Abraham Lincoln, a History — Volume 02 · Chapter 20Table of Contents Vol. II (19)
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And the next point, that you should, at the earliest possible day of the session of our own Legislature, elect a man as governor whose name and character will conciliate as well as give confidence to all the men of the State,—if we do act, I really think this half the battle,—a man upon whose temper the State can rely.
I say nothing about a convention, as I understand, on all hands, that that is a fixed fact, and I have confined myself to answering your question. I will be much obliged to you if you will write me soon and fully from Columbia.
It is impossible to write to you, with the constant interruption of the office, and as you want Cobb's opinions, not mine, I send this to you.
Yours,
W.H.T.
MS. Confederate Archives.
THOS. F. DRAYTON TO GOVERNOR GIST. CHARLESTON, 3d Nov., 1860.
On the 22d of last month I was in Washington, and called upon the Secretary at War, in company with Senator Wigfall, of Texas, to make inquiries as to the efficiency and price of certain muskets belonging to the United States, which had been altered by the Ordnance Department from flint to percussion. They will shoot for 200 yards as well as any smooth-bored gun in the service, and if rifled will be effective at 500 yards. But if the conical ball will be made lighter by enlarging the hollow at the base of the cone, the effective range may be increased to seven hundred yards. Should your Excellency give a favorable consideration to the above, I can have the whole of what I have stated authenticated by the board of ordnance officers, who inspected and reported to the Secretary at War upon these muskets. If ten thousand or more of these muskets are purchased, the price will be two ($2) dollars each; for a less quantity the charge will be $2.50 each. If a portion or all of them are to be rifled, the Secretary says he will have it done for the additional cost of one ($1) dollar per barrel. As this interview with Mr. Secretary Floyd was both semi-official and confidential, your Excellency will readily see the necessity, should this matter be pursued further, of appointing an agent to negotiate with him, rather than conduct the negotiation directly between the State and the Department ... I unhesitatingly advise purchasing several thousand of them ... There are many other important facts in connection with the above that I could disclose, but will reserve them for some other occasion, that I may give them verbally as soon as I can find a day to wait upon your Excellency in Columbia.
The State of Texas has engaged twenty thousand (20,000) of these muskets, and the State of Kentucky purchased several thousand last summer.
Ibid.
THOS. F. DRAYTON TO GOVERNOR GIST. CHARLESTON, 6th Nov., 1860.
I have only within a few hours received yours of the 5th inst., authorizing me to purchase from the War Department at Washington ten thousand rifles of pattern and price indicated in my letter to your Excellency of the 3d inst.
I accept the appointment and will discharge the duty assigned to the best of my ability and with the least possible delay. For I feel that the past and present agitation are ruinous to our peace and prosperity and that our only remedy is to break up with dispatch the present Confederacy and construct a new and better one. I will communicate with Mr. Secretary Floyd to-night and have the rifles put in preparation so as to have them for use at an early day....
I would wish that my agency in this transaction be kept private until I reach Washington, or indeed till I write to say the arms are on their way to Columbia....
Ibid.
THOS. F. DRAYTON TO GOVERNOR GIST. CHARLESTON, 8th Nov., 1860.
I have just received your letter of the 7th inst., and I think I can render you all the information you desire, without resorting to any agent. If my ability can only be made to keep pace with my zeal, I hope yet to render some service to the dear old State of South Carolina.
MS. Confederate Archives.
THOS. F. DRAYTON TO GOVERNOR GIST. CHARLESTON, 16th Nov., 1860.
I have been most reluctantly detained here by an accidental fall, and also by business of an urgent kind associated with the railroad. My absence from Washington, however, has not delayed the execution of your order for the rifles; the Secretary of War has had the preparation of them in hand for some time.
When I write to you from Washington, had I not better address you through your private secretary ... Please address me at Washington to the care of Wm. H. Trescott, Esq. ... I will give strict attention to your letter of the 7th inst., and hope to furnish you with much of the information you desire, for I am quite sensible of the importance of knowing the views and policy of the President at this juncture.
MS. Confederate Archives.
THOS. F. DRAYTON TO GOVERNOR GIST. WASHINGTON, 19th Nov., 1860.
... I called this morning upon the Secretary of War to make arrangements for the immediate transmission of the rifles to Columbia, but much to my astonishment he informed me that since he had looked over the report of "Small Fire-arms" (now inclosed) that he found he had labored under an error in stating to me that the ten thousand rifles I had engaged were ready for delivery when called for by me. He said he could have them rifled, but it would take three or four months to execute the contract, but suggested that we should purchase the 10,000 smooth-bored muskets instead, as a more efficient arm, particularly if large-sized buckshot should be used, which, put up in wire case capable of containing 12 of them, would go spitefully through an inch plank at 200 yards. I was much astonished at the result of my interview with Governor Floyd to-day, for he had not only informed me that the rifles would be ready for me on my arrival, but told Mr. Trescott so likewise, and that if I had been in Washington last Saturday I could have got them.... If you will be satisfied with the smooth-bored muskets like the specimen forwarded to you, I will purchase them. Better do this, although not the best pattern, than be without arms at a crisis like the present. Colonel Benjamin Huger can give you much information about these muskets. This is derived not only from Mr. Floyd, but also from General J.E. Johnston, Quartermaster-General, who was President of the Ordnance Board who had these muskets changed from flint to percussion, and also from smooth-bore to rifle, and he says that for our purposes the smooth-bored musket is preferable to the altered rifle. The why I cannot explain to-day.... I also send you a letter from Mr. Trescott, in reply to certain inquiries from me. I am unable to make any comments upon them nor to add other facts which I will forward you more leisurely to-morrow....
MS. Confederate Archives.
W.H. TRESCOTT TO THOS. F. DRAYTON. WASHINGTON, Nov. 19, 1860.
(Private, Confidential.)
MY DEAR DRAYTON: It is difficult to reply specifically to your inquiries, partly because I do not believe that the exact course of the Administration has been yet determined on, and partly because my knowledge, or rather my inference, of its intentions is derived from intercourse with its members which I am bound to consider confidential. I do not regard it of serious importance to you to know the individual opinions of either the President or the Cabinet. No action of any sort will be taken until the message has been sent indicating the opinions of the Executive, and that message, whatever it be, will find our Legislature in session, and the convention on the point of meeting. I think it likely that the President will state forcibly what he considers the grievances of the South, that he will add that he does not think, if the right of secession existed, it would be a wise policy for the State to adopt, and that he does not think the right to secede does exist, and then refer the whole matter to Congress; what he will do when the State does secede, he has not said, and I do not know, nor any man, I believe. He will do, as we will, what he believes to be his duty, and that duty, I suppose, will be discharged in full view of the consequences following any line of action that may be determined on. But I think that, as long as Cobb and Thompson retain seats in the Cabinet, you may feel confident that no action has been taken which seriously affects the position of any Southern State.
I think that I may safely rely upon my knowledge of what will be done, and you may rely upon my resignation as soon as that knowledge satisfies me of any move in a direction positively injurious to us, or altering the present condition of things to our disadvantage. When you pass through on Wednesday, however, I will speak to you more fully.
Yours,
W.H.T.
Ibid.
THOS. F. DRAYTON TO GOVERNOR GIST. WASHINGTON, 19th Nov., 1860.
Mr. Buchanan, while he can discover no authority under the Constitution to justify secession by a State, on the other hand he can find no power to coerce one to return after the right of secession has been exercised. He will not allow entry or clearance of a vessel except through the Custom-house, to be established as soon as secession is declared, upon the deck of a man-of-war off the harbor of Charleston. He will enforce the collection of duties, not by navy, but by a revenue cutter, as our collector now would do if his authority was resisted. I will write to you more fully when I return from New York, where I go to-morrow at daylight, at the suggestion of the Secretary of War, who deems it important that I should go there to make arrangements for shipping the arms (should you still want them) from that point instead of this city ... Do send a copy of the list of arms at the arsenals to H.R. Lawton, Milledgeville, Ga. I am getting some smooth-bored muskets for Georgia, like the specimen I sent you.
MS. Confederate Archives.
THOS. F. DRAYTON TO GOVERNOR GIST. WASHINGTON, 23d Nov., 1860.
I arrived here at 6 A.M. from New York, where I had gone at the suggestion of Mr. Floyd to engage Mr. G.B. Lamar, President of the Bank of the Republic, to make an offer to the Secretary for such a number of muskets as we might require. The Secretary at War was reluctant to dispose of them to me, preferring the intermediate agency. Mr. Lamar has consented to act accordingly, and to-day the Secretary has written to the commanding officer [at] Watervliet Arsenal to deliver five or ten thousand muskets (altered from flint to percussion) to Mr. Lamar's order. Mr. Lamar will pay the United States paymaster for them, and rely upon the State to repay him. I have been most fortunate in having been enabled to meet the payments for the arms through Mr. L., for I feel satisfied that without his intervention we could not have effected the purchase at this time.... I expect to return at daylight to-morrow to New York, for I am very anxious about getting possession of the arms at Watervliet, and forward them to Charleston. The Cabinet may break up at any moment, on differences of opinion with the President as to the rights of secession, and a new Secretary of War might stop the muskets going South, if not already on their way when he comes into office.
I will write to you again by the next mail. The impression here and elsewhere among many Southern men is, that our Senators have been precipitate in resigning; they think that their resignations should have been tendered from their seats after they had announced to the Senate that the State had seceded. Occupying their seats up to this period would have kept them in communication with Senators from the South and assisted very powerfully in shaping to our advantage coming events.
If any further quotation be necessary to show the audacity with which at least three Secretaries and one Assistant Secretary of Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet engaged in flagrant conspiracy in the early stages of rebellion, it may be found in an interview of Senator Clingman with the Secretary of the Interior, which the former has recorded in his "Speeches and Writings" as an interesting reminiscence. It may be doubted whether Secretary Thompson correctly reported the President as wishing him success in his North Carolina mission, but the Secretary is, of course, a competent witness to his own declarations and acts.
T.L. Clingman, "Speeches and Writings," pp. 526, 527.
About the middle of December [1860] I had occasion to see the Secretary of the Interior on some official business. On my entering the room, Mr. Thompson said to me, "Clingman, I am glad you have called, for I intended presently to go up to the Senate to see you. I have been appointed a commissioner by the State of Mississippi to go down to North Carolina to get your State to secede, and I wished to talk with you about your Legislature before I start down in the morning to Raleigh, and to learn what you think of my chance of success." I said to him, "I did not know that you had resigned." He answered; "Oh, no, I have not resigned." "Then," I replied, "I suppose you resign in the morning." "No," he answered, "I do not intend to resign, for Mr. Buchanan wished us all to hold on, and go out with him on the 4th of March." "But," said I, "does Mr. Buchanan know for what purpose you are going to North Carolina?" "Certainly," he said, "he knows my object." Being surprised by this statement, I told Mr. Thompson that Mr. Buchanan was probably so much perplexed by his situation that he had not fully considered the matter, and that as he was already involved in difficulty, we ought not to add to his burdens; and then suggested to Mr. Thompson that he had better see Mr. Buchanan again, and by way of inducing him to think the matter over, mention what I had been saying to him. Mr. Thompson said, "Well, I can do so, but I think he fully understands it." In the evening I met Mr. Thompson at a small social party, and as soon as I approached him, he said, "I knew I could not be mistaken. I told Mr. Buchanan all you said, and he told me that he wished me to go, and hoped I might succeed." I could not help exclaiming, "Was there ever before any potentate who sent out his own Cabinet ministers to excite an insurrection against his Government!" The fact that Mr. Thompson did go on the errand, and had a public reception before the Legislature, and returned to his position in the Cabinet is known, but this incident serves to recall it.
To this sketch of the Cabinet cabal it is necessary to add the testimony of his participation, by one who, from first to last, was a principal and controlling actor. Jefferson Davis records that:
Jefferson Davis, "Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government," Vol. I., pp. 57, 58, 59.
In November, 1860, after the result of the Presidential election was known, the Governor of Mississippi, having issued his proclamation convoking a special session of the Legislature to consider the propriety of calling a convention, invited the Senators and Representatives of the State in Congress to meet him for consultation as to the character of the message he should send to the Legislature when assembled.... While engaged in the consultation with the Governor just referred to, a telegraphic message was handed to me from two members of Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet, urging me to proceed "immediately" to Washington. This dispatch was laid before the Governor and the members of Congress from the State who were in conference with him, and it was decided that I should comply with, the summons ... On arrival at Washington, I found, as had been anticipated, that my presence there was desired on account of the influence which it was supposed I might exercise with the President (Mr. Buchanan) in relation to his forthcoming message to Congress. On paying my respects to the President, he told me that he had finished the rough draft of his message, but that it was still open to revision and amendment, and that he would like to read it to me. He did so and very kindly accepted all the modifications which I suggested. The message was, however, afterwards somewhat changed.
In the documents we have presented, though they manifestly form but the merest fragment of the secret correspondence which passed between the chief conspirators, and of the written evidence recorded by them in various forms, then and afterwards, we have a substantial unmasking of the combined occult influences which presided over the initiatory steps of the great American Rebellion—its central council—the master wheel of its machinery—and the connecting relation which caused all its subordinate parts to move in harmonious accord.
With the same mind to dictate a secession message to a Legislature and a non-coercion message to Congress—to assemble insurrectionary troops to seize Federal forts and withhold Government troops from their protection—to incite governors to rebellion and overawe a weak President to a virtual abdication of his rightful authority, history need not wonder at the surprising unity and early success of the conspiracy against the Union.
[1] Printed on pages 791 to 794 in "The Life and Times of Robert E. Lee," etc. By a distinguished Southern journalist. (E.A. Pollard, author of "The Lost Cause.")
CHAPTER XIX FROM THE BALLOT TO THE BULLET
The secret circular of Governor Gist, of South Carolina, heretofore quoted, inaugurated the great American Rebellion a full month before a single ballot had been cast for Abraham Lincoln. This was but repeating in a bolder form the action taken by Governor Wise, of Virginia, during the Frémont campaign four years before. But, instead, as in that case, of confining himself to a proposed consultation among slave-State executives, Governor Gist proceeded almost immediately to a public and official revolutionary act.
On the 12th of October, 1860, he issued his proclamation convening the Legislature of South Carolina in extra session, "to appoint electors of President and Vice-President ... and also that they may, if advisable, take action for the safety and protection of the State." There was no external peril menacing either the commonwealth or its humblest citizen; but the significance of the phrase was soon apparent.
South Carolina "House Journal," Called Session, 1860, pp. 10, 11.
A caucus of prominent South Carolina leaders is said to have been held on October 25, at the residence of Senator Hammond. Their deliberations remained secret, but the determination arrived at appears clearly enough in the official action of Governor Gist, who was present, and who doubtless carried out the plans of the assemblage. When the Legislature met on November 5 (the day before the Presidential election) the Governor sent them his opening message, advocating both secession and insurrection, in direct and undisguised language. He recommended that in the event of Lincoln's election, a convention should be immediately called; that the State should secede from the Federal Union; and "if in the exercise of arbitrary power and forgetful of the lessons of history, the Government of the United States should attempt coercion, it will be our solemn duty to meet force by force." To this end he recommended a reorganization of the militia and the raising and drilling an army of ten thousand volunteers. He placed the prospects of such a revolution in a most hopeful and encouraging light. "The indications from many of the Southern States," said he, "justify the conclusion that the secession of South Carolina will be immediately followed, if not adopted simultaneously, by them, and ultimately by the entire South. The long-desired coöperation of the other States having similar institutions, for which the State has been waiting, seems to be near at hand; and, if we are true to ourselves, will soon be realized."
Governor Gist's justification of this movement as attempted was (in his own language) "the strong probability of the election to the Presidency of a sectional candidate by a party committed to the support of measures, which if carried out will inevitably destroy our equality in the Union, and ultimately reduce the Southern States to mere provinces of a consolidated despotism to be governed by a fixed majority in Congress hostile to our institutions."
This campaign declamation, used throughout the whole South with great skill and success, to "fire the Southern heart," was wholly defective as a serious argument.
As to the alleged destruction of equality, the North proposed to deny to the slave-States no single right claimed by the free-States. The talk about "provinces of a consolidated despotism to be governed by a fixed majority" was, in itself an absurd contradiction in terms, which repudiated the fundamental idea of republican government. The acknowledgment that any danger from anti-slavery "measures" was only in the future, negatived its validity as a present grievance. Hostility to "our institutions" was expressly disavowed by full constitutional recognition of slavery under State authority. The charge of "sectionalism" came with a bad grace from a State whose newspapers boasted that none but the Breckinridge ticket was tolerated within her borders, and whose elsewhere obsolete "institution" of choosing Presidential electors by the Legislature instead of by the people, combined with such a dwarfed and crippled public sentiment, made it practically impossible for a single vote to be cast for either Lincoln or Douglas or Bell—a condition mathematically four times as "sectional" as that of any State of the North.
Finally, the avowed determination to secede because a Presidential election was about to be legally gained by one of the three opposing parties, after she had freely and fully joined in the contest, was an indulgence of caprice utterly incompatible with any form of government whatever.
There is no need here to enter upon a discussion of the many causes which, had given to the public opinion of South Carolina so radical and determined a tone in favor of disunion. Maintaining persistence, and gradually gathering strength almost continuously since the nullification furor of 1832, it had become something more than a sentiment among its devotees: it had grown into a species of cult or party religion, for the existence of which no better reason can be assigned than that it sprang from a blind hero-worship locally accorded to John C. Calhoun, one of the prominent figures of American political history. As representative in Congress, Secretary of War under President Monroe, Vice-President of the United States under President John Quincy Adams, for many years United States Senator from South Carolina, and the radical champion of States Rights, Nullification, and Slavery, his brilliant fame was the pride, but his false theories became the ruin, of his State and section.
South Carolina "House Journal," Called Session, 1860, pp. 16, 17.
Governor Gist and his secession coadjutors had evidently still a lingering hope that the election might by some unforeseen contingency result in the choice of Breckinridge. On no other hypothesis can we account for the fact that on the 6th of November, when Northern ballots were falling in such an ample shower for Lincoln, the South Carolina Legislature, with due decorum and statute regularity, appointed Presidential electors for the State, and formally instructed them to vote for Breckinridge and Lane. The dawn of November 7 dispelled these hopes. The "strong probability" had become a stubborn fact.
When the certain news of Lincoln's election finally came, it was hailed with joy and acclamation by both the leaders and the people of South Carolina. They had at length their much coveted pretext for disunion; and they now put into the enterprise a degree of earnestness, frankness, courage, and persistency worthy of a better cause. Public opinion, so long prepared, responded with enthusiasm to the plans and calls of the leaders. Manifestations of disloyalty became universal. Political clubs were transformed into military companies. Drill-rooms and armories were alive with nightly meetings. Sermons, agricultural addresses, and speeches at railroad banquets were only so many secession harangues. The State became filled with volunteer organizations of "minute men."
The Legislature, remaining in extra session, and cheered and urged on by repeated popular demonstrations and the inflamed speeches of the highest State officials, proceeded without delay to carry out the Governor's programme. In fact, the members needed no great incitement. They had been freshly chosen within the preceding month; many of them on the well-understood "resistance" issue. Their election took place on the 8th and 9th days of October, 1860. Since there was but one party in South Carolina, there could be no party drill; but a tyrannical and intolerant public sentiment usurped its place and functions. On the sixteen different tickets paraded in one of the Charleston newspapers, the names of the most pronounced disunionists were the most frequent and conspicuous. "Southern rights at all hazards," was the substance of many mottoes, and the palmetto and the rattlesnake were favorite emblems. There was neither mistaking nor avoiding the strong undercurrent of treason and rebellion here manifested, and the Governor's proclamation had doubtless been largely based upon it.
South Carolina, "House Journal," Called Session, 1860, pp. 13, 14.
The first day's session of the Legislature (November 5) developed one of the important preparatory steps of the long-expected revolution. The Legislature of 1859 had appropriated a military contingent fund of one hundred thousand dollars, "to be drawn and accounted for as directed by the Legislature." The appropriation had been allowed to remain untouched. It was now proposed to place this sum at the control of the Governor to be expended in obtaining improved small arms, in purchasing a field battery of rifled cannon, in providing accouterments, and in furnishing an additional supply of tents; and a resolution to that effect was passed two days later, The chief measure of the session, however, was a bill to provide for calling the proposed State Convention, which it was well understood would adopt an ordinance of secession. There was scarcely a ripple of opposition to this measure. One or two members still pleaded for delay, to secure the coöperation of Georgia, but dared not record a vote against the prevailing mania. The chairman of the proper committee on November 10 reported an act calling a convention "for the purpose of taking into consideration the dangers incident to the position of the State in the Federal Union," which unanimously became a law November 13, and the extra session adjourned to meet again in regular annual session on the 26th.
Meanwhile public excitement had been kept at fever heat by all manner of popular demonstrations. The two United States Senators and the principal Federal officials resigned their offices with a public flourish of their insubordinate zeal. An enthusiastic ratification meeting was given to the returning members of the Legislature. To give still further emphasis to the general movement a grand mass meeting was held at Charleston on the 17th of November. The streets were filled with the excited multitude. Gaily dressed ladies crowded balconies and windows, and zealous mothers decorated their children with revolutionary badges. There was a brisk trade in fire-arms and gunpowder. The leading merchants and prominent men of the city came forth and seated themselves on platforms to witness and countenance a formal ceremony of insurrection. A white flag, bearing a palmetto tree and the legend Animis opibusque parati (one of the mottoes on the State seal), was, after solemn prayer, displayed from a pole of Carolina pine. Music, salutes, and huzzahs filled the air. Speeches were addressed to "citizens of the Southern Republic." Orations and processions completed the day, and illuminations and bonfires occupied the night. The preparations were without stint. The proceedings and ceremonies were conducted with spirit and abandon. The rejoicings were deep and earnest. And yet there was a skeleton at the feast; the Federal flag, invisible among the city banners, and absent from the gay bunting and decorations of the harbor shipping, still floated far down the bay over a faithful commander and loyal garrison in Fort Moultrie.
CHAPTER XX MAJOR ANDERSON
President Buchanan and his Administration could not, if they would, shut their eyes to the treasonable utterances and preparations at Charleston and elsewhere in the South; but so far neither the speeches nor bonfires nor palmetto flags, nor even the secession message of Governor Gist or the Convention bill of the South Carolina Legislature, constituted a statutory offense. For twelve years the threat of disunion had been in the mouths of the Southern slavery extremists and their Northern allies the most potent and formidable weapon of national politics. It was declaimed on the stump, elaborated in Congressional speeches, set out in national platforms, and paraded as a solemn warning in executive messages.
Mr. Buchanan had profited by the disunion cry both as politician and functionary; and now when disunion came in a practical and undisguised shape he was to a degree powerless to oppose it, because he was disarmed by his own words and his own acts. The disunionists were his partisans, his friends, and confidential counselors; they constituted a remnant of the once proud and successful party which, by his compliance and coöperation in their interest, he had disrupted and defeated. Their programme hitherto had been the policy upon which he had staked the success or failure of his Administration, so that in addition to every other tie he was bound to them by the common sorrow of political disaster.