Such, since the period of Mr. Lincoln’s election, having been the condition of the Southern States, the “views” of General Scott, addressed before that event to the Secretary of War, on the 29th and 30th October, 1860, were calculated to do much injury in misleading the South. From the strange inconsistencies they involve, it would be difficult to estimate whether they did most harm in encouraging or in provoking secession. So far as they recommended a military movement, this, in order to secure success, should have been kept secret until the hour had arrived for carrying it into execution. The substance of them, however, soon reached the Southern people. Neither the headquarters of the army at New York, nor afterwards in Washington, were a very secure depository for the “views,” even had it been the author’s intention to regard them as confidential. That such was not the case may be well inferred from their very nature. Not confined to the recommendation of a military movement, by far the larger portion of them consists of a political disquisition on the existing dangers to the Union; on the horrors of civil war and the best means of averting so great a calamity; and also on the course which their author had resolved to pursue, as a citizen, in the approaching Presidential election. These were themes entirely foreign to a military report, and equally foreign from the official duties of the Commanding General. Furthermore, the “views” were published to the world by the General himself, on the 18th January, 1861, in the National Intelligencer, and this without the consent or even previous knowledge of the President. This was done at a critical moment in our history, when the cotton States were seceding one after the other. The reason assigned by him for this strange violation of official confidence toward the President, was the necessity for the correction of misapprehensions which had got abroad, “both in the public prints and in public speeches,” in relation to the “views.”
The General commenced his “views” by stating that, “To save time the right of secession may be conceded, and instantly balanced by the correlative right on the part of the Federal Government against an interior State or States to reestablish by force, if necessary, its former continuity of territory.” He subsequently explains and qualifies the meaning of this phrase by saying: “It will be seen that the 'views' only apply to a case of secession that makes a gap in the present Union.” The falling off (say) of Texas, or of all the Atlantic States, from the Potomac south [the very case which has since occurred], was not within the scope of General Scott’s provisional remedies. As if apprehending that by possibility it might be inferred he intended to employ force for any other purpose than to open the way through this gap to a State beyond, still in the Union, he disclaims any such construction, and says: “The foregoing views eschew the idea of invading a seceded State.” This disclaimer is as strong as any language he could employ for the purpose.
To sustain the limited right to open the way through the gap, he cites, not the Constitution of the United States, but the last chapter of Paley’s “Moral and Political Philosophy,” which, however, contains no allusion to the subject.
The General paints the horrors of civil war in the most gloomy colors, and then proposes his alternative for avoiding them. He exclaims: “But break this glorious Union by whatever line or lines that political madness may contrive, and there would be no hope of reuniting the fragments except by the laceration and despotism of the sword. To effect such result the intestine wars of our Mexican neighbors would, in comparison with ours, sink into mere child’s play.
“A smaller evil” (in the General’s opinion) “would be to allow the fragments of the great Republic to form themselves into new Confederacies, probably four.”
Not satisfied with this general proposition, he proceeds not only to discuss and to delineate the proper boundaries for these new Confederacies, but even to designate capitals for the three on this side of the Rocky Mountains. We quote his own language as follows: “All the lines of demarcation between the new unions cannot be accurately drawn in advance, but many of them approximately may. Thus, looking to natural boundaries and commercial affinities, some of the following frontiers, after many waverings and conflicts, might perhaps become acknowledged and fixed;
“1. The Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay to the Atlantic. 2. From Maryland along the crest of the Alleghany (perhaps the Blue Ridge) range of mountains to some point on the coast of Florida. 3. The line from, say the head of the Potomac to the West or Northwest, which it will be most difficult to settle. 4. The crest of the Rocky Mountains.”
“The Southeast Confederacy would, in all human probability, in less than five years after the rupture, find itself bounded by the first and second lines indicated above, the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, with its capital at, say Columbia, South Carolina. The country between the second, third, and fourth of those lines would, beyond a doubt, in about the same time, constitute another Confederacy, with its capital at probably Alton or Quincy, Illinois. The boundaries of the Pacific Union are the most definite of all, and the remaining States would constitute the Northeast Confederacy, with its capital at Albany. It, at the first thought, will be considered strange that seven slave-holding States and part of Virginia and Florida should be placed (above) in a new Confederacy with Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, etc. But when the overwhelming weight of the great Northwest is taken in connection with the laws of trade, contiguity of territory, and the comparative indifference to free soil doctrines on the part of Western Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, it is evident that but little if any coercion, beyond moral force, would be needed to embrace them; and I have omitted the temptation of the unwasted public lands which would fall entire to this Confederacy—an appanage (well husbanded) sufficient for many generations. As to Missouri, Arkansas, and Mississippi, they would not stand out a month. Louisiana would coalesce without much solicitation, and Alabama with West Florida would be conquered the first winter, from the absolute need of Pensacola for a naval depot.”
According to this arrangement of General Scott, all that would be left for “the Northeast Confederacy” would be the New England and Middle States; and our present proud Capitol at Washington, hallowed by so many patriotic associations, would be removed to Albany.[[69]]
It is easy to imagine with what power these “views,” presented so early as October, 1860, may have been employed by the disunion leaders of the cotton States to convince the people that they might depart in peace. Proceeding from the Commanding General of the army, a citizen and a soldier so eminent, and eschewing as they did the idea of invading a seceded State, as well as favoring the substitution of new Confederacies for the old Union, what danger could they apprehend in the formation of a Southern Confederacy?