunion of all the +States perfected, and so effected as to remove all causes of disturbance +in the future; and to attain this end, it was necessary that the +original disturbing cause should, if possible, be rooted out." + +An event which in its full detail belongs to Confederate rather than to +Union history took place soon after this. At Hampton Roads, Lincoln and +Seward met Confederate commissioners who had asked for a parley--with +regard to peace. Nothing came of the meeting, but the conference gave +rise to a legend, false in fact and yet true in spirit, according to +which Lincoln wrote on a sheet of paper the word "Union," pushed it +across to Alexander H. Stephens and said, "Write under that anything you +please." + +This fiction expresses Lincoln's attitude toward the sinking +Confederacy. On his return from Hampton Roads he submitted to his +Cabinet a draft of a message which he proposed to send to Congress. He +recommended the appropriation of $400,000,000 to be distributed among +the slave states on condition that war cease before April 1, 1865. Not a +member of the Cabinet approved. His secretary, Mr. Nicolay, writes: "The +President, in evident surprise and sorrow at the want of statesmanlike +liberality shown by his executive council, folded and laid away the +draft of his message...." With a deep sigh he added, "But you are all +opposed to me, and I will not send the message." + +His second inauguration passed without striking incidents. Chase, as +Chief Justice, administered the oath. The second inaugural address +contained words which are now famous: "With malice towards none; with +charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the +right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the +nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and +for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a +just and a lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations." + +That gigantic system of fleets and armies, the creation of which was due +to Lincoln, was closing tight around the dying Confederacy. Five weeks +after the inauguration Lee surrendered, and the war was virtually at an +end. What was to come after was inevitably the overshadowing topic of +the hour. Many anecdotes represent Lincoln, in these last few days +of his life, as possessed by a high though melancholy mood of extreme +mercy. Therefore, much has been inferred from the following words, in +his last public address, made on the night of the 11th of April: "In the +present situation, as the phrase goes, it may be my duty to make some +new announcement to the people of the South. I am considering and shall +not fail to act when action shall be proper." + +What was to be done for the South, what treatment should be accorded the +Southern leaders, engrossed the President and his Cabinet at the meeting +on the 14th of April, which was destined to be their last. Secretary +Welles has preserved the spirit of the meeting in a striking anecdote. +Lincoln said that no one need expect he would "take any part in hanging +or killing those men, even the worst of them. Frighten them out of the +country, open the gates, let down the bars, scare them off;" said he, +throwing up his hands as if scaring sheep. "Enough lives have been +sacrificed; we must extinguish our resentments if we expect harmony and +union." + +While Lincoln was thus arming himself with a valiant mercy, a band of +conspirators at an obscure boardinghouse in Washington were planning his +assassination. Their leader was John Wilkes Booth, an actor, brother of +the much abler Edwin Booth. There seems little doubt that he was insane. +Around him gathered a small group of visionary extremists in whom much +brooding upon Southern wrongs had produced an unbalanced condition. Only +a morbid interest can attach today to the strange cunning with +which Booth laid his plans, thinking of himself all the while as a +reincarnation of the Roman Brutus. + +On the night of the 14th of April, the President attended a performance +of "Our American Cousin". While the play was in progress, Booth stole +into the President's box, came close behind him, and shot him through +the head. Lincoln never spoke again and, shortly after seven next +morning, ceased breathing. + +At the same time, a futile attempt was made upon the life of Seward. +Booth temporarily escaped. Later he was overtaken and shot. His +accomplices were hanged. + + +The passage of sixty years has proved fully necessary to the placing of +Lincoln in historic perspective. No President, in his own time, with the +possible exception of Washington, was so bitterly hated and so fiercely +reviled. On the other hand, none has been the object of such intemperate +hero-worship. However, the greatest of the land were, in the main, quick +to see him in perspective and to recognize his historic significance. It +is recorded of Davis that in after days he paid a beautiful tribute to +Lincoln and said, "Next to the destruction of the Confederacy, the death +of Abraham Lincoln was the darkest day the South has known." + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + +There are two general histories, of conspicuous ability, that deal with +this period: + +J. F. Rhodes, "History of the United States from the Compromise of +1850", 7 vols. (1893-1906), and J. B. McMaster, "History of the People +of the United States", 7 vols. (1883-1912). McMaster has the more +"modern" point of view and is excellent but dry, without any sense of +narrative. Rhodes has a somewhat older point of view. For example, he +makes only a casual reference, in a quotation, to the munitions +problem of 1861, though analyzing with great force and candor such +constitutional issues as the arrests under the suspension of the writ +of habeas corpus. The other strong points in his work are its sense +of narrative, its freedom from hero-worship, its independence of +conventional views of Northern leaders. As to the South, it suffers from +a certain Narrowness of vision due to the comparative scantiness of the +material used. The same may be said of McMaster. + +For Lincoln, there is no adequate brief biography. Perhaps the best is +the most recent, "Abraham Lincoln", by Lord Charnwood ("Makers of the +Nineteenth Century", 1917). It has a kind of cool detachment that hardly +any biographer had shown previously, and yet this coolness is joined +with extreme admiration. Short biographies worth considering are John +T. Morse, Jr., "Abraham Lincoln" ("American Statesmen" Series, 2 vols., +1893), and Ida M. Tarbell, "Life of Abraham Lincoln", 2 vols. (1900). +The official biography is in ten volumes, "Abraham Lincoln, a History", +by his secretaries, John G. Nicolay and John Hay (1890). It is a +priceless document and as such is little likely to be forgotten. But its +events are so numerous that they swamp the figure of Lincoln and yet are +not numerous enough to constitute a definitive history of the times. It +is wholly eulogistic. The same authors edited "The Writings of Abraham +Lincoln" (Biographical Edition, 2 vols., 1894), which has since been +expanded (1905) and now fills twelve volumes. It is the definitive +presentation of Lincoln's mind. A book much sought after by his enemies +is William Henry Herndon and Jesse William Weik, "The History and +Personal Recollections of Abraham Lincoln", 8 vols. (1889; unexpurgated +edition). It contains about all we know of his early life and paints a +picture of sordid ugliness. Its reliability has been disputed. No study +of Lincoln is complete unless one has marched through the "Diary" of +Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy, 3 vols. (1911), which is our most +important document showing Lincoln in his Cabinet. Important sidelights +on his character and development are shown in Ward Hill Lamon, +"Recollections of Lincoln" (1911); David Homer Bates, "Lincoln in the +Telegraph Office" (1907); and Frederick Trevor Hill, "Lincoln as a +Lawyer" (1906). A bibliography of Lincoln is in the twelfth volume of +the latest edition of the "Writings". + +The lesser statesmen of the time, both Northern and Southern, still, as +a rule, await proper treatment by detached biographers. Two Northerners +have had such treatment, in Allen Johnson's "Stephen A. Douglas" (1908), +and Frederic Bancroft's "Life of William H. Seward", 2 vols. (1900). +Good, but without the requisite detachment, is Moorfield Storey's +"Charles Sumner", ("American Statesmen Series", 1900). With similar +excellences but with the same defect, though still the best in its +field, is Albert Bushnell Hart's "Salmon P. Chase" ("American Statesmen +Series", 1899). Among the Southern statesmen involved in the events of +this volume, only the President of the Confederacy has received adequate +reconsideration in recent years, in William E. Dodd's "Jefferson Davis" +(1907). The latest life of "Robert Toombs", by Ulrich B. Phillips +(1914), is not definitive, but the best extant. The great need for +adequate lives of Stephens and Yancey is not at all met by the obsolete +works--R. M. Johnston and W. M. Browne, "Life of Alexander H. Stephens" +(1878), and J. W. Du Bose, "The Life and Times of William Lowndes +Yancey" (1892). There is a brief biography of Stephens by Louis +Pendleton, in the "American Crisis Biographies". Most of the remaining +biographies of the period, whether Northern or Southern, are either too +superficial or too partisan to be recommended for general use. Almost +alone in their way are the delightful "Confederate Portraits", by +Gamaliel Bradford (1914), and the same author's "Union Portraits" +(1916). + +Upon conditions in the North during the war there is a vast amount of +material; but little is accessible to the general reader. A book of +great value is Emerson Fite's Social and Industrial Conditions in +the North during the Civil War (1910). Out of unnumbered books of +reminiscence, one stands forth for the sincerity of its disinterested, +if sharp, observation--W. H. Russell's "My Diary North and South" +(1868). Two newspapers are invaluable: The "New York Tribune" for a +version of events as seen by the war party, "The New York Herald" for +the opposite point of view; the Chicago papers are also important, +chiefly the "Times" and "Tribune"; the "Republican "of Springfield, +Mass., had begun its distinguished career, while the "Journal" and +"Advertiser" of Boston revealed Eastern New England. For the Southern +point of view, no papers are more important than the Richmond +"Examiner", the Charleston "Mercury", and the New Orleans "Picayune". +Financial and economic problems are well summed up in D. R. Dewey's +"Financial History of the United States" (3d edition, 1907), and in +E. P. Oberholzer's "Jay Cooks", 2 vols. (1907). Foreign affairs +are summarized adequately in C. F. Adams's "Charles Francis Adams" +("American Statesmen Series", 1900), John Bigelow's "France and the +Confederate Navy" (1888), A. P. Martin's "Maximilian in Mexico" (1914), +and John Bassett Moore's "Digest of International Law", 8 vols. (1906). + +The documents of the period ranging from newspapers to presidential +messages are not likely to be considered by the general reader, but if +given a fair chance will prove fascinating. Besides the biographical +edition of Lincoln's Writings, should be named, first of all, "The +Congressional Globe" for debates in Congress; the "Statutes at Large"; +the "Executive Documents", published by the Government and containing a +great number of reports; and the enormous collection issued by the +War Department under the title "Official Records of the Union and +Confederate Armies", 128 vols. (1880-1901), especially the groups of +volumes known as second and third series. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Abraham Lincoln and the Union, by +Nathaniel W. Stephenson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE UNION *** + +***** This file should be named 2836.txt or 2836.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/8/3/2836/ + +Produced by The James J. 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