Congress on the Eve of the Rebellion.
It should be borne in mind that all of the propositions, whether for compromise, authority to suppress insurrection, or new laws to collect duties, had to be considered by the Second Session of the 36th Congress, which was then, with the exception of the Republicans, a few Americans, and the anti-Lecompton men, supporting the administration of Buchanan. No Congress ever had so many and such grave propositions presented to it, and none ever showed more exciting political divisions. It was composed of the following persons, some of whom survive, and most of whom are historic characters:
SENATE.
John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, Vice-President;
Maine—H. Hamlin,[[14]] W. P. Fessenden.
New Hampshire—John P. Hale, Daniel Clark.
Vermont—Solomon Foot, J. Collamer.
Massachusetts—Henry Wilson, Charles Sumner.
Rhode Island—James F. Simmons, H. B. Anthony.
Connecticut—L. S. Foster, Jas. Dixon.
New York—William H. Seward, Preston King.
New Jersey—J. C. Ten Eyck, J. R. Thomson.
Pennsylvania—S. Cameron, Wm. Bigler.
Delaware—J. A. Bayard, W. Saulsbury.
Maryland—J. A. Pearce, A. Kennedy.
Virginia—R. M. T. Hunter, James M. Mason.
South Carolina—Jas. Chesnut,[[15]] James H. Hammond.[[15]]
North Carolina—Thomas Bragg, T. L. Clingman.
Alabama—B. Fitzpatrick, C. C. Clay, Jr.
Mississippi—A. G. Brown, Jeff. Davis.
Louisiana—J. P. Benjamin, John Slidell.
Tennessee—A. O. P. Nicholson, A. Johnson.
Arkansas—R. W. Johnson, W. K. Sebastian.
Kentucky—L. W. Powell. J. J. Crittenden.
Missouri—Jas. S. Green, Trusten Polk.
Ohio—B. F. Wade, Geo. E. Pugh.
Indiana—J. D. Bright, G. N. Fitch.
Illinois—S. A. Douglas, L. Trumbull.
Michigan—Z. Chandler, K. S. Bingham.
Florida—D. L. Yulee, S. R. Mallory.
Georgia—Alfred Iverson, Robt. Toombs.
Texas—John Hemphill, L. T. Wigfall.
Wisconsin—Charles Durkee, J. R. Doolittle.
Iowa—J. M. Grimes, Jas. Harlan.
California—M. S. Latham. William M. Gwin.
Minnesota—H. M. Rice, M. S. Wilkinson.
Oregon—Joseph Lane, Edward D. Baker.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
William Pennington, of New Jersey, Speaker.
Maine—D. E. Somes, John J. Perry, E. B. French, F. H. Morse, Israel Washburn, Jr.,[[16]] S. C. Foster.
New Hampshire—Gilman Marston, M. W. Tappan, T. M. Edwards.
Vermont—E. P. Walton, J. S. Morrill, H. E. Royce.
Massachusetts—Thomas D. Eliot, James Buffinton, Charles Francis Adams, Alexander H. Rice, Anson Burlingame, John B. Alley, Daniel W. Gooch, Charles R. Train, Eli Thayer, Charles Delano, Henry L. Dawes.
Rhode Island—C. Robinson, W. D. Brayton.
Connecticut—Dwight Loomis, John Woodruff, Alfred A. Burnham, Orris S. Ferry.
Delaware—W. G. Whiteley.
New York—Luther C. Carter, James Humphreys, Daniel E. Sickles, W. B. Maclay, Thomas J. Barr, John Cochrane, Gorge Briggs, Horace F. Clark, John B. Haskin, Chas. H. Van Wyck, William S. Kenyon, Charles L. Beale, Abm. B. Olin, John H. Reynolds, Jas. B. McKean, G. W. Palmer, Francis E. Spinner, Clark B. Cochrane, James H. Graham, Richard Franchot, Roscoe Conkling, R. H. Duell, M. Ludley Lee, Charles B. Hoard, Chas. B. Sedgwick, M. Butterfield, Emory B. Pottle, Alfred Wells, William Irvine, Alfred Ely, Augustus Frank, Edwin R. Reynolds, Elbridge G. Spaulding, Reuben E. Fenton.
New Jersey—John T. Nixon, John L. N. Stratton, Garnett B. Adrain, Jetur R. Riggs, Wm. Pennington (Speaker).
Pennsylvania—Thomas B. Florence, E. Joy Morris, John P. Verree, William Millward, John Wood, John Hickman, Henry C. Longnecker, Jacob K. McKenty, Thaddeus Stevens, John W. Kellinger, James H. Campbell, George W. Scranton, William H. Dimmick, Galusha A. Grow, James T. Hale, Benjamin F. Junkin, Edward McPherson, Samuel S. Blair, John Covode, William Montgomery, James K. Moorhead, Robert McKnight, William Stewart, Chapin Hall, Elijah Babbitt.
Maryland—Jas. A. Stewart, J. M. Harris, H. W. Davis, J. M. Kunkel, G. W. Hughes.
Virginia—John S. Millson, Muscoe R. H. Garnett, Daniel C. De Jarnette, Roger A. Pryor, Thomas S. Bocock, William Smith, Alex. R. Boteler, John T. Harris, Albert G. Jenkins, Shelton F. Leake, Henry A. Edmundson, Elbert S. Martin, Sherrard Clemens.
South Carolina—John McQueen, Wm. Porcher Miles, Lawrence M. Keitt, Milledge L. Bonham, John D. Ashmore, Wm. W. Boyce.
North Carolina—W. N. H. Smith, Thos. Ruffin, W. Winslow, L. O’B. Branch, John A. Gilmer, Jas. M. Leach, Burton Craige, Z. B. Vance.
Georgia—Peter E. Love, M. J. Crawford, Thos. Hardeman, Jr., L. J. Gartrell, J. W. H. Underwood, James Jackson, Joshua Hill, John J. Jones.
Alabama—Jas. L. Pugh, David Clopton, Sydenh. Moore, Geo. S. Houston, W. R. W. Cobb, J. A. Stallworth, J. L. M. Curry.
Mississippi—L. Q. C. Lamar, Reuben Davis, William Barksdale, O. R. Singleton, John J. McRae.
Louisiana—John E. Bouligny, Miles Taylor, T. G. Davidson, John M. Landrum.
Ohio—G. H. Pendleton, John A. Gurley, C. L. Vallandigham, William Allen, James M. Ashley, Wm. Howard, Thomas Corwin, Benj. Stanton, John Carey, C. A. Trimble, Chas. D. Martin, Saml. S. Cox, John Sherman, H. G. Blake, William Helmick, C. B. Tompkins, T. C. Theaker, S. Edgerton, Edward Wade, John Hutchins, John A. Bingham.
Kentucky—Henry C. Burnett, Green Adams, S. O. Peyton, F. M. Bristow, W. C. Anderson, Robert Mallory, Wm. E. Simms, L. T. Moore, John Y. Brown, J. W. Stevenson.
Tennessee—T. A. R. Nelson, Horace Maynard, R. B. Brabson, William B. Stokes, Robert Hatton, James H. Thomas, John V. Wright, James M. Quarles, Emerson Etheridge, Wm. T. Avery.
Indiana—Wm. E. Niblack, Wm. H. English, Wm. M’Kee Dunn, Wm. S. Holman, David Kilgore, Albert G. Porter, John G. Davis, James Wilson, Schuyler Colfax, Chas. Case, John U. Pettit.
Illinois—E. B. Washburne, J. F. Farnsworth, Owen Lovejoy, Wm. Kellogg, I. N. Morris, John A. McClernand, James C. Robinson, P. B. Fouke, John A. Logan.
Arkansas—Thomas C. Hindman, Albert Rust.
Missouri—J. R. Barrett, T. L. Anderson, John B. Clark, James Craig, L. H. Woodson, John S. Phelps, John W. Noell.
Michigan—William A. Howard, Henry Waldron, F. W. Kellogg, De W. C. Leach.
Florida—George S. Hawkins.
Texas—John H. Regan, A. J. Hamilton.
Iowa—S. R. Curtis, Wm. Vandever.
California—Charles L. Scott, John C. Burch.
Wisconsin—John F. Porter, C. C. Washburne, C. H. Larrabee.
Minnesota—Cyrus Aldrich, Wm. Windom.
Oregon—Lansing Stout.
Kansas—Martin F. Conway, (sworn Jan. 30th, 1861).
MR. LINCOLN’S VIEWS.
While the various propositions above given were under consideration, Mr. Lincoln was of course an interested observer from his home in Illinois, where he awaited the legal time for taking his seat as President. His views on the efforts at compromise were sought by the editor of the New York Tribune, and expressed as follows:
“‘I will suffer death before I will consent or advise my friends to consent to any concession or compromise which looks like buying the privilege of taking possession of the Government to which we have a constitutional right; because, whatever I might think of the merits of the various propositions before Congress, I should regard any concession in the face of menace as the destruction of the government itself, and a consent on all hands that our system shall be brought down to a level with the existing disorganized state of affairs in Mexico. But this thing will hereafter be, as it is now, in the hands of the people; and if they desire to call a convention to remove any grievances complained of, or to give new guarantees for the permanence of vested rights, it is not mine to oppose.’”
JUDGE BLACK’S VIEWS.
Jeremiah S. Black, of Pennsylvania, was then Buchanan’s Attorney-General, and as his position has since been made the subject of lengthy controversy, it is pertinent to give the following copious extract from his “Opinion upon the Powers of the President,” in response to an official inquiry from the Executive:—
The existing laws put and keep the Federal Government strictly on the defensive. You can use force only to repel an assault on the public property, and aid the courts in the performance of their duty. If the means given you to collect the revenue and execute the other laws be insufficient for that purpose, Congress may extend and make them more effectual to that end.
If one of the States should declare her independence, your action cannot depend upon the rightfulness of the cause upon which such declaration is based. Whether the retirement of a State from the Union be the exercise of a right reserved in the Constitution or a revolutionary movement, it is certain that you have not in either case the authority to recognize her independence or to absolve her from her Federal obligations. Congress or the other States in convention assembled must take such measures as may be necessary and proper. In such an event I see no course for you but to go straight onward in the path you have hitherto trodden, that is, execute the laws to the extent of the defensive means placed in your hands, and act generally upon the assumption that the present constitutional relations between the States and the Federal Government continue to exist until a new order of things shall be established, either by law or force.
Whether Congress has the constitutional right to make war against one or more States, and require the Executive of the Federal Government to carry it on by means of force to be drawn from the other States, is a question for Congress itself to consider. It must be admitted that no such power is expressly given; nor are there any words in the Constitution which imply it. Among the powers enumerated in article I. section 8, is that “to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and to make rules concerning captures on land and water.” This certainly means nothing more than the power to commence, and carry on hostilities against the foreign enemies of the nation. Another clause in the same section gives Congress the power “to provide for calling forth the militia,” and to use them within the limits of the State. But this power is so restricted by the words which immediately follow, that it can be exercised only for one of the following purposes: 1. To execute the laws of the Union; that is, to aid the Federal officers in the performance of their regular duties. 2. To suppress insurrections against the States; but this is confined by article IV. section 4, to cases in which the State herself shall apply for assistance against her own people. 3. To repel the invasion of a State by enemies who come from abroad to assail her in her own territory. All these provisions are made to protect the States, not to authorize an attack by one part of the country upon another; to preserve their peace, and not to plunge them into civil war. Our forefathers do not seem to have thought that war was calculated “to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” There was undoubtedly a strong and universal conviction among the men who framed and ratified the Constitution, that military force would not only be useless, but pernicious as a means of holding the States together.
If it be true that war cannot be declared, nor a system of general hostilities carried on by the central government against a State, then it seems to follow that an attempt to do so would be ipso facto an expulsion of such State from the Union. Being treated as an alien and an enemy, she would be compelled to act accordingly. And if Congress shall break up the present Union by unconstitutionally putting strife and enmity, and armed hostility, between different sections of the country, instead of the “domestic tranquillity” which the Constitution was meant to insure, will not all the States be absolved from their Federal obligations? Is any portion of the people bound to contribute their money or their blood to carry on a contest like that?
The right of the General Government to preserve itself in its whole constitutional vigor by repelling a direct and positive aggression upon its property or its officers, cannot be denied. But this is a totally different thing from an offensive war to punish the people for the political misdeeds of their State governments, or to prevent a threatened violation of the Constitution, or to enforce an acknowledgment that the Government of the United States is supreme. The States are colleagues of one another, and if some of them shall conquer the rest and hold them as subjugated provinces, it would totally destroy the whole theory upon which they are now connected.
If this view of the subject be as correct as I think it is, then the Union must totally perish at the moment when Congress shall arm one part of the people against another for any purpose beyond that of merely protecting the General Government in the exercise of its proper constitutional functions. I am, very respectfully, yours, etc.,
J. S. Black.
To the President of the United States.
The above expressions from Lincoln and Black well state the position of the Republican and the administration Democrats on the eve of the rebellion, and they are given for that purpose. The views of the original secessionists are given in South Carolina’s declaration. Those of the conservatives of the South who hesitated and leaned toward the Union, were best expressed before the Convention of Georgia in the
SPEECH OF ALEX. H. STEPHENS.
This step (of secession) once taken can never be recalled; and all the baleful and withering consequences that must follow, will rest on the convention for all coming time. When we and our posterity shall see our lovely South desolated by the demon of war, which this act of yours will inevitably invite and call forth; when our green fields of waving harvest shall be trodden down by the murderous soldiery and fiery car of war sweeping over our land; our temples of justice laid in ashes; all the horrors and desolations of war upon us; who but this Convention will be held responsible for it? and who but him who shall have given his vote for this unwise and ill-timed measure, as I honestly think and believe, shall be held to strict account for this suicidal act by the present generation, and probably cursed and execrated by posterity for all coming time, for the wide and desolating ruin that will inevitably follow this act you now propose to perpetrate? Pause, I entreat you, and consider for a moment what reasons you can give that will even satisfy yourselves in calmer moments—what reason you can give to your fellow sufferers in the calamity that it will bring upon us. What reasons can you give to the nations of the earth to justify it? They will be the calm and deliberate judges in the case; and what cause or one overt act can you name or point, on which to rest the plea of justification? What right has the North assailed? What interest of the South has been invaded? What justice has been denied? and what claim founded in justice and right has been withheld? Can either of you to-day name one governmental act of wrong, deliberately and purposely done by the government of Washington, of which the South has a right to complain? I challenge the answer. While on the other hand, let me show the facts (and believe me, gentlemen, I am not here the advocate of the North; but I am here the friend, the firm friend, and lover of the South and her institutions, and for this reason I speak thus plainly and faithfully for yours, mine, and every other man’s interest, the words of truth and soberness), of which I wish you to judge, and I will only state facts which are clear and undeniable, and which now stand as records authentic in the history of our country. When we of the South demanded the slave-trade, or the importation of Africans for the cultivation of our lands, did they not yield the right for twenty years? When we asked a three-fifths representation in Congress for our slaves, was it not granted? When we asked and demanded the return of any fugitive from justice, or the recovery of those persons owing labor or allegiance, was it not incorporated in the Constitution, and again ratified and strengthened by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850? But do you reply that in many instances they have violated this compact, and have not been faithful to their engagements? As individual and local communities, they may have done so; but not by the sanction of Government; for that has always been true to Southern interests. Again, gentlemen, look at another act: when we have asked that more territory should be added, that we might spread the institution of slavery, have they not yielded to our demands in giving us Louisiana, Florida and Texas, out of which four States have been carved, and ample territory for four more to be added in due time, if you by this unwise and impolitic act do not destroy this hope, and perhaps, by it lose all, and have your last slave wrenched from you by stern military rule, as South America and Mexico were; or by the vindictive decree of a universal emancipation, which may reasonably be expected to follow?
But, again, gentlemen, what have we to gain by this proposed change of our relation to the General Government? We have always had the control of it, and can yet, if we remain in it, and are as united as we have been. We have had a majority of the Presidents chosen from the South; as well as the control and management of most of those chosen from the North. We have had sixty years of Southern Presidents to their twenty-four, thus controlling the Executive department. So of the Judges of the Supreme Court, we have had eighteen from the South, and but eleven from the North; although nearly four-fifths of the judicial business has arisen in the Free States, yet a majority of the Court has always been from the South. This we have required so as to guard against any interpretation of the Constitution unfavorable to us. In like manner we have been equally watchful to guard our interests in the Legislative branch of Government. In choosing the presiding Presidents (pro tem.) of the Senate, we have had twenty-four to their eleven. Speakers of the House we have had twenty-three, and they twelve. While the majority of the Representatives, from their greater population, have always been from the North, yet we have so generally secured the Speaker, because he, to a great extent, shapes and controls the legislation of the country. Nor have we had less control in every other department of the General Government. Attorney-Generals we have had fourteen, while the North have had but five. Foreign ministers we have had eighty-six, and they but fifty-four. While three-fourths of the business which demands diplomatic agents abroad is clearly from the Free States, from their greater commercial interest, yet we have had the principal embassies so as to secure the world-markets for our cotton, tobacco, and sugar on the best possible terms. We have had a vast majority of the higher offices of both army and navy, while a larger proportion of the soldiers and sailors were drawn from the North. Equally so of Clerks, Auditors, and Comptrollers filling the executive department, the records show for the last fifty years that of the three thousand thus employed, we have had more than two-thirds of the same, while we have but one-third of the white population of the Republic.
Again, look at another item, and one, be assured, in which we have a great and vital interest; it is that of revenue, or means of supporting Government. From official documents, we learn that a fraction over three-fourths of the revenue collected for the support of the Government has uniformly been raised from the North.
Pause now while you can, gentlemen, and contemplate carefully and candidly these important items. Look at another necessary branch of Government, and learn from stern statistical facts how matters stand in that department. I mean the mail and Post-Office privileges that we now enjoy under the General Government as it has been for years past. The expense for the transportation of the mail in the Free States was, by the report of the Postmaster-General for the year 1860 a little over $13,000,000, while the income was $19,000,000. But in the Slave States the transportation of the mail was $14,716,000, while the revenue from the same was $8,001,026, leaving a deficit of $6,704,974, to be supplied by the North for our accommodation, and without it we must have been entirely cut off from this most essential branch of Government.
Leaving out of view, for the present, the countless millions of dollars you must expend in a war with the North; with tens of thousands of your sons and brothers slain in battle, and offered up as sacrifices upon the altar of your ambition—and for what, we ask again? Is it for the overthrow of the American Government, established by our common ancestry, cemented and built up by their sweat and blood, and founded on the broad principles of Right, Justice and Humanity? And as such, I must declare here, as I have often done before, and which has been repeated by the greatest and wisest of statesmen and patriots in this and other lands, that it is the best and freest Government—the most equal in its rights, the most just in its decisions, the most lenient in its measures, and the most aspiring in its principles to elevate the race of men, that the sun of heaven ever shone upon. Now, for you to attempt to overthrow such a government as this, under which we have lived for more than three-quarters of a century—in which we have gained our wealth, our standing as a nation, our domestic safety while the elements of peril are around us, with peace and tranquillity accompanied with unbounded prosperity and rights unassailed—is the height of madness, folly, and wickedness, to which I can neither lend my sanction nor my vote.
The seven seceding States (South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas,) as shown by data previously given, organized their Provisional Government, with Jefferson Davis, the most radical secession leader, as President; and Alex. H. Stephens, the most conservative leader, as Vice-President. The reasons for these selections were obvious; the first met the views of the cotton States, the other example was needed in securing the secession of other States. The Convention adopted a constitution, the substance of which is given elsewhere in this work. Stephens delivered a speech at Savannah, March 21st, 1861, in explanation and vindication of this instrument, which says all that need be said about it:
“The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this as the ‘rock upon which the old Union would split.’ He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature: that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the Constitution, was the prevailing idea at the time. The Constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly used against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a government built upon it; when the ‘storm came and the wind blew, it fell.’
“Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man. That slavery—subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new Government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledged, we justly denominate fanatics.***
“In the conflict thus far, success has been, on our side, complete throughout the length and breadth of the Confederate States. It is upon this, as I have stated, our actual fabric is firmly planted; and I cannot permit myself to doubt the ultimate success of a full recognition of this principle throughout the civilized and enlightened world.
“As I have stated, the truth of this principle may be slow in development, as all truths are, and ever have been, in the various branches of science. It was so with the principles announced by Galileo—it was so with Adam Smith and his principles of political economy—it was so with Harvey and his theory of the circulation of the blood. It is stated that not a single one of the medical profession, living at the time of the announcement of the truths made by him, admitted them. Now they are universally acknowledged. May we not, therefore, look with confidence to the ultimate universal acknowledgment of the truths upon which our system rests. It is the first government ever instituted upon principles of strict conformity to nature, and the ordination of Providence, in furnishing the materials of human society. Many governments have been founded upon the principle of certain classes; but the classes thus enslaved, were of the same race, and in violation of the laws of nature. Our system commits no such violation of nature’s laws. The negro, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system. The architect, in the construction of buildings, lays the foundation with the proper materials, the granite; then comes the brick or the marble. The substratum of our society is made of the material fitted by nature for it, and by experience we know that it is best, not only for the superior, but for the inferior race that it should be so. It is, indeed, in conformity with the ordinance of the Creator. It is not for us to inquire into the wisdom of His ordinances, or to question them. For His own purposes He has made one race to differ from another, as He has made ‘one star to differ from another star in glory.’
“The great objects of humanity are best attained when conformed to His laws and decrees, in the formation of governments, as well as in all things else. Our Confederacy is founded upon principles in strict conformity with these laws. This stone which was first rejected by the first builders ‘is become the chief stone of the corner’ in our new edifice.
“The progress of disintegration in the old Union may be expected to go on with almost absolute certainty. We are now the nucleus of a growing power, which, if we are true to ourselves, our destiny, and high mission, will become the controlling power on this continent. To what extent accessions will go on in the process of time, or where it will end, the future will determine.”
It was determined by the secession of eleven States in all, the Border States except Missouri, remaining in the Union, and West Virginia dividing from old Virginia for the purpose of keeping her place in the Union.
The leaders of the Confederacy relied to a great extent upon the fact that President Buchanan, in his several messages and replies to commissioners, and in the explanation of the law by his Attorney-General, had tied his own hands against any attempt to reinforce the garrisons in the Southern forts, and they acted upon this faith and made preparations for their capture. The refusal of the administration to reinforce Fort Moultrie caused the resignation of General Cass, and by this time the Cabinet was far from harmonious. As early as the 10th of December, Howell Cobb resigned as Secretary of the Treasury, because of his “duty to Georgia;” January 26th, John B. Floyd resigned because Buchanan would not withdraw the troops from Southern forts; and before that, Attorney-General Black, without publicly expressing his views, also resigned. Mr. Buchanan saw the wreck around him, and his administration closed in profound regret on the part of many of his northern friends, and, doubtless, on his own part. His early policy, and indeed up to the close of 1860, must have been unsatisfactory even to himself, for he supplied the vacancies in his cabinet by devoted Unionists—by Philip F. Thomas of Maryland, Gen’l Dix of New York, Joseph Holt of Kentucky, and Edwin M. Stanton of Pennsylvania—men who held in their hands the key to nearly every situation, and who did much to protect and restore the Union of the States. In the eyes of the North, the very last acts of Buchanan were the best.
With the close of Buchanan’s administration all eyes turned to Lincoln, and fears were entertained that the date fixed by law for the counting of the electoral vote—February 15th, 1861—would inaugurate violence and bloodshed at the seat of government. It passed, however, peaceably. Both Houses met at 12 high noon in the hall of the House, Vice-President Breckinridge and Speaker Pennington, both democrats, sitting side by side, and the count was made without serious challenge or question.
On the 11th of February Mr. Lincoln left his home for Washington, intending to perform the journey in easy stages. On parting with his friends at Springfield, he said:
“My Friends: No one, in my position, can realize the sadness I feel at this parting. To this people I owe all that I am. Here I have lived more than a quarter of a century. Here my children were born, and here one of them lies buried. I know not how soon I shall see you again. I go to assume a task more difficult than that which has devolved upon any other man since the days of Washington. He never would have succeeded except for the aid of Divine Providence, upon which he at all times relied. I feel that I cannot succeed without the same Divine blessing which sustained him; and on the same Almighty Being I place my reliance for support. And I hope you, my friends, will all pray that I might receive that Divine assistance, without which I cannot succeed, but with which success is certain. Again, I bid you all an affectionate farewell.”
Lincoln passed through Indiana, Ohio, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania on his way to the Capitol. Because of threats made that he should not reach the Capitol alive, some friends in Illinois employed a detective to visit Washington and Baltimore in advance of his arrival, and he it was who discovered a conspiracy in Baltimore to mob and assassinate him. He therefore passed through Baltimore in the night, two days earlier than was anticipated, and reached Washington in safety. On the 22d of February he spoke at Independence Hall and said:
“All the political sentiments I entertain have been drawn, so far as I have been able to draw them, from the sentiments which originated in, and were given to the world from, this hall. I never had a feeling, politically, that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence.
“It was not the mere matter of the separation of the Colonies from the motherland, but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence, which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to the world for all future time. It was that which gave promise that, in due time, the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of men. This is the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence. Now, my friends, can this country be saved upon that basis? If it can, I will consider myself one of the happiest men in the world, if I can help to save it. If it cannot be saved upon that principle, it will be truly awful! But if this country cannot be saved without giving up the principle, I was about to say, ‘I would rather be assassinated on the spot than surrender it.’ *** I have said nothing but what I am willing to live by, and if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, to die by!”