During this crisis Trumbull was receiving hundreds of letters from his constituents, nearly all exhorting him to stand firm. The only ones counseling compromise were from the commercial classes in Chicago, and of these there were fewer than might have been expected in view of the threatened danger to trade and industry. The dwellers in the small towns and on the farms were almost unanimously opposed to the Crittenden Compromise. A few letters are here cited from representative men in their respective localities:
A. B. Barrett (Mount Vernon, January 5) has taken pains to gather the opinions of Republicans in his neighborhood in reference to the secession movement and finds them, without a single exception, in favor of enforcing the laws and opposed to any concession on the part of Congress which would recognize slavery as right in principle, or as a national institution.
J. H. Smith (Bushnell, January 7) contends that the Chicago platform was a contract between the Republican voters and the men elected to office by them, and the voters expect them to live up to it, to the very letter. "If the South wants to fight let them pitch in as soon as they please; we would rather fight than allow slavery to go into any more territory." Encloses resolutions to this purport passed by a public meeting of citizens of his town.
A. C. Harding (Monmouth, January 12) is pained to hear a rumor that some Republicans in Washington are considering a bill to make a slave state south of 36° 30', thus sanctioning a slave code by Congress. Any concessions that shall violate the pledges of the Republican party will instantly turn the guns of our truest friends upon those who thus give strength to the Southern rebels. Neither Adams nor Seward nor Lincoln can for a moment escape the fatal consequences if they yield their principles at the threat of disunion.
Wait Talcott (Rockford, January 17) has just finished reading Seward's speech. It leads him to fear that yielding to the South, and calling a national convention under their threat, will embolden them, whenever the result of an election does not suit them, to insist that the victors shall take the place of the vanquished.
G. Koerner (Belleville, January 21): The Democratic Convention at Springfield has done some mischief by inflaming the lower order of the Democracy and confirming them in their seditious views. On the other hand, it has disgusted the better class of Democrats. It was a sort of indignation meeting of all the disappointed candidates, office-seekers, and losers of bets. A few Republicans are giving way under the pressure, but upon the whole the party stands firm. "Has secession culminated or is worse to come? I am prepared for the application of force. In fact, a collision is inevitable. Why ought not we to test our Government instead of leaving it to our children?"
H. G. McPike (Alton, January 24): "Our people believe the Constitution to be good enough. Let it alone. A compromise of any principle dissolves the Republican party, takes the great moral heart out of it, and will in so far bring ruin on the Government."
J. M. Sturtevant, president of Illinois College (Jacksonville, January 30), protests against the tone of Mr. Seward's speech. Says that the solid phalanx of thoughtful, conscientious, earnest, religious men who form the backbone of the Republican party will never follow Mr. Seward, or any other man, in the direction in which he seems to be leading. "We want the Constitution as it is, the Union as the Fathers framed it, and the Chicago platform. And we will support no man and no party that surrenders these or any portion of them."
Grant Goodrich (Chicago, January 31) is convinced by his intercourse with the mass of Republicans, and with many Democrats, that any concessions by which additional rights are given to slavery will end the Republican party. There will be a division of the Republicans; a new party will arise, which will include the entire German element and which will be as hostile to the "Union-saving" Republicans as to the Democrats, and much more intolerant to their former allies.
E. Peck (Springfield, February 1) says that the proposition to send commissioners to Washington was passed by the legislature as a matter of necessity, because, if the Republicans had not taken the lead, the Democrats would have done so, and would have obtained the help of a sufficient number of weak-kneed Republicans to make a majority. Mr. Lincoln would have preferred that commissioners be not appointed.
W. H. Herndon (Springfield, February 9): "Are our Republican friends going to concede away dignity, Constitution, Union, laws, and justice? If they do, I am their enemy now and forever. I may not have much influence, but I will help tear down the Republican party and erect another in its stead. Before I would buy the South, by compromises and concessions, to get what is the people's due, I would die, rot, and be forgotten, willingly."
Samuel C. Parks (Lincoln, Logan County, February 11) is opposed to the Crittenden Compromise, because the integrity of the Republican party and the salvation of the country require that this grand drama of secession, disunion, and treason be played out entirely. Either slavery or freedom must rule this country, or there must be a final separation of the free and the slave states. No compromise will do any permanent good. On the contrary, if the territorial question is compromised now, it will but postpone, aggravate, and prolong the contest. Considers it mean and cowardly to leave to our children a great national trouble that we might settle ourselves.
January 2, 1861, Trumbull wrote to Governor Yates advising that some steps be taken in the way of military preparations, saying:
The impression is very general here that Buchanan has waked up at last to the sense of his condition and will make an effort to enforce the laws and protect the public property. That this was his determination two days ago, I have the best reasons for knowing, but he is so feeble, vacillating, and irresolute, that I fear he will not act efficiently; and some even say that he has again fallen into the hands of the disunionists. This I cannot believe. If he does his duty with tolerable efficiency, even at this late day, there will be no serious difficulty. The states which resolved themselves out of the Union would be coming back before many months. But if he continues to side with the disunionists, we cannot avoid serious trouble, for in that event I think the traitors would be encouraged to attempt to take possession here, and most of the public property and munitions of war would be placed in the hands of the disunionists before the 4th of March. In view of the present condition of affairs and the uncertainty as to the future, I think it no more than prudent that our state should be making some preparations to organize its military, or get up volunteer companies, so as to be ready to come to the support of the Constitution and the laws if the occasion should require. I think that there will be no occasion for troops here, and that the inauguration will probably take place. But take place it must, and at Washington, even though a hundred thousand men have to come here to effect it. The Government is a failure unless this is done.
Governor Yates's reply, if any, is not found in the Trumbull papers, but a letter from him dated Springfield, January 22, says that Frank P. Blair, Jr., had just arrived from St. Louis with information that the secessionists in Missouri had formed a plot to seize the United States Arsenal at St. Louis, which was the only depot of arms west of Pittsburg. If this should be attempted, Yates said it would lead to serious complications and perhaps a collision between Illinois and Missouri, since it could not be permitted that this great arsenal, intended for the use of the entire West, should fall into the hands of enemies of the Union. He asked Trumbull to see General Scott at once and insist that something be done which would obviate the necessity of action on the part of the state of Illinois.
Some letters from Mrs. Trumbull to her son Walter, who was on a warship in foreign parts during the month of January, 1861, supply a few items of interest.
January 21 she says:
The Senators of Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida yesterday took formal leave of the Senate. The speech of Clay, of Alabama, was very ugly, but that of Davis was pathetic, and even Republican ladies were moved to tears. Gov. Pickens of S. C. sent for $300 due him as Minister to Russia, and the Treasurer sent him a draft on the sub-treasury at Charleston which the Rebels had seized.
January 24: