The Southerner: A Romance of the Real Lincoln Part 49

The backwoods lawyer questioned, too, the right of a naval officer to turn his quarter-deck into a court and decide questions of international law offhand. He raised the point at once whether these men thus captured might not be white elephants on the hands of the Government. Moreover he reminded his Cabinet that we had fought England once for daring to do precisely this thing.

Great Britain promptly drew her sword and made ready for war.

Queen Victoria's Government not only demanded that the return of these pa.s.sengers be made at once with an apology, but did it in a way so offensive that a less balanced man in power would have lost his head and committed the fatal blunder.

The tall, quiet Chief Magistrate was equal to the occasion. Great Britain had ordered her navy on a war footing, dispatched eight thousand troops to Canada to strike by land as well as sea, allowing us but seven days in which to comply with all her demands or hand Lord Lyons his pa.s.sports.

The President immediately dictated a reply which forced her Prime Minister to accept it and achieved for the Nation the establishment of a principle for which we had fought in vain in 1812.

He ordered the prisoners returned and an apology expressed. His apology was a two-edged sword thrust which Great Britain was compelled to take with a groan.

"In 1812," the President said, "the United States fought because you claimed the right to stop our vessels on the high seas, search them and take by force British subjects found thereon. Our country in making this surrender, adheres to the ancient principle for which we contended and we are glad to find that Her Majesty's Government in demanding this surrender thereby renounces an error and accepts our position."

Lord Palmerston made a wry face, but was compelled to accept the surrender, and with it seal his own humiliation as a beaten diplomat.

War with England at this moment would have meant unparalleled disaster.

France had ambitions in Mexico and she was bound in friendship to England. The two great Nations of Europe would have been hurled against our divided country with the immediate recognition of the Confederacy.

The President forced this return of the prisoners and apparent surrender to Great Britain in the face of the blindest and most furious outbursts of popular rage.

Gilbert Winter rose in the Senate and in thunderous oratory voiced the well-nigh unanimous feeling of the millions of the North of all parties and factions:

"I warn the administration against this dastardly and cowardly surrender to a foreign foe! The voice of the people demand that we stand firm on our dignity as a Sovereign Nation. If the President and his Cabinet refuse to listen they will find themselves engulfed in a fire that will consume them like stubble. They will find themselves helpless before a power that will hurl them from their places!"

The President was still under the cloud of public wrath over this affair when the crisis of the problem of emanc.i.p.ation became acute. The gradual growth of the number of his bitter foes in Washington he had seen with deep distress. And yet it was inevitable. No man in his position could administer the great office whose power he was wielding without fear or favor and not make enemies. And now both friend and foe were closing in on him with a well-nigh resistless demand for emanc.i.p.ation.

Hour after hour he sat patiently in his office receiving these impa.s.sioned delegations.

Old Edward was standing at the door again smiling and washing his hands:

"A delegation of editors, presenting Mr. Horace Greeley's 'Prayer of Twenty Millions.'"

The patient eyes were lifted front his desk, and the strong mouth firmly pressed:

"Let them in."

The President rose in his easy, careless manner:

"I'm glad to see you, gentlemen. You are the leaders of public opinion.

The people rule this country and I am their servant. What is it?"

The Chairman of the Committee stepped forward and gravely handed him an engrossed copy of Greeley's famous editorial, "The Prayer of Twenty Millions," demanding the immediate issue of a proclamation of emanc.i.p.ation.

The Chairman bowed and spoke in earnest tones:

"As the representatives of millions of readers we present this 'Prayer'

with our endors.e.m.e.nt and the request that you act. In particular we call your attention to these paragraphs:

"'A great portion of those who brought about your election and all those who desire the unqualified suppression of the rebellion, are sorely disappointed, pained and surprised by the policy you seem to be pursuing with regard to the slaves of rebels. I write to set before you succinctly and unmistakably what we require, what we have a right to expect and of what we complain.

"'We think you are unduly influenced by the counsels, the representations and the menaces of certain fossil politicians from the Border Slave States, knowing as you do, that the loyal citizens of these States do not expect that Slavery shall be upheld, to the prejudice of the Union.

"'We complain that the Union cause has suffered and is now suffering immensely from the mistaken course which you are pursuing and persistently cling to, in defense of slavery. We complain that the confiscation act which you approved is being wantonly and wholly disregarded by your Generals, apparently with your knowledge and consent.

"'The seeming subserviency of your policy to the slave holding, slave upholding interest is the perplexity and the despair of statesmen of all parties. Whether you will choose to listen to their admonishment or wait for your verdict through future history, or at the bar of G.o.d, I do not know. I can only hope.'"

The President's sombre eyes met his with a penetrating flash and rested on Senator Winter who remained in the background. He took the paper, laid it carefully on his desk, threw his right leg across the corner of the long table in easy, friendly att.i.tude and began his reply persuasively:

"The editor of the _Tribune_, gentleman, if on my side, is equal to an army of a hundred thousand men in the field. I've known this from the first. Against me he throws this army in the rear and fires into my back. My grievance is that his Prayer which you have made yours is being used for ammunition in this rear attack. It should have been presented to me first, if it were a genuine prayer. I have read it carefully. It is full of blunders of fact and reasoning, but it fairly expresses the discontent in the minds of many. Its unfair a.s.sumptions will poison millions of readers against me----"

He paused, opened a drawer in his desk, took from it a sheet of paper on which he had written in firm, clear hand a brief message in reply, and turned to his pet.i.tioners:

"And therefore, gentlemen, I have written a few words in answer to this attack. I ask you to give it the same wide hearing you have accorded the a.s.sault. I'll read it to you:

"'Dear Sir:--I have just read yours of the 19th instant addressed to myself through the _New York Tribune_.

"'If there be in it any statements or a.s.sumptions of fact, which I know to be erroneous, I do not now and here controvert them.

"'If there be any influences which I believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here argue against them.

"'If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.

"'As to the policy I seem to be pursuing, as you say, I have not meant to leave anyone in doubt. I would save the Union. I would save it in the shortest way under the Const.i.tution.

"'The sooner the National authority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be,--the Union as it was.

"'If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save Slavery, I do not agree with them.

"'If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time destroy Slavery, I do not agree with them.

"'_My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy Slavery_.

"'If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it. And if I could save it by freeing all the slaves 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.

"'I shall do less whenever I believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more, whenever I believe doing more will help the cause.

"'I shall try to correct errors, when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

"'I have stated my purpose, according to my view of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft expressed personal wish, that all men everywhere could be free.'"

A moment of death-like stillness followed the reading. The members of the committee had unconsciously pressed nearer. Some of them stood with shining eyes gazing at the rugged, towering figure as if drawn by a magnet. The stark earnestness and simplicity of his defense had found their hearts. The daring of it fairly took their breath.

Senator Winter turned to his nearest neighbor and growled:

"Bah! The trouble is Lincoln's a Southerner--born in the poisoned slave atmosphere of the South. He grew up in Southern Indiana and Illinois.

His neighbors there were settlers from the South. He has never breathed anything but Southern air and ideals. It's in his blood. Only a man born in the South could have written that doc.u.ment----"