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diff --git a/old/alatu10.txt b/old/alatu10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f0acda5 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/alatu10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6042 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Abraham Lincoln and the Union, by Stephenson + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + +*It must legally be the first thing seen when opening the book.* +In fact, our legal advisors said we can't even change margins. + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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KELLY LIBRARY OF ST. GREGORY'S UNIVERSITY; THANKS TO ALEV AKMAN. + +Scanned by Dianne Bean. +Proofed by Alison Henry. + + + + + +Abraham Lincoln and the Union, A Chronicle of the Embattled North + +BY NATHANIEL W. STEPHENSON + + + + +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 +anopinion 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 antiNebraska 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 deathgrapple 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 arrangments 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 sacrified 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 turningpoints 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 turningpoint 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 requipment 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 commercedestroyer, 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 betweenthe 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 Project Gutenberg's Abraham Lincoln and the Union, by Stephenson + diff --git a/old/alatu10.zip b/old/alatu10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2ef27eb --- /dev/null +++ b/old/alatu10.zip |