Stephen A. Douglas: A Study in American Politics Part 42

THE SUMMONS

The news of the capitulation of Fort Sumter reached Washington on Sunday morning, April 14th. At a momentous cabinet meeting, President Lincoln read the draft of a proclamation calling into service seventy-five thousand men, to suppress combinations obstructing the execution of the laws in the Southern States. The cabinet was now a unit. Now that the crisis had come, the administration had a policy.

Would it approve itself to the anxious people of the North? Could it count upon the support of those who had counselled peace, peace at any cost?

Those who knew Senator Douglas well could not doubt his loyalty to the Union in this crisis; yet his friends knew that Union-loving men in the Democratic ranks would respond to the President's proclamation with a thousandfold greater enthusiasm, could they know that their leader stood by the administration. Moved by these considerations, Hon. George Ashmun of Ma.s.sachusetts ventured to call upon Douglas on this Sunday evening, and to suggest the propriety of some public statement to strengthen the President's hands. Would he not call upon the President at once and give him the a.s.surance of his support?

Douglas demurred: he was not sure that Mr. Lincoln wanted his advice and aid. Mr. Ashmun a.s.sured him that the President would welcome any advances, and he spoke advisedly as a friend to both men. The peril of the country was grave; surely this was not a time when men should let personal and partisan considerations stand between them and service to their country. Mrs. Douglas added her entreaties, and Douglas finally yielded. Though the hour was late, the two men set off for the White House, and found there the hearty welcome which Ashmun had promised.[979]

Of all the occurrences of this memorable day, this interview between Lincoln and Douglas strikes the imagination with most poignant suggestiveness. Had Douglas been a less generous opponent, he might have reminded the President that matters had come to just that pa.s.s which he had foreseen in 1858. Nothing of the sort pa.s.sed Douglas's lips. The meeting of the rivals was most cordial and hearty. They held converse as men must when hearts are oppressed with a common burden.

The President took up and read aloud the proclamation summoning the nation to arms. When he had done, Douglas said with deep earnestness, "Mr. President, I cordially concur in every word of that doc.u.ment, except that instead of the call for seventy-five thousand men, I would make it two hundred thousand. You do not know the dishonest purposes of those men as well as I do."[980] Why has not some artist seized upon the dramatic moment when they rose and pa.s.sed to the end of the room to examine a map which hung there? Douglas, with animated face and impetuous gesture, pointing out the strategic places in the coming contest; Lincoln, with the suggestion of brooding melancholy upon his careworn face, listening in rapt attention to the quick, penetrating observations of his life-long rival. But what no artist could put upon canvas was the dramatic absence of resentment and defeated ambition in the one, and the patient teachableness and self-mastery of the other.

As they parted, a quick hearty grasp of hands symbolized this remarkable consecration to a common task.

As they left the executive mansion, Ashmun urged his companion to send an account of this interview to the press, that it might accompany the President's message on the morrow. Douglas then penned the following dispatch: "Senator Douglas called upon the President, and had an interesting conversation on the present condition of the country. The substance of it was, on the part of Mr. Douglas, that while he was unalterably opposed to the administration in all its political issues, he was prepared to fully sustain the President in the exercise of all his const.i.tutional functions, to preserve the Union, maintain the government, and defend the Federal capital. A firm policy and prompt action was necessary. The capital was in danger, and must be defended at all hazards, and at any expense of men and money. He spoke of the present and future without any reference to the past."[981] When the people of the North read the proclamation in the newspapers, on the following morning, a million men were cheered and sustained in their loyalty to the Union by the intelligence that their great leader had subordinated all lesser ends of party to the paramount duty of maintaining the Const.i.tution of the fathers. To his friends in Washington, Douglas said unhesitatingly, "We must fight for our country and forget all differences. There can be but two parties--the party of patriots and the party of traitors. We belong to the first."[982] And to friends in Missouri where disunion sentiment was rife, he telegraphed, "I deprecate war, but if it must come I am with my country, and for my country, under all circ.u.mstances and in every contingency. Individual policy must be subordinated to the public safety."[983]

From this day on, Douglas was in frequent consultation with the President. The sorely tried and distressed Lincoln was unutterably grateful for the firm grip which this first of "War Democrats" kept upon the progress of public opinion in the irresolute border States.

It was during one of these interviews, after the attack upon the Sixth Ma.s.sachusetts Regiment in the streets of Baltimore, that Douglas urged upon the President the possibility of bringing troops by water to Annapolis, thence to Washington, thus avoiding further conflict in the disaffected districts of Maryland.[984] Eventually the Eighth Ma.s.sachusetts and the Seventh New York reached Washington by this route, to the immense relief of the President and his cabinet.

Before this succor came to the alarmed capital, Douglas had left the city for the West. He had received intimations that Egypt in his own State showed marked symptoms of disaffection. The old ties of blood and kinship of the people of southern Illinois with their neighbors in the border States were proving stronger than Northern affiliations.

Douglas wielded an influence in these southern, Democratic counties, such as no other man possessed. Could he not best serve the administration by bearding disunionism in its den? Believing that Cairo, at the confluence of the Mississippi and the Ohio, was destined to be a strategic point of immense importance in the coming struggle, and that the fate of the whole valley depended upon the unwavering loyalty of Illinois, Douglas laid the matter before Lincoln. He would go or stay in Washington, wherever Lincoln thought he could do the most good. Probably neither then realized the tremendous nature of the struggle upon which the country had entered; yet both knew that the Northwest would be the makeweight in the balance for the Union; and that every nerve must be strained to hold the border States of Kentucky and Missouri. Who could rouse the latent Unionism of the Northwest and of the border States like Douglas? Lincoln advised him to go. There was a quick hand-grasp, a hurried farewell, and they parted never to meet again.[985]

Rumor gave strange shapes to this "mission" which carried Douglas in such haste to the Northwest. Most persistent of all is the tradition that he was authorized to raise a huge army in the States of the upper Mississippi Valley, and to undertake that vast flanking movement which subsequently fell to Grant and Sherman to execute. Such a project would have been thoroughly consonant with Douglas's conviction of the inevitable unity and importance of the great valley; but evidence is wanting to corroborate this legend.[986] Its frequent repet.i.tion, then and now, must rather be taken as a popular recognition of the complete accord between the President and the greatest of War Democrats. Colonel Forney, who stood very near to Douglas, afterward stated "by authority," that President Lincoln would eventually have called Douglas into the administration or have placed him in one of the highest military commands.[987] Such importance may be given to this testimony as belongs to statements which have pa.s.sed unconfirmed and unchallenged for half a century.

On his way to Illinois, Douglas missed a train and was detained half a day in the little town of Bellaire, Ohio, a few miles below Wheeling in Virginia.[988] It was a happy accident, for just across the river the people of northwestern Virginia were meditating resistance to the secession movement, which under the guidance of Governor Letcher threatened to sever them from the Union-loving population of Ohio and Pennsylvania. It was precisely in this region, nearly a hundred years before, that popular sovereignty had almost succeeded in forming a fourteenth State of the Confederacy. There had always been a disparity between the people of these transmontane counties and the tide-water region. The intelligence that Douglas was in Bellaire speedily brought a throng about the hotel in which he was resting. There were clamors for a speech. In the afternoon he yielded to their importunities. By this time the countryside was aroused. People came across the river from Virginia and many came down by train from Wheeling,[989] Men who were torn by a conflict of sentiments, not knowing where their paramount allegiance lay, hung upon his words.

Douglas spoke soberly and thoughtfully, not as a Democrat, not as a Northern man, but simply and directly as a lover of the Union. "If we recognize the right of secession in one case, we give our a.s.sent to it in all cases; and if the few States upon the Gulf are now to separate themselves from us, and erect a barrier across the mouth of that great river of which the Ohio is a tributary, how long will it be before New York may come to the conclusion that she may set up for herself, and levy taxes upon every dollar's worth of goods imported and consumed in the Northwest, and taxes upon every bushel of wheat, and every pound of pork, or beef, or other productions that may be sent from the Northwest to the Atlantic in search of a market?" Secession meant endless division and sub-division, the formation of petty confederacies, appeals to the sword and the bayonet instead of to the ballot.

"Unite as a band of brothers," he pleaded, "and rescue your government and its capital and your country from the enemy who have been the authors of your calamity." His eye rested upon the great river. "Ah!"

he exclaimed, a great wave of emotion checking his utterance, "This great valley must never be divided. The Almighty has so arranged the mountain and the plain, and the water-courses as to show that this valley in all time shall remain one and indissoluble. Let no man attempt to sunder what Divine Providence has rendered indivisible."[990]

As he concluded, anxious questions were put to him, regarding the rumored retirement of General Scott from the army. "I saw him only Sat.u.r.day," replied Douglas. "He was at his desk, pen in hand, writing his orders for the defense and safety of the American Capital." And as he repeated the words of General Scott declining the command of the forces of Virginia--"'I have served my country under the flag of the Union for more than fifty years, and as long as G.o.d permits me to live, I will defend that flag with my sword; even if my own State a.s.sails it,'"--the crowds around him broke into tumultuous cheers.

Within thirty days the Unionists of western Virginia had rallied, organized, and begun that hardy campaign which brought West Virginia into the Union. On the very day that Douglas was making his fervent plea for the Union, Robert E. Lee cast in his lot with the South.

At Columbus, Douglas was again forced to break his journey; and again he was summoned to address the crowd that gathered below his window.

It was already dark; the people had collected without concert; there were no such trappings, as had characterized public demonstrations in the late campaign. Douglas appeared half-dressed at his bedroom window, a dim object to all save to those who stood directly below him. Out of the darkness came his solemn, sonorous tones, bringing relief and a.s.surance to all who listened, for in the throng were men of all parties, men who had followed him through all changes of political weather, and men who had been his persistent foes. There was little cheering. As Douglas pledged anew his hearty support to President Lincoln, "it was rather a deep 'Amen' that went up from the crowd," wrote one who had distrusted hitherto the mighty power of this great popular leader.[991]

On the 25th of April, Douglas reached Springfield, where he purposed to make his great plea for the Union. He spoke at the Capitol to members of the legislature and to packed galleries. Friend and foe alike bear witness to the extraordinary effect wrought by his words.

"I do not think that it is possible for a human being to produce a more prodigious effect with spoken words," wrote one who had formerly detested him.[992] "Never in all my experience in public life, before or since," testified the then Speaker of the House, now high in the councils of the nation, "have I been so impressed by a speaker."[993]

Douglas himself was thrilled with his message. As he approached the climax, the veins of his neck and forehead were swollen with pa.s.sion, and the perspiration ran down his face in streams. At times his clear and resonant voice reverberated through the chamber, until it seemed to shake the building.[994] While he was in the midst of a pa.s.sionate invective, a man rushed into the hall bearing an American flag. The trumpet tones of the speaker and the sight of the Stars and Stripes roused the audience to the wildest pitch of excitement.[995] Men and women became hysterical with the divine madness of patriotism. "When hostile armies," he exclaimed with amazing force, "When hostile armies are marching under new and odious banners against the government of our country, the shortest way to peace is the most stupendous and unanimous preparation for war. We in the great valley of the Mississippi have peculiar interests and inducements in the struggle ... I ask every citizen in the great basin between the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies ... to tell me whether he is ever willing to sanction a line of policy that may isolate us from the markets of the world, and make us dependent provinces upon the powers that thus choose to isolate us?... Hence, if a war does come, it is a war of self-defense on our part. It is a war in defense of the Government which we have inherited as a priceless legacy from our patriotic fathers, in defense of those great rights of freedom of trade, commerce, transit and intercourse from the center to the circ.u.mference of our great continent."[996]

The voice of the strong man, so little given to weak sentiment, broke, as he said, "I have struggled almost against hope to avert the calamities of war and to effect a reunion and reconciliation with our brethren in the South. I yet hope it may be done, but I am not able to point out how it may be. Nothing short of Providence can reveal to us the issues of this great struggle. b.l.o.o.d.y--calamitous--I fear it will be. May we so conduct it, if a collision must come, that we will stand justified in the eyes of Him who knows our hearts, and who will justify our every act. We must not yield to resentments, nor to the spirit of vengeance, much less to the desire for conquest or ambition.

I see no path of ambition open in a b.l.o.o.d.y struggle for triumphs over my countrymen. There is no path of ambition open for me in a divided country.... My friends, I can say no more. To discuss these topics is the most painful duty of my life. It is with a sad heart--with a grief I have never before experienced--that I have to contemplate this fearful struggle; but I believe in my conscience that it is a duty we owe to ourselves and to our children, and to our G.o.d, to protect this Government and that flag from every a.s.sailant, be he who he may."

Thereafter treason had no abiding place within the limits of the State of Illinois. And no one, it may be safely affirmed, could have so steeled the hearts of men in Southern Illinois for the death grapple.

In a manly pa.s.sage in his speech, Douglas said, "I believe I may with confidence appeal to the people of every section of the country to bear witness that I have been as thoroughly national as any man that has lived in my day. And I believe if I should make an appeal to the people of Illinois, or of the Northern States, to their impartial verdict; they would say that whatever errors I have committed have been in leaning too far to the Southern section of the Union against my own.... I have never pandered to the prejudice and pa.s.sion of my section against the minority section of the Union." It was precisely this truth which gave him a hearing through the length and breadth of Illinois and the Northwest during this crisis.

The return of Douglas to Chicago was the signal for a remarkable demonstration of regard. He had experienced many strange home-comings.

His Democratic following, not always discriminating, had ever accorded him noisy homage. His political opponents had alternately execrated him and given him grudging praise. But never before had men of all parties, burying their differences, united to do him honor. On the evening of his arrival, he was escorted to the Wigwam, where hardly a year ago Lincoln had been nominated for the presidency. Before him were men who had partic.i.p.ated jubilantly in the Republican campaign, with many a bitter gibe at the champion of "squatter sovereignty."

Douglas could not conceal his gratification at this proof that, however men had differed from him on political questions, they had believed in his loyalty. And it was of loyalty, not of himself, that he spoke. He did not spare Southern feelings before this Chicago audience. He told his hearers unequivocally that the slavery question, the election of Lincoln, and the territorial question, were so many pretexts for dissolving the Union. "The present secession movement is the result of an enormous conspiracy formed more than a year since, formed by leaders in the Southern Confederacy more than twelve months ago." But this was no time to discuss pretexts and causes. "The conspiracy is now known. Armies have been raised, war is levied to accomplish it. There are only two sides to the question. Every man must be for the United States or against it. There can be no neutrals in this war; _only patriots_--_or traitors_."[997] It was the first time he had used the ugly epithet.

Hardly had he summoned the people of Illinois to do battle, when again he touched that pathetic note that recurred again and again in his appeal at Springfield. Was it the memory of the mother of his boys that moved him to say, "But we must remember certain restraints on our action even in time of war. We are a Christian people, and the war must be prosecuted in a manner recognized by Christian nations. We must not invade Const.i.tutional rights. The innocent must not suffer, nor women and children be the victims." Before him were some who felt toward the people of the South as Greek toward barbarian. But Douglas foresaw that the horrors of war must invade and desolate the homes of those whom he still held dear. There is no more lovable and admirable side of his personality than this tenderness for the helpless and innocent. Had he but lived to temper justice with mercy, what a power for good might he not have been in the days of reconstruction!

The summons had gone forth. Already doubts and misgivings had given way, and the North was now practically unanimous in its determination to stifle rebellion. There was a common belief that secession was the work of a minority, skillfully led by designing politicians, and that the loyal majority would rally with the North to defend the flag.

Young men who responded jubilantly to the call to arms did not doubt, that the struggle would be brief. Douglas shared the common belief in the conspiracy theory of secession, but he indulged no illusion as to the nature of the war, if war should come. Months before the firing upon Fort Sumter, in a moment of depression, he had prophesied that if the cotton States should succeed in drawing the border States into their schemes of secession, the most fearful civil war the world had ever seen would follow, lasting for years. "Virginia," said he, pointing toward Arlington, "over yonder across the Potomac, will become a charnel-house.... Washington will become a city of hospitals, the churches will be used for the sick and wounded. This house 'Minnesota Block,' will be devoted to that purpose before the end of the war."[998] He, at least, did not mistake the chivalry of the South. Not for an instant did he doubt the capacity of the Southern people to suffer and endure, as well as to do battle. And he knew--Ah! how well--the self-sacrifice and devotion of Southern women.

The days following the return of Douglas to Chicago were filled also with worries and anxieties of a private nature. The financial panic of 1857 had been accompanied by a depression of land values, which caused Douglas grave concern for his holdings in Chicago, and no little immediate distress. Unable and unwilling to sacrifice his investments, he had mortgaged nearly all of his property in Cook County, including the valuable "Grove Property" in South Chicago. Though he was always lax in pecuniary matters, and, with his buoyant generous nature, little disposed to take anxious thought for the morrow, these heavy financial obligations began now to press upon him with grievous weight. The prolonged strain of the previous twelve months had racked even his const.i.tution. He had made heavy drafts on his bodily health, with all too little regard for the inevitable compensation which Nature demands. As in all other things, he had been prodigal with Nature's choicest gift.

Not long after his public address Douglas fell ill and developed symptoms that gave his physicians the gravest concern. Weeks of illness followed. The disease, baffling medical skill, ran its course. Yet never in his lucid moments did Douglas forget the ills of his country; and even when delirium clouded his mind, he was still battling for the Union. "Telegraph to the President and let the column move on," he cried, wrestling with his wasting fever. In his last hours his mind cleared. Early on the morning of June 3d, he seemed to rally, but only momentarily. It was evident to those about him that the great summons had come. Tenderly his devoted wife leaned over him to ask if he had any message for his boys, "Robbie" and "Stevie." With great effort, but clearly and emphatically, he replied, "Tell them to obey the laws and support the Const.i.tution of the United States." Not long after, he grappled with the great Foe, and the soul of a great patriot pa.s.sed on.

"I was ever a fighter, so--one fight more, The best and the last!

I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, And bade me creep past.

No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers The heroes of old, Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears Of pain, darkness and cold."

With almost royal pomp, the earthly remains of Stephen Arnold Douglas were buried beside the inland sea that washes the sh.o.r.es of the home of his adoption. It is a fitting resting place. The tempestuous waters of the great lake reflect his own stormy career. Yet they have their milder moods. There are hours when sunlight falls aslant the subdued surface and irradiates the depths.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 979: Holland, Life of Lincoln, p. 301.]

[Footnote 980: _Ibid._, p. 302.]

[Footnote 981: Arnold, Lincoln, pp. 200-201. The date of this dispatch should be April 14, and not April 18.]

[Footnote 982: Forney, Anecdotes, I, p. 224.]

[Footnote 983: New York _Tribune_, April 18.]

[Footnote 984: Forney, Anecdotes, I, p. 225.]

[Footnote 985: Herndon-Weik, Lincoln, II, p. 249 note; Forney, Anecdotes, I, p. 225.]

[Footnote 986: Many friends of Douglas have a.s.sured me of their unshaken belief in this story.]

[Footnote 987: Forney, Anecdotes, I, pp. 121, 226.]

[Footnote 988: Philadelphia _Press_, April 26, 1861.]

[Footnote 989: Philadelphia _Press_, April 26, 1861.]

[Footnote 990: The Philadelphia _Press_, April 26, 1861, reprinted the speech from the Wheeling _Intelligencer_ of April 21, 1861.]

[Footnote 991: J.D. c.o.x, Military Reminiscences of the Civil War, I, pp. 5-6.]

[Footnote 992: Mr. Horace White in Herndon-Weik, Lincoln, II, pp.

126-127.]

[Footnote 993: Senator Cullom of Illinois, quoted in Arnold, Lincoln, p. 201, note.]