Abraham Lincoln, a History — Volume 02 · Chapter 25Table of Contents Vol. II (24)
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"Globe," Dec. 11, 1860, pp. 49-51.
I understand one of the motives which influence the tardy action of these two States [Virginia and Maryland], They are a little afraid of the opening of the African slave trade, and the cheapening of negroes. Now, sir, while I state here that I am opposed to the opening of the African slave-trade, because our negroes will increase fast enough, God knows, for our interest and protection and security; and while I believe that the great masses of the Southern people are opposed to it, yet I will not stand security that if the Cotton States alone form a confederacy they will not open the African slave-trade; and then what will become of the great monopoly of the negro market which Virginia and Maryland and North Carolina now possess?
The disunion Senators, while indulging in the violent and uncompromising language already quoted, had nevertheless here and there interjected phrases indicating a willingness to come to an understanding and adjustment, but their object in this seemed to be twofold: for a few days longer it would serve as a partial screen to their more active conspiracy, and in the possible event (which they evidently did not expect) of a complete surrender and abdication of their political victory by the Republican party, it would leave them in the advantageous condition of accepting triumph as a fruit of compromise.
"Globe," Dec. 4, 1860, p. 4. Ibid., Dec. 10, 1860, p. 29.
Ibid., p. 34. Ibid., Dec. 12, 1860, p. 72.
Thus, Senator Clingman said, "If gentlemen on the other side have anything to propose of a decisive and satisfactory character, I have no doubt the section from which I come would be willing to hear it." Senator Davis said, "If we are mistaken as to your feelings and purposes, give a substantial proof, that here may begin that circle which hence may spread out and cover the whole land with proofs of fraternity, of a reaction in public sentiment, and the assurance of a future career in conformity with the principles and purposes of the Constitution." Senator Brown said he never intimated they would not listen to appeals; he never said this case could not be adjusted; but he said there was no disposition on the Republican side to do it. Senator Wigfall said, "What is the use of our discussing on this side of the Chamber what we would be satisfied with when nothing has been offered us!"
It requires a minute search to find these scattered words of moderation in the torrent of defiance which characterized the speeches of the extreme disunionists during the first ten days of the session of Congress, and indications were not lacking that even these were wholly insincere, and meant only to mislead their opponents and the public. Strong proof of this is found in the careful speech of Senator Jefferson Davis, in which he lays down the issue without reserve, at the same time dealing in such vague and intangible complaints as showed intention and desire to remain unanswered and unsatisfied.. He said he believed the danger to be that a sectional hostility had been substituted for the general fraternity, and thus the Government rendered powerless for the ends for which it was instituted.
The hearts of a portion of the people have been perverted by that hostility, so that the powers delegated by the compact of union are regarded not as means to secure the welfare of all, but as instruments for the destruction of a part—the minority section. How, then, have we to provide a remedy? By strengthening this Government? By instituting physical force to overawe the States, to coerce the people living under them as members of sovereign communities to pass under the yoke of the Federal Government?...
"Globe," Dec. 10, 1860, p. 29.
Then where is the remedy, the question may be asked. In the hearts of the people is the ready reply; and therefore it is that I turn to the other side of the Chamber, to the majority section, to the section in which have been committed the acts that now threaten the dissolution of the Union.... These are offenses such as no people can bear; and the remedy for these is in the patriotism and the affection of the people, if it exists; and if it does not exist, it is far better, instead of attempting to preserve a forced and therefore fruitless union, that we should peacefully part, and each pursue his separate course.... States in their sovereign capacity have now resolved to judge of the infractions of the Federal compact and of the mode and measure of redress.... I would not give the parchment on which the bill would be written which is to secure our constitutional rights within the limits of a State where the people are all opposed to the execution of that law. It is a truism in free governments that laws rest upon public opinion, and fall powerless before its determined opposition.
To all that had so far been said, Senator Wade, of Ohio, made, on the 17th day of December, a frank and direct as well as strong and eloquent reply, which was at once generally accepted by the Republican party of the Senate and the country as their well-considered and unalterable position on the crisis. Said he:
I have already said that these gentlemen who make these complaints have for a long series of years had this Government in their own keeping. They belong to the dominant majority.... Therefore, if there is anything in the legislation of the Federal Government that is not right, you and not we are responsible for it.... You have had the legislative power of the country, and you have had the executive of the country, as I have said already. You own the Cabinet, you own the Senate, and I may add, you own the President of the United States, as much as you own the servant upon your own plantation. I cannot see then very clearly why it is that Southern men can rise here and complain of the action of this Government.... Are we the setters forth of any new doctrines under the Constitution of the United States? I tell you nay. There is no principle held to-day by this great Republican party that has not had the sanction of your Government in every department for more than seventy years. You have changed your opinions. We stand where we used to stand, That is the only difference.... Sir, we stand where Washington stood, where Jefferson stood, where Madison stood, where Monroe stood. We stand where Adams and Jackson and even Polk stood. That revered statesman, Henry Clay, of blessed memory, with his dying breath asserted the doctrine that we hold to-day.... As to compromises, I had supposed that we were all agreed that the day of compromises was at an end. The most solemn compromises we have ever made have been violated without a whereas. Since I have had a seat in this body, one of considerable antiquity, that had stood for more than thirty years, was swept away from your statute books.... We nominated our candidates for President and Vice-President, and you did the same for yourselves. The issue was made up and we went to the people upon it; ... and we beat you upon the plainest and most palpable issue that ever was presented to the American people, and one that they understood the best. There is no mistaking it; and now when we come to the capitol, I tell you that our President and our Vice-President must be inaugurated and administer the government as all their predecessors have done. Sir, it would be humiliating and dishonorable to us if we were to listen to a compromise [only] by which he who has the verdict of the people in his pocket should make his way to the Presidential chair. When it comes to that you have no government.... If a State secedes, although we will not make war upon her, we cannot recognize her right to be out of the Union, and she is not out until she gains the consent of the Union itself; and the chief magistrate of the nation, be he who he may, will find under the Constitution of the United States that it is his sworn duty to execute the law in every part and parcel of this Government; that he cannot be released from that obligation.... Therefore, it will be incumbent on the chief magistrate to proceed to collect the revenue of ships entering their ports precisely in the same way and to the same extent that he does now in every other State of the Union. We cannot release him from that obligation. The Constitution in thunder tones demands that he shall do it alike in the ports of every State. What follows? Why, sir, if he shuts up the ports of entry so that a ship cannot discharge her cargo there, or get papers for another voyage, then ships will cease to trade; or, if he undertakes to blockade her, and thus collect it, she has not gained her independence by secession. What must she do? If she is contented to live in this equivocal state, all would be well perhaps; but she could not live there. No people in the world could live in that condition. What will they do? They must take the initiative and declare war upon the United States; and the moment that they levy war, force must be met by force; and they must, therefore, hew out their independence by violence and war. There is no other way under the Constitution, that I know of, whereby a chief magistrate of any politics could be released from this duty. If this State, though seceding, should declare war against the United States, I do not suppose there is a lawyer in this body but what would say that the act of levying war is treason against the United States. That is where it results. We might just as well look the matter right in the face....
"Globe," Dec. 17, 1860, pp. 100-104.
I say, sir, I stand by the Union of these States. Washington and his compatriots fought for that good old flag. It shall never be hauled down, but shall be the glory of the Government to which I belong, as long as my life shall continue.... It is my inheritance. It was my protector in infancy, and the pride and glory of my riper years; and although it may be assailed by traitors on every side, by the grace of God, under its shadow I will die.
Ibid., Dec. 20, 1860, p. 158.
The Senate Committee of Thirteen was duly appointed on December 20 as follows: Lazarus W. Powell and John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky; R.M.T. Hunter, of Virginia; Wm. H. Seward, of New York; Robert Toombs, of Georgia; Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois; Jacob Collamer, of Vermont; Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi; Benjamin F. Wade, of Ohio; William Bigler, of Pennsylvania; Henry M. Rice, of Minnesota; James E. Doolittle, of Wisconsin, and James W. Grimes, of Iowa.
It was a strong and representative committee, chosen from the four great political parties to the late Presidential election, and embracing recognized leaders in each, We shall see in a future chapter how this eminent committee failed to report a compromise, which was the object of its appointment. But compromise was impossible, because the conspiracy had resolved upon disunion, as already announced in the proclamation of a Southern Confederacy, signed and published a week before by Jefferson Davis and others.
CHAPTER XXVII THE HOUSE COMMITTEE OF THIRTY-THREE
Compare Boteler's statement of origin of his resolution, "Globe," Jan. 10, 1861, p. 316.
"Globe," Dec. 4, 1860, p. 6.
While this discussion was going on in the Senate, very similar proceedings were taking place in the House of Representatives, except that declarations of revolutionary purpose were generally of a more practical and decisive character. The President's message had no sooner been received and read, and the usual formal motion made to refer and print, than the friends of compromise, representing here, as in the Senate, the substantial sentiment of the border slave-States, made a sincere effort to take control and bring about the peaceable arrangement and adjustment of what they assumed to be the extreme differences between the South and the North. Mr. Boteler, of Virginia, seizing the momentary leadership, moved to amend by referring so much of the message "as relates to the present perilous condition of the country" to a special committee of one from each State. The Union being at that time composed of thirty-three States, this committee became known as the Committee of Thirty-three. Several other amendments were offered but objected to, and the previous question having been ordered, the amendment was agreed to and the committee raised by a vote of 145 yeas to 38 nays; the negative vote coming, in the main, from the more pronounced anti-slavery men.
"Globe," Dec. 4, 1860, p. 7. Ibid. Ibid.
Ibid. Ibid. "Globe," Dec. 4, 1860. p. 7.
Though this was the first roll-call of the session, the disunion conspirators, one after another, made haste to declare the treasonable attitude of their States. Pending the vote, Mr. Singleton declined recording his name for the reason that Mississippi had called a convention to consider this subject. He was not sent here for the purpose of making any compromise or to patch up existing difficulties. Mr. Jones, of Georgia, said he did not vote on this question because his State, like Mississippi, had called a convention to decide all these questions of Federal relations. Mr. Hawkins, of Florida, said his people had resolved to determine, in convention in their sovereign capacity, the time, place, and manner of redress. It was not for him to take any action on the subject. His State was opposed to all and every compromise. The day of compromise was past. Mr. Clopton, of Alabama, declined voting because the State of Alabama is proceeding to consider in a convention what action is required to maintain her rights, honor, and safety. Believing that a State has the right to secede, and that the only remedy for present evils is secession, he would not hold out any delusive hope or sanction any temporizing policy. Mr. Miles, of South Carolina, said "the South Carolina delegation have not voted on this question because they conceive they have no interest in it. We consider our State as already withdrawn from the confederacy in everything except form." Mr. Pugh, of Alabama, said: "As my State of Alabama intends following South Carolina out of the Union by the 10th of January next, I pay no attention to any action taken in this body."
"Globe," Dec. 10, 1860, p. 36, 37.
These proceedings occurred on the second day of the session, December 4; two days later the Speaker announced the committee, placing at the head, as chairman, Thomas Corwin, of Ohio, and appointing such members from the different States as to make it of marked influence and ability; the disunion faction being distinctly recognized by several extreme representatives. The names were announced on Thursday, December 6;[1] and at the close of the day's session the House adjourned to the following Monday, the 10th, on which day the general discussion was fairly launched on the request of Mr. Hawkins, of Florida, to be excused from serving on the committee. He said he had asked the opinions of many Southern Members, and, with one or two exceptions, they most cordially agreed with the course he had taken. To serve on the committee would place him in a false position. Florida had taken the initiative; her Legislature had ordered an election to choose members to a convention to be convened on the 3d day of January, 1861. The committee was a Trojan horse to gain time and demoralize the South; he regretted that it emanated from a Virginia Representative. He would tell the North that Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina were certain to secede from the Union within a short period. Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas were certain to follow within the ensuing six months.
Three Democratic Representatives responded to this outburst, the Republican members of the House, as in the Senate, remaining discreetly silent. These Democratic speakers alleged an unfair composition of the committee, and joined in denouncing the Republican party. But upon the vital and practical question of disunion their utterances were widely divergent. As the name of each of them will assume a degree of historical prominence in the further development of the rebellion, short quotations from their remarks made at that early period will be read with interest. Daniel E. Sickles, of New York, said:
"Globe," Dec. 10, 1860, pp. 40, 41.
The city of New York will cling to the Union to the last; while she will look upon the last hour of its existence as we would upon the setting sun if we were never to see it more, yet when the call for force comes—let it come when it may—no man will ever pass the boundaries of the city of New York for the purpose of waging war against any State of this Union which, through its constituted authorities and sustained by the voice of its people, solemnly declares its rights, its interests, and its honor demand that it should seek safety in a separate existence.... The city of New York is now a subjugated dependency of a fanatical and puritanical State government that never thinks of the city except to send its tax-gatherers among us or to impose upon us hateful officials, alien to our interests and sympathies, to eat up the substance of the people by their legalized extortions.... Nothing has prevented the city of New York from asserting her right to govern herself, except that provision of the Federal Constitution which prohibits a State from being divided without its own consent.... When that restraint shall no longer exist, when the obligation of those constitutional provisions, which forbid the division of a State without its own consent, shall be suspended, then I tell you that imperial city will throw off the odious government to which she now yields a reluctant allegiance; she will repel the hateful cabal at Albany, which has so long abused its power over her, and with her own flag sustained by the courage and devotion of her own gallant sons, she will, as a free city, open wide her gates to the civilization and commerce of the world.
Doubtless the secessionists drew hopeful auguries and fresh inspiration from this and other visionary talk frequent amid the unsteady political thought of that day. But, if so, it would have been wiser to ponder deeply the significance of the following utterances coming from a different quarter, and representing a more persistent influence, a more extended geographical area, and a greater numerical force. Clement L. Vallandigham, of Ohio, said:
"Globe," Dec. 10, 1860, p. 38.
I speak now as a Western man; and I thank the gentleman from Florida heartily for the kindly sentiments towards that great West to which he has given utterance. Most cordially I reciprocate them, one and all. Sir, we of the North-west have a deeper interest in the preservation of this Government in its present form than any other section of the Union. Hemmed in, isolated, cut off from the seaboard upon every side; a thousand miles and more from the mouth of the Mississippi, the free navigation of which under the law of nations we demand and will have at every cost; with nothing else but our other great inland seas, the lakes, and their outlet, too, through a foreign country—what is to be our destiny? Sir, we have fifteen hundred miles of Southern frontier, and but a little narrow strip of eighty miles, or less, from Virginia to Lake Erie bounding us upon the East. Ohio is the isthmus that connects the South with the British possessions, and the East with the West. The Rocky Mountains separate us from the Pacific. Where is to be our outlet! What are we to do when you shall have broken up and destroyed this government? We are seven States now, with fourteen Senators and fifty-one Representatives, and a population of nine millions. We have an empire equal in area to the third of all Europe, and we do not mean to be a dependency or province either of the East or of the South; nor yet an inferior or secondary power upon this continent; and if we cannot secure a maritime boundary upon other terms, we will cleave our way to the seacoast with the sword. A nation of warriors we may be; a tribe of shepherds never.
No less outspoken were the similar declarations of John A. McClernand, of Illinois, who said the question of secession disclosed to his vision a boundless sea of horrors.
"Globe," Dec. 10, 1860, p. 39.
Peaceable secession, in my judgment, is a fatal, a deadly illusion.... If I am asked, Why so? I retort the question. How can it be otherwise? How are questions of public debt, public archives, public lands, and other public property, and, above all, the questions of boundary to be settled? Will it be replied that, while we are mutually unwilling now to yield anything, we will be mutually willing, after awhile, to concede everything? That, while we mutually refuse to concede anything now for the sake of national unity, we will be mutually ready to concede everything by and by for the sake of national duality? Who believes this? What, too, would be the fate of the youthful but giant Northwest in the event of a separation of the slave-holding from the non-slave-holding States? Cut off from the main Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico on one hand, or from the eastern Atlantic ports on the other, she would gradually sink into a pastoral state, and to a standard of national inferiority. This the hardy and adventurous millions of the North-west would be unwilling to consent to. This they would not do. Rather would they, to the last man, perish upon the battlefield. No power on earth could restrain them from freely and unconditionally communicating with the Gulf and the great mart of New York.
Ibid., Dec. 10, 1860, p. 59.
No further noteworthy discussion occurred for a time, except the declaration of Mr. Cobb, of Alabama, that if anything were done to save his State it must be done immediately. The election for delegates to the convention would take place on the 24th of that month, and the convention would meet on the 7th of the next month. His State would not remain in this Confederacy longer than the 15th of January unless something were done.
Ibid.
The House refused to excuse the several objecting members from serving on the committee; and the temper in which they proceeded to the discharge of their duty is perhaps best illustrated by the remarks of Representative Reuben Davis, of Mississippi. He said he could "but regard this committee as a tub thrown out to the whale, to amuse only, until the 4th of March next, and thus arrest the present noble and manly movements of the Southern States to provide by that day for their security and safety out of the Union. With these views I take my place on the committee for the purpose of preventing it being made a means of deception by which the public mind is to be misled and misguided; yet intending honestly and patriotically to entertain any fair proposition for adjustment of pending evils which the Republican members may submit."
On Wednesday, December 12, the morning hour was by agreement set apart for receiving all bills and resolutions to be submitted to the Committee of Thirty-three. They were duly read and referred, without debate, to the number of twenty-three.[2] They came principally from Northern members, though all four parties of the late Presidential campaign were represented, the attitude of which they mainly reflected. In substance, therefore, they embodied the same medley of affirmations and denials, of charges and countercharges, of evasions and subterfuges which party discussion had worn threadbare.
These twenty-three propositions, which were by subsequent additions increased to forty or fifty, exhibit such a variety of legislative plans that it is impossible to subject them to any classification. They give us an abstract of the divergent views which Members of Congress entertained concerning the cause of the crisis and its remedy. They range in purport from a mere assertion of the duty of preserving and administering the government as then existing, in its simple form and symmetrical structure, to proposals to destroy and change it to a complex machine, fantastic in proportion and impracticable in its workings. They afford us evidence of the bewilderment which beset Congress as well as the outside public, and not so much the absence of reasonable political principles as the absence of a simple and direct political will, which would resolutely insist that recognized principles and existing laws should be respected and obeyed.
"Globe," Dec. 12, 1860, p. 77.
Ibid., p. 78.
Among the propositions submitted then and afterwards were several wild and visionary projects of government. Thus Mr. Jenkins, a Virginia member, proposed an arrangement requiring separate sanction of the slave-holding interest to each and every operation of government; a dual executive; a dual senate, or dual majority of the senate, or other advisory body or council. Mr. Noell, of Missouri, proposed to abolish the office of President, create an executive council of three members, from districts of contiguous States, give each member the veto power, and establish equilibrium between the free and the slave-States in the Senate by voluntary division of some of the slave-States.
Ibid., Dec. 13, 1860, pp. 82, 83.
Stronger minds were not entirely free from the infection of this mania for innovation and experiment. On the 13th of December, 1860, Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, afterwards President of the United States, submitted to the Senate a proposal to amend the Constitution in substance as follows: That the Presidential election should take place in August; that a popular plurality in each district should count as one vote; that Congress should count the votes on the second Monday of October; that the President chosen in 1864 be from a slave-holding State, and the Vice-President from a free-State; and in 1868 the President be from a free-State and the Vice-President from a slave State, and so alternating every four years. Senators to be elected by vote of the people. Federal judges to be divided so that one-third of the number would be chosen every fourth year; the term of office to be twelve years; also all vacancies to be filled, half from free and half from slave States, the Territories to be divided, establishing slavery south and prohibiting it north of a fixed line, and providing that three-fifths representation and inter-State slave trade shall not be changed.
"Globe," Feb. 7, 1861, pp. 794, 795.
Perhaps the most complicated project of government was that gravely suggested in the House on the 7th of February, 1861, by Clement L. Vallandigham, of Ohio, who, not content with the clogs of a dual form, proposed the following absurd quadruple machinery: The Union to be divided into four sections: North, West, Pacific, and South. On demand of one-third of the Senators from any section, for any action to which the concurrence of the House of Representatives may be necessary,—except on adjournment,—a vote shall be by sections, and a majority of Senators from each section shall be necessary to the validity of such action. A majority of all the electors in each of the four sections to be necessary to choice of President and Vice-President; they should hold the office six years; not to be eligible to reëlection except by vote of two-thirds of the electors of each section; or of the States of each section whenever the choice devolved upon the Legislature; Congress to provide for the election of President and Vice-President when electors failed. No State might secede without consent of the Legislatures of all States of that section, the President to have power to adjust differences with seceding States, the terms of agreement to be submitted to Congress; neither Congress nor Territorial Legislatures should have power to interfere with citizens immigrating—on equal terms—to the Territories, nor to interfere with the rights of person or property in the Territories. New States to be admitted on an equal footing with old ones.
The adoption of any or all of the legislative nostrums which were severally suggested, presupposed a willingness on the part of the South to carry them out and be governed thereby. The authors of these projects lost sight of the vital difficulty, that if the South refused obedience to laws in the past she would equally refuse obedience to any in the future when they became unpalatable. It was not temporary satisfaction, but perpetual domination which she demanded. She did not need an amendment of the fugitive-slave act, or a repeal of personal liberty bills, but a change in the public sentiment of the free-States. Give her the simple affirmation that slaves are property, to be recognized and protected like other property, embody the proposition in the Constitution, and secure its popular acceptance, and she would snap her fingers at an enumeration of other details. Fugitive-slave laws, inter-State slave trade, a Congressional slave code, right of transit and sojourn in the free States, compensation for runaways, new slave States, and a majority in the United States Senate would follow, as inevitably as that the well planted acorn expands by the forces of nature into roots, trunk, limbs, twigs, and foliage. This was what Jefferson Davis formulated in discussing his Senate resolutions of February, 1860,[3] and the doctrine for which Yancey rent the Charleston Convention in twain. This is what Jefferson Davis would again demand of the Senate Committee of Thirteen; and, knowing the North would never concede it, he would, even prior to the demand, join in instigating and proclaiming secession.