The Great Conspiracy Part 18

"MR. PRESIDENT:-The undersigned, members of Congress from the Border States, in response to your address of Sat.u.r.day last, beg leave to say that they attended a meeting, on the same day the address was delivered, for the purpose of considering the same. The meeting appointed a Committee to report a response to your address. That report was made on yesterday, and the action of the majority indicated clearly that the response, or one in substance the same, would be adopted and presented to you.

"Inasmuch as we cannot, consistently with our own sense of duty to the Country, under the existing perils which surround us, concur in that response, we feel it to be due to you and to ourselves to make to you a brief and candid answer over our own signatures.

"We believe that the whole power of the Government, upheld and sustained by all the influences and means of all loyal men in all Sections, and of all Parties, is essentially necessary to put down the Rebellion and preserve the Union and the Const.i.tution. We understand your appeal to us to have been made for the purpose of securing this result.

"A very large portion of the People in the Northern States believe that Slavery is the 'lever-power of the Rebellion.' It matters not whether this belief be well-founded or not. The belief does exist, and we have to deal with things as they are, and not as we would have them be.

"In consequence of the existence of this belief, we understand that an immense pressure is brought to bear for the purpose of striking down this Inst.i.tution through the exercise of Military authority. The Government cannot maintain this great struggle if the support and influence of the men who entertain these opinions be withdrawn. Neither can the Government hope for early success if the support of that element called "Conservative" be withdrawn.

"Such being the condition of things, the President appeals to the Border-State men to step forward and prove their patriotism by making the first sacrifice. No doubt, like appeals have been made to extreme men in the North to meet us half-way, in order that the whole moral, political, pecuniary, and physical force of the Nation may be firmly and earnestly united in one grand effort to save the Union and the Const.i.tution.

"Believing that such were the motives that prompted your Address, and such the results to which it looked, we cannot reconcile it to our sense of duty, in this trying hour, to respond in a spirit of fault-finding or querulousness over the things that are past.

"We are not disposed to seek for the cause of present misfortunes in the errors and wrongs of others who now propose to unite with us in a common purpose.

"But, on the other hand, we meet your address in the spirit in which it was made, and, as loyal Americans, declare to you and to the World that there is no sacrifice that we are not ready to make to save the Government and inst.i.tutions of our fathers. That we, few of us though there may be, will permit no man, from the North or from the South, to go further than we in the accomplishment of the great work before us. That, in order to carry out these views, we will, so far as may be in our power, ask the people of the Border States calmly, deliberately, and fairly to consider your recommendations.

"We are the more emboldened to a.s.sume this position from the fact, now become history, that the leaders of the Southern Rebellion have offered to abolish Slavery among them as a condition to foreign intervention in favor of their Independence as a Nation.

"If they can give up Slavery to destroy the Union, we can surely ask our people to consider the question of Emanc.i.p.ation to save the Union.

"With great respect, your obedient servants, "JOHN W. NOELL, "SAMUEL L. CASEY, "GEORGE P. FISHER, "A. J. CLEMENTS, "WILLIAM G. BROWN, "JACOB B. BLAIR, "W. T. WILLEY."

[The following separate replies, subsequently made, by Representative Maynard of Tennessee, and Senator Henderson of Missouri, are necessarily given to complete this part of the Border State record.]

MR. MAYNARD'S REPLY.

"HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, July 16, 1862.

"SIR:-The magnitude and gravity of the proposition submitted by you to Representatives from the Slave States would naturally occasion diversity, if not contrariety, of opinion. You will not, therefore, be surprised that I have not been able to concur in view with the majority of them.

"This is attributable, possibly, to the fact that my State is not a Border State, properly so called, and that my immediate const.i.tuents are not yet disenthralled from the hostile arms of the Rebellion. This fact is a physical obstacle in the way of my now submitting to their consideration this, or any other proposition looking to political action, especially such as, in this case, would require a change in the Organic Law of the State.

"But do not infer that I am insensible to your appeal. I am not; you are surrounded with difficulties far greater than have embarra.s.sed any of your predecessors. You need the support of every American citizen, and you ought to have it-active, zealous and honest. The union of all Union men to aid you in preserving the Union, is the duty of the time. Differences as to policy and methods must be subordinated to the common purpose.

"In looking for the cause of this Rebellion, it is natural that each Section and each Party should ascribe as little blame as possible to itself, and as much as possible to its opponent Section and Party. Possibly you and I might not agree on a comparison of our views. That there should be differences of opinion as to the best mode of conducting our Military operations, and the best men to lead our Armies, is equally natural. Contests on such questions weaken ourselves and strengthen our enemies. They are unprofitable, and possibly unpatriotic. Somebody must yield, or we waste our strength in a contemptible struggle among ourselves.

"You appeal to the loyal men of the Slave States to sacrifice something of feeling and a great deal of interest. The sacrifices they have already made and the sufferings they have endured give the best a.s.surance that the appeal will not have been made in vain. He who is not ready to yield all his material interests, and to forego his most cherished sentiments and opinions for the preservation of his Country, although he may have periled his life on the battle-field in her defense, is but half a Patriot. Among the loyal people that I represent, there are no half-patriots.

"Already the Rebellion has cost us much, even to our undoing; we are content, if need be, to give up the rest, to suppress it. We have stood by you from the beginning of this struggle, and we mean to stand by you, G.o.d willing, till the end of it.

"I did not vote for the Resolution to which you allude, solely for the reason that I was absent at the Capital of my own State. It is right.

"Should any of the Slave States think proper to terminate that Inst.i.tution, as several of them, I understand, or at least some of their citizens propose, justice and a generous comity require that the Country should interpose to aid in lessening the burden, public and private, occasioned by so radical a change in its social and industrial relations.

"I will not now speculate upon the effect, at home or abroad, of the adoption of your policy, nor inquire what action of the Rebel leaders has rendered something of the kind important. Your whole administration gives the highest a.s.surance that you are moved, not so much from a desire to see all men everywhere made free, as from a higher desire to preserve free inst.i.tutions for the benefit of men already free; not to make Slaves, Freemen, but to prevent Freemen from being made Slaves; not to destroy an Inst.i.tution, which a portion of us only consider bad, but to save inst.i.tutions which we all alike consider good. I am satisfied you would not ask from any of your fellow-citizens a sacrifice not, in your judgment, imperatively required by the safety of the Country.

"This is the spirit of your appeal, and I respond to it in the same spirit.

"I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, "HORACE MAYNARD.

"To the PRESIDENT."

SENATOR HENDERSON'S REPLY.

"WASHINGTON CITY, July 21, 1862.

"MR. PRESIDENT:-The pressure of business in the Senate during the last few days of the session prevented my attendance at the meeting of the Border-State members, called to consider your proposition in reference to gradual emanc.i.p.ation in our States.

"It is for this reason only, and not because I fail to appreciate their importance or properly respect your suggestions, that my name does not appear to any of the several papers submitted in response. I may also add that it was my intention, when the subject came up practically for consideration in the Senate, to express fully my views in regard to it. This of course would have rendered any other response unnecessary. But the want of time to consider the matter deprived me of that opportunity, and, lest now my silence be misconstrued, I deem it proper to say to you that I am by no means indifferent to the great questions so earnestly, and as I believe so honestly, urged by you upon our consideration.

"The Border States, so far, are the chief sufferers by this War, and the true Union men of those States have made the greatest sacrifices for the preservation of the Government. This fact does not proceed from mismanagement on the part of the Union authorities, or a want of regard for our people, but it is the necessary result of the War that is upon us.

"Our States are the battle-fields. Our people, divided among themselves, maddened by the struggle, and blinded by the smoke of battle, invited upon our soil contending armies-the one to destroy the Government, the other to maintain it. The consequence to us is plain. The shock of the contest upturns Society and desolates the Land. We have made sacrifices, but at last they were only the sacrifices demanded by duty, and unless we are willing to make others, indeed any that the good of the Country, involved in the overthrow of Treason, may expect at our hands, our t.i.tle to patriotism is not complete.

"When you submitted your proposition to Congress, in March last, 'that the United States ought to co-operate with any State which may adopt a gradual abolishment of Slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State in its discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system,' I gave it a most cheerful support, and I am satisfied it would have received the approbation of a large majority of the Border States delegations in both Branches of Congress, if, in the first place, they had believed the War, with its continued evils-the most prominent of which, in a material point of view, is its injurious effect on the Inst.i.tution of Slavery in our States-could possibly have been protracted for another twelve months; and if, in the second place, they had felt a.s.sured that the party having the majority in Congress would, like yourself, be equally prompt in practical action as in the expression of a sentiment.

"While scarcely any one doubted your own sincerity in the premises, and your earnest wish speedily to terminate the War, you can readily conceive the grounds for difference of opinion where conclusions could only be based on conjecture.

"Believing, as I did, that the War was not so near its termination as some supposed, and feeling disposed to accord to others the same sincerity of purpose that I should claim for myself under similar circ.u.mstances, I voted for the proposition. I will suppose that others were actuated by no sinister motives.

"In doing so, Mr. President, I desire to be distinctly understood by you and by my const.i.tuents. I did not suppose at the time that I was personally making any sacrifice by supporting the Resolution, nor that the people of my State were called upon to make any sacrifices, either in considering or accepting the proposition, if they saw fit.

"I agreed with you in the remarks contained in the Message accompanying the Resolution, that 'the Union must be preserved, and hence all indispensable means must be employed. * * * War has been and continues to be an indispensable means to this end. A practical reacknowledgment of the National authority would render the War unnecessary, and it would at once cease. If, however, resistance continues, the War must also continue; and it is impossible to foresee all the incidents which may attend and all the ruin which may follow it.'

"It is truly 'impossible' to foresee all the evils resulting from a War so stupendous as the present. I shall be much rejoiced if something more dreadful than the sale of Freedom to a few Slaves in the Border States shall not result from it.

"If it closes with the Government of our Fathers secure, and Const.i.tutional Liberty in all its purity guaranteed to the White man, the result will be better than that having a place in the fears of many good men at present, and much better than the past history of such revolutions can justify us in expecting.

"In this period of the Nation's distress, I know of no human inst.i.tution too sacred for discussion; no material interest belonging to the citizen that he should not willingly place upon the altar of his Country, if demanded by the public good.

"The man who cannot now sacrifice Party and put aside selfish considerations is more than half disloyal. Such a man does not deserve the blessings of good government. Pride of opinion, based upon Sectional jealousies, should not be permitted to control the decision of any political question. These remarks are general, but apply with peculiar force to the People of the Border States at present.

"Let us look at our condition. A desolating War is upon us. We cannot escape it if we would. If the Union Armies were to-day withdrawn from the Border States without first crushing the Rebellion in the South, no rational man can doubt for a moment that the adherents of the Union Cause in those States would soon be driven in exile from their homes by the exultant Rebels, who have so long hoped to return and take vengeance upon us.

"The People of the Border States understand very well the unfriendly and selfish spirit exercised toward them by the leaders of this Cotton-State Rebellion, beginning some time previous to its outbreak. They will not fail to remember their insolent refusal to counsel with us, and their haughty a.s.sumption of responsibility upon themselves for their misguided action.

"Our people will not soon forget that, while declaiming against Coercion, they closed their doors against the exportation of Slaves from the Border States into the South, with the avowed purpose of forcing us into Rebellion through fears of losing that species of Property. They knew very well the effect to be produced on Slavery by a Civil War, especially in those States into which hostile Armies might penetrate, and upon the soil of which the great contests for the success of Republican Government were to be decided.

"They wanted some intermediate ground for the conflict of arms-territory where the population would be divided. They knew, also, that by keeping Slavery in the Border States the mere 'friction and abrasion' to which you so appropriately allude, would keep up a constant irritation, resulting necessarily from the frequent losses to which the owners would be subjected.

"They also calculated largely, and not without reason, upon the repugnance of Non-Slaveholders in those States to a Free Negro population. In the meantime they intended persistently to charge the overthrow of Slavery to be the object of the Government, and hostility to this Inst.i.tution the origin of the War. By this means the unavoidable incidents of the strife might easily he charged as the settled purposes of the Government.

"Again, it was well understood, by these men, that exemplary conduct on the part of every officer and soldier employed by the Government could not in the nature of things be expected, and the hope was entertained, upon the most reasonable grounds, that every commission of wrong and every omission of duty would produce a new cause for excitement and a new incentive to Rebellion.

"By these means the War was to be kept in the Border States, regardless of our interests, until an exhausted Treasury should render it necessary to send the tax-gatherer among our people, to take the little that might be left them from the devastations of War.

"They then expected a clamor for Peace by us, resulting in the interference of France and England, whose operatives in the meantime would be driven to want, and whose aristocracy have ever been ready to welcome a dissolution of the American Union.

"This cunningly-devised plan for securing a Gulf-Confederacy, commanding the mouths of the great Western rivers, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Southern Atlantic ocean, with their own territory unscathed by the horrors of war, and surrounded by the Border States, half of whose population would be left in sympathy with them, for many years to come, owing to the irritations to which I have alluded, has, so far, succeeded too well.

"In Missouri they have already caused us to lose a third or more of the Slaves owned at the time of the last census. In addition to this, I can make no estimate of the vast amount of property of every character that has been destroyed by Military operations in the State. The loss from general depreciation of values, and the utter prostration of every business-interest of our people, is wholly beyond calculation.

"The experience of Missouri is but the experience of other Sections of the Country similarly situated. The question is therefore forced upon us, 'How long is this War to continue; and, if continued, as it has been, on our soil, aided by the Treason and folly of our own citizens, acting in concert with the Confederates, how long can Slavery, or, if you please, any other property-interest, survive in our States?'

"As things now are, the people of the Border-States yet divided, we cannot expect an immediate termination of the struggle, except upon condition of Southern Independence, losing thereby control of the lower Mississippi. For this, we in Missouri are not prepared, nor are we prepared to become one of the Confederate States, should the terrible calamity of Dissolution occur.

"This, I presume, the Union men of Missouri would resist to the death. And whether they should do so or not, I will not suppose for an instant, that the Government of the United States would, upon any condition, submit to the loss of territory so essential to its future commercial greatness as is the State of Missouri.

"But should all other reasons fail to prevent such a misfortune to our people of Missouri, there is one that cannot fail. The Confederates never wanted us, and would not have us. I a.s.sume, therefore, that the War will not cease, but will be continued until the Rebellion shall be overcome. It cannot and will not cease, so far as the people of Missouri are concerned, except upon condition of our remaining in the Union, and the whole West will demand the entire control of the Mississippi river to the Gulf.

"Our interest is therefore bound up with the interests of those States maintaining the Union, and especially with the great States of the West that must be consulted in regard to the terms of any Peace that may be suggested, even by the Nations of Europe, should they at any time unfortunately depart from their former pacific policy and determine to intervene in our affairs.

"The War, then, will have to be continued until the Union shall be practically restored. In this alone consists the future safety of the Border-States themselves. A separation of the Union is ruinous to them. The preservation of the Union can only be secured by a continuation of the War. The consequences of that continuation may be judged of by the experience of the last twelve months. The people of my State are as competent to pa.s.s judgment in the premises as I am. I have every confidence in their intelligence, their honesty, and their patriotism.

"In your own language, the proposition you make 'sets up no claim of a right by Federal authority to interfere with Slavery within State limits,' referring, as it does, the absolute control of the subject in each case to the State and its people immediately interested. It is proposed as a matter of perfectly free choice with them.

"In this view of the subject I can frankly say to you that, personally, I never could appreciate the objections so frequently urged against the proposition. If I understood you properly, it was your opinion, not that Slavery should be removed in order to secure our loyalty to the Government, for every personal act of your administration precludes such an inference, but you believe that the peculiar species of Property was in imminent danger from the War in which we were engaged, and that common justice demanded remuneration for the loss of it.

"You then believe, and again express the opinion, that the peculiar nature of the contest is such that its loss is almost inevitable, and lest any pretext for a charge of injustice against the Government be given to its enemies, you propose to extend to the people of those States standing by the Union, the choice of payment for their Slaves or the responsibility of loss, should it occur, without complaint against the Government.

"Placing the matter in this light, (a mere remuneration for losses rendered inevitable by the casualties of War), the objection of a Const.i.tutional character may be rendered much less formidable in the minds of Northern Representatives whose const.i.tuents will have to share in the payment of the money; and, so far as the Border States are concerned, this objection should be most sparingly urged, for it being a matter entirely of their 'own free choice,' in case of a desire to accept, no serious argument will likely be urged against the receipt of the money, or a fund for Colonization.

"But, aside from the power derived from the operations of war, there may be found numerous precedents in the legislation of the past, such as grants of land and money to the several States for specified objects deemed worthy by the Federal Congress. And in addition to this may be cited a deliberate opinion of Mr. Webster upon this very subject, in one of the ablest arguments of his life.

"I allude to this question of power merely in vindication of the position a.s.sumed by me in my vote for the Resolution of March last.

"In your last communication to us, you beg of us 'to commend this subject to the consideration of our States and people.' While I entirely differ with you in the opinion expressed, that had the members from the Border States approved of your Resolution of March last 'the War would now be substantially ended,' and while I do not regard the suggestion 'as one of the most potent and swift means of ending' the War, I am yet free to say that I have the most unbounded confidence in your sincerity of purpose in calling our attention to the dangers surrounding us.

"I am satisfied that you appreciate the troubles of the Border States, and that your suggestions are intended for our good. I feel the force of your urgent appeal, and the logic of surrounding circ.u.mstances brings conviction even to an unwilling believer.

"Having said that, in my judgment, you attached too much importance to this measure as a means for suppressing the Rebellion, it is due to you that I shall explain.

"Whatever may be the status of the Border States in this respect, the War cannot be ended until the power of the Government is made manifest in the seceded States. They appealed to the sword; give them the sword. They asked for War; let them see its evils on their own soil.

"They have erected a Government, and they force obedience to its behests. This structure must be destroyed; this image, before which an unwilling People have been compelled to bow, must be broken. The authority of the Federal Government must be felt in the heart of the rebellious district. To do this, let armies be marched upon them at once, and let them feel what they have inflicted on us in the Border. Do not fear our States; we will stand by the Government in this work.

"I ought not to disguise from you or the people of my State, that personally I have fixed and unalterable opinions on the subject of your communication. Those opinions I shall communicate to the people in that spirit of frankness that should characterize the intercourse of the Representative with his const.i.tuents.

"If I were to-day the owner of the lands and Slaves of Missouri, your proposition, so far as that State is concerned, would be immediately accepted. Not a day would be lost. Aside from public considerations, which you suppose to be involved in the proposition, and which no Patriot, I agree, should disregard at present, my own personal interest would prompt favorable and immediate action.

"But having said this, it is proper that I say something more. The Representative is the servant and not the master of the People. He has no authority to bind them to any course of action, or even to indicate what they will, or will not, do when the subject is exclusively theirs and not his.

"I shall take occasion, I hope honestly, to give my views of existing troubles and impending dangers, and shall leave the rest to them, disposed, as I am, rather to trust their judgment upon the case stated than my own, and at the same time most cheerfully to acquiesce in their decision.

"For you, personally, Mr. President, I think I can pledge the kindest considerations of the people of Missouri, and I shall not hesitate to express the belief that your recommendation will be considered by them in the same spirit of kindness manifested by you in its presentation to us, and that their decision will be such as is demanded 'by their interests, their honor, and their duty to the whole Country.'

"I am very respectfully, your obedient servant, "J. B. HENDERSON.

"To his Excellency, "A. LINCOLN, PRESIDENT."

CHAPTER XVIII.

FREEDOM PROCLAIMED TO ALL.

While mentally revolving the question of Emanc.i.p.ation-now, evidently "coming to a head,"-no inconsiderable portion of Mr. Lincoln's thoughts centered upon, and his perplexities grew out of, his a.s.sumption that the "physical difference" between the Black and White-the African and Caucasian races, precluded the idea of their living together in the one land as Free men and equals.

In his speeches during the great Lincoln-Douglas debate we have seen this idea frequently advanced, and so, in his later public utterances as President.