Twenty Years of Congress Volume I Part 20

In view of all these facts, it cannot be matter of wonder that the Disunion leaders in the South laughed to scorn any efforts on the part of the Government of the United States to arrest their progress, much less to subdue them, and enforce their return to the Union.

North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas had not yet seceded. The Union sentiment was strong in each one of these States, and the design of Mr. Lincoln was to pursue a policy so mild and conciliatory as to win them to the side of the government.

Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri were excited by strong minorities who desired to aid the South, while no strong element in their population was ready to take decisive measures for the Union.

Palliation, conciliation, concession, compromise, were the only words heard, and the almost universal opinion in the South, shared largely by the North, was that to precipitate war would be to abandon the last hope for restoration of the Union.

EXTRA SESSION OF THE SENATE.

The extra session of the Senate, called by Mr. Buchanan for the convenience of the new administration, a.s.sembled on the 4th of March. All the Southern States were represented in full except those which had members in the Confederate Congress at Montgomery, and from one of these--the State of Texas--both senators, John Hemphill and Louis T. Wigfall, were present. Texas was indeed represented in the Congress of the Confederate States at Montgomery and in the Congress of the United States at Washington at the same time. Some excuse was given for the continuance of the senators by an alleged lack of completeness in the secession proceedings of their State; but to the apprehension of the ordinary mind, a secession that was complete enough to demand representation at Montgomery was complete enough to end it at Washington. The Texas senators, therefore, did not escape the imputation of seizing a mere pretext for remaining at Washington somewhat in the character of spies upon the new administration. John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky and Thomas L. Clingman of North Carolina took the usual oath to support the Const.i.tution--Clingman for his second term, Breckinridge for his first. Salmon P. Chase was sworn in as senator from Ohio, and retired the next day to the Treasury Department.

John Sherman was his successor. Among the new senators who entered, and who afterwards became conspicuous, were Howe of Wisconsin and Baker of Oregon. The session was only for Executive purposes, and of course possessed no legislative power; but the debates were of interest and of value to the country.

Mr. Douglas, with the characteristic boldness of a leader and with a patriotism which did him honor, defended the Inaugural address of Mr. Lincoln against the a.s.sault of opposition senators. In reply to Wigfall of Texas, who wished to know Douglas's views upon certain points of policy, he said, "I do not choose to proclaim what my policy would be, in view of the fact that the senator does not regard himself as the guardian of the honor and the interests of my country, but is looking to the interests of another which he thinks is in hostility. It would hardly be good policy or wisdom for me to reveal what I think ought to be our policy to one who may so soon be in the councils of the enemy and in the command of his armies." Being pressed by Wigfall to know what he would advise the President to do in the critical condition of Fort Sumter, Douglas sarcastically answered that he "should have no hesitancy in replying to the senator from Texas if that senator held himself bound by his oath to support the Const.i.tution of the United States, and to protect and aid the honor of the country instead of communicating it to the enemy to be used against us." It was a vast gain to the Union that Douglas spoke so boldly in defense of Mr. Lincoln; and it was significant that Wigfall received imputations upon his honor without threats of a duel, and without even using the language of resentment.

Mr. Mason of Virginia came to the aid of Wigfall in the debate, but fared badly at the hands of Douglas. He asked Douglas to define what should be done in this crisis in regard to Fort Sumter. "If the senator from Virginia," said Douglas, "had voted right in the last Presidential election, I should have been, perhaps, in a position to-day to tell him authoritatively what ought to be done.

Not occupying that position, I must refer the senator from Virginia to those who have been intrusted by the American people, according to the Const.i.tution, with the decision of that question." The speech of Wigfall had given great offense, and the castigation administered by Douglas was heartily responded to throughout the North. Wigfall had boasted that he owed no allegiance to the government; that he was a foreigner and owed allegiance to another government. On the next day, reciting these words as a preamble, Mr. Foster of Connecticut moved "that Louis T. Wigfall be and hereby is expelled from the Senate." Mr. Clingman of North Carolina moved as a subst.i.tute a declaration that "Texas having seceded from the Union, and being no longer one of the United States, is not ent.i.tled to be represented in this body." After a brief debate, the resolutions were referred to the Judiciary by the votes of Republican senators, who, not wishing to precipitate any issue prematurely, and persuaded that Wigfall's presence was helping rather than harming the Union cause, concluded to let the matter rest.

BRECKINRIDGE AND DOUGLAS.

A notable debate took place between Breckinridge and Douglas, in which the issues that had led to the disruption of the Democracy in the late Presidential election were, in a certain sense, fought over again. Mr. Breckinridge's speech was carefully prepared, and presented the Southern side in a tone of dignity and confidence; but the reply of Douglas exhibited his superiority as a debater.

Breckinridge had declared that whatever settlement be made of other questions, there must be a concession to the South of the right to emigrate into all the Territories, or at least an equitable part.i.tion of the National Domain. In reply, Douglas reminded him that the South had, by the action of a Republican Congress, the full right to emigrate into all the territory of the United States; and that, with the consent of the Republican Congress, every inch of the territory of the United States south of the thirty-seventh degree of lat.i.tude was at that hour open to slavery. "So far," said he, "as the doctrine of popular sovereignty and non-intervention is concerned, the Colorado Bill and the Nevada Bill and the Dakota Bill are identically the same with the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and in its precise language." The answer was at once a complete destruction of the argument of Breckinridge, and a severe indictment of the Republican party. Never before in the existence of the Federal Government had its territory been so open, by Congressional enactment and by judicial decision, to the slave-holder as on the day that Abraham Lincoln a.s.sumed the office of President of the United States. It is a singular fact that, on the eve of the utter destruction of the inst.i.tution of Slavery, its legal status was stronger than ever before in the history of the government, and the area over which it might lawfully spread was far larger than at any previous period. Douglas showed in this debate how absolutely groundless was the excuse of slave-holders for basing secession or revolution upon the failure to acquire their rights in the Territories, when never before had their rights in the Territories been so absolutely complete.

Public opinion in March, 1861, was so unsettled, the popular mind so impressible, that a spirit of discontent soon began to spread over the loyal States on the part of those who had hoped for what they termed a vigorous administration. For a few weeks the conduct of the government fell under the animadversion of all cla.s.ses in the North. To those who wanted an instant settlement, and the return of the seceding States upon their own terms, the administration seemed too radical. To those who demanded that the flag be maintained, and Fort Sumter promptly re-enforced, who would be satisfied with nothing less than the recovery of every piece of public property of which the Confederates had possessed themselves, the administration appeared altogether too conservative. The overwhelming public desire after all was for peace, and the overwhelming public opinion was against the extremists who would, by any possibility, precipitate war. The administration thus began its career with no firm footing beneath it, with an aggressive and defiant enemy in front of it, with a public opinion divided, distrustful, and compromising, behind it.

No more difficult task has ever been presented to any government than that which Mr. Lincoln and his Cabinet a.s.sumed in the month of March, 1861. To judge it now by any appearance of irresolution, or by any seeming deficiency of courage, would be trying it by a standard totally inapplicable and unfair. Before and beyond all things, Mr. Lincoln desired to prevent war, and he felt that every day of peace gave fresh hope that bloodshed might be avoided. In his Inaugural address he had taken the strongest ground for the preservation of the Union, and had carefully refrained from every act and every expression which would justify, even in the public opinion of the South, an outbreak of violence on the part of the Confederates. He believed that the Southern revolt had attained its great proportions in consequence of Mr. Buchanan's a.s.sertion that he had not power to coerce a seceding State. Mr. Lincoln had announced a different creed, and every week that the South continued peaceful, his hope of amicable adjustment grew stronger. He believed that with the continuance of peace, the Secessionists could be brought to see that Union was better than war for all interests, and that in an especial degree the inst.i.tution of Slavery would be imperiled by a resort to arms. He had faith in the sober second- thought. If the South would deliberate, the Union would be saved.

He feared that the Southern mind was in the condition in which a single untoward circ.u.mstance might precipitate a conflict, and he determined that the blood of his brethren should not be on his hands.

STATESMANSHIP OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

Mr. Lincoln saw, moreover, that war between a divided North and a united South would be a remediless calamity. If, after all efforts at peace, war should be found unavoidable, the Administration had determined so to shape its policy, so to conduct its affairs, that when the shock came it should leave the South entirely in the wrong, and the government of the Union entirely in the right. Consolidated as might be the front which the Rebellion would present, the administration was resolved that it should not be more solid, more immovable, more courageous, than that with which the supporters of the government would meet it. Statesmanship cannot be judged upon theories. It must be decided by results. When that conclusive test is brought to bear, Mr. Lincoln's administration of the government in the weeks immediately following his inauguration deserves the highest praise; and all the more because it was compelled to disregard the clamor and disappoint the expectations of many who had been conspicuously influential in bringing it into power, and who therefore thought themselves ent.i.tled to give counsel.

CHAPTER XIV.

President Lincoln and the Confederate Commissioners.--Misleading a.s.surance given by Judge Campbell.--Mr. Seward's Answer to Messrs.

Forsythe and Crawford.--An Interview with the President is desired by the Commissioners.--Rage in the South.--Condition of the Montgomery Government.--Roger A. Pryor's Speech.--President determines to send Provisions to Fort Sumter.--Advises Governor Pickens.--Conflict precipitated.--The Fort surrenders.--Effect of the Conflict on the North.--President's Proclamation and Call for Troops.--Responses of Loyal States.--Popular Uprising.--Democratic Party.--Patriotism of Senator Douglas.--His Relations with Mr. Lincoln.--His Death.-- Public Service and Character.--Effect of the President's Call on Southern States.--North Carolina.--Tennessee.--Virginia.--Senator Mason's Letter.--Responses of Southern Governors to the President's Call for Troops.--All decline to comply.--Some of them with Insolent Defiance.--Governors of the Free States.--John A. Andrew, E. D.

Morgan, Andrew G. Curtin, Oliver P. Morton.--Energetic and Patriotic Action of all Northern Governors.--Exceptional Preparation in Pennsylvania for the Conflict.--Governors of Free States all Republicans except in California and Oregon.--Critical Situation on Pacific Coast.--Loyalty of its People.--President's Reasons for postponing Session of Congress.--Election in Kentucky.--Union Victory.--John J. Crittenden and Garrett Davis.--John Bell.-- Disappoints Expectation of Union Men.--Responsibility of Southern Whigs.--Their Power to arrest the Madness.--Audacity overcomes Numbers.--Whig Party of the South.--Its Brilliant Array of Leaders.

--Its Destruction.

The negotiation which the seceding State of South Carolina had unsuccessfully attempted with President Buchanan, for the surrender of Fort Sumter, was now formally renewed by the Confederate Government with the administration of Mr. Lincoln. The week following the inauguration, John Forsythe of Alabama and Martin J. Crawford of Georgia appeared in Washington in the character of Commissioners from the Confederate States, "with a view," as they defined it, "to a speedy adjustment of all questions growing out of the political separation, upon such terms of amity and good will as the respective interests, geographical contiguity, and future welfare of the two nations, may render necessary." They addressed their communication to the Secretary of State as a matter pertaining to the Foreign Department of the government, and waited with confidence for an answer that would practically recognize the nationality which they a.s.sumed to represent. Judge Campbell of the Supreme Court, a citizen of Alabama, had held some conferences with Mr. Seward, the result of which was his personal a.s.surance to the Commissioners that Fort Sumter would be evacuated before the 25th of March; and he urged them not to insist upon too prompt an answer to their demand. At his instance, the reply of Mr. Seward was withheld from official delivery, and, though dated the 15th of March, was really not read by the Commissioners until the 7th or 8th of April.

THE CONFEDERATE COMMISSIONERS.

Mr. Seward's answer threw the Commissioners and the entire South into a rage. He declined to comply with the request of Messrs.

Forsythe and Crawford. He saw in them, "not a rightful and accomplished revolution, not an independent nation with an established government, but only the perversion of a temporary and partisan excitement, and an inconsiderate purpose of unjustifiable and unconst.i.tutional aggression upon the rights and the authority vested in the Federal Government." Mr. Seward further advised them that he "looked for the cure of evils which should result from proceedings so unnecessary, so unwise, so unusual, so unnatural, not to irregular negotiations having in view untried relations, but to regular, considerate action of the people of those States through the Congress of the United States, and through such extraordinary conventions, if there be need thereof, as the Federal Const.i.tution contemplates and authorizes to be a.s.sembled." Under these circ.u.mstances, Mr.

Seward informed the Commissioners that his official duties were confined to the conduct of the foreign relations of his country, and did not at all embrace domestic questions, or questions arising between the several States and the Federal Government.

The Secretary of State was unable, therefore, to comply with the request of Messrs. Forsythe and Crawford, and declined to appoint a day on which they might submit the objects of their visit to the President of the United States. He refused to recognize them as diplomatic agents, and would not hold correspondence or further communication with them. Lest the Commissioners might console themselves with the reflection that Mr. Seward was speaking only for himself, and that the President might deal with them less curtly, he informed them that he had cheerfully submitted his answer to Mr. Lincoln, who coincided in the views it expressed, and sanctioned the Secretary's decision declining official intercourse with Messrs. Forsythe and Crawford. The rejoinder of the Confederate Commissioners to Mr. Seward was in a threatening tone, upbraiding him with bad faith, and advising him that "Fort Sumter cannot be provisioned without the effusion of blood;" reminding him also that they had not come to Washington to ask the Government of the United States to recognize the independence of the Confederacy, but for an "adjustment of new relations springing from a manifest and accomplished revolution."

Up to this time there had not been the slightest collision between the forces of the Confederacy and the forces of the Union. The places which had been seized, belonging to the Federal Government, had been taken without resistance; and the authorities of Montgomery appeared to a great many Southern people to be going through blank motions, and to be aping power rather than exercising it. Their defiant att.i.tude had been demoralizing to the public sentiment in the North, but their failure to accomplish any thing in the way of concession from the National Government, and their apparent timidity in refraining from a shock of arms, was weakening the Disunion sentiment in the States which composed the Confederacy. Jefferson Davis had been inaugurated with great pomp and pretension in February, and now April had been reached with practically nothing done but the issuing of manifestoes, and the maintenance of a mere shadow of government, without its substance. The Confederates had as yet no revenue system and no money. They had no armed force except some military companies in the larger cities, organized long before secession was contemplated. They had not the pretense of a navy, or any power apparently to create one. While the administration of Mr. Lincoln, therefore, was disappointing great numbers in the North by its failure to do something decisive towards re-establishing the National authority in the rebellious States, the inhabitants of those States were becoming daily dissatisfied with the fact that the administration of Mr. Davis was doing nothing to consolidate and protect the Confederacy.

DISSATISFACTION WITH THE CONFEDERACY.

Ever since the inauguration of Jefferson Davis, the flag of the United States had been flying over the strongest fortress in the Confederacy, and no forcible effort had been made to displace it.

The first flush of joy and congratulation was over, and re-action had begun throughout the revolting States. The Confederate Government was reminded by many of the leading newspapers of the South that unless some decisive step were taken to a.s.sert its authority and establish its prestige, it would quietly crumble to pieces. The apparent non-resistance of Mr. Lincoln's administration had, in many minds, the effect of casting contempt upon the whole Southern movement, and the refusal to recognize or receive commissioners of Mr. Davis's appointment was regarded as a direct insult to their government, which, unless met by some decisive step, would subject the leaders to the derision of public opinion throughout the new Confederacy. Mr. Buchanan had been willing to receive commissioners from seceding States, so far as to confer with them, even when he declared that he had no power to take any action in the premises.

Mr. Lincoln had advanced beyond the position of Mr. Buchanan when he refused even to give audience to representatives bearing the commission of the Confederate States.

The situation therefore had become strained. The point had been reached where it was necessary to go forward or go backward; where the Confederacy must a.s.sert itself, or the experiment of secession be abandoned. From all quarters of the seven States came the demand upon the Montgomery government to do something decisive. A prominent member of the Alabama Legislature told Jefferson Davis that "unless he sprinkled blood in the face of the Southern people they would be back in the old Union in less than ten days." Public meetings were held to urge the government to action. At Charleston, in answer to a large crowd who came to pay him honor, Roger A. Pryor (whose attractive eloquence has since been used to better ends) told the people that only one thing was necessary to force Virginia into the Southern Confederacy: "to strike a blow." That done, he promised them that "Virginia would secede in less than an hour by Shrewsbury clock."

The indifference of Mr. Lincoln's administration to the program of the Southern Confederacy was apparent and not real. In his Inaugural he had declared that the power confided to him would be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts, but, beyond what was necessary for those objects, there would be no invasion, no use of force against or among the people anywhere. Influential persons connected with Mr. Lincoln's administration may have wavered in regard to the expediency of re-enforcing Major Anderson and holding possession of Fort Sumter, but the President himself wisely concluded that to retreat from that point would be an almost fatal step. There was not a citizen in the North who had not become interested in the fate of Major Anderson and the brave soldiers under his command. Though many patriotic men of conservative or timid nature advised a quiet withdrawal from Fort Sumter rather than an open conflict for its possession, there was an instinctive undertone in the ma.s.ses of the people in the Northern States against a concession so humiliating. If prestige were needed for the government at Montgomery, Mr. Lincoln felt that it was needed for the government at Washington, and if he withdrew from Sumter he could not see any point where he could make a stand.

The President determined, therefore, to send supplies to Major Anderson. He wisely saw that if he failed to do this he would be receding from the temperate and conservative position taken in the Inaugural, and that it would give to the Confederates a degree of courage, and to the North a degree of despondency, which would vastly increase the difficulty of restoring the Union. In Mr.

Lincoln's own language: "the abandonment of Sumter would be utterly ruinous, under the circ.u.mstances." . . . "At home it would discourage the friends of the Union, embolden its adversaries, and go far to insure to the latter a recognition abroad. In fact, it would be our national destruction consummated." Having taken this determination, he communicated it to Governor Pickens of South Carolina just at the time that Mr. Seward delivered to the commissioners of Jefferson Davis the government's refusal to receive them. The answer to the commissioners, and the determination not to permit Anderson to be starved out of Fort Sumter with the hostile guns of the Confederacy pointed at him, brought on the conflict. As soon as the two events were made public, the Confederate Secretary of War instructed General Beauregard that if the information conveyed to Governor Pickens was authentic, he should proceed to reduce the fort. The conflict came on the 12th of April, and after a furious cannonade of thirty-four hours, Major Anderson, being out of provisions, was compelled to surrender. The fleet that was bringing him relief arrived too late, and the flag of the United States was lowered to the Confederacy. Those who had urged Mr. Davis to strike a blow and to sprinkle blood in the faces of the people as a means of consolidating Southern opinion, were undoubtedly successful.

Throughout the States of the Confederacy the inhabitants were crazed with success. They had taken from the National Government its strongest fortress on the South-Atlantic coast. They felt suddenly awakened to a sense of power, and became wild with confidence in their ability to defy the authority of the United States.

EFFECT OF FORT SUMTER'S FALL.

The Confederate Government, however, had not antic.i.p.ated the effect of an actual conflict on the people of the North. Until the hour of the a.s.sault on Sumter they had every reason for believing that Mr. Lincoln's administration was weak; that it had not a sustaining force of public opinion behind it in the free States; that, in short, Northern people were divided very much on the line of previous party organizations, and that his opponents had been steadily gaining, his supporters as steadily losing, since the day of the Presidential election in November. The Confederates naturally counted much on this condition of Northern sentiment, and took to themselves the comforting a.s.surance that vigorous war could never be made by a divided people. They had treasured all the extreme sayings of Northern Democrats about resisting the march of a Black Republican army towards the South, and offering their dead bodies as obstructions to its progress. They believed, and had good reason for believing, that half the population of the North was opposed to the policy of subjugation, and they accepted the creed of Mr.

Buchanan that there was no power in the Const.i.tution to coerce a sovereign State.

Never was popular delusion so suddenly and so completely dispelled.

The effect of the a.s.sault on Sumter and the lowering of the National flag to the forces of the Confederacy acted upon the North as an inspiration, consolidating public sentiment, dissipating all differences, bringing the whole people to an instant and unanimous determination to avenge the insult and re-establish the authority of the Union. Yesterday there had been doubt and despondency; to- day had come a.s.surance and confidence. Yesterday there had been division; to-day there was unity. The same issue of the morning paper that gave intelligence of the fall of Sumter, brought also a call from the President of the United States for seventy-five thousand men to aid him "in suppressing combinations against the law, too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings." He notified the people that "the first service a.s.signed to the force hereby called forth will probably be to repossess the forts, places, and property which have been seized from the Union;" and he concluded by convening an extra session of Congress to a.s.semble on the fourth day of the ensuing July. The President stated, in his Proclamation, that the laws of the United States had been "for some time past opposed, and their execution obstructed, in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial procedure, or by the powers vested in the marshals by law." He had therefore "called forth the militia to suppress such combinations, and to cause the laws to be duly executed." He appealed to all loyal citizens "to aid in maintaining the honor, the integrity, and the existence of the National Union, and the perpetuity of popular government." The Proclamation was general. The Call for troops was issued specifically to every State except the seven already in revolt.

The Proclamation was responded to in the loyal States with an unparalleled outburst of enthusiasm. On the day of its issue hundreds of public meetings were held, from the eastern border of Maine to the extreme western frontier. Work was suspended on farm and in factory, and the whole people were roused to patriotic ardor, and to a determination to subdue the Rebellion and restore the Union, whatever might be the expenditure of treasure or the sacrifice of life. Telegrams of congratulation and sympathy fell upon the White House like snow-flakes in a storm; and the President was made to feel, after all the months of gloom and darkness through which he had pa.s.sed since his election, that light had broken, that day had dawned, and that the open struggle for the Union, however severe and however sanguinary it might prove, was preferable to the slough of despond in which the nation had been cast, and the valley of humiliation through which the government had been groping.

In the history of popular uprisings and of manifestations of National enthusiasm, there is perhaps no equal to that which was seen in the free States of the Union in the weeks immediately following the rash attack on Fort Sumter. While the feeling was too deep to brook resistance, or quietly to endure a word of opposition, it was happily so tempered with discretion as to prevent personal outrages upon the few who did not join in the general chorus for the Union. Suspected men were waited upon and requested to speak for the loyal cause, and newspapers, which before the firing of Sumter had been offensive in tone, were compelled to hoist the National flag over their offices, and openly support the government.

But these cases were few and exceptional; and it is due to the Democracy of the North to say, that however strongly they had opposed the election of Mr. Lincoln, and however hostile they had been to the principles which he represented, the ma.s.s of the party responded with n.o.ble enthusiasm and with patriotic fidelity to the Union. Their great leader, Senator Douglas, set a worthy example by promptly waiting on the President, and expressing his deepest sympathy and his most earnest co-operation in the struggle for the life of the nation.

PATRIOTIC COURSE OF MR. DOUGLAS.

The patriotic course of Mr. Douglas had been of invaluable service to the government from the hour of Mr. Lincoln's inauguration.

The old friendship between the ill.u.s.trious rivals from Illinois, which had begun when each was in his youth, was now strongly revived.

Differing always on political issues, they were at once in accord when the fate of the government was at stake. The position of Douglas during the extra session of the Senate had given marked satisfaction to Mr. Lincoln, and when the deliberations came to a close, on the 28th of March, the President said that a great gain had been made to the cause of the Union, by the direction which the speeches of Douglas would give to the sympathy and action of the Northern Democracy. From the hour of actual danger, Mr. Douglas had spoken no partisan word, had known no partisan division, had labored only for the government of the nation, had looked only to its safety and its honor. He had a larger following than any other party leader of his day. Nearly a million and a half of men believed in his principles, were devoted to him personally, trusted him implicitly. The value of his active loyalty to the Union may be measured by the disaster which would have been caused by hesitation on his part. When he returned to his State, after the firing on Sumter, the Republican Legislature of Illinois received him with a display of feeling as profound as that with which they would have welcomed Mr. Lincoln. His address on that memorable occasion was worthy of the loftiest patriot, and was of inestimable value to the cause of the Union. Perhaps no words spoken carried confidence to more hearts, or gave greater strength to the National cause.

Mr. Douglas did not live to return to the Senate. The extra session of March closed his public service. He died in Chicago on the third day of June, 1861, at the early age of forty-eight. His last days were his best days. The hour of his death was the hour of his greatest fame. In his political career he had experienced the extremes of popular odium and of popular approval. His name had at different periods been attended with as great obloquy as ever beset a public man. It was his happy fate to have changed this before his death, and to have secured the enthusiastic approbation of every lover of the Union. His career had been stormy, his partisanship aggressive, his course often violent, his political methods sometimes ruthless. He had sought favor at the South too long to regain mastery of the North, and he had been defeated in the Presidential struggle of 1860,--a struggle in which the ambition of his life had been centred. But with danger to the Union his early affections and the a.s.sociations of his young life had come back. He remembered that he was a native of New England, that he had been reared in New York, that he had been crowned with honors by the generous and confiding people of Illinois. He believed in the Union of the States, and he stood by his country with a fervor and energy of patriotism which enshrined his name in the history and in the hearts of the American people. His death created the profoundest impression in the country, and the Administration felt that one of the mighty props of the Union had been torn away.

The rank of Mr. Douglas as a statesman is not equal to his rank as a parliamentary leader. As a statesman, he was full of resources, fertile in expedients. But he lacked the truest form of conservatism, and more than once in his career carried partisan contests beyond the point of safety. His partic.i.p.ation in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise is an ill.u.s.tration, all the more pertinent and impressive because his own judgment was against the measure, and he allowed himself to be controlled by the fear that another might usurp the place in Southern regard so long held by himself. In parliamentary discussion it is not easy to overstate the power of Mr. Douglas.

Indeed, it would be difficult to name his superior. He did not attain the dignity of Webster's stately style. He was not gifted with the fire that burned through Clay's impulsive speech. But as a ready, comprehensive speaker, armed at all points and using his weapons with deadliest effect, he was the equal of either. In the rapidity with which he marshaled the facts favorable to his position, in the consummate skill with which he presented his argument, in the dashing and daring manner by which he overcame an opponent more strongly intrenched than himself, Mr. Douglas is ent.i.tled to rank with the most eminent of parliamentary debaters.

ADDITIONS TO THE CONFEDERACY.

The effect of Major Anderson's surrender of Sumter and of the President's call for troops proved prejudicial to the Union sentiment in the slave States which had not yet seceded. It would be more correct, perhaps, to say that Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation was a test of loyalty which revealed the actual character of public sentiment in those States, till then not known in the North. Mr. Lincoln had done every thing in his power to conciliate them, and to hold them fast in their loyalty to the Union. But the sympathy with the South, engendered by the common danger to the inst.i.tution of Slavery, was too powerful to be resisted. North Carolina, which had always been moderate, conservative, and Union-loving, threw her fortunes with the Confederacy. Tennessee, distracted by the unforeseen defection of such staunch Union men as John Bell and Baillie Peyton,* went Southward with the general current. Virginia could not be restrained, although she was warned and ought to have seen, that if she joined the Rebellion she would inevitably become the battle-ground, and would consign her territory to devastation and her property to destruction. The Virginia convention which was in session before the firing on Fort Sumter, and which was animated by a strong friendship for the Union, was carried in to the vortex of secession by the surrounding excitement. By a vote of 88 to 55 the State determined to join the Confederacy. The wonder is that in the prevailing excitement and arrogant dictation, there could have been found fifty-five men to resist so powerful a tide of public opinion. The minority was strong enough, however, to command the submission of the ordinance to a vote of the people, --a submission which was in form and not in substance, for in reality no freedom of opinion was conceded.

The ordinance which was pa.s.sed on the 17th of April, three days after the fall of Sumter, declared that "it should take effect when ratified by a majority of the votes of the people of the State, cast at a poll to be taken thereon on the fourth Thursday in May."

The Convention did not submit its work to popular review and decision in a fair and honorable way. Eight days after the act of submission, the Convention pa.s.sed another ordinance, by which Virginia agreed "to adopt and ratify the Const.i.tution of the Provisional Government of the Confederate States." They provided that this second ordinance should have no effect if the first should be rejected by the people.

It is not difficult to see that the action was taken in order to render the rejection of the first ordinance impossible. Under the second ordinance, the Convention at once entered into a formal alliance, offensive and defensive, with the Confederate States.

Their Vice-President, Alexander H. Stephens, appeared in Richmond as commissioner of his government, and the Convention appointed Ex- President John Tyler, William Ballard Preston, James P. Holcombe, and other leading citizens, as commissioners for Virginia. These joint commissioners made a formal compact between Virginia and the Confederate States on the 25th of April, the day after the Convention had adopted the Confederate Const.i.tution. By this compact, Virginia, "looking to a speedy union with the Confederate States," placed "the whole military force of the Commonwealth under the control and direction of the Confederate States, upon the same basis and footing as if said Commonwealth were now a member of said Confederacy."

Without waiting for the decision of the people on the question of secession, the national flag was removed from the public buildings, and the Confederate flag was raised. All the property of the General Government was seized and, by an article in the agreement with the Confederate commissioner, was in due time to be turned over to the Montgomery government. In short, the State Government of Virginia proceeded in its mad career of hostility to the Union, without the slightest regard to the future decision of the people on the important issue which in form had been submitted to them.

They evidently intended to make a rejection of the Disunion ordinance impossible. For their own honor, the man who contrived and guided these proceedings would better have adopted the bold precedent of those States which refused altogether to submit the ordinance to popular vote.