Perley's reminiscences of sixty years in the national metropolis, v. 1-2

by Benjamin Perley Poore

Abraham Lincoln was elected President by the people on the 6th of November, 1860. Three days afterward, Horace Greeley wrote to the Tribune as follows: "If the Cotton States shall become satisfied that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace." Less than a week after the election Mr. Yancey said, in a public address, in Montgomery, his home, "I have good reason to believe that the action of any State will be peaceable—will not be resisted—under the present or any probable prospective condition of Federal affairs."

When Congress met, the Senate occupied its new chamber. The Southern conspirators in both Houses were outspoken and truculent, while the Abolitionists were defiant and exasperating. The message of President Buchanan was a non-committal document, showing that he was perplexed and overwhelmed by what he had not the courage to control. Encouraged by his declaration that the Executive possessed no constitutional power to use the army and navy for the preservation of the life of the Republic, the Southern Senators at Washington, who directed the movements of the Secessionists, were emboldened to direct them to withdraw from the Union and organize a Confederacy. Meanwhile some of them were to remain in Congress to defeat all hostile legislation.

Senator Seward, who assumed the leadership of the Republicans in Congress, had been correctly described by Henry Clay as "a man of no convictions." He had not that magnetic mind which could subordinate others, or the mental courage to take the helm in the hour of victory, but he relied upon the pecuniary operations of an unscrupulous lobby, which had followed him from Albany, and sought to fill its military chest with the spoils of the public printing and binding. After long announcement the Senate Chamber was crowded to hear what he would have to say on the political situation. Political friends and political foes, the most conservative and the most ultra, the Abolitionist from Vermont and the fire-eater from Mississippi, all looked upon that pale, slight figure in a gray frock coat—so calm, so self-possessed, so good-natured—as the man who had but to speak the word and the country would be saved.

The speech had been carefully composed and elaborated, as was everything which emanated from that source. It was in type before it was pronounced. The manuscript lay before the Speaker on the desk, but it was delivered almost entirely through the power of his wonderful memory. Senators gathered closely around him, and anxiously caught every syllable as it fell from his lips. The speaker seemed the only tranquil Senator there. It appeared incredible that any man could present an exterior of such coolness and quietude, and apparently smiling unconcern, amid anxiety and excitement so deep and intense.

Mr. Seward was not a graceful orator, but there was a certain impressive manner corresponding with the importance of what he had to say which arrested the hearer's regard, and when he was evolving some weighty maxim of political philosophy, and particularly during his vivid delineations of the grandeur and power of the Union, and of the calamities which might follow its dissolution, every eye was fixed upon him. There were several quite dramatic passages in the speech which roused the orator to more than usual animation. Such were the allusions to the gray-headed Clerk of the Senate, the contrast of the man-of-war entering a foreign port before and after the dissolution of the Union, and the episode, where, enumerating by name the great men who had added glory to the Republic, he said: "After all these have performed their majestic parts, let the curtain fall."

The speech was an ingenious piece of literary composition, which had been foreshadowed by a series of able editorials in the Albany Evening Journal, published as feelers of public opinion, and to prepare the way for this speech. It was the hand of Weed, writing, but the ideas were from the brain of Seward.

The Southern States soon began to secede, and their Senators and Representatives to leave the capital. Jefferson Davis made a long farewell speech, at the commencement of which he said: "Tears are now trickling down the stern face of man, and those who have bled for the flag of their country and are willing now to die for it, stand powerless." As he proceeded he referred to the possession of Fort Sumter, and said that he had heard it said, by a gallant gentleman, that the great objection to withdrawing the garrison was an unwillingness to lower the flag. "Can there," said he with dramatic effect, "be a point of pride against laying upon that sacred soil to-day the flag for which our fathers died? My pride, Senators, is different. My pride is that that flag shall not set between contending brothers; and that, when it shall no longer be the common flag of the country, it shall be folded up and laid away, like a vesture no longer used; that is shall be kept as a sacred memento of the past, to which each of us can make a pilgrimage and remember the glorious days in which we were born." In concluding his remarks, Mr. Davis invoked the Senators so to act that "the Angel of Peace might spread her wings, through it be over divided States; and the sons of the sires of the Revolution might still go on in the friendly intercourse with each other, ever renewing the memories of a common origin; the sections by the diversity of their products and habits, acting and reacting beneficially, the commerce of each might swell the prosperity of both, and the happiness of all be still interwoven together. If there cannot be peace," he said, "Mississippi's gallant sons will stand like a wall of fire around their State, and I go hence, not in hostility to you, but in love and allegiance to her, to take my place among her sons, be it for good or for evil."

Senator Clingman, of North Carolina, who was one of the last to leave, compared the seceders to representative of the "ten tribes of Israel!" Senator Hale, that genial hard-hitter, replied: "Ten tribes," said he, "did go out from the kingdom of Israel, but the ark of the living God remained with the tribe of Judah!" This was loudly applauded by the Republicans in the Senate galleries, and the presiding officer had to pound lustily with his mallet to secure order. Then Mr. Hale proceeded:

"I think the galleries ought to be excused for applauding a reference made to the Scriptures. I say, there is where the ark of the covenant remained. What became of the ten tribes? They have gone, God only knows where, and nobody else. It is a matter of speculation, what became of them—whether they constitute the Pottawatomies or some other tribe of savages. But the suggestion of the Senator from North Carolina is full of meaning. There were ten tribes went out, and remember, they went out wandering. They left the ark and the empire behind them. They went, as I said before, God only knows where. But, sir, I do hope and pray that this comparison, so eloquent and instructive, suggested by the honorable Senator, may not be illustrated in the fate of these other tribes that are going out from the household of Israel."

Late in January, 1861, the Legislature of Virginia proposed the appointment of commissioners, by each State, to meet at Washington on the 4th day of February, and devise, if practicable, a plan for settling the pending difficulties between the slave-holding and non-slave-holding States. This was at first met with a howl of opposition from the Northern Abolitionists, who feared that it might lead to another compromise, but they soon changed front, and urged the Governors of their respective States to send pronounced anti-slavery delegations. Twenty-one States were represented by gentlemen who had nearly all filled high political stations, and who possessed ripe experience, wisdom, dignity, and weight of character. John Tyler was elected president, and the "Peace Congress," as the organization styled itself, sat with great formality in the old Presbyterian Church, which had been converted into a hall attached to Willard's Hotel. A long series of resolutions was discussed and adopted, but they were not of as much value as the paper on which they were written.