FOOTNOTES:
[13] Mr. Chandler entered the Senate when Congress was under the control of Democratic majorities. He was in the minority, but he never feared to assert his views, and denounce measures of doubtful advantage to the best interests of the country. The policy of the dominant party had been uniformly adverse to internal improvements—especially to making appropriations for harbor and river improvements. Soon after taking his seat, Mr. Chandler brought this important subject before the Senate, and insisted upon the necessity of fostering and aiding internal commerce. He introduced several measures, with this object in view.... These improvements were not then considered; but his vigorous speeches and persistent efforts subsequently compelled their partial recognition, and Mr. Chandler was placed on the Committee of Commerce, of which he was made chairman when the Republican party came into power, and so continued to the end of his Senatorial labors. It is not too much to say, for it is only the truth, that to Mr. Chandler's untiring zeal in this capacity, the country is indebted for many of those magnificent harbor and river improvements, which have been made since the Republican party came into power. Says a recent writer—an excellent authority, "The evidences of their utility are seen on every hand, scattered along our seaboard, along our extended lake coast, and upon all our rivers. The beneficent effects of these improvements are demonstrated by our vastly-increased and increasing commerce, its greater safety, the economy with which the work is performed, the extraordinary development of our agricultural and mineral resources and the increased compensation of productive labor." Reference is thus made to Mr. Chandler's efforts in behalf of those great internal improvements in aid of the commerce and internal development of the country, in order to demonstrate his peculiar fitness for the position which he has just been commissioned to fill.—Editorial of the Washington Chronicle of Oct. 20, 1875, announcing the appointment of Zachariah Chandler as Secretary of the Interior.
[14] There were no appropriations for these purposes prior to 1822.
[15] This sum was contained in bills which were passed over the President's veto and included the first appropriation for the St. Clair Flats.
CHAPTER XI.
THE OUTBREAK OF THE REBELLION—NO COMPROMISE OF CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS.
The news of the election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency of the United States—through strictly constitutional methods, by a large majority of the electoral vote and by a plurality of over half a million in the popular vote—was received with cheering and expressions of joy in many of the Southern cities. The men who exulted there were those who believed that with this pretext sectional passion could be kindled into instant rebellion, and they at once set about the work of consummating disunion before the close of the term of the traitorous and imbecile administration of James Buchanan. On Nov. 12, 1860, South Carolina ordered the election of a convention to take the formal step of secession, and the other cotton States promptly followed its example. Congress met on the 3d of December, and listened to a message from President Buchanan, in which he said: "After much serious reflection I have arrived at the conclusion that no power to coerce into submission a State which is attempting to withdraw, or has actually withdrawn, from the confederacy, has been delegated to Congress or to any other department of the Federal government. It is manifest upon an inspection of the constitution that this is not among the specific and enumerated powers granted to Congress; and it is equally apparent that its exercise is not 'necessary and proper for carrying into execution' any one of these powers." On December 20 South Carolina adopted its ordinance of secession. Mississippi did likewise on Jan. 9, 1861, Florida on January 10, Alabama on January 11, Georgia on January 18, Louisiana on January 26, and Texas on February 1. On Feb. 4, 1861, a convention of delegates from the seceding States met in the city of Montgomery and proceeded to form and organize the "Southern Confederacy." These events were attended by popular demonstrations throughout the South, in which the Union was denounced with unstinted bitterness and its power defied with the utmost audacity, and by the active drilling of the local militia and the organization of large bodies of armed men. More than all this, the officers of the United States in that section abandoned their positions, and sub-treasuries, post-offices, large sums of money, arsenals, arms, ammunition, fortifications, and vessels of the United States were seized in all the leading cities of the South, and used to prepare for war upon the power from which they had been stolen. The value of the government property thus confiscated by the rebels before the nation fired a shot was not less than $30,000,000. On Jan. 5, 1861, the United States steamer Star of the West was fired upon in the harbor of Charleston and driven out to sea, and within that month a bloodless siege of Fort McRae at Pensacola compelled its surrender to rebel forces by a United States garrison. Amid these events the traitors in Buchanan's Cabinet boldly resigned their portfolios, and Southern Congressmen with insolent words left their seats at the capitol "to join their States." The President himself was fitly described by Henry Winter Davis as "standing paralyzed and stupefied amid the crash of the falling republic, still muttering, 'Not in my time; not in my time; after me the deluge.'"
There were three ways of meeting these overt acts of high treason, namely: (1.) Submitting, either by sympathy and connivance, by frank surrender, or by an equally effective supineness. (2.) Meekly offering to rampant rebellion the bribe of fresh concessions to slavery. (3.) Treating armed secession as treason and its promoters as traitors, and dealing with it and them as such. The first method did not lack for supporters outside of the South. Thousands of Northern Democrats justified secession and promised the cotton States support. Their papers predicted that in case of war "it would be fought in the North,"[A] that "no Democrat would be found to raise an arm against his brethren of the South,"[16] and that "if troops should be raised in the North to march against the people of the South, a fire in the rear would be opened upon such troops which would either stop their march altogether or wonderfully accelerate it."[17] The Mayor of the great city of New York suggested in his annual message that that metropolis might well consider if the time did not seem to be at hand when it could profitably throw off allegiance to the United States and erect itself into "a free city." In public meetings and in party conventions like utterances were heard and applauded, all justifying the declaration of Lawrence M. Keitt in the city of Charleston that "there are a million of Democrats in the North who, when the Black Republicans attempt to march upon the South, will be found a wall of fire in their front." These sympathizers with rebellion were reinforced by the holders of anti-coercion theories, by commercial timidity, and—most unexpectedly—by some Republican sentiment in favor of permitting peaceful separation rather than facing civil war. This sentiment was fortunately short-lived and not cowardly in its origin, but it found an advocate in, and was given public expression by, the most influential Republican journalist of that period, Horace Greeley, and it did much to encourage rebel arrogance and to distract the national councils. But that was the most numerous class which comprised the men who proposed to meet actual civil war with servile tenders to traitors in arms of new guarantees for slavery and with humble petitions for their acceptance. With the meeting of Congress in December, 1860, these gentlemen became the conspicuous figures at Washington, and for three months labored industriously upon compromise schemes, every one of which was, in its essence, a proposition that Freedom should do homage to Slavery, and that the verdict of the people at the polls should be shamefully reversed to placate men who had deliberately plotted treason, and who again and again rejected with frank contempt offers of "conciliation." There were some who co-operated in these movements for the sake of gaining time and keeping the border States out of rebellion until Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated, but the great source of the compromise clamor of that winter was either some feeling of friendliness to the slave power or moral flaccidity.
It need not be said that Mr. Chandler was not found in either of these classes. For three years he had regarded this crisis as imminent. He did not believe that the South would now abandon its cherished dream of independent empire for any compromise. He did not propose to shrink back one inch before armed rebellion or to surrender one iota of principle to traitorous threats. He went to Washington determined to maintain the supremacy of the government at every cost, to listen to no plans of concession, to offer to disunionists only the alternative of obedience to the constitution or the penalties of treason, and to labor incessantly to stir into indignant action the slumbering sentiment of nationality in the hearts of the Northern people. It is in such hours that men of his indomitable stamp step to the front, and he became at once a pioneer leader of that uncompromising and tireless spirit which was the citadel of the Union cause. He spoke but rarely on political questions during the last session of the Thirty-sixth Congress, but was active in all the Republican consultations of that eventful period. In them he steadfastly opposed any policy that savored of bending to or temporizing with rebellion, and in the face of not a little Republican demoralization urged that the crisis should be met with the spirit of Jackson and of Cromwell. Speaking of this session he afterward said: "If I could have had my way, when treason was proclaimed on the floor of the Senate the traitor would never have gone free from the capitol." With the Southern leaders he was frank in his denunciations of their course and plans. In a chance conversation at this time with the craftiest of their number, Slidell of Louisiana, he asked how the pending struggle would end, and Slidell replied, "Oh, we will all go out, and the Union will be broken up."
"And what are you going to do with the mouth of the Mississippi?" said Mr. Chandler.
"We will, of course, have to seize and hold that," was the answer, "but we will not tax your commerce."
To this, Mr. Chandler's indignant response was, "We own that river, Mr. Slidell; we bought and paid for it; and, by the Eternal, we are going to keep it. It was a desert when we bought it, and we will make it a desert again before we will let you steal it from us."
Mr. Chandler labored assiduously to thwart the plots of the rebel leaders, and to make such preparation as was possible for the coming strife. It was at this time that he formed that close intimacy with Edwin M. Stanton, which continued until the death of "the Carnot of the United States." Mr. Stanton, as the Attorney-General of the Buchanan Cabinet in its closing months, rendered service of the largest value to the nation by urging vigorous measures on his imbecile chief, by boldly confronting the traitors who were among his colleagues, and by secretly and promptly informing the Republican leaders of each new development of the disunion conspiracy as revealed in Cabinet consultations. His information and counsels furnished sure guidance at a time of the greatest peril, and this it was that led to the early appointment by Mr. Lincoln to the Secretaryship of War of a man whom the public then chiefly knew as a minor Cabinet officer in a detested administration. Mr. Chandler always rated Mr. Stanton's services to the Union cause in the early months of 1861 as second only in value to his herculean labors in the War Department; placed the highest estimate upon his ability, vigor, and patriotism; aided greatly in securing his appointment and confirmation as one of Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet; remained his firm friend and counselor, and was largely instrumental in obtaining from President Grant the nomination to the justiceship of the Supreme Court which so shortly preceded his death. It was also at this time that Mr. Chandler began to distrust the political fidelity of Mr. Seward, whose spoken suggestions of compromise and whose persistent negotiations with rebel emissaries, however diplomatic in origin and intent, were fruitful sources of Southern hope and Northern weakness. Time increased rather than diminished this dislike, and Mr. Chandler was always an impatient critic of Mr. Seward's influence upon the Lincoln administration, and saw in the course of the Secretary of State of Andrew Johnson's Cabinet only the fulfillment of his own suspicions and predictions.
The secret history of these exciting days, teeming with incident and concealing many startling revelations, has yet been but sparingly written; it is doubtful if the veil will ever be more than slightly lifted. Mr. Chandler himself guarded scrupulously from public knowledge much that was well known to him and a few associates and would have shed light on the hidden springs of actions of vast moment. This class of information he treated as state secrets, whose perishing with the actors in the great drama was desirable for public reasons. A well-known Washington journalist, who dined one day with Mr. Chandler and Mr. Wade, and listened with interest to their reminiscences of "war times," suggested to these gentlemen that their recollections should be recorded while they were still fresh for the benefit of history, and did succeed at first in obtaining their consent to an arrangement by which the two "war Senators" were to devote one evening in each week to the relation of the inside history of the period between the fall of 1860 and the end of Johnson's administration. These narratives were to be taken down by a stenographer, whose notes were to be written out, carefully compiled, and subjected to the revision of Messrs. Chandler and Wade. The manuscript was then to be sealed and placed in such keeping as should make it certain that it would not be published until the lapse of many years. On the following Saturday night the literary gentleman was promptly at Mr. Chandler's residence with the stenographer. Mr. Wade shortly afterward came in, and at once said: "I have been thinking this matter over, Chandler, and you must allow me to decline. There is no use in telling what we know unless we tell the whole truth, and if I tell the whole truth I shall blast too many reputations. These things would be interesting and valuable if they were preserved in a book, but they would not be as valuable as the reputations that would be destroyed. The days we were going to talk about were exciting days, when good men made mistakes, and their mistakes ought to be forgotten." Mr. Chandler promptly assented, and the reminiscences were never written.
In the Senate at this time Mr. Chandler's course was bold and straightforward. On Feb. 19, 1861, he denounced on its floor "traitors in the Cabinet and imbeciles in the Presidential chair." He steadfastly opposed the Crittenden Compromise, well described by Charles Sumner as "the great surrender to slavery," and the circumstances of his opposition to "the Peace Congress" attracted national attention then and afterward. The Legislature of Virginia in January, 1861, adopted resolutions inviting a conference of delegates from the various States to meet at Washington on February 4, and consider how the pending "unhappy controversy" could be adjusted by (of course) some plan giving "to the people of the slaveholding States adequate guarantees for the security of their rights." Twenty-two States answered this invitation, and their representatives, presided over by John Tyler, deliberated in Washington for nineteen days, and in the end recommended to Congress a so-called "compromise measure," which was thus justly characterized at the time: "Forbearing all details, it will be enough to say that they undertook to give to slavery positive protection in the constitution, with new sanction and immunity—making it, notwithstanding the determination of the fathers, national instead of sectional; and, even more than this, making it one of the essential and permanent parts of our republican system." Its origin and its avowed object made this body distrusted from the outset by the sincere anti-slavery men, who did not believe that it could accomplish anything except to still farther debauch the public mind of the North. The result proved that it was called in the interest of slavery, and was designed to strengthen that system. Mr. Chandler from the outset opposed all Republican participation in this Congress, and, through the urgent recommendations of its Senators, Michigan was one of the five Northern States which did not send delegates. But after the Congress had met and was at work, it was thought that the friends of freedom on its floor might be able to accomplish something if they were increased in numbers, and accordingly application was made to Mr. Chandler and Mr. Bingham to procure the appointment by their State of delegates who could take their seats before final action was reached. Under such circumstances those gentlemen telegraphed to Lansing a request for the appointment of a delegation, and followed the message up with letters of the same tenor, which, although in the nature of private communications to Governor Blair, were shown at Lansing, and soon appeared in the newspapers; they were as follows:
Washington, Feb. 11, 1861.
My Dear Governor: Governor Bingham and myself telegraphed you on Saturday, at the request of Massachusetts and New York, to send delegates to the Peace or Compromise Congress. They admit that we were right and that they were wrong; that no Republican States should have sent delegates but they are here, and cannot get away. Ohio, Indiana and Rhode Island are caving in, and there is danger of Illinois; and now they beg of us for God's sake to come to their rescue, and save the Republican party from rupture. I hope you will send stiff-backed men or none. The whole thing was gotten up against my judgment and advice, and will end in thin smoke. Still I hope as a matter of courtesy to some of our erring brethren, that you will send the delegates. Truly your friend,
Z. CHANDLER.
His Excellency Austin Blair.
P. S. Some of the manufacturing States think a fight would be awful. Without a little blood-letting, this Union will not, in my estimation, be worth a rush.
Washington, Feb. 10, 1861.
Dear Sir: When Virginia proposed a convention in Washington, in reference to the disturbed condition of the country, I regarded it as another effort to debauch the public mind and a step toward obtaining that concession which the imperious slave power so insolently demands. I have no doubt, at present, but that was the design. I was therefore pleased that the Legislature of Michigan was not disposed to put herself in a position to be controlled by such influences. The convention has met here, and within a few days the aspect of things has materially changed. Every free State, I think, except Michigan and Wisconsin, is represented, and we have been assured by friends upon whom we can rely, that, if those two States should send delegations of true, unflinching men, there would probably be a majority in favor of the constitution as it is, who would frown down the rebellion by the enforcement of laws. These friends have urged us to recommend the appointment of delegates from our State, and in compliance with their request, Mr. Chandler and myself telegraphed to you last night. It cannot be doubted that the recommendations of this convention will have a very considerable influence upon the public mind and upon the action of Congress. I have a great disinclination to any interference with what should properly be submitted to the wisdom and discretion of the Legislature, in which I place great reliance. But I hope I shall be pardoned for suggesting that it may be justifiable and proper by any honorable means to avert the lasting disgrace which will attach to a free people who, by the peaceful exercise of the ballot, have just released themselves from the tyranny of slavery, if they should now succumb to treasonable threats, and again submit to a degrading thraldom. If it should be deemed proper to send delegates, I think if they could be here by the 20th it would be in time. I have the honor, with much respect, to be, Yours truly,
K. S. BINGHAM.
The Legislature of Michigan refused to follow even these recommendations (although an effort to make the two Senators themselves delegates received a strong support), and that State was not represented at any stage of the abortive Peace Congress. On the 27th of February Senator Powell of Kentucky presented to the Senate newspaper copies of these letters, and then moved to lay aside the army appropriation bill which was pending, in order that the Senate could proceed at once to amend the constitution. He added that it might "better be at that than be appropriating money to support an army that is to be engaged, it seems, in the work of blood-letting." Mr. Chandler followed by stating that the letter was a private one of which no copy had been preserved, but that whether the printed copy was accurate or not he adopted it as his, and would at another time speak on the questions it involved. He added: "The people of Michigan are opposed to all compromises. They do not believe that any compromise is necessary; nor do I. They are prepared to stand by the constitution of the United States as it is, to stand by the government as it is; aye, sir, to stand by it to blood if necessary." On the 2d of March Mr. Chandler made his promised speech in reply to Mr. Powell. He commenced: "I desire to ask the Senator whether, after we have adopted this or any other compromise, he is prepared to go with me, and with the Union-loving men of this nation, for enforcing the laws of the United States in the thirty-four States of this Union." Powell's response was: "I am for enforcing the laws in all the States that are within the Union, but I am opposed to making war on the States that are without the Union. I am opposed to coercing the seceded States.... We have no right, under the constitution, to make war on those States." Upon this frank admission from one of its most ardent advocates of the utter fruitlessness of compromise, this confession that it would be a sale without consideration, Mr. Chandler's comment was: "That is just what I expected; it is just what I want the North to know; that those men who profess to be for the Union with an 'if' are against it under all circumstances." He then quoted the letter of Thomas Jefferson written at Paris on Nov. 13, 1787, to Colonel Smith, and closing as follows:
And what country can preserve its liberties if the rulers are not warned from time to time that the people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take up arms! The remedy is to set them right as to facts; pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
And with this authority of Thomas Jefferson on "a little blood-letting" as his text, Mr. Chandler spoke nearly an hour, denouncing the treason about him with unsparing vigor and branding the Democracy as responsible for the impending crime against the nation. In the face of such distempers he did not hesitate to pronounce war for the suppression of rebellion the only adequate remedy. The tone and style of this speech will appear from these extracts:
This is not a question of compromise. It is a question whether we have or have not a government. If we have a government it is capable of making itself respected abroad and at home. If we have not a government, let this miserable rope of sand which purports to be a government perish, and I will shed no tears over its destruction. Sir, General Washington reasoned not so when the whisky rebellion broke out in Pennsylvania; he called out the posse comitatus and enforced the laws. General Jackson reasoned not so when South Carolina in 1832 raised the black flag of rebellion; he said: "By the Eternal, I will hang them;" and he would have done it.
After these illustrious examples, we are told that six States have seceded, and the Union is broken up, and all we can do is to send commissioners to treat with traitors with arms in their hands; treat with men who have fired upon your flag; treat with men who have seized your custom-houses, who have erected batteries upon your great navigable waters, and who now stand defying your authority! What will be the result of such a treaty? You would stand disgraced before the nations of the earth, your naval officers would be insulted by the Algerines, your bonds would not be worth the paper on which they are written, to-morrow. If you submitted to this degradation your government would stand upon a par with the governments of South America and the Central American States.
Sir, I will never submit to this degradation. If the right is conceded to any State to secede from the Union, without the consent of the other States, I am for immediate dissolution; and if the State which I have the honor in part to represent will not follow that advice, I, for one, upon my own responsibility and alone, will resign my seat in this body, and leave this government, so soon as I can prepare the small matters I shall have to arrange, for emigration to some country where they have a government. I would rather join the Comanches; I will never live under a government that has not the power to enforce its laws.... I see before me some of those men who have been fighting this corrupt organization (the Democratic party) for the last twenty years, who now turn about in dismay at the threatened disruption of the government. Why are they terror-stricken? Why do they not stand firm and denounce you as infamously connected with a plundered treasury instead of cowering before your threats? This thing has gone far enough.... Sir, this Union is to stand; it will stand when your great-grandchildren and mine shall have grown gray—aye, when they shall have gone to their last account, and their great-grandchildren shall have grown gray. But the traitors who are to-day plotting against this Union are to die. I do not say, literally, that they are all to die personally and absolutely; but they are soon to pass from the stage, and better and purer men are to take their places. God grant that that consummation, "so devoutly to be wished," may be early accomplished!...
For the Union-loving men of this nation, for the true patriots of the land, there is no reasonable concession that I would not most cheerfully make; but for those men who profess to be Union men and who are Union men with an "if"; who will take all the concessions we will give them—all that they demand—and then turn about and say "your Union is dissolved," I have no respect; and for them I will do nothing. For the men who love this Union, who are prepared to march to the support of the Union, who will stand up in defense of the old flag under which their fathers fought and gloriously triumphed, I have not only the most profound respect, but to their demands I can scarce conceive anything that I would not yield. But, sir, when traitorous States come here and say, unless you yield this or that established principle or right, we will dissolve the Union, I would answer in brief words—no concession, no compromise; aye, give us strife even to blood before yielding to the demands of traitorous insolence.
This "blood letter" (as it was commonly termed) Mr. Chandler was often called upon to meet in the course of his subsequent public life, and he never failed to justify its writing or to stand by its language. In the extra session of the Senate in March, 1861, John C. Breckenridge alluded to "Senatorial threats of blood-letting," and Mr. Chandler retorted by re-reading Jefferson's letter and re-asserting the purpose to meet attempted treason with force. In the last session of the Thirty-seventh Congress (on Feb. 13, 1863) William A. Richardson of Illinois said in a debate upon a war loan measure:
The Senator from Michigan, at the outset of this controversy, declared in a letter to the Governor of the State of Michigan, that this government was not worth a rush without some blood-letting. Standing in array against all our history for seventy years, standing in array against the peace of the country for seventy years, the constitution itself in every proceeding from that time to this being but compromise, he declared at the outset against any compromise for the peace of the country, and he is responsible to a very large extent for the arbitrament of war that is now upon us. He is responsible for those consequences that are now flowing to us from the position assumed then strongly by him at the head of a dominant party in the country.
Mr. Chandler was prompt in meeting this attack, and said:
Mr. President: I do not propose to-day to go over my record. It has been made before the country and the world. There let it stand. So far as my loyalty and devotion to the country are concerned, I doubt if any man ever seriously attempted to cast suspicion on them. But, as I said before, my record is made. I stand upon it and am proud of it in all its entirety. The Senator alluded to the blood-letting letter, as it is called in Michigan. That letter has been discussed before the people of that State. Thousands and tens of thousands, and, for aught I know, hundreds of thousands of copies of it, were scattered broadcast throughout that State. What were the circumstances under which that letter was written? We had traitors in this body proclaiming from day to-day that this government was then destroyed, and there was no rebuke from the Senator of Illinois or his friends. There was no rebuke from the administration then in power, whom he aided in placing there. They proclaimed that the government was entirely destroyed; and that it should never be restored. Senators proclaimed on this floor that you might give them a blank sheet of paper and allow them to fill it as they pleased, and still they would not live with us under the same government.... Here in this hall and in the other chamber, and on the streets wherever you went, you heard traitors declare that the government was ended, declare that if you attempted to coerce the rebel States it would lead to war. I believed then, as I believe now, that they intended to break up this government; that they intended a disruption of the nation. And I believed then, as I believe now, that without the intervention of armed force to put down armed rebels and traitors, your government was destroyed. Believing it, I so wrote to the governor of a sovereign State—a confidential note, it is true, but that is of no account. I stand by that letter precisely as it was written. A majority of the people of this nation believe to-day, as I believed then, that there was and could be but one way to save the nation, and that was by putting down armed rebels by force. That is what I believed then, what I believe now.
Another thing the Senator says: Nobody is more responsible for this bloody and wicked war than myself. Mr. President, let us look a little into the matter of responsibility. There is a responsibility somewhere, and a fearful responsibility, for this rebellion and this dreadful war, but that responsibility is not upon my soul.... You may go through all the ranks of rebeldom, aye, sir, you may take all the officers of your regular army, who have deserted by hundreds and violated their oath, and gone into the ranks of the enemy, and are fighting to overturn the government; go and poll the whole of them, and you cannot find one that ever co-operated with me politically. They are all Democrats, every man. Yes, sir, and go among the officers of the navy who have deserted and gone over to the enemy, and are now fighting against their flag and attempting to overturn this government; poll them, and among all the hundreds of them you cannot find a single Republican—not one. No, sir, they are all Democrats, every man. You may go and poll the whole four or five hundred thousand men the rebels have now in arms against this government, and you cannot find a man who was ever a Republican or who even sympathized with the Republicans. They are all Democrats or "Union men" such as we had here two years ago, men who had professed to be for the Union when their hearts were with the enemies of the government. Sir, go among the Northern sympathizers with the rebellion, the men who are proclaiming to-day that this government is overturned, and that it will never be restored, who are to-day denouncing your currency and saying that your money is not worth the paper upon which it is written; search through all the sympathizers with this rebellion, and you cannot find a man who ever co-operated with me politically—not one. They are Democrats, but yet, forsooth, I am responsible for this war.... I have no responsibility for this rebellion, nor have the party with which I act. We have with perfect unanimity, in every instance, come up to the support of the government. When the government demanded 400,000 men, every single individual on this side of the house voted to give them 500,000 men. And when they demanded $400,000,000 to support the government, every man on this side of the house voted to give them $500,000,000 to save the nation. Sir, we have been ready under all circumstances to make any and every sacrifice so that this nation might be saved. Our armies are in large force and ably commanded; they are ready to advance and crush the hydra-headed monster of rebellion. Aye, sir, but we have an enemy insidious and dangerous. The seat of the rebellion is to-day not in Richmond, it is among the copper-headed traitors of the North, and if this government is overturned, if we should fail in saving the government, it will be, not from the force of rebels in our front, but because of the accursed traitors in our rear.
In the course of a debate in the Senate on Feb. 16, 1866, upon reconstruction topics, Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana said:
When the good and the patriotic, North and South, representing the yearning hearts of the people at home, came here in the winter and spring of 1861, in a peace congress, if possible to avoid this dreadful war, then the Senator from Michigan announced to his Governor and the country that this Union was scarcely worth preserving without some blood-letting. His cry before the war was for blood. Allow me to say that when the Senator's name is forgotten because of anything he says or does in this body, in future times it will be borne down upon the pages of history as the author of the terrible sentiment that the Union of the people that our fathers had cemented by the blood of the Revolution and by the love of the people; that that Union, resting upon compromise and concession, resting upon the doctrine of equality to all sections of the country; that that Union which brought us so much greatness and power in the three-quarters of a century of our life; that that Union which had brought us so much prosperity and greatness until we were the mightiest and proudest nation on God's footstool; that that grand Union was not worth preserving unless we had some blood-letting. Mr. President, it is not the sentiment of the Senator's own heart; it is the expression of a bitter political hostility; but it will carry him down to immortality; he is sure of living in history; he has gained that much by it.
To this Mr. Chandler's response was instant. He said:
The Senator from Indiana has arraigned me upon an old indictment for having written a certain letter in 1861. It is not the first time I have been arraigned on that indictment of "blood-letting." I was arraigned for it upon this floor by the traitor John C. Breckenridge, and I answered the traitor John C. Breckenridge, and after I gave him his answer he went out to the rebel ranks and fought against our flag. I was arraigned by another Senator from Kentucky, and by other traitors upon this floor; I expect to be arraigned again. I wrote the letter, and I stand by the letter and what is in it. What was the position of the country when the letter was written? The Democratic party as an organization had arrayed itself against this government—a Democratic traitor in the Presidential chair, and Democratic traitors in every department of this government, Democratic traitors preaching treason upon this floor and preaching treason in the hall of the other House, Democratic traitors in your army and in your navy, Democratic traitors controlling every branch of this government. Your flag was fired upon and there was no response. The Democratic party had ordained that this government should be overthrown, and I, a Senator from the State of Michigan, wrote to the Governor of that State "unless you are prepared to shed blood for the preservation of this great government the government is overthrown." That is all there was in that letter. That I said, and that I say again. And I tell that Senator, if he is prepared to go down in history with the Democratic traitors who then co-operated with him, I am prepared to go down on that "blood-letting" letter, and I stand by the record as made.
Because I wrote to the Governor of my State that unless he was prepared to shed blood for the preservation of this government it was overthrown, now I aim to be arraigned as going down to be remembered in history! Yes, sir, I shall be remembered, and I am proud of the record. May it stand, and stand as long as this government stands! When that Senator and the men who co-operated with him shall have gone down to eternal infamy my record will be brilliant.
In the closing session of Mr. Chandler's Congressional service Senator Benjamin H. Hill of Georgia, in the course of a reply (on May 10, 1879) to a declaration of his on the previous day that "there were twelve Senators on the other side whose seats were obtained and are held by fraud and violence," again read and commented upon "the blood letter." Mr. Chandler promptly answered as follows:
Mr. President, this is the fourth time since 1861 that allusion has been made to a letter written by me to the Governor of the State of Michigan; first it appeared in a newspaper published in Detroit; a copy was sent to me and a copy was likewise sent to the late Senator Powell. The letter was a private note written to the Governor and no copy retained. Senator Powell approached me with his copy of the letter and asked if it was correct. I told him I did not know; I had written to the Governor of Michigan a private note and had kept no copy and could not say whether this was correct or not. He told me that if it was a correct copy he would wish to make use of it, and if it was not he did not propose to make use of it. I said, "Sir, I will adopt it, and you may make any use of it you please." So to-day that is my letter. If not originally written by me, it is mine by adoption.
And, Mr. President, what were the circumstances under which that letter was written? I had been in this body then nearly four years listening to treason day by day and hour by hour. The threat, the universal threat daily, hourly, was, "Do this or we will dissolve the Union; if you do not do that we will dissolve the Union." Treason was in the White House, treason in the Cabinet, treason in the Senate, and treason in the House of Representatives; bold, outspoken, rampant treason was daily and hourly uttered. The threat was made upon this floor in my presence by a Senator, "You may give us a blank sheet of paper and let us fill it up as we please, and then we will not live with you." And another Senator stood here beside that Senator from Texas and said, "I stand by the Senator from Texas." Treason was applauded in the galleries of this body, and treason was talked on the streets, in the street cars, in private circles; everywhere it was treason—treason in your departments, traitors in the White House, traitors around these galleries, traitors everywhere!
The flag of rebellion had been raised; the Union was already dissolved, we were told; the rebel government was already established with its capital in Alabama; "and now we will negotiate with you," was said to us. Upon what basis would you negotiate? Upon what basis did you call your peace convention? With rampant rebellion staring us in the face! Sir, it was no time to negotiate. The time for negotiation was past.
Sir, this was the condition of affairs when that letter was written; and after Mr. Powell had made his assault upon me in this body for it I responded, relating what I have related here now with regard to it, and I said, "I stand by that letter," and I stand by it now. What was there in it then, and what is there in it now? The State of Michigan was known to be in favor of the constitution and the Union and the enforcement of the laws, even to the letting of blood if need be, and that was all there was and all there is in that letter. Make the most of it!
The Senator from Georgia says that I did not shed any blood. How much blood did he shed?[18] [Laughter.] Will somebody inform us the exact quantity of blood that the Senator from Georgia shed?
Mr. Hill, of Georgia: The difference between us is that I was not in favor of shedding anybody's blood.
Mr. Chandler: Nor I, except to punish treason and traitors. Sir, the Senator is not the man to stand up on this floor and talk about other men saving their own blood. He took good care to put his blood in Fort Lafayette where he was out of the way of rebel bullets as well as Union bullets. He is the last man to stand up here and talk to me about letting the blood of others be shed.
Mr. President, I was then, as I am now, in favor of the government of the United States. Then, as now, I abhorred the idea of State sovereignty over National sovereignty. Then, as now, I was prepared even to shed blood to save this glorious government. Then, as now, I stood up for the constitution and the Union. Then, as now, I was in favor of the perpetuity of this glorious government. But the Senator from Georgia, was, as he testified before a committee, "a Union secessionist." I have the testimony here before me. Will somebody explain what that means—"a Union secessionist?" Mr. President, I should like to see the dictionary wherein a definition can be found of "a Union secessionist!" I do not understand the term. He says they have the right to have a solid South, but a solid North will destroy the government. Why, Mr. President, the South is no more solid to-day than it was in 1857.... It has been solid ever since, and it was no quarrel with the North that made it solid. It was solid because it was determined either to "rule or ruin" this nation. It tried the "ruin" scheme with arms; and now, having failed to ruin this government with arms, it comes back to ruin it by withholding supplies to carry on the government. Sir, the men have changed since 1857. There is now but one member on this floor who stood here with me on the 4th of March, 1857. The men have changed, the measures not at all. You then fought for the overthrow of this government, and now you vote and talk for the same purpose. You are to-day, as you were then, determined either to rule or ruin this government, and you cannot do either.
This letter was also for years constantly quoted and denounced by the Democratic press of Michigan with the hope of by this means breaking the Senator's hold upon the confidence of the people of his State. He uniformly met these attacks, not only without the shadow of apology, but with the most emphatic defiance. On the stump he repeatedly declared that "that letter was a good one," that he would not qualify a sentence nor retract a word of it, that he "stood by it" without reservation, and that he believed when he wrote it and knew afterward that it pointed out the only path in which the nation could then walk with honor and with safety. Time has shown that Mr. Chandler was right and that the men who deprecated his boldness were wrong, and that the real statesmanship of the winter of 1860-61 was that which proposed not to parley with, but to draw the sword upon, "foul treason." The paper which at that time first printed "the blood letter" and made it the text for unsparing and constant denunciation of its author was edited by a man who grew to be one of the foremost of American journalists, and—always hostile to Republicanism—published in 1879 the chief Northwestern organ of Independent opinion, which said, in announcing Mr. Chandler's sudden death in its city: "To superior intellectual endowments he united a force of will and resolution of purpose that hesitated at no obstacle. Few men ever displayed in a more remarkable degree the courage of opinions. No dread of unpopularity, no fear of consequences, ever troubled him. His famous 'blood-letting letter,' written near the opening of the Southern rebellion, was a faithful manifestation of the man. When frightened party chiefs of the North were running up and down with peace propositions to placate Southern fire-eaters and patch up a new truce between free civilization and slave barbarism, Zach. Chandler stood up in his place in the Senate and in terms of intense, bitter scorn, denounced all such efforts as the pitiful manifestations of political cowardice and folly. He had no word of regret to utter upon the departure of the Southern Senators; but told them that the North would whip them back, and that in their humiliation the bond of nationality would be strengthened. He had no dread of the threatened blood-letting, but believed it to be the only way of curing the Southern ulcer, and that the nation would afterward be the healthier for it." And
"Thus the whirligig of Time brings in his revenges."