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

THE CABINET OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

Mr. Blair was appointed as a citizen of Maryland. This gave serious offense to many of Mr. Lincoln's most valued supporters, and was especially distasteful to the Union men of Maryland, with Henry Winter Davis at their head. They regarded Mr. Blair as a non- resident, as not in any sense identified with them, and as disposed from the outset to foment disturbance where harmony was especially demanded. Mr. Bates had been appointed from Missouri largely by the influence of Francis P. Blair, Jr.; and the border-State Republicans were dissatisfied that the only two members of the Cabinet from the slave States had been appointed apparently without any general consultation among those who were best fitted to give the President advice on so important a matter. The extreme men in the Republican party, of the type of Benjamin F. Wade and Owen Lovejoy, believed that the Cabinet was so constituted as to insure what they termed "a disgraceful surrender to the South." It was a common saying at the time in Washington, among the radical Republicans, that Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet did not contain three as absolute and strong defenders of the Union as Dix, Holt, and Stanton, who had just retired with Mr. Buchanan. Thaddeus Stevens, with his accustomed sharpness of speech, said the Cabinet was composed of an assortment of rivals whom the President appointed from courtesy, one stump-speaker from Indiana, and two representatives of the Blair family.

In the seven States which constituted the original Southern Confederacy, the flag of the United States was flying at only three points on the day of Mr. Lincoln's inauguration. The army of the United States still held Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston; Fort Pickens, opposite the Pensacola Navy Yard; and Key West, the extreme southern point of Florida. Every other fort, arsenal, dock- yard, mint, custom-house, and court-house had been seized by the Confederacy, and turned to hostile use. Fort Moultrie, Castle Pinckney, and the United-States arsenal at Charleston had been seized by the troops of South Carolina; Forts Jackson and Pulaski, and the United-States arsenal at Augusta, by the troops of Georgia; the Chattahoochee and St. Augustine arsenals and the Florida forts, by the troops of that State; the arsenal at Baton Rouge, and Forts Jackson and St. Philip, together with the New-Orleans mint and custom-house, by the troops of Louisiana; the Little-Rock arsenal by the troops of Arkansas; Forts Johnson and Caswell by the troops of North Carolina; and General Twiggs had traitorously surrendered to the State of Texas all the military stores in his command, amounting in value to a million and a half of dollars. By these means the seceding States had come into possession of all the artillery, small arms, ammunition, and supplies of war needed for immediate use, and were well prepared for the opening of the campaign. On the part of the government there was no such preparation. Indeed the government did not at that moment have twelve thousand available troops against the most formidable rebellion in history. Its whole navy could not make one large squadron, and its most effective ships were at points remote from the scene of conflict. The revenues of the country were not then yielding more than thirty millions per annum, and the credit was so low that one per cent. a month had been paid by the retiring administration for the funds necessary to close its unfortunate career.

In view of all these facts, it cannot be matter of wonder that the Disunion leaders in the South laughed to scorn any efforts on the part of the Government of the United States to arrest their progress, much less to subdue them, and enforce their return to the Union. North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas had not yet seceded. The Union sentiment was strong in each one of these States, and the design of Mr. Lincoln was to pursue a policy so mild and conciliatory as to win them to the side of the government. Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri were excited by strong minorities who desired to aid the South, while no strong element in their population was ready to take decisive measures for the Union. Palliation, conciliation, concession, compromise, were the only words heard, and the almost universal opinion in the South, shared largely by the North, was that to precipitate war would be to abandon the last hope for restoration of the Union.

EXTRA SESSION OF THE SENATE.

The extra session of the Senate, called by Mr. Buchanan for the convenience of the new administration, assembled on the 4th of March. All the Southern States were represented in full except those which had members in the Confederate Congress at Montgomery, and from one of these—the State of Texas—both senators, John Hemphill and Louis T. Wigfall, were present. Texas was indeed represented in the Congress of the Confederate States at Montgomery and in the Congress of the United States at Washington at the same time. Some excuse was given for the continuance of the senators by an alleged lack of completeness in the secession proceedings of their State; but to the apprehension of the ordinary mind, a secession that was complete enough to demand representation at Montgomery was complete enough to end it at Washington. The Texas senators, therefore, did not escape the imputation of seizing a mere pretext for remaining at Washington somewhat in the character of spies upon the new administration. John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky and Thomas L. Clingman of North Carolina took the usual oath to support the Constitution—Clingman for his second term, Breckinridge for his first. Salmon P. Chase was sworn in as senator from Ohio, and retired the next day to the Treasury Department. John Sherman was his successor. Among the new senators who entered, and who afterwards became conspicuous, were Howe of Wisconsin and Baker of Oregon. The session was only for Executive purposes, and of course possessed no legislative power; but the debates were of interest and of value to the country.

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

Mr. Mason of Virginia came to the aid of Wigfall in the debate, but fared badly at the hands of Douglas. He asked Douglas to define what should be done in this crisis in regard to Fort Sumter. "If the senator from Virginia," said Douglas, "had voted right in the last Presidential election, I should have been, perhaps, in a position to-day to tell him authoritatively what ought to be done. Not occupying that position, I must refer the senator from Virginia to those who have been intrusted by the American people, according to the Constitution, with the decision of that question." The speech of Wigfall had given great offense, and the castigation administered by Douglas was heartily responded to throughout the North. Wigfall had boasted that he owed no allegiance to the government; that he was a foreigner and owed allegiance to another government. On the next day, reciting these words as a preamble, Mr. Foster of Connecticut moved "that Louis T. Wigfall be and hereby is expelled from the Senate." Mr. Clingman of North Carolina moved as a substitute a declaration that "Texas having seceded from the Union, and being no longer one of the United States, is not entitled to be represented in this body." After a brief debate, the resolutions were referred to the Judiciary by the votes of Republican senators, who, not wishing to precipitate any issue prematurely, and persuaded that Wigfall's presence was helping rather than harming the Union cause, concluded to let the matter rest.

BRECKINRIDGE AND DOUGLAS.

A notable debate took place between Breckinridge and Douglas, in which the issues that had led to the disruption of the Democracy in the late Presidential election were, in a certain sense, fought over again. Mr. Breckinridge's speech was carefully prepared, and presented the Southern side in a tone of dignity and confidence; but the reply of Douglas exhibited his superiority as a debater. Breckinridge had declared that whatever settlement be made of other questions, there must be a concession to the South of the right to emigrate into all the Territories, or at least an equitable partition of the National Domain. In reply, Douglas reminded him that the South had, by the action of a Republican Congress, the full right to emigrate into all the territory of the United States; and that, with the consent of the Republican Congress, every inch of the territory of the United States south of the thirty-seventh degree of latitude was at that hour open to slavery. "So far," said he, "as the doctrine of popular sovereignty and non-intervention is concerned, the Colorado Bill and the Nevada Bill and the Dakota Bill are identically the same with the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and in its precise language." The answer was at once a complete destruction of the argument of Breckinridge, and a severe indictment of the Republican party. Never before in the existence of the Federal Government had its territory been so open, by Congressional enactment and by judicial decision, to the slave-holder as on the day that Abraham Lincoln assumed the office of President of the United States. It is a singular fact that, on the eve of the utter destruction of the institution of Slavery, its legal status was stronger than ever before in the history of the government, and the area over which it might lawfully spread was far larger than at any previous period. Douglas showed in this debate how absolutely groundless was the excuse of slave-holders for basing secession or revolution upon the failure to acquire their rights in the Territories, when never before had their rights in the Territories been so absolutely complete.

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

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

STATESMANSHIP OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

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