History of the United States, v.3, by James Ford Rhodes, 1910 [c1892].

Chapter 13, Part 1: Excitement in Charleston through Seward’s Course

CHAPTER XIII

In the election of Lincoln the North had spoken. Because slavery was wrong, the majority of the Northern people had declared against its extension. South Carolina quickly made answer. Before the October elections, men in that State believed the choice of Lincoln probable,1 and after Pennsylvania and Indiana had gone Republican, only a lingering hope remained that the issue could be other than that dreaded by the South.2 The minds of men were preparing for action in case the event should actually take place. It was argued that honor and pecuniary interest alike demanded disunion.3 There seemed little doubt that public opinion would support the political leaders of the State in promptly taking measures to put in force the long-threatened remedy of secession. Gist, South Carolina's governor, shaped with alacrity his official action in conformity to the sentiment of his State. Before the October elections he had sent a confidential letter to each of the governors of the cotton States, with the exception of Houston of Texas, saying that South Carolina would unquestionably consider her course in convention and asking for co-operation on the part of her sister States.4 October 12, three days after Pennsylvania and Indiana had virtually decided the presidential contest, Gist called the usual session of the legislature for the purpose of appointing presidential electors;
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1 See Charleston Mercury, October 2, 5, 8; Governor Gist's circular letter, October 5, cited in Nicolay and Hay, vol. ii. p. 306.
2 Ibid., October 17 to 31; Charleston Courier, October 13.
3 See Charleston Mercury, October 11, 17, 23, 81.
4 MS. Confederate Archives, cited by Nicolay and Hay, vol. ii. p. 806.

but at the same time he gave the unusual intimation that some action might be necessary "for the safety and protection of the State." 1 November 5, the day before the election, the legislature assembled at Columbia. Governor Gist recommended that in case Lincoln was elected provision should be made immediately for the holding of a convention with a view to severing the connection of South Carolina with the Federal Union.2

While Republican success was deemed almost certain, the actual event caused a shock little lessened by the fact that it had been long impending. On election night the city of Charleston anxiously awaited the news of the result, and when it was known that a majority of Lincoln electors had been chosen, the crowd broke forth in cheers for a Southern confederacy.3 The excitement over what was called "the fatal result"4 did not cease with the morrow's sun. The morning despatches confirmed the news of the previous evening, and doubt could no longer exist that the hated Republican party had carried the day. Business was neglected. The streets were crowded with people. So well had the public mind been educated and prepared that the proper course to pursue was neither a matter of argument nor of hesitation. Disunion sentiment had made its appearance in South Carolina in 1832 with powerful manifestation; it slept for a while, but eighteen years later came again to the surface, and though not then prompting the people to overt acts,5 it had not been stifled, but only awaited sufficient provocation to break out with renewed vigor. At almost any time since 1851, on a proper showing and a fair justification, it would have received the assent of a majority of voters. It had strong support in the press; it had the advocacy of the literary coterie of Charleston;' it had rooted strength with the people; it had already begun to
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1 Charleston Mercury, October 17.
2 Ibid., November 6.
3 Ibid., November 7.
4 Charleston Courier, November 7.
5 See vol. i. pp. 45, 226.
6 See Life of W. G. Simms, Trent, chap. vi.

dominate and shape the course of South Carolina's statesmen and politicians, who, because on them devolved the responsibility of action, were less vehement in their expressions than editors of newspapers and writers for magazines; and it was gaining slowly on the business men of Charleston and the large proprietors of the State, by arguments addressed to their interest as well as to their honor. The disunion majority of the decade suddenly expanded to unanimity on the seventh day of November, 1860. It did not seem to a certain keen observer, on his visit in 1855 and 1856, that all South Carolinians were disunionists; but no doubt on this point remained in his mind after his sojourn at Charleston in January, 1861.1

The crowd that thronged the streets of Charleston on the morning of November 7th were of one mind. From their point of view they had an undoubted grievance; consequently their complaint was just. With one accord they invoked secession as the remedy. When the resignations of the judge and the district attorney of the United States Court were announced the excitement grew. At noon the palmetto and lone star flag was stretched across the street from an upper window of the Charleston Mercury office, and was hailed with cheers and expressions of passionate attachment.2 No light spirit of bravado characterized the people. There were, indeed, "symptoms of ill-advised demonstrations," but these were frowned upon.3 Charleston men of family and property gave the tone to the sentiment of the day. But notwithstanding their belief in the probability of peaceable secession, they could not ignore the fact that the breaking up of a government was a serious affair; that the process of dissolution was certain to be attended with commercial depression, perhaps financial panic; and they also felt that there was a possibility of their having to fight for the cause of Southern rights. So, in spite of the cheers
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1 See article of J. W. De Forest, Atlantic Monthly, April, 1861, p. 495. 2 Charleston Mercury, November 8.
3 Charleston Courier, November 9.

at welcome events, in spite of countenances brightened by enthusiastic personal contact, there was anxiety for the future, and on the whole the feeling was stern and deep, as befitted an Anglo-Saxon community on the eve of revolution.1 "The tea has been thrown overboard—the revolution of 1860 has been initiated," said the Charleston Mercury.2 The comparison of events in Charleston to the Boston "tea-party" occurs more than once in the agitation that immediately preceded the act of secession. It was a welcome assertion to the people that they were animated by the spirit of 1776.3 Although the Massachusetts of Sumner and Garrison was hated, her example in the early days of the Revolution was constantly brought up to urge forward South Carolinians in the path that should lead to independence.4 But of course the parallel could not be carried far. In the spirit of the people and its manifestations there was indeed a striking likeness, but when the underlying motive came to be considered the resemblance failed. There was a considerable difference between that early protest accompanied by deliberate action against unjust taxation and this precipitate movement to break the bonds with States whose offence lay in the declaration that slavery was wrong and should not be extended.

After having appointed presidential electors, who were instructed to vote for Breckinridge and Lane, the legislature did not, as had heretofore been the custom, adjourn. It continued in session in order to be ready to act as the situation demanded. Its members had been chosen in October when Lincoln's election was deemed probable, and at that time, in the feeling that "the irrepressible conflict is about to be visited
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1 Charleston Mercury and Courier; conversation with Samuel Shethar, a New York merchant who had large business and social connections in Charleston, and who went there immediately after Lincoln's election to look after his interests.
2 November 8.
3 See speech of S. L. Hammond at the business men's meeting, Charleston Mercury, November 19.
4 Speech of Mr. Bilbo at Charleston Hotel, ibid., December 3,

upon us through the Black Republican nominee (Lincoln) and his fanatical, diabolical Republican party,"1 men were elected who would translate into action the sentiment of their communities. It was a body which fully and fairly represented the State. The main question before the legislature was whether a convention should be immediately called. Trenholm, a member from Charleston, offered a resolution looking towards co-operation with Georgia, and the assembling of a convention of the Southern States. This move in the interest of delay was not received with favor by the legislature or by the city of Charleston.2 A large and enthusiastic meeting of the citizens of Charleston was held, and prompt action was demanded from the legislature.3 On Saturday, November 10, the legislature passed unanimously a bill which provided for a convention of the people of South Carolina, to be held December 17, for the purpose of considering the relations of the commonwealth "with the Northern States and the government of the United States." On the same day Chesnut sent to the legislature his resignation of his position of United States senator, and the reading of his letter was received with applause. Action was also taken towards putting the State on a military footing. Columbia rejoiced over these events, and willingly listened to words of praise for the prompt and resolute action of Charleston, "which has at times been considered lukewarm and, by virtue of her commercial interests, conservative in an eminent degree."4

Charleston itself went wild with delight over the action of the legislature. Men showed their intense feeling when they met in the streets by hand-shakings, and by thanking God that at last their destinies were in their own hands.5
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1 Statement in advocacy of a legislative ticket signed " Many Planters," Charleston Mercury, October 2.
2 See a careful editorial of the Charleston Mercury, November 9; also speech of Mr. Lesesne, November 15.
3 Charleston Courier, November 10.
4 Speech of Conner at Columbia, Charleston Mercury, November 12. 5 Charleston Mercury, November 12.

On Monday night, November 12, a meeting was held in Institute Hall to endorse the action of the legislature. The solid men of the city and ladies of high social position were present. Never had there been a larger gathering, never had such enthusiasm prevailed. Fireworks and illuminations testified to the general joy. During the week the feeling kept up to fever heat. Palmetto flags were flying everywhere. Minute-men paraded the streets.1 On Tuesday, Hammond's resignation as United States senator was submitted to the legislature and accepted. On Thursday evening another large meeting was held at Institute Hall to receive the Charleston members of the legislature, which had completed its labors and adjourned. It was a recognition of the well-doing of faithful servants.

If any one is inclined to doubt that there was other than a single cause for secession and the war that ensued; if he feel himself almost persuaded by the earnest and pathetic statements of Southern writers since the war, who naturally have sought to place the four years' devotion and heroism of the South on a higher basis than that of a mighty effort to conserve an institution condemned alike by Christianity and by ethics, let him read the speeches and the newspaper articles of the early days of the secession movement in South Carolina. It cannot be denied that the South Carolinians looked the matter squarely in the face, and that sincerity characterized their utterances. "The first issue," said Trenholm, "was made upon the question of a tariff in which the sympathies of the world were with the South. Now we are joining the issue with the prejudices and the sympathies of the world against us." "The question is," declared a preacher in a Sunday sermon, whether slavery "is an institution to be cherished," or whether it "must be dispensed with."2 While South Carolinians
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1 Charleston Mercury, November 13; Charleston cor. New York Tribune, November 12.
2 Charleston Mercury, November 16, 21. "Upon the subject of this institution [African slavery] we are isolated from the whole world, who are not only indifferent, but inimical to it." — McGowan in South Carolina Legislature, November 9, cited in Greeley's American Conflict, vol. i. p. 334. "We have regarded the North as fatally hostile to the interests and the institutions of the South."—Extract from a resolution of the meeting of November 12, endorsing the action of the legislature. "Our Confederacy must be a slave holding Confederacy. We have had enough of a Confederacy with dissimilar institutions." — R. B. Rhett, at same meeting. "Three thousand millions of property is involved in this question."—Speech of O'Connor, November 15. The foregoing are cited from the Charleston Mercury: Why do we mean to tear down this government "from the foundation to the turret?" asked Keitt. Because "its powers are about to pass into the hands of a sectional majority, which majority declares slavery shall die."— New York Tribune, November 26. "Upon the great question involved we have not only the fanaticism of the North, but the sentiment of Europe arrayed against us."—Sermon of Rev. Jas. H. Elliott, St. Michael's Church, ibid., November 27. "The institution of slavery must be under the exclusive control of those directly interested in its preservation, and not left to the mercy of those that believe it to be their duty to destroy it."—Message of Gov. Gist to the regular session of the legislature, ibid., November 30. "Slavery was the corner-stone of the Republic, and in proportion as it strengthened, so strengthened the Republic. As it became contracted and feeble, so soon began the decay of the Commonwealth."—Speech of B. J. Whaley, December 1, ibid., December 7. See action of Presbyterian Synod of South Carolina, ibid., December 4, 7; also Charleston Mercury, passim.

did not for a moment doubt the right of secession, they were not ignorant of the fact that their movement might be called revolution. "It is not a legislative revolution, but a popular revolution," truly said a member of the legislature at the Thursday meeting; and a similar manner of expression is common in the political literature of the time.1

On Saturday, November 17, the business men of the city made manifest that their hearts were in the cause. At an immense meeting they raised a liberty-pole. When the palmetto flag was hoisted, cannon roared, the bands played the Marseillaise, and thousands cheered. The religious feeling of this religious community sanctioned the proposed
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1 See Charleston Mercury, November 16. This journal entitled its account of events "March of the Revolution "—issue of November 19. "We are in the midst of a revolution. . . . Momentous remedy to redress momentous wrongs 1"—Speech of R. A. Pringle, ibid. "We are on the steady march of a great revolution."—Speech of Mayor Macbeth, ibid., December 3.

political action. Whenever a liberty-pole was raised or a palmetto banner dedicated, the proceedings were opened with prayer. "May our State and our sister States in this great crisis," prayed a clergyman, at the business men's meeting, "act as becomes a moral and religious people." "It is my settled conviction," declared a preacher, "that the course this State is at present pursuing is the one that God approves of." 1 The legislature set apart November 21 as a day for prayer and preparation, so that "a Christian people, struggling in a good cause, should invoke Providence for its success." 2

Charleston and South Carolina people felt that secession was no longer a choice, but a necessity; that they had submitted to as much aggression from the North as a free people could endure and preserve their liberties. It is a striking evidence of the mutual misunderstanding between the two sections that, while eleven twelfths of the Northern voters thought the South had lorded it over the North since the annexation of Texas, South Carolinians, almost to a man, and the majority of the men of the cotton States, were equally convinced that they had suffered grievous wrongs from the North. This sentiment was now strong in South Carolina. When her people acknowledged the greater prosperity of the North, they asserted that it had been obtained at the expense of the South by protective tariffs. In the event of separation, the South Carolinians had dreams of unrestricted direct trade with Europe, which would redound to the advantage of their agricultural interests, and would make Charleston rival Boston and New York in commercial importance. They considered the admission of California in 1850 as a free State an outrage, and asserted that insult was added to injury in the resistance by State legislation and by mobs to the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave law, when that law had been conceded by the North as an offset for the gain which destroyed the equilibrium
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1 Charleston Mercury, November 19, 21.
2 Ibid., November 21.

between the two sections.1 The urging of the commercial question, the assertion that the South suffered grievously from the tariff acts, was a survival from 1832, and was one of those lesser arguments that are popularly supposed to add somewhat of strength to the main cause; but it did not touch the vital matter. The grievance regarding slavery resolved itself into a fierce resistance to the virtual reproach of the Republican party that the South Carolinians were living in the daily practice of a heinous wrong.

If the negro had never been brought to America and enslaved, South Carolina would not have seceded. Nothing in all history is plainer than that the ferment of which I have been speaking was due solely to the existence of slavery. That the North had been encroaching upon the South, that it had offered an indignity in the election of Lincoln, was for South Carolinians a feeling perfectly natural, and it was absolutely sincere. The President-elect believed that slavery should ultimately be done away with, while they were convinced that it was either a blessing, or else the only fit and possible condition of the negro in contact with the white. That their cause was the cause of life, liberty, and property seemed, from their point of view, beyond question. No South Carolinian would have maintained that any overt act of oppression had yet been committed, but he would have asserted that a free people must strike at the first motion of tyranny, while for an example he might have pointed to the sons of Massachusetts in the years that preceded the American Revolution.2 It soon began to be apparent that the course on which the State was entering with such enthusiasm involved a great sacrifice. Business grew bad, merchants found it difficult or even impossible to pay their debts, and, before the end of November, the banks of Charleston were forced to suspend specie
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1 The feeling as to the destruction of the equilibrium, which Calhoun had powerfully expressed in 1850 (see vol. i. p. 129), was now strong in South Carolina.
2 See The American Revolution, John Fiske, vol. i. p. 71.

payments.1 But the people showed no signs of faltering. During the month of November there was a round of meetings, pole-raisings, dedications of banners, fireworks, and illuminations; and the music of this nascent revolution was the Marseillaise.

Interest now became centred on the next formal step to be taken in the march of secession. December 6 had been fixed as the day on which delegates to the convention should be chosen. Voters did not divide on party lines. Indeed, since 1851, political divisions, such as were seen in the other Southern States, did not exist in South Carolina. Had the popular vote for President obtained there as elsewhere, the voice for Breckinridge would undoubtedly have been almost unanimous. The lines of 1851, of separate State action or co-operation,2 were sometimes referred to, but they were obliterated by the actual unanimity of sentiment. Had there been a union party or a party of delay, a contest would have been natural, but no such parties existed. It was a favorite notion of some Northern observers that a latent union sentiment existed in South Carolina, but that it was kept under by intimidation. Anonymous letters may be found scattered through the Northern journals of this period, which, were they representative, would go to substantiate this belief. But all other contemporary evidence points to the view that I have taken. It is almost certain that the non slaveholding whites were as eager for secession as the slave-owners. The antipathy of race, always strong, had been powerfully excited by assertions that submission meant the freeing of the negroes and the bestowal on them of civil rights, and by the statement, often repeated and currently believed, that Vice-President-elect Hamlin was a mulatto.3

The fact that the South, in its sentiment on slavery, was
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1 Charleston Mercury, November 30.
2 See vol. i. p. 226.
3 The most authoritative statement came from R. B. Rhett, who had served with Hamlin in both the National House and the Senate. See his speech of November 10, New York Tribune, November 17.

at war with the rest of the civilized world, undoubtedly lent arrogance to assertions of South Carolinians and intolerance to their acts. They were especially severe on Northerners suspected in any way of propagating abolition opinions.1 An example of this is seen in the action of the book-shops of Charleston, in closing their accounts with the publishers of Harper's Weekly and Magazine, and returning all the copies on hand, because the Weekly had published a biographical sketch and full-length portrait of Abraham Lincoln.2 Yet the experience of Petigru would seem to show that a union party headed by South Carolinians of character and position would have obtained a hearing and been permitted to advocate unmolested their views.3 The election of delegates to the convention did not turn on any party differences, nor were the candidates nominated by parties. In some places they were put up by public meetings; in Charleston the nominations were made through the advertising columns of the newspapers. The election turned on the personal standing and ability of the candidates, and, in the main, the most distinguished men of the State were chosen. Of the twenty-two delegates elected from the Charleston district, seventeen had declared for prompt secession and forever against reunion, three favored secession as soon as practicable, and two did not respond to
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1 See the recommendation of Governor Gist for legislation "to dispense with the necessity, as much as may be possible, of resorting to Lynch law and illegal executions."—New York Tribune, November 80.
2 Charleston Mercury, November 12.
3 Memoir of James Louis Petigru, William J. Grayson, written at Charleston in 1863. "Mr. Petigru was not of a complexion to be moved from his firm devotion to the cause of the Union" (p. 14). "He seemed to stand almost alone in the community in which he lived" (p. 15). See also p. 146. "The people understood and appreciated Mr. Petigru. They elected him during the tumult and dissension of secession to the most important trust and the largest salary in their gift. . . . His freedom of speech never shook the confidence of the people for a moment, nor was their favor able to stop or restrain the freedom he was accustomed to exercise" (p. 150). See Forts Sumter and Moultrie, Doubleday, p. 56 ; also article of J. W, De Forest, Atlantic Monthly, April, 1861, p. 496.

the inquiries of the Charleston Mercury; but one of these was 0. G. Memminger, afterwards Secretary of the Treasury of the Southern Confederacy, and he had declared in a speech that "secession is a necessity, not a choice."1

After the October elections, Northern Democrats and Northern supporters of Bell deemed the secession of South Carolina probable, in the event of Republican success;2 that the President and his cabinet shared this belief is undoubted. General Scott, whose position at the head of the army, and whose knowledge of the Southern people gave him the right to make suggestions, wrote the President, October 29, adverting to the threatened secession of some of the Southern States, and advising that the nine important sea-coast forts in their borders "should be immediately so garrisoned" that it would be impossible to take any one of them by surprise. The self-sufficiency of the general led him, in this letter, to go beyond merely military considerations, and to enter upon a political argument with suggestions of state looking to peaceable disunion that were both inopportune and unwise. Buchanan probably met the general's counsel in his mind much as he afterwards discussed it in his book.3 Seeing the
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1 New York Tribune, November 30. The total vote of Charleston for delegates to the convention was 3721, against 3879 for members of the legislature in October. It was called a "heavy vote." Fourteen of the Charleston delegates were of the old secession party, seven of the old co-operation party. —Charleston Mercury, December 7, 8. William Gilmore Simms wrote a friend at the North, November 20: "South Carolina will be out before Christmas. Her legislature was unanimous, and every member of the convention nominated is for secession unreservedly."—Trent's Simms, p. 253.
It is impossible for me to mention all the authorities from which I have derived this view of South Carolina sentiment between the election of Lincoln and the passage of the ordinance of secession.
2 See vol. ii. p. 488.
3 Buchanan's Administration on the Eve of the Rebellion, written by Buchanan, ch. v. I shall refer to this work hereafter as Buchanan's Defence. It was written soon after the outbreak of the war. A large part of Scott's letter is quoted in this chapter. Scott, in his Autobiography, written in 1863, cites only his military recommendations. See vol. ii. p. 609. The letter was published entire in the National Intelligencer, January 19, 1861.

futility of Scott's political scheme, he preferred to expose its weakness with the art of a cunning logician rather than to concentrate his attention on that part of the letter in which the experience and knowledge of the veteran commander shone as a beacon to guide the President. For the tenor of General Scott's advice in regard to the garrisoning of the forts was far-seeing and wise. It was certainly high time that the President, the war and the navy departments, and the general of the army should begin to make preparations secretly, so that troops could be sent on short notice to any of the Southern forts which the logic of the situation might demand to be garrisoned or reinforced. The general was ready to execute orders with discretion and zeal, but the President did not speak the word. The forts in Charleston Harbor were Moultrie, Sumter, and Castle Pinckney. Moultrie was the only one garrisoned by troops,1 but the other two were the important positions; Sumter commanded the harbor, and Castle Pinckney commanded the city of Charleston.

The presidential election took place November 6; the South Carolina legislature passed the act calling a convention November 10. No man of judgment and public experience could now longer doubt that South Carolina would secede soon after December 17, the day fixed for the assembling of the convention. November 8 the war department received a letter from Colonel Gardner, then in command at Fort Moultrie, advising that the garrison be strengthened in Moultrie, and that a company of soldiers be sent to Fort Sumter and another to Castle Pinckney.2 November 9, if Floyd's diary
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1 The garrison had 64 men.—Report of F. J. Porter, Assistant Adjutant-General, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I., vol. i. p. 70. I shall refer to this work as Official Records, and Series I. will be understood unless otherwise specified.
2 Official Records, vol. i. p. 69. F.-J. Porter, however, Assistant Adjutant-General, after a personal inspection of the forts and troops in Charleston Harbor, reported, November 11, against the occupation for the present of Sumter and Castle Pinckney, but he did advise the strengthening of the garrison at Moultrie.—Official Records, vol. i., p. 70.

is genuine and correct, Attorney-General Black, in cabinet meeting, earnestly urged "sending at once a strong force into the forts in Charleston Harbor"; and Secretary Cass substantially agreed with him.1 Never in our history in a trying time has the course which the executive should pursue been less open to doubt than in the situation which now confronted President Buchanan. In addition to the actual facts clearly indicating the correct policy, a precedent of the highest value existed. In every step which he ought to have taken, he had before him the example of President Jackson, the great hero of his own party, whose action had been supported by all but four States of the country. Moreover, Jackson had been Buchanan's trusted political leader, and had written him while he was in Russia a confidential letter, giving him some account of the trouble of 1832-33, and saying, "I met nullification at its threshold." 2 Before the South Carolina convention of 1832, which passed the ordinance of nullification, met,3 Jackson sent for General Scott and asked his advice as to what should be done to carry out his determination that "The Union must and shall be preserved." The counsel of Scott was: Garrison strongly Fort Moultrie and Castle Pinckney (" Sumter was not quite above ground"); have a sloop-of-war and some revenue-cutters in Charleston "to enforce the collection of duties." "Proceed at once," was the prompt reply of President Jackson, "and execute these views. You have my carte blanche in respect to troops; the vessels shall be there."4

It was gross dereliction of duty on the part of President Buchanan that he did not at once send for General Scott,
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1 Life of Robert E. Lee and His Companions in Arms, by a distinguished Southern journalist (Pollard), p. 792; Nicolay and Hay, vol. ii. p. 860.
2 Life of Buchanan, Curtis, vol. i. p. 185.
3 See vol. i. p. 45.
4 Autobiography of Lieutenant-General Scott, vol. i. p. 235.

and discuss with him in detail the action of Jackson, and then decide to carry out a similar policy. For—in spite of the verbose reasoning with which Buchanan and his defenders have confused the question, by insisting that what was involved was really the coercion of a State, and then proceeding to discuss the right and the expediency of such action, and his lack of authority—the course that the executive should have pursued is as clear as day. Buchanan denied the right of secession, and acknowledged that it was his duty to enforce the laws in South Carolina in so far as he was able. November 17 he asked for an opinion of his attorney-general. This move was proper, but, like most of his proper actions in this crisis, tardy. Yet when the opinion came giving him warrant for the Jacksonian policy, it was not too late to follow it. Attorney-General Black, as sound a jurist as ever advised a President, replied in three days to his request. "You can now," he wrote Buchanan, "if necessary, order the duties to be collected on board a vessel inside of any established port of entry. . . . Your right to take such measures as may seem to be necessary for the protection of the public property is very clear." 1 When we brush away all extraneous considerations, when we isolate the question of executive duty from party disputes and constitutional theories, it is surprising what unanimity existed at the North in regard to the matter of the greatest practical moment. Not a lawyer in the North would have denied the powers of the President as thus laid down by Black. Had Buchanan decided promptly to act with energy on that line of duty, every Northern man who had voted for Lincoln, Douglas, or Bell, and nearly every Northern man who had voted for Breckinridge would have sustained him with enthusiastic zeal. No more scathing criticism on the President can be pronounced than that of Black himself who, forty days later, spoke of "the fatal error which the administration have committed in not sending
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1 Life of Buchanan, Curtis, vol. ii. p. 321.

down troops enough to hold all the forts" in Charleston Harbor.1

The means at the President's command to carry out a Jacksonian policy may be gathered from the controversy between him and General Scott, which was printed in the columns of the NationalIntelligencer in 1862, and continued in their respective books. It appears, according to Scott, that 1000 soldiers of the regular army were disposable,2 and, while this is denied by Buchanan,3 we shall have no difficulty in believing Scott's statement to be correct, when we remember that the army had 16,000 effective men.4 It is true that the American army was then, as it always has been in time of peace, small for the duty imposed upon it; but we may be sure that if the will to do so had existed, there would have been no great difficulty in placing 1000 men during the month of November in Southern forts where they were most needed. That there were 400 soldiers ready October 29 every one admits;5 and it would have been a good beginning of a policy of action had the President, after the South Carolina legislature called the convention, sent these troops to Charleston.

That to garrison the Southern forts would have increased the irritation of South Carolina and would have driven the other cotton States onward in the path of secession, as the defenders of the President maintain,6 is possible. On the other hand, a determination on the part of the administration to protect the public property and collect the duties, accompanied by the proposal of a compromise to allay the disaffection of the South, might have caused the remainder of the Southern States to delay their movements. For it must
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1 Memorandum for the President on the subject of the paper drawn up by him in reply to the Commissioners of South Carolina, December 30, Essays and Speeches of J. S. Black, C. F. Black, p. 16.
2 Letter of November 8, National Intelligencer, November 13,1862.
3 Letter of November 17, ibid., November 25, 1862.
4 Buchanan's Defence, p. 104.
5 Ibid., p. 103.
6 Ibid., p. 106; Curtis, vol. ii. p. 304.

be borne in mind that this matter of plain executive duty had not in November become confounded in the Southern mind with the coercion of a State, as it did two months later. Yet, whatever may have been the weight of probability as to the effect of such a vigorous step, the case was one of those where the executive officer should have done his duty regardless of the consequences.

It is true that the crisis was a much greater one than that which Jackson had to meet. Then, although the disunion party had a large majority in South Carolina, and she had the tacit sympathy of three sister States, the case was vastly different from the present situation where unanimity prevailed within her confines, and she had the avowed sympathy of all the cotton States. In 1832, Louisiana and the border States were against South Carolina; now Louisiana was getting ready to follow her, while the border States, though deprecating her precipitate movement, shared her feeling as to the aggression of the North.1 Yet, if the crisis was greater, greater would have been the glory to him who met it in the way unerringly pointed out by precedent, law, and devotion to the Union. It was a pregnant opportunity for an executive gifted with singleness of purpose, a dauntless temper of mind, and a wisdom to guide his valor to act in safety. But on such a man as Buchanan fortune lavishes her favors in vain. Vacillating and obstinate by turns, yet lacking firmness when the occasion demanded firmness, he floundered about in a sea of perplexity, throwing away chance after chance, and, though not wanting in good intentions and sincere patriotism, he laid himself open to the undisguised contempt of all sections and all parties. In but one respect has the later differed from the contemporary judgment of him. From an oft-repeated Northern charge that he was actuated by treachery to his own section, he has been fully absolved. When, however, we compare what he did with what he ought to
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1 See Richmond Enquirer, Whig, Dispatch, the Baltimore DailyExchange, and the National Intelligencer.

have done, we may affirm with reason that of all of our Presidents, with perhaps a single exception, Buchanan made the most miserable failure. He had been so long under Southern domination that he could not now throw it off. Common prudence required that he should keep in his cabinet none but stanch Union men; this test would have resulted in the retirement of Cobb and Thompson, and probably a reconstruction of the whole cabinet in the middle of November, such as took place late in December and in January. According to Floyd's diary, a difference developed itself in cabinet meeting as early as November 10, on the question of the South's submission to Lincoln's election and the right of secession, in which dispute Cobb, Thompson, and Floyd ranged themselves on one side, and Cass, Toucey, Black, Holt, and the President on the other.1

At a time when a plan of resolute action should have been the daily and nightly thought of Buchanan, he sat himself down to write an essay on constitutional law, which he sent to Congress as his annual message. While engaged in this work, the War Department received a letter from Major Robert Anderson, who, on account of his high reputation, had been selected to command Fort Moultrie. The recommendations in this letter, in addition to previous advice and entreaties, should have come to the President with such a cumulative force that even he could no longer fail to appreciate that which nearly every Union man in the country saw as an imperative necessity. November 23, Anderson suggested that Moultrie be reinforced. He added: "Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney must be garrisoned immediately, if the government determines to keep command of this harbor." This native of Kentucky, who had taken a wife from Georgia, then went on: "I need not say how anxious I am—indeed, determined, so far as honor will permit—to avoid collision with the citizens of South Carolina. Nothing, however, will be better calculated to prevent
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1 Life of Lee, Pollard, p. 794. Holt was Postmaster-General.

bloodshed than our being found in such an attitude that it would be madness and folly to attack us. There is not so much of feverish excitement as there was last week, but that there is a settled determination to leave the Union, and to obtain possession of this work, is apparent to all."1

Before the President's message went to Congress, Anderson iterated these suggestions, and in this last letter he showed that the administration could depend on him to act with moderation as well as firmness. Making a requisition for howitzers, heavy revolvers, and muskets, he added, "God forbid, though, that I should" have to use them.2 But the President, instead of accepting the advice of Major Anderson, was taking counsel with Jefferson Davis in regard to the message, and modifying it in deference to his suggestions.3 The original draft of it was read to the cabinet, receiving in the main the approval of all but Cobb and Thompson, who objected to the denial of the right of secession.4 Four days after the President sent his message to Congress, Secretary Cobb resigned his position, and, in honor, Thompson should have done likewise, but he clung to his place a month longer. A President made of sterner stuff would certainly have demanded his resignation.

The annual message was read to Congress, December 4. We may pass over without criticism the assertion therein
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1 Anderson to Cooper, Official Records, vol. i. p. 75. Cooper was Adjutant-General of the Army.
2 Anderson to Cooper, November 28, Official Records, vol. i. p. 79.
3 Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Jefferson Davis, vol. i. p. 59. The author adds: "The message was, however, somewhat changed, and ... I must say that in my judgment the last alterations were unfortunate—so much so that when it was read in the Senate I was reluctantly constrained to criticise it."
4 Curtis, vol. ii. p. 333. C. F. Black, Essays and Speeches of J. S. Black, p. 11, states that Cass objected to it and ''impressively demanded that the right of Congress to make war against a State should be denied in more forcible terms than the President had used. It was so modified solely to meet his views."

contained that the Southern discontent was due to the Northern agitation of slavery. Because Buchanan was Buchanan, it would have been sinning against his nature and the convictions of many years had he neglected this occasion to tell the North how much it had been in the wrong. Nor can fault be found with the expression of his hope that the Northern States which had offended would repeal their Personal Liberty laws. The parts of the message that we may commend set a standard to which we can hold the President, and they indicate a policy which, carried out logically in word and deed, would have made the name Buchanan in America a far different household word. He denied the right of secession. The framers of this government, he said, "never intended to implant in its bosom the seeds of its own destruction, nor were they at its creation guilty of the absurdity of providing for its own dissolution. . . . Secession is neither more nor less than revolution." 1 Congress had not encroached upon a right of the South, and the threatened dissolution of the Union proceeded from an apprehension of future danger, which was no just cause of revolution. He asserted the unquestioned right of property of the United States in the forts, magazines, and arsenals in South Carolina; "the officer in command of the forts has received orders to act strictly on the defensive;" if the forts are attacked, "the responsibility for consequences would rightfully rest upon the assailants." Then the President began to falter, entering upon an extended argument to prove that Congress had no right to coerce a State. While in this reasoning he had the support of his attorney-general, and undoubtedly that of many of the best lawyers in the North, irrespective of their party attachment, the introduction of the subject was unwise, for, as Black pointed
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1 Of course these ideas came from Webster (see vol. i. p. 51), but Buchanan could not have had a better guide. So much of the message as referred to internal affairs is printed in Curtis's biography, vol. ii. p. 337.

out, 1 the coercion of a State, as jurists understood it, would be apt to become confounded in the popular mind with the enforcement of the laws. This was actually the case, and became the source of much mischief. The discussion of coercion was, moreover, irrelevant to the emergency. No one of any political standing or following called for such a policy.

When on the subject of the forts, the President should have stated that it was his firm intention to hold them; and, when announcing that " the revenue still continues to be collected as heretofore at the custom-house in Charleston"—knowing that the collector had determined to resign when South Carolina passed the ordinance of secession' — he should have asserted emphatically that, no matter what took place, he should collect the duties in the customhouse, on board of a revenue-cutter in the harbor, or, as Jackson had done, in Castle Pinckney. Had the forts in Charleston Harbor been properly garrisoned, the declaration of such a policy could only have been received in South Carolina, and in the communities that sympathized with her, as the assertion of a solemn duty; it might have met with the approval of a considerable minority in the border States, and it surely would have caused a thrill of patriotism at the North that could not have failed to unite it almost to a man. The great need of the time was the assertion of a vigorous nationality on some point that people could rally around without being hampered by constitutional quibbles and legal technicalities. The President should further have indicated to Congress with some detail what additional legislation he needed for the present exigency. Hand in hand with the recommendation of some action for the purpose of allaying Southern discontent should have gone the express determination to use all the power at his command to defend the
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1 See Curtis, vol. il pp. 352, 382.
2 See letter of Wm. F. Colcock, collector of Charleston, stating his intention of giving up his office, Charleston Mercury, November 8,

public property and collect the duties. Had the President thus acted as became a sterling Union man, the country would have forgiven his bootless suggestion of compromise —his proposal to have incorporated into the Constitution what was substantially the important article of the Breckinridge platform, an article which had been resisted by the Douglas Democrats in the Charleston convention to the disruption of their party, and had been declared against by every Northern State.

That Buchanan deserves historical censure for not having pursued the Jacksonian policy seems to me beyond question; for the path of duty was so plain that he should have walked in it, and accepted whatever consequences came from right-doing. Yet what the consequences might have been is a fair subject of historical inquiry. That firm and prompt action on the part of the President would have been alone sufficient to nip secession in the bud, as it did nullification in 1832, I cannot bring myself to believe, although it so appeared to some contemporary actors,1 and although such a view has been urged with persistence by later writers. It does, however, seem possible that such vigor might have led, in December, to a compromise of a sort to prevent the secession of any State but South Carolina. Yet those of us who hold to the idea of the irrepressible conflict can see in the success of such a project no more than the delay of a war that was inevitable, a postponement proper indeed, if the compromise were not dishonorable—for the stars in their courses were fighting on the side of the North. Yet the weight of probability tends to the view that the day of compromise was past, and that the collision of sentiment, shaping the ends of the North and the South, had now
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1 "One single hour of the will displayed by General Jackson would have stifled the fire in its cradle."—Charles Francis Adams's Address on Seward, Albany, April 18,1873, p. 44. See Trumbull's speech in the Senate, March 2, 1861. "If we could have held Fort Sumter, there never would have been a drop of blood shed."—Montgomery Blair, May 17, 1873. Lincoln and Seward, Welles, p. 67.

brought them both to the last resort of earnest men. That Buchanan feared a conflict is evident: the mainspring of his wavering course was his feverish desire that the war should not begin under a Democratic administration, nor while he was in the Presidential chair. His policy was guided by the thought of after me the deluge, and must be classed among the wrecks with which the vacillation of irresolute men have strewn the coasts of time.1 Assuming that war was probably inevitable in 1861, and that Buchanan believed it to be so, a grave indictment against him is that he threw away many of the advantages which the North had in the possession of the national government and in an established administrative system. During the last four months of his presidency, inaction was the course pursued by the North, busy preparation that pursued by the South. Since destiny pointed to certain war and the doom of the Southern cause, the better the preparation of the North the shorter would have been the conflict and the less the suffering. But Buchanan could not forget his party interests when he should have sunk all else in the feeling that he was an American and a disciple of Jackson and of Webster. Had he risen to that height the war might have begun under his presidency, but he would have had a united North at his back; and when he retired to private life with the approval of a grateful people, he might have handed over to his successor, with the advantage of a continuity of administration, a well-defined policy.

Buchanan's message, like all non-committal executive papers in a crisis of affairs, failed to satisfy positive men in either section. His subserviency to the South had so alienated most of the Northern people from him 2 that only a most decided revolt against those who had been his masters— such as Douglas had achieved in 1857—would have brought
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1 In his speech in the House, February 7,1861, Henry Winter Davis spoke of the President as muttering: "Not in my time, not in my time ; after me the deluge!"
2 See vol. ii. p. 476.

him their hearty support. Seward's criticism was made in a private letter, but the substance of it got into the newspapers, and struck the popular note. The message, he said in writing to his wife, "shows conclusively that it is the duty of the President to execute the laws — unless somebody opposes him; and that no State has a right to go out of the Union — unless it wants to."1 As was foreseen by Black, the President entangled the general understanding by his unnecessary attempt to make clear the difference between the coercion of a seceding State and upholding within her limits some striking symbol of national authority. Yet there were many men at the North who could appreciate the distinction that he made, and who felt that the message was by no means an entire surrender to Southern demands; there were also timorous souls, with anxiety reasonable and just, who saw in the President's course a possible chance of averting civil war: these wrote him letters of approbation.2

On the first of November, 1860, Buchanan was popular at the South, and his administration received a certain measure of approval. He had served that section well, and his name ought to have inspired enthusiasm; but he had suffered in its estimation because his policy of making Kansas a slave State had not been a success. His message failed to satisfy the South. The Disunionists did not like the denial of the right of secession.3 Yet some so-called Unionists in
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1 Letter of December 5, Life of Seward, F. W. Seward, vol. ii. p. 480; correspondence New York Evening Post, Nicolay and Hay, vol. ii. p. 371; The Liberator, December 14. Seward undoubtedly made the same or a similar statement to the correspondent of the New York Evening Post. He wrote, December 6: "I have talked with Thayer, reporter for the Evening Post."—Life, vol. ii. p. 480. James Russell Lowell, in the Atlantic Monthly for January, 1861 (p. 118), spoke of Buchanan as one "who knows no art to conjure the spirit of anarchy he has evoked but the shifts and evasions of a second-rate attorney, and who has contrived to involve his country in the confusion of principle and vacillation of judgment which have left him without a party and without a friend."
2 Curtis, vol. ii. pp. 353, 357.
3 Ibid., p. 358; Richmond Enquirer, December 11,

the cotton States were pleased with the position he had taken.1 There were steadfast Union men in the border States—and these may have been many—to whose idea of nationality the President's abnegation of his own authority and his denial of the power of Congress came with a shock.2 The pity of it was that he made no ringing declaration of what he proposed to do in the way of executing the laws—such a declaration as would have served as a common rallying-point for them and for the people of the North.

Immediately after the election the Republicans were in high glee at their success. Their companies and battalions of Wide-awakes lent themselves handily to the enthusiastic demonstrations. For the moment it seemed as if nearly every one at the North was of their party.3 But their joy was short-lived, for it began to be apparent that the Republican contest for the possession of the government had only begun. In less than a week men who were not blinded by preconceived ideas were convinced that South Carolina would certainly secede, and that there was danger of the other cotton States following her example. The question arose, What would the Republicans do to prevent disunion? They were the arbiters of the situation, and — assuming
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1 Curtis, vol. ii. p. 358.
2 "To say that no State has a right to secede, that it is a wrong to the Union, and yet that the Union has no right to interpose any obstacles to its secession, seems to me to be altogether contradictory."—Crittenden of Kentucky in the Senate, December 4. Crittenden's devotion to the Union was like that of Clay. "But if secession is revolution, it seems to us that the general government has the inherent and undeniable power to suppress it. It might be unwise to exercise that power, and, as against the contemplated movement at the South, it certainly would be injudicious and ruinous to do so; but that the President and Congress have the mere legal right to put down a revolution, insurrection, or rebellion in a State we cannot doubt."—Baltimore Daily Exchange, December 5. This paper had supported Breckinridge.
3 Lincoln's majority over Douglas, Breckinridge, and Bell at the North was 293,769.—Greeley's American Conflict, vol. i. p. 328.

what was undoubted, that the sentiment of South Carolina would drive her to secession — on their action depended whether the outcome should be disunion, and, in case of disunion, whether it should be war or peace. There were some who blinked the fact, and asserted stoutly that the declarations of the Southerners were idle threats, but a disposition to look matters squarely in the face prevailed. When men met on the streets, in public places, or in society, the common salutation of the day and the usual talk gave way to the question that rose in every mind, "Do you think the South will secede?"1 Not many answered as Beecher did this question: "I don't believe they will; and I don't care if they do."2

Opinion of the way in which the crisis should be met formed on three distinct lines. A spontaneous feeling existed that the election had been fair, that the decision had been reached in a constitutional manner, and that it was the duty of the South to submit to the election of Lincoln as the Northern Democrats were submitting to it, and as Republicans had acquiesced in the election of Buchanan. This seemed especially incumbent upon the Southern people, for, to the pro-slavery policy of the present administration, carried out at their dictates, was due the Republican success of 1860.2 Many of those belonging to the victorious party,
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1 See H. W. Beecher's address in Boston, November 27, New York Tribune, November 30; Washington correspondence New York Tribune, November 29.
2 Ibid.
3 "The chief virtue of Republican success was in its condemnation of the narrow sectionalism of Buchanan's administration, and the corruptions by which he attempted to sustain his policy. Who doubts but that if he had been true to his promises in submitting the controversy in Kansas to its own people, and had closed it by admitting Kansas as a free State, that the Democratic party would have retained its power? It was his infernal policy in Kansas . . . that drove off Douglas and led to the division of the Democratic party and the consequent election of Lincoln."—Letter of John Sherman to General Sherman, November 26,1860, Century Magazine, November 1892, p. 92. "We owe the election of Lincoln only to the misrule of the present administration, and to the unfortunate dissensions in our own party."—August Belmont to John Forsyth of Alabama, December 19, Letters of Belmont, privately printed, p. 21.

who held decidedly the belief that submission was a moral and political obligation resting on the South, and that the United States was a nation, went the whole length which their position logically required. To secede and do any act of violence was, in their view, treason, and men who engaged in such work were traitors. Those who were reading men—and the majority of Republicans in 1860 were such— fed on literature adapted to sustain this opinion. Jackson's proclamation against the nullifiers and Webster's speech advocating the Force bill1 were published in a convenient form to supply a popular demand. About this time appeared the last volume of Parton's picturesque "Life of Jackson,"' and the graphic story of the way in which the sturdy general met nullification at the threshold had an effect in shaping public sentiment. Dwelling upon this episode of our history and despairing because of the imbecility of Buchanan prompted the North to burst forth almost in one voice: "Oh, for an hour of Andrew Jackson!"

Another phase of opinion was both represented and led by Horace Greeley. Three days after the election the New York Tribune, in a leading article, said: "If the cotton States shall decide that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace. The right to secede may be a revolutionary one, but it exists nevertheless. . . . Whenever a considerable section of our Union shall deliberately resolve to go out, we shall resist all coercive measures designed to keep it in. We hope never to live in a republic, whereof one section is pinned to the residue by bayonets." 3 The Tribune was the most influential
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1 See vol. i. pp. 46, 50.
2 See J. R. Lowell's criticism of this book, Atlantic Monthly, March, 1861, p. 381; also notice in Harper's Magazine, January, 1861, p. 260. 3 Issue of November 9. The article is also printed in Greeley's American Conflict, vol. i. p. 358. November 16, the leading article in the Tribune said: "If the fifteen slave States, or even the eight cotton States alone, shall quietly, decisively, say to the rest, 'We prefer to be henceforth separate from you,' we shall insist that they be permitted to go in peace. War is a hideous necessity at best, and a civil conflict—a war of estranged and embittered fellow-countrymen—is the most hideous of all wars." I do not feel quite certain that the article of November 9 was written by Greeley; but November 19 an article appears, obviously by Greeley, which goes over the same ground, and reiterates what was said November 9 and 16.
November 30 the Tribune said, in an editorial: "If the cotton States generally unite with her [South Carolina] in seceding, we insist that they cannot be prevented, and that the attempt must not be made. Five millions of people, more than half of them of the dominant race, of whom at least half a million are able and willing to shoulder muskets, can never be subdued while fighting around and over their own hearth-stones. . . . Those who think to salve over the widening chasm between the free and the cotton States are utterly unaware of the seriousness of the matter in issue."

journal of the Republican party, and, next to Seward and Lincoln, Greeley was the most powerful leader of opinion in that party. This view had its greatest popularity in November and in the first part of December, 1860; it received the countenance of other Republican newspapers;1 it prevailed with Henry Ward Beecher, whose consummate oratory swayed many audiences;2 it won, also, a certain adherence from the Garrison abolitionists, who saw in the accomplishment of it the realization of their dream of many years.3 The tendency of Southern and Democratic writers has been, not unnaturally, to overrate the strength of this opinion at the North; on the other hand, because of its speedy decline in public estimation after the middle of December, as well as for the further reason that the war was prosecuted on a theory diametrically opposed to it, we are liable to fall into the error that it was merely the erratic outburst of an eccentric thinker, having no root in public sentiment. It seems clear to me, however, that a respectable minority of Republicans were inclined to a similar view in the last months of 1860. That Greeley came near being nominated United States senator by the New York Republican caucus in February, 1861, and that his strength forced the followers of Seward and Weed to drop their candidate,
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1 Greeley's American Conflict, vol. i. p. 359.
2 See address in Boston, before cited. "In so far as the free States are concerned," he said, "I hold that it will be an advantage for the South to go off."
3 See the Liberator for November and December

Evarts, and unite on Harris as the only means of defeating Greeley,1 shows that advocating acquiescence in peaceable secession did not forfeit a leader's standing in the Republican party. Yet it is also true that, after January 1, the Tribune in a measure recanted,2 and it is quite possible that its articles of November, 1860, cost Greeley the senatorship. For peaceable disunion, when it came to be thoroughly discussed, was seen to be a geographical and military impossibility; it did violence to the Union feeling, the strongest political sentiment at the North; it wounded those who had a strong idea of nationality, and who loved to boast of the country which extended from ocean to ocean, from the Lakes to the Gulf, and whose great river rose amid the snows of the North to end its course in the land of the sugar-cane.

What we may properly call the Greeley policy obtained its strength largely on account of a general repugnance to the coercion of a State. If South Carolinians were almost unanimous for secession, the impracticability of any plan of coercion seemed manifest whenever the enforcement of it came to be discussed. One strong tie that bound the States together, a daily reminder of the federal authority, was not at this time in question. The government duly transmitted the mails to South Carolina, and to the other States bent on secession, until Fort Sumter was fired upon; the Southern postmasters did not resign, but continued to account to the post-office department at Washington. The resignations of the United States judge and district attorney, at Charleston, prevented the holding of the federal courts, but this was not a matter requiring instant remedy. Even if successors were appointed, they could not conduct the judicial business without juries, and on these no South Carolinian would serve. Did coercion mean the sending of
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1New York Tribune, February 4,1861; Life of Thurlow Weed, vol. ii. p. 322.
2 See Tribune of January and February, 1861, especially Greeley's article of January 14 and the editorial of February 2.

troops to Charleston to force men to do jury duty, to constrain the legislature to choose United States senators, to tear down the palmetto flags flying in the streets of Charleston, and to prevent the assembling of the convention that would surely adopt an ordinance of secession? The moment these questions were asked it was seen that coercion was neither possible nor desirable. Yet there existed the clear distinction drawn by Attorney-General Black between the collection of the revenue and the protection of public property, and what he termed "an offensive war to punish the people for the political misdeeds of their State government, or to enforce an acknowledgment that the government of the United States is supreme." Buchanan's policy of letting I dare not wait upon I would encouraged the dogmatic assumptions of the secessionists to the point of maintaining that any move towards the collection of the duties or the reinforcement of the forts would be coercion; while the Northern advocates of an heroic course, thinking perhaps there was virtue in a name that implied physical force, continued to employ the word coercion when, according to the distinction of Black, they meant no more than the use of that authority which he had without reservation ascribed to the President.1 The progress of events gave a certain justification to this confusion of thought. An act of executive duty, which would have occasioned only an emphatic protest from
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1 This is illustrated by J. R. Lowell's article, "E Pluribus Unum," in the Atlantic Monthly for February, 1861. He wrote: "The United States are a nation, and not a mass-meeting. ... In the present case the only coercion called for is the protection of the public property and the collection of the federal revenues. If it be necessary to send troops to do this, they will not be sectional . . . but federal troops, representing the will and power of the whole Confederacy " (pp. 238, 239). This article is reprinted in Lowell's Political Essays. December 21 the New York Tribune, which, by this time, had become an advocate of what was known as the coercion policy (infra, p. 166), said, in commenting upon the secession of South Carolina: "Only let the State continue to pay the regular duties on imports, and keep her hands off the forts, and she can secede as long as she pleases."

South Carolina in November, caused a demonstration of war in January. This perplexity would not have arisen at the North had Buchanan seized his great opportunity and made himself the national hero. h A third phase of Republican opinion found expression in the advocacy of a compromise. Many who had voted for Lincoln, believing with the generality of their party that the Southern menaces of disunion were largely gasconade,1 were now, since they had awakened to the seriousness of the situation, frightened at the result of their own work. August Belmont, in writing to John Forsyth of Alabama in November, spoke of "the reaction which has already taken place among thousands who voted for Lincoln," and in December he wrote: "I meet daily now with men who confess the error they have been led into, and almost with tears in their eyes wish they could undo what they helped to do."2 There were, indeed, Republicans who felt that they might offer without dishonor a compromise that would retain the cotton States excepting South Carolina, yet who had no craven regrets at the election of Lincoln, and who were willing, if need were, to fight for the Union. The most eminent exponent of such an opinion was Thurlow Weed, whose adroitness in practical politics had hitherto been his chief distinction, but who now rose almost to the height of statesmanship. With judicial purpose he brought himself to look upon the Southern side of the question, and with magnanimity he urged, "They who are conscious of least wrong can best afford to manifest a spirit of conciliation." 3 Weed was now sixty-three years old; he had that intense love for the Union characteristic of Whigs whose ideas had been moulded by Webster and Clay. The danger of disunion and how to avert it were his daily and nightly thoughts. By the
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1 See vol. ii. p. 488.
2 Letters of Belmont, privately printed, pp. 6, 81.
3 He added: "In the present controversy the North is nearest right, though not wholly blameless. There are motes, at least in ours, if there are beams in our neighbors' eyes."—Life of Thurlow Weed, vol. ii. p. 307.

end of November he had matured in his mind a plan of compromise, which he suggested in his newspaper, the Albany Evening Journal—at this time, probably, the most powerful organ of public opinion outside of New York City. He proposed, in the place of the actual "vindictive Fugitive Slave law," one that should provide for the payment for rescued slaves by the counties in which the violation of the law had taken place. In regard to the "vexed " territorial question, he asked, "Why not restore the Missouri Compromise line?" 1 By this he meant the extension of that line to the Pacific Ocean, allowing slavery south and prohibiting slavery north of it. In an article which he wrote advocating this plan of conciliation, Weed showed a rare comprehension of Southern sentiment; he urged his plan with cogent reasoning, the result of profound reflection irradiated by his long public experience.2 It was a bold step for a partisan Republican to take, and this he appreciated; he thought the suggestions would at first be unpopular with his political friends, but he deemed it his duty as a leader of opinion to express his views frankly, hoping that his party would come to regard the situation as he did, or, at all events, that from the discussion to which his articles would give rise, the Republicans might work out a plan to ward off disunion.3

To Greeley and to Thurlow Weed, the great journalist and the great politician, praise is due because, at a crisis when it was easier and safer to criticise and object, they did not hesitate to express their positive convictions. Greeley's policy, when ventilated, was seen to be impossible. Yet at first it appeared to be a solution worthy of consideration; and, had wide as that between England and Ireland flowed between the cotton States and the rest of the Union,
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1 Albany Evening Journal, cited in the New York Tribune, November 27.
2 See his article of November 30, cited in Greeley's American Conflict, vol. i. p. 360, which deserves a careful reading.
3 See article in Evening Journal, December 1, cited in the New York Tribune, December 3.

it might have been a wise settlement of the difficulty. Thurlow Weed's policy gained strength with the discussion of it in the light of the progress of events. The general tendency being towards the effacement of former party lines, this policy received the approval of those at the North who voted for Douglas, Breckinridge, and Bell. Douglas, beginning now that last and most glorious portion of his career, on which his admirers love to dwell, spoke at New Orleans, two days after the election, against secession;1 November 13, he wrote a formal letter to the business men of New Orleans, showing from the Southern point of view the folly of it; 2 and on the way north he addressed with the same purpose a Virginian audience.3 His course was calculated to foster among the Southern people a sentiment that should induce them to meet half-way the overtures of Republicans disposed to follow Thurlow Weed.

Thus stood affairs on December 3, when Congress met. South Carolina was practically unanimous for secession; the President had failed utterly to rise to the emergency, while at the North there existed an overwhelming desire to preserve the Union. All eyes were directed towards Congress. Would it avert the threatened danger? As the persistent attitude of South Carolina and the warm sympathy with her of her sister States were fixed facts, the question was, What would the Republicans in Congress be willing to do to satisfy the South? Compromise had solved the difficulty in 1820, in 1833, and in 1850; and it was now apparent that the border State men and the Northern Democrats could unite on a plan which would prevent the secession of all the States except South Carolina. Would the Republicans go as far as that? Properly to judge their action in this crisis, we must first inquire, what were the grievances of the South as made known to Congress?

The tangible grievances were the interference with the
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1 New York Tribune, November 15.
3 New York Tribune, December 8.
2 National Intelligencer.

execution of the Fugitive Slave act by the Personal Liberty laws,1 and the denial by the North to the owners of negro slaves of the common rights of property in the territories. The wrong done the South by the Personal Liberty laws was dwelt upon by men who were opposed to secession, and who, taking an impregnable position, were willing to rest their case upon a remediable complaint. Their conspicuous exponent was Alexander H. Stephens. In the famous speech which he made before the Georgia legislature, November 14, he thrust this view into prominence.2 His words gave rise to much discussion. It may be positively affirmed that, if the sole grievance of the South had been the alleged nullification of the Fugitive Slave act by many Northern States, there would have been no secession but that of South Carolina. For this grievance would certainly have been redressed. Vermont, the pioneer in this sort of legislation, had already taken steps towards the revision of her Personal Liberty act.3 On December 17 the national House of Representatives, in which the Republicans and anti-Lecompton Democrats had a clear majority, earnestly recommended, by a vote of 153 to 14, the repeal of the Personal Liberty laws in conflict with the Constitution. These facts, with others that will be mentioned later, show that, if it would have appeased the South, every State, with the possible exception of Massachusetts, either would have rescinded this legislation, or so modified it that it no longer would have been an offence. Early in the session of Congress, however, the Republicans were told that this would not settle the difficulty. "You talk about repealing the Personal Liberty bills as a concession to the South," said Senator Iverson of Georgia. "Repeal them all
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1 See vol. ii. p. 73.
2 The War Between the States, Stephens, vol. ii. p. 294. The Personal Liberty acts, Stephens wrote in a confidential letter of January 1,1861, "constitute the only cause, in my opinion, which can justify secession."—Johnston and Browne, p. 876.
3 See remarks of Collamer, December 18, Globe, p. 120; Speech of Morrill, February 18,1861, ibid., p. 1006.

tomorrow, sir, and it would not stop the progress of this revolution."1 Iverson spoke for a large party in the empire State of the South. Since the secession of South Carolina had become a foregone conclusion, the action of Georgia was awaited with breathless interest, and every indication of her sentiment was scanned with care. "What though all the Personal Liberty bills were repealed," asked Jefferson Davis, the leader of the cotton States; "would that secure our rights ?" 2

The other tangible grievance—the refusal of the North to recognize that the slaveholder's human chattels had the common attributes of other property in the territories—was urged with emphasis by Davis and by Toombs.3 It was indeed replied that the Dred Scott decision gave them all that they claimed, but to this it was naturally rejoined that the President-elect did not accept as binding the general principle in regard to slave property as asserted by Chief-Justice Taney.4 The experience of the last seven years had made patent to each party the importance of a friendly executive, when the issue of freedom and slavery should come to be fought out in the territories.

The intangible grievance of the South was the sentiment of the North in regard to slavery. In most of the public declarations and confidential letters one is struck with the influence which the stigma cast by Republicans upon the slaveholders had on the Southern mind. This sensitiveness proved to be a heavy obstacle in the way of compromise. Between the idea that slavery was right, or, at least, the only suitable condition of the negro, and the idea that slavery was a blot upon the nation, it seemed wellnigh impossible to hit upon the common ground of opinion which was a necessary antecedent to compromise. "The true cause of our danger,"
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1 Senate, December 5, Globe, p. 11.
2 Senate, December 10, Globe, p. 29.
3 Speeches of Davis, December 10 and January 10, 1861, Globe, pp. 29, 311; resolutions of Toombs and Davis, Journal of Committee of Thirteen, pp. 2,3; Speech of Toombs, January 7, 1861, Globe, p. 268.
4 See Senate speech of Toombs, January 7,1861, Globe, p. 269.

declared Jefferson Davis, "I believe to be that a sectional hostility has been substituted for a general fraternity. . . . Where is the remedy j" he asked. "In the hearts of the people" is the ready reply.1

The election of Lincoln seemed to the Southerners a declaration of hostility to their institution by the Republican party. When they read his speeches in the Lincoln-Douglas debates, they saw that he clearly stood for the conviction that slavery is wrong, and that the government could not endure permanently half slave and half free. Yet, despite the misunderstanding of one section by the other, a
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1 Senate, December 10. Congressional Globe, p. 29. Davis continued: "I call upon you, the representatives of the majority section, here and now to say so, if your people are not hostile; if they have the fraternity with which their fathers came to form this Union; if they are prepared to do justice; to abandon their opposition to the Constitution and the laws of the United States; to recognize and to maintain and to defend all the rights and benefits the Union was designed to promote and to secure. Give us that declaration, give us that evidence of the will of your constituency to restore us to our original position, when mutual kindness was the animating motive, and then we may hopefully look for remedies which may suffice; not by organizing armies, not so much by enacting laws, as by repressing the spirit of hostility and lawlessness, and seeking to live up to the obligations of good neighbors and friendly States united for the common welfare."
It is interesting to compare with this Lowell's view, written at about the same time. (Atlantic Monthly, January, 1861, p. 120.) "The fault of the free States in the eyes of the South is not one that can be atoned for by any yielding of special points here and there. Their offence is that they are free, and that their habits and prepossessions are those of freedom. Their crime is the census of 1860. Their increase in numbers, wealth, and power is a standing aggression. It would not be enough to please the Southern States that we should stop asking them to abolish slavery: what they demand of us is nothing less than that we should abolish the spirit of the age. Our very thoughts are a menace. It is not the North, but the South that forever agitates the question of slavery. The seeming prosperity of the cotton-growing States is based on a great mistake and a great wrong; and it is no wonder that they are irritable and scent accusation in the very air. It is the stars in their courses that fight against their system, and there are those who propose to make everything comfortable by act of Congress."
These two quotations show, as clearly as anything that I know, the underlying reasons of the war between the North and the South.

compromise on the lines laid down by Thurlow Weed was possible in December. Many schemes were proposed, but the most famous of them is that of Senator Crittenden of Kentucky; of those which would have been acceptable to the cotton States other than South Carolina, this plan was the one fairest to the North. Crittenden had now reached the age of seventy-three. An old Whig and a lover of the Union of the Henry Clay sort, actuated by sincere patriotism, having the confidence of all parties in the Senate, adapted by the character of his mind and by his residence in a Union-loving border slave State to look in some degree upon both sides of the question, it was fitting that in his last years of public service he should do all in his power to cure the breach between the two sections. He introduced his plan of compromise in the Senate, December 18. Its salient feature was the disposition of the territorial question. Could that have been agreed to, an accommodation on the other points of difference would not have been difficult. Crittenden proposed as a constitutional amendment that slavery should be prohibited "in all the territory of the United States now held, or hereafter acquired, situate north of latitude 36° 30'. ... In all the territory south of said line of latitude . . . slavery is hereby recognized as existing, and shall not be interfered with by Congress, but shall be protected as property by all the departments of the territorial government during its continuance." States should be admitted from the territory either north or south of that line with or without slavery, as their constitutions might provide. 1
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1 This was called Article 1. The Crittenden compromise provided for other constitutional amendments:
Article 2. "Congress shall have no power to abolish slavery in places under its exclusive jurisdiction, and situate within the limits of States that permit the holding of slaves."
Article 3. Congress shall have no power to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia without compensation, and without the consent of its inhabitants, of Virginia, and of Maryland.
Article 4. Congress shall have no power to prohibit or hinder the transportation of slaves between slave-holding States and territories.
Article 5. A provision for the payment of the owners by the United States for rescued fugitive slaves.
Article 6. "No future amendment of the Constitution shall affect the five preceding articles . . . and no amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress any power to abolish or interfere with slavery in any of the States by whose laws it is or may be allowed or permitted."
Resolutions were also offered:
1. That the slave-holding States are entitled to the faithful observance and execution of the Fugitive Slave laws.
2. That Congress should earnestly recommend the repeal of the Personal Liberty laws to the several States that had enacted them.
3. That the Fugitive Slave law of 1850 should be so amended as to make the fee the same, whether the alleged fugitive was sent back to slavery or released, and limiting the powers of the marshal in summoning to his aid the posse comitatus; thus taking from the law two features that had been peculiarly obnoxious to the North.
4. That the laws for the suppression of the African slave trade "ought to be made effectual and ought to be thoroughly executed." As the full text of the proposed Crittenden compromise is part of the history of this time, I give references where it may be readily found: Journal of the Committee of Thirteen, p. 3; Congressional Globe, p. 114; Life of Crittenden, Coleman, vol. ii. p. 233; Greeley's American Conflict, vol. i. p. 376.

On the same day that Crittenden proposed his compromise, the Senate adopted the resolution of Powell of Kentucky, which provided for a special committee of thirteen to consider " the grievances between the slave-holding and the non-slave-holding States," and to suggest, if possible, a remedy. Two days later the Vice-President named as the committee: Powell of Kentucky, Hunter of Virginia, Crittenden of Kentucky, Seward of New York, Toombs of Georgia, Douglas of Illinois, Collamer of Vermont, Davis of Mississippi, Wade of Ohio, Bigler of Pennsylvania, Rice of Minnesota, Doolittle of Wisconsin, Grimes of Iowa. Three of the senators were from the border slave States, two from the cotton States, three were Northern Democrats, and five were Republicans. The constitution of the committee was eminently fair, the distribution according to parties and sections just. In ability, character, and influence all the senators stood high; three of them were leaders of public sentiment. There was warrant for believing that, if the Union could be saved by act of Congress, these senators would discover the way. On the day that they first met in committee, December 21, the news recently received must have heightened their impression of the gravity of the situation and added to their sense of responsibility. December 20, the South Carolina convention had unanimously adopted the ordinance of secession, an action which kindled enthusiasm in the cotton States, and awakened some demonstrations of approval in North Carolina and Virginia. It was believed that unless a composition could be effected, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi would certainly secede, and that Louisiana and Texas would probably follow their example. The stake which the North had to play for was these six cotton States. If they were not won, might not the game be shifted to a contest where the border slave States would be at hazard? This was well understood by the Northern senators when the members of the committee came together and conversed informally on their first day of meeting. The people of the North for the most part had some notion of the peril in which the Union lay; but they felt that if these thirteen men could not agree on an acceptable compromise, there was not elsewhere in the country wisdom to devise a plan and influence to get it adopted. On one day they read of the secession of South Carolina; on the next, that there had been "a free interchange of opinion " among the members of " the select committee of the Senate on the crisis;"1 and it might have seemed to augur well that these gentlemen who met on a high social footing could begin their proceedings by a sincere endeavor to understand one another's position, rather than by presenting cut-and-dried ultimatums. This fact was the more noteworthy, as the session had been remarkable for an almost complete cessation of social intercourse between Northern and Southern
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1 Associated Press despatch, December 21.

senators.1 It was, indeed, a rare committee. On election day no two men in public life had stood for sentiments so diametrically opposed as Seward and Jefferson Davis, and yet they were on friendly social terms and had been intimate. The incessant and bitter party and factional warfare of seven years could not sour the genial nature of Douglas, who was disposed to extend the right hand of fellowship to every man on the committee, with the possible exception of Davis. In addition to a willingness to sink any personal animosities, he also stood ready to yield somewhat of his political views for the purpose of avoiding disunion.2 Crittenden was the Nestor of the Senate. Collamer, Grimes, and Doolittle were Republicans of sound judgment, and, we may believe, loved their country better than their party. Union-loving Kentucky had both of her senators on the committee, Union-loving Virginia had one.

December 22, the committee got fairly to work. On the motion of Davis, it was decided that no report should be adopted unless it had the assent of a majority of the Republican senators, and also a majority of the other eight members of the committee. This was a wise and even necessary arrangement. It was reasonably certain that no compromise could be carried through Congress without the concurrence of at least three of the Republican members of the committee; and as the different propositions comprised constitutional amendments which required the approval of three fourths of the States, time would be wasted in presenting to the country any compromise not sustained in the manner called for by the Davis resolution. Crittenden now introduced his compromise, and the committee with praiseworthy speed proceeded to vote upon it. On the first article of the proposed constitutional amendment—the one having for its scope the settlement of the slavery question in the
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1 Article of Frederic Bancroft, Political Science Quarterly, September, 1891, p. 402 ; Congressional Globe, p. 12.
2 See Associated Press despatch, December 21; Douglas's speech in the Senate, January 3, 1861.

territories, of which an abstract has been given in the text1— the vote stood: Yeas, Bigler, Crittenden, Douglas, Hunter, Powell, Rice—6. Nays, Collamer, Davis, Doolittle, Grimes, Seward, Toombs, Wade—7. The senators from the border slave States and the Northern Democrats voted for it; the senators from the cotton States and the Republicans against it. All the Republicans of the committee voted against the rest of the proposed articles amending the Constitution ;2 all the other members of the committee voted for them. On the first and second resolutions,3 the Republicans are recorded in the negative;4 the Democrats and Crittenden, in the affirmative. The third and fourth resolutions, which were favorable to the North, had the unanimous vote of a full committee.5

The first article of the proposed constitutional amendment, the one devoted to the territorial question, was of all by far the most important. Unless an agreement could be reached on this point, no compromise was possible. As Davis and Toombs voted with the Republicans against that proposition, it is often asserted that they, jointly with the Republicans, are responsible for the defeat of the Crittenden compromise; but this is a mistake, for the evidence is undoubted that, if a majority of the Republican members of the committee had indicated their intention to accept that as a settlement, Davis and Toombs would also have supported it.6 No fact is clearer than that the
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1 See p. 150.
2 On article 6, Grimes's vote is not recorded. For the articles, see note 1, p. 150.
3 Ibid.
4 On the first resolution the names of Seward and Collamer are not recorded; neither Hunter nor Grimes voted on the second.
5 See Journal of Committee of Thirteen, pp. 5-7.
6 " In the committee of thirteen, a few days ago, every member from the South, including those from the cotton States [Davis and Toombs], expressed their readiness to accept the proposition of my venerable friend from Kentucky [Crittenden] as a final settlement of the controversy, if tendered and sustained by the Republican members." — Douglas in the Senate, January 3, 1861, Globe, Appendix, p. 41. "I said to the committee of thirteen, and I say here, that, with other satisfactory provisions, I would accept it" [the territorial provision of the Crittenden compromise].—Toombs in the Senate, January 7, 1861, Globe, p. 270. "I can confirm the senator's declaration that Senator Davis himself, when on the committee of thirteen, was ready, at all times, to compromise on the Crittenden proposition. I will go further and say that Mr. Toombs was also."—Douglas in the Senate, March 2,1861, Globe, p. 1391; see also remarks of Pugh, same day, ibid., p. 1390. "Davis, Toombs, and others of the Gulf States would have accepted it [the Crittenden compromise]. The author talked with Mr. Crittenden frequently on this point. Not only did he confirm the public declarations of Douglas and Pugh, and the speech of Toombs himself to this effect, but he said it was so understood in committee. At one time while the committee was in session Mr. Crittenden said: 'Mr. Toombs, will this compromise, as a remedy for all wrongs and apprehensions, be acceptable to you?' Mr. Toombs with great warmth replied, 'Not by a good deal; but my State will accept it, and I will follow my State.'"—Three Decades of Federal Legislation, S. S. Cox, p. 77, see also p. 69; Clingman's Speeches and Writings, p. 523; Life of Davis, Alfriend, p. 214; Greeley's American Conflict, vol. i. p. 383; Associated Press despatch of December 22; interview with Toombs, 1880, Life of Seward, vol. ii. p. 486. I do not find a distinct statement from Davis similar to that of Toombs, but it seems apparent from his speech of January 10, 1861 (see Globe, p. 310), that he would have accepted the Crittenden compromise. The only contemporary evidence I have found suggesting that the expressions of Davis and Toombs might have been insincere is a letter from Seward to Lincoln of December 26, in which he says: "I think that they [Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana] could not be arrested, even if we should offer all you suggest, and with it the restoration of the Missouri Compromise line. But persons acting for those States intimate that they might be so arrested because they think that the Republicans are not going to concede the restoration of that line."—Nicolay and Hay, vol. iii. p. 263. I do not think that this suspicion weakens the other evidence; it is not consistent with the characters of Davis and Toombs. They were men whose position on any important question it was never difficult to know.

Republicans in December defeated the Crittenden compromise; few historic probabilities have better evidence to support them than the one which asserts that the adoption of this measure would have prevented the secession of the cotton States, other than South Carolina, and the beginning of the civil war in 1861.1 It is worth while, therefore, to
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1 I will cite four contemporary expressions of opinion to this effect. Trumbull asks Crittenden, January 7, 1861, "if he has any assurance that civil war is to be averted by his resolution." Crittenden replied: "I believe it will. Of course I cannot say for certain; I may be mistaken. … It may not satisfy South Carolina. Hers is a peculiar case; but I believe it will satisfy almost all the Southern States; at any rate, to such an extent that there will be no further proceeding in this revolution, no further secession, no further revolution."—Globe, p. 267. Pugh said in the Senate, March 2: "At any time before the 1st of January a two-thirds vote for the Crittenden resolutions would have saved every State in the Union but South Carolina."—Ibid., p. 1390. If Duff Green reports his interview with Lincoln accurately, Lincoln may be cited in support of this view. Green wrote to President Buchanan on the day of the interview, December 28: "I brought with me a copy of the resolutions submitted by Mr. Crittenden, which he [Lincoln] read over several times, and said that he believed that the adoption of the line proposed would quiet, for the present, the agitation of the slavery question, but believed it would be renewed by the seizure and attempted annexation of Mexico."—Life of Buchanan, Curtis, vol. ii. p. 426. If the propositions of Mr. Crittenden, wrote August Belmont to Douglas, December 26, "could but receive the unanimous support of the senatorial committee of thirteen, the Union might be saved; otherwise I cannot see one ray of hope."—Letters of Belmont, privately printed, p. 23.

inquire by what influences the Republicans were led to take this position, and to consider whether their course can be justified at the judgment-bar of history.

To answer the first part of this proposed inquiry the course of Seward and of Lincoln, the leaders of the Republican party, demands our attention. On the day after that on which Lincoln was elected, Seward possessed a more powerful influence than any one in the Republican party. This influence became somewhat weakened with the Republican senators and representatives by the time that Congress met, for Seward was naturally supposed to favor the compromise suggested by his faithful friend and political partner, Thurlow Weed. That supposition had received much credence from the sanction of the plan by the New York Times and the New York Courier and Enquirer, journals which had steadily supported Seward, and the editors of which were his warm personal and political friends.1 Moreover, Dana had told some Republican members, who called at the Tribune office on their way to Washington, and expressed regret at the overtures of Weed, that the articles
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1 New York Times, November 26, December 4; New York Courier and Enquirer, November 28, December 1 ; Seward to Weed, December 3, Life of Weed, vol ii. p. 308.

were Seward's, and that he "wanted to make a great compromise like Clay and Webster." 1 The first part of Dana's statement we must regard as a mistake;' and, while the evidence is not positive that Seward contemplated heading a movement of Republicans that would have resulted in the acceptance by them of a plan similar in essence to the Crittenden compromise, yet his private correspondence from December 1 to December 13 shows that he was wavering, and gives rise to the belief that the pressure of Weed, Raymond, and Webb, backed as they were by powerful New York men of their party,' would have outweighed that of his radical Republican colleagues if he had not been restrained by the unequivocal declarations of Lincoln. "No one has any system, few any courage or confidence in the Union in this emergency," he wrote home December 2; "I am engaged busily in studying and gathering my thoughts for the Union."4 I told the Republican caucus of senators, he wrote Weed, that "they would know what I think and what I propose when I do myself. . . . The Republican party to-day is as uncompromising as the Secessionists in South Carolina. A month hence each may come to think that moderation is wiser."5 "Our senators," he said, in a letter
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1 Seward to Weed, December 3, Life of Weed, vol. ii. p. 308.
2 " You will see that Mr. Weed lets me out of responsibility for his well-intentioned but rather impulsive movements. He promised me to do so." —Letter of Seward to his wife, December 2, Life of Seward, vol. ii. p. 479.
3 August Belmont wrote Governor William Sprague of Rhode Island, December 13: "I can assure you that all the leaders of the Republican party in our State and city, with a few exceptions of the ultra radicals, are in favor of concessions, and that the popular mind of the North is ripe for them"; and December 19: "Last evening I was present at an informal meeting of about thirty gentlemen, comprising our leading men, Republicans, Union men, and Democrats, composed of such names as Astor, Aspinwall, Moses H. Grinnell, Hamilton Fish, R. M. Blatchford, etc. They were unanimous in their voice for reconciliation, and that the first steps have to be taken by the North."—Letters of August Belmont, privately printed, pp. 15, 16.
4 Life of Seward, vol. ii. pp. 478-79.
5 Life of Weed, vol. ii. p. 308. "The real object of the caucus was to find out whether I authorized the Evening Journal, Times, and Courier articles, and to combine the whole influence of the Senate to bring these papers to better judgment. I kept my temper. I told them ... as for influencing those three editors, or any one of them, they would find them as independent as the Senate itself and more potential."—Ibid.

to his wife, December 7, "agree with me to practice reticence and kindness. But others fear that I will figure, and so interfere and derange all." "The debates in the Senate," he wrote, three days later, "are hasty, feeble, inconclusive, and unsatisfactory; presumptuous on the part of the ill-tempered South; feeble and frivolous on the part of the North." 1
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1 Life of Seward, vol. ii. pp. 480-81. See also the whole of the letter to Weed of December 3, Life of Weed, vol. ii. p. 308; and the correspondence from December 1 to December 13, Life of Seward, vol. ii. pp. 478-81.


Source: Rhodes, James Ford. History of the United States; from the compromise of 1850 to the final restoration of home rule at the south in 1877, v.3. New York: Macmillan, 1910 [c1892].