Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 / From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860

by James Gillespie Blaine

CHAPTER XV.

Thirty-Seventh Congress assembles.—Military Situation.—List of
Senators: Fessenden, Sumner, Collamer, Wade, Chandler, Hale,
Trumbull, Breckinridge, Baker of Oregon.—List of Members of the
House of Representatives: Thaddeus Stevens, Crittenden, Lovejoy,
Washburne, Bingham, Conkling, Shellabarger.—Mr. Grow elected
Speaker.—Message of President Lincoln.—Its Leading Recommendations.
—His Account of the Outbreak of the Rebellion.—Effect of the
Message on the Northern People.—Battle of Bull Run.—Its Effect
on Congress and the Country.—The Crittenden Resolution adopted.—
Its Significance.—Interesting Debate upon it in the Senate.—First
Action by Congress Adverse to Slavery.—Confiscation of Certain
Slaves.—Large Amount of Business dispatched by Congress.—Striking
and Important Debate between Baker and Breckinridge.—Expulsion of
Mr. Breckinridge from the Senate.—His Character.—Credit due to
Union Men of Kentucky.—Effect produced in the South of Confederate
Success at Bull Run.—Rigorous Policy adopted by the Confederate
Government.—Law respecting "Alien Enemies."—Law sequestrating
their Estates.—Rigidly enforced by Attorney-General Benjamin.—An
Injudicious Policy.

The Thirty-seventh Congress assembled according to the President's proclamation, on the fourth day of July, 1861. There had been no ebb in the tide of patriotic enthusiasm which overspread the loyal States after the fall of Sumter. Mr. Lincoln's sagacity in fixing the session so late had apparently been well approved. The temper of the senators and representatives as they came together could not have been better for the great work before them. Startling events, following each other thick and fast, had kept the country in a state of absorbing excitement, and Congress saw around it on every side the indications of a sanguinary struggle to come. Even after the firing on Sumter, anxious and thoughtful men had not given up all hope of an adjustment. The very shock of arms in the harbor of Charleston, it was believed by many, might upon sober second thought induce Southern men to pause and consider and negotiate before taking the fatal plunge. Such expectations were vain. The South felt that their victory was pre-ordained. Jefferson Davis answered Mr. Lincoln's call for seventy-five thousand men by a proclamation ordering the enlistment of one hundred thousand. The Confederacy was growing in strength daily. State after State was joining it, and energy and confidence prevailed throughout all its borders. The situation grew every day more embarrassing and more critical. Without waiting for the action of Congress, Mr. Lincoln had called for forty-two thousand additional volunteers, and added eleven new regiments, numbering some twenty-two thousand men, to the regular army. A blockade of the Southern ports had been ordered on the 19th of April, and eighteen thousand men had been added to the navy.

No battle of magnitude or decisive character had been fought when Congress assembled; but there had been activity on the skirmish line of the gathering and advances forces and, at many points, blood collision. In Baltimore, on the historic 19th of April, the mob had endeavored to stop the march of Massachusetts troops hurrying to the protection of the National Capital. In Missouri General Nathaniel Lyon had put to flight the disloyal governor, and established the supremacy of National authority. In Western Virginia General McClellan had met with success in some minor engagements, and on the upper Potomac the forces under General Robert Patterson had gained some advantages. A reverse of no very serious character had been experienced at Big Bethel, near Hampton Roads, by the troops under General Benjamin F. Butler. General Robert C. Schenck, in command of a small force, had met with a repulse a few miles from Washington, near Vienna in the State of Virginia. These incidents were not in themselves of special importance, but they indicated an aggressive energy on the part of the Confederates, and foreshadowed the desperate character which the contest was destined to assume. Congress found itself legislating in a fortified city, with patrols of soldiers on the streets and with a military administration which had practically superseded the civil police in the duty of maintaining order and protecting life. The situation was startling and serious, and for the first time people began to realize that we were to have a war with bloody fighting and much suffering, with limitless destruction of property, with costly sacrifice of life.

UNITED-STATES SENATORS.

The spirit in both branches of Congress was a fair reflection of that which prevailed in the North. Andrew Johnson of Tennessee was the only senator who appeared from the eleven seceding States. John C. Breckinridge was present from Kentucky, somewhat mortified by the decisive rebuke which he had received in the vote of his State. The first important act of the Senate was the seating of James H. Lane and Samuel C. Pomeroy as senators from the new State of Kansas, which had been admitted at the last session of Congress as a free State,—in a bill which, with historic justice, Mr. Buchanan was called upon to approve, after he had announced in Congress, during the first year of his administration, that Kansas was as much a slave State as South Carolina. The first question of moment growing out of the Rebellion was the presentation of credentials by Messrs. Willey and Carlile, who claimed seats as senators from Virginia, the right to which was certified by the seal of the State with the signature of Francis H. Pierpont as governor. The credentials indicated that Mr. Willey was to take the seat vacated by Mr. Mason, and Mr. Carlile that vacated by Mr. Hunter. The loyal men of Virginia, especially from the western counties, finding that the regularly organized government of the State had joined the Rebellion, extemporized a government composed of the Union men of the Legislature which had been in session the preceding winter in Richmond. This body had met in Wheeling, and elected two men as senators who had stood firmly for the Union in the convention which had forced Virginia into secession. Their admission to the Senate was resisted by Mr. James A. Bayard, then senator from Delaware, and by the few other Democratic senators who still held seats. But after discussion, Mr. Willey and Mr. Carlile were sworn in, and thus the first step was taken which led soon after to the partition of the Old Dominion and the creation of the new State of West Virginia. The free States had a unanimous representation of Republican senators, with the exception of John R. Thompson from New Jersey, Jesse D. Bright from Indiana, James W. Nesmith from Oregon, and the two senators from California, Milton S. Latham and James A. McDougall, the latter of whom was sworn in as the successor of William M. Gwin.

The Senate, though deprived by secession of many able men from the South, presented an imposing array of talent, statesmanship, and character. William Pitt Fessenden had already served one term with distinction, and was now in the third year of his second term. He possessed a combination of qualities which gave him just eminence in his public career. He was brilliant from his youth upward; had led the Maine Legislature when but a few years beyond his majority; and, at a time when members of the legal profession are struggling for a first foot-hold, he had stepped to the front rank in the bar of Maine. He was elected a representative in Congress in 1840 at thirty-four years of age. He never enjoyed popularity in the sense in which that word is ordinarily used, but he had the absolute confidence and admiration of his constituents. He possessed that peculiar strength with the people—the most valuable and most enduring a public man can have—which comes from a sense of pride in the ability and character of the representative. Somewhat reserved and distant in manner to the world at large, he was genial and delightful to the intimate circle whom he called friends.

As a debater Mr. Fessenden was exceptionally able. He spoke without apparent effort, in a quiet, impressive manner, with a complete master of pure English. He preserved the lucidus ordo in his argument, was never confused, never hurried, never involved in style. A friend once said to him that the only criticism to be made of his speeches in the Senate was that he illustrated his point too copiously, throwing light upon it after it was made plain to the comprehension of all his hearers. "That fault," said he, "I acquired in addressing juries, where I always tried to adapt my argument to the understanding of the dullest man of the twelve." It was a fault which Mr. Fessenden overcame, and in his later years his speeches may be taken as models for clearness of statement, accuracy of reasoning, felicity of expression, moderation of tone. There have been members of the Senate who achieved greater distinction than Mr. Fessenden, but it may well be doubted whether in the qualities named he ever had a superior in that body. His personal character was beyond reproach. He maintained the highest standard of purity and honor. His patriotism was ardent and devoted. The general character of his mind was conservative, and he had the heartiest contempt of every thing that savored of the demagogue in the conduct of public affairs. He was never swayed from his conclusion by the passion of the hour, and he met the gravest responsibilities with even mind. He had a lofty disregard of personal danger, possessing both moral and physical courage in a high degree. He was constant in his devotion to duty, and no doubt shortened his life by his public labors.*

UNITED-STATES SENATORS.

Mr. Sumner, though five years the junior, was senior in senatorial service to Mr. Fessenden, and had attained wider celebrity. Mr. Sumner's labor was given almost exclusively to questions involving our foreign relations, and to issues growing out of the slavery agitation. To the latter he devoted himself, not merely with unswerving fidelity but with all the power and ardor of his nature. Upon general questions of business in the Senate he was not an authority, and rarely participated in the debates which settled them; but he did more than any other man to promote the anti-slavery cause, and to uprear its standard in the Republican party. He had earned, in an unexampled degree, the hatred of the South, and this fact had increased the zeal for him among anti-slavery men throughout the North. The assault, made upon him by Preston S. Brooks, a South-Carolina representative, for his famous speech on Kansas, had strengthened his hold upon his constituency, which was not merely the State of Massachusetts but the radical and progressive Republicans of the entire country.

Mr. Sumner was studious, learned, and ambitious. He prepared his discussions of public questions with care, but was not ready as a debater. He presented his arguments with power, but they were laborious essays. He had no faculty for extempore speech. Like Addison, he could draw his draft for a thousand pounds, but might not have a shilling of change. This did not hinder his progress or lessen his prestige in the Senate. His written arguments were the anti-slavery classics of the day, and they were read more eagerly than speeches which produced greater effect on the hearer. Colonel Benton said that the eminent William Pinkney of Maryland was always thinking of the few hundred who came to hear him in the Senate Chamber, apparently forgetting the million who might read him outside. Mr. Sumner never made that mistake. His arguments went to the million. They produced a wide-spread and prodigious effect on public opinion and left an indelible impression on the history of the country.

Jacob Collamer of Vermont was a senator of eminent worth and ability. He had earned honorable fame as a member of the House of Representatives, and as a member of the Cabinet in the administration of General Taylor. He had entered the Senate at a ripe age, and with every qualification for distinguished service. To describe him in a single word, he was a wise man. Conservative in his nature, he was sure to advise against rashness. Sturdy in his principles, he always counseled firmness. In the periods of excitement through which the party was about to pass, his judgment was sure to prove of highest value—influenced, as it always was, by patriotism, and guided by conscience. Without power as an orator, he was listened to in the Senate with profound attention, as one who never offered counsel that was not needed. He carried into the Senate the gravity, the dignity, the weight of character, which enabled him to control more ardent natures; and he brought to a later generation the wisdom and experience acquired in a long life devoted to the service of his State and of his country.

UNITED-STATES SENATORS.

Zachariah Chandler had been the recognized leader of the Republican party in Michigan from its formation. He had superseded General Cass with a people in whose affections the latter had been strongly intrenched before Chandler was born. He had been four years in the Senate when the war broke out, and he was well established in reputation and influence. He was educated in the common schools of his native State of New Hampshire, but had not enjoyed the advantage of collegiate training. He was not eloquent according to the canons of oratory; but he was widely intelligent, had given careful attention to public questions, and spoke with force and clearness. He was a natural leader. He had abounding confidence in himself, possessed moral courage of a high order, and did not know the sensation of physical fear. He was zealous in the performance of public duty, radical in all his convictions, patriotic in every thought, an unrelenting foe to all forms of corruption. He distinguished between a friend and an enemy. He was always ready to help the one, and, though not lacking in magnanimity, he seldom neglected an opportunity to cripple the other.

Lyman Trumbull had entered the Senate six years before, when Illinois revolted against the course of Douglas in destroying the Missouri Compromise. Mr. Lincoln had earnestly desired the place, but waived his claims. The election of Trumbull was considered desirable for the consolidation of the new party, and the Republicans of Whig antecedents were taught a lesson of self-sacrifice by the promptness with which Mr. Lincoln abandoned the contest. Judge Trumbull had acquired a good reputation at the bar of his State, and at once took high rank in the Senate. His mind was trained to logical discussion, and as a debater he was able and incisive. His political affiliations prior to 1854 were with the Democracy, and aside from the issue in regard to the extension of slavery, he did not fully sympathize with the principles and tendencies of the Republican party. He differed from Mr. Lincoln just as Preston King, senator from New York, differed from Mr. Seward. Lincoln and Seward believed in Henry Clay and all the issues which he represented, while Trumbull and King were devoted to the policies and measures which characterized the administration of Jackson. The two classes of men composing the Republican party were equally zealous in support of the principles that led to the political revolution of 1860, but it was not easy to see what would be the result of other issues which time and necessity might develop.

Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio had been ten years in the Senate when the war broke out. He entered in March, 1851—the immediate successor of Thomas Ewing who had been transferred to the Senate from the Cabinet of Taylor, to take the place of Thomas Corwin who left the Senate to enter the Cabinet of Fillmore. Mr. Wade was elected as a Whig—the last senator chosen by that party in Ohio. His triumph was a rebuke to Mr. Corwin for his abandonment of the advanced position which he had taken against the aggressions of the slave power. It was rendered all the more significant by the defeat of Mr. Ewing, who with his strong hold upon the confidence and regard of the people of Ohio, was too conservative to embody the popular resentment against the odious features of the Compromise of 1850. Mr. Wade entered the Senate with Mr. Sumner. Their joint coming imparted confidence and strength to the contest for free soil, and was a powerful re-enforcement to Mr. Seward, Mr. Chase, and Mr. Hale, who represented the distinctively anti-slavery sentiment in the Senate. The fidelity, the courage, the ability of Mr. Wade gave him prominence in the North, and were a constant surprise to the South. He brought to the Senate the radicalism which Mr. Giddings had so long upheld in the House, and was protected in his audacious freedom of speech by his steadiness of nerve and his known readiness to fight.

Henry B. Anthony entered the Senate on the 4th of March, 1859, at forty-four years of age. He had been Governor of Rhode Island ten years before. He received a liberal education at Brown University, and was for a long period editor of the Providence Journal, a position in which he established an enviable fame as a writer and secured an enduring hold upon the esteem and confidence of his State. In the Senate he soon acquired the rank to which his thorough training and intelligence, his graceful speech, his ardent patriotism, his stainless life entitled him. No man has ever enjoyed, among his associates of all parties, a more profound confidence, a more cordial respect, a warmer degree of affection.

UNITED-STATES SENATORS.

John P. Hale of New Hampshire was still pursuing the career which he had begun as an early advocate of the anti-slavery cause, and in which he had twice overthrown the power of the Democratic party in New Hampshire.—Henry Wilson was the colleague of Mr. Sumner, and was a man of strong parts, self-made, earnest, ardent, and true.—Lot M. Morrill was the worthy associate of Mr. Fessenden, prominent in his profession, and strong in the regard and confidence of the people of his States.—The author of the Wilmot Proviso came from Pennsylvania as the successor of Simon Cameron, and as the colleague of Edgar Cowan, whose ability was far greater than his ambition or his industry.—James W. Grimes, a native of New Hampshire, who had gone to Iowa at the time of its organization as a Territory and had been conspicuously influential in the affairs of the State, entered the Senate in March, 1859. He possessed an iron will and sound judgment. He was specially distinguished for independence of party restraint in his modes of thought and action. He and Judge Collamer of Vermont were the most intimate associates of Mr. Fessenden, and the three were not often separated on public questions. —The colleague of Mr. Grimes was James Harlan, one of Mr. Lincoln's most valued and most confidential friends, and subsequently a member of his Cabinet.—James R. Doolittle came from Wisconsin, a far more radical Republican than his colleague, Timothy O. Howe, and both were men of marked influence in the councils of their party.—John Sherman filled the vacancy occasioned by the appointment of Mr. Chase to the Treasury. Mr. Chase had been chosen as the successor of George E. Pugh, and remained in the Senate but a single day. Mr. Sherman had been six years in the House, and had risen rapidly in public esteem. He had been the candidate of his party for Speaker, and had served as chairman of Ways and Means in the Congress preceding the war.—From the far-off Pacific came Edward Dickinson Baker, a senator from Oregon, a man of extraordinary gifts of eloquence; lawyer, soldier, frontiersman, leader of popular assemblies, tribune of the people. In personal appearance he was commanding, in manner most attractive, in speech irresistibly charming. Perhaps in the history of the Senate no man ever left so brilliant a reputation from so short a service. He was born in England, and the earliest recollection of his life was the splendid pageant attending the funeral of Lord Nelson.** He came with his family to the United States when a child, lived for a time in Philadelphia, and removed to Illinois, where he grew to manhood and early attained distinction. He served his State with great brilliancy in Congress, and commanded with conspicuous success one of her regiments in the war with Mexico. The Whigs of the North- West presented Colonel Baker for a seat in the Cabinet of President Taylor. His failure to receive the appointment was a sore mortification to him. He thought his political career in Illinois was broken; and in 1852, after the close of his service in Congress, he joined the throng who were seeking fortune and fame on the Pacific slope. When leaving Washington he said to a friend that he should never look on the Capitol again unless he could come bearing his credentials as a senator of the United States. He returned in eight years.

Among the opposition senators, some fourteen in number, the most prominent was John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, who had stepped from the Vice-President's chair to the floor of the Senate as the successor of Mr. Crittenden. Mr. Breckinridge at that time was forty years of age, attractive in personal appearance, graceful, and cordial in manner, by inheritance and by cultivation a gentleman. He came from a section where family rank gave power and influence. He united in his person the best blood of the South and the North, —preserving and combining the most winning traits of each. His lineage in Kentucky naturally brought to him the sympathy and support of the State. He was born to success and authority among his people. Originally he had anti-slavery convictions, as had all the members of his eminent family. So strongly was this tendency developed in his mind that, when he came to the bar, he removed to the Territory of Iowa, intending to identify himself with the growth of the free North-West. Circumstances overcame the determination, and carried him back to Kentucky, where he was welcomed at the hearth-stones and in the hearts of her people.

MR. CLAY AND MR. BRECKINRIDGE.

At twenty-five years of age Mr. Breckinridge was appointed major in one of the Kentucky regiments, which served in the Mexican war. After his return he entered upon the practice of his profession in Lexington, and against all the traditions of his family identified himself with the Democratic party. An apparently slight incident had an important bearing upon his earlier political career. He was selected to deliver the address of welcome to Mr. Clay on his return to Kentucky in the autumn of 1850, from the field of his senatorial triumph in securing the adoption of the celebrated compromise of that year. Mr. Breckinridge's speech was graceful and effective. He eulogized Mr. Clay's work with discrimination, and paid the highest tribute to the illustrious statesman. Mr. Clay was visibly touched by the whole scene. His old opponents were present by the thousand to do him honor. The enmities and antagonisms of earlier years were buried. He had none but friends and supporters in Kentucky. He responded with earnestness, and even with emotion: "My welcome," he said, "has been made all the more grateful from being pronounced by my eloquent young friend, the son of an eloquent father, the grandson of a still more eloquent grandfather, both of whom were in days long gone my cherished companions, my earnest supporters." Mr. Clay's words were so warm, his manner was so cordial, that it seemed as if he intended to confer upon Breckinridge the leadership in Kentucky, which, after a half century's domination, he was about to surrender. Undoubtedly the events of that day aided Breckinridge the next year in carrying the Ashland District for Congress, and drew to him thereafter the support of many influential Whigs. He entered Congress when the slavery discussion was absorbing public attention, and by the irresistible drift of events he was carried into an association with extreme Southern men. It was by their friendly influence that he was promoted to the Vice-Presidency as soon as he became eligible under the Constitution. During the four stormy years of Buchanan's administration, when the sectional contest approached its crisis, Mr. Breckinridge became more and more the representative of Southern opinion, and, though unequal to Douglas in the arena of debate, he became the leader of those who opposed the "popular sovereignty" dogma of the Illinois senator. He was thence drawn by influences which he could not have controlled if he had desired, into the prolonged and exciting controversy which disrupted the Democratic party. Intellectually Mr. Breckinridge was not the equal of many Southern men who deferred to him as a leader. His precedence was due to his personal character, to his strong connections, to his well-tempered judgment, and especially to a certain attractiveness of manner which was felt by all who came in contact with him.

The prominence of New England in the Senate was exceptional. So many positions of influence were assigned to her that it created no small degree of jealously and ill-feeling in other sections. The places were allotted according to the somewhat rigid rules of precedence which obtain in that body, but this fact did not induce senators from the Middle and Western States to acquiesce with grace. The chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations was given to Mr. Sumner; Mr. Fessenden was placed at the head of the Finance Committee, which then included Appropriations; Mr. Wilson was made chairman of Military Affairs; Mr. John P. Hale, chairman of Naval Affairs; Mr. Collamer, chairman of Post-office and Post-roads; Mr. Foster of Connecticut, chairman of Pensions; Mr. Clark of New Hampshire, chairman of Claims; Mr. Simmons of Rhode Island, chairman of Patents; Mr. Foot of Vermont, chairman of Public Buildings and Grounds; Mr. Anthony, chairman of Printing; Mr. Dixon of Connecticut, chairman of Contingent Expenses. Mr. Lot M. Morrill, who had just entered the public service from Maine, was the only New-England senator left without a chairmanship. There were in all twenty-two committees in the Senate. Eleven were given to New England. But even this ratio does not exhibit the case in its full strength. The Committees on Foreign Relations, Finance, Military Affairs, and Naval Affairs shaped almost the entire legislation in time of war, and thus New England occupied a most commanding position. The retirement of Mr. Seward, Mr. Chase, and Mr. Cameron from the Senate to enter the Cabinet undoubtedly increased the number of important positions assigned to New England. Twenty-two States were represented in the Senate, and it was impossible to make sixteen of them, including the four leading States of the Union, recognize the justice of placing the control of National legislation in the hands of six States in the far North-East. It was not a fortunate arrangement for New England, since it provoked prejudices which proved injurious in many ways, and lasted for many years.