Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 / From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860

by James Gillespie Blaine

Elections of 1862.—Mr. Lincoln advances to Aggressive Position on Slavery.—Second Session of Thirty-seventh Congress adjourns.— Democratic Hostility to Administration.—Democratic State Conventions. —Platforms in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.—Nomination of Horatio Seymour for Governor of New York.—The President prepares for a Serious Political Contest.—The Issue shall be the Union or Slavery.—Conversation with Mr. Boutwell.—Proclamation of Emancipation.—Meeting of Governors at Altoona.—Compensated Emancipation proposed for Border States.—Declined by their Senators and Representatives.—Anti-slavery Policy apparently Disastrous for a Time.—October Elections Discouraging.—General James S. Wadsworth nominated against Mr. Seymour.—Illinois votes against the President.—Five Leading States against the President.— Administration saved in Part by Border States.—Last Session of Thirty-seventh Congress.—President urges Compensated Emancipation again.—Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863.—Long Controversy over Question of Compensation for Slaves.—Test Case of Missouri. —Fourteen Million Dollars offered her.—General Pope's Campaign. —Army of the Potomac.—Battle of Antietam.—McClellan removed.— Burnside succeeds him.—Defeat at Fredericksburg.—Hooker succeeds Burnside.—General Situation.—Arming of Slaves.—Habeas Corpus.— Conscription Law.—Depressed and Depressing Period.

Popular interest in the summer of 1862 was divided between events in the field and the election of Representatives to the Thirty- eighth Congress. A year before, the line of partisan division had been practically obliterated in the Loyal States—the whole people uniting in support of the war. The progress of events had to a large extent changed this auspicious unanimity, and the Administration was now subjected to a fight for its life while it was fighting for the life of the Nation.

The conservatism which Mr. Lincoln had maintained on the Slavery question had undoubtedly been the means of bringing to the support of the war policy of his Administration many whom a more radical course at the outset would have driven into hostility. As he advanced however towards a more aggressive position, political divisions became at each step more pronounced. The vote on the question of abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia had been strictly on the line of party, and the same is true of the proposition for compensated emancipation in the Border States, and of the Act confiscating the property of Rebels. Not a single Democrat in the Senate or House sustained one of these measures. They were all passed by Republican votes alone, the Democratic minority protesting each time with increasing earnestness and warmth.

The second session of the Thirty-seventh Congress adjourned on the 17th of July, 1862, but long before that date the excitement prevailing in Congress had extended to the people, and political divisions were every day growing more earnest, partisan leaders every day more active, their followers every day more excited. The Slavery question was the source of the agitation, and by a common instinct throughout the free States, the Democrats joined in the cry against an Abolition war. They were as ready, they declared, as on the day after the firing on Sumter, to uphold all measures necessary for the defense of the Government and the maintenance of the Union, and they demanded that the Republicans should restrict the war to its legitimate ends—as defined by the supporters of the Administration in July, 1861, by the unanimous adoption of the Crittenden Resolution. They would not listen to any change of action based on change of circumstances, and they prepared to enforce at the ballot-box their opinions touching the new departure of Congress and the President.

The Democratic State Conventions in Pennsylvania and Ohio, both held on the 4th of July, reflected the feeling which so largely pervaded the ranks of the party throughout the North. In Pennsylvania the Convention unanimously declared that "the party of fanaticism or crime, whichever it may be called, that seeks to turn loose the slaves of the Southern States to overrun the North and to enter into competition with the white laboring masses, thus degrading their manhood by placing them on an equality with negroes, is insulting to our race and merits our most emphatic and unqualified condemnation." They further declared that "this is a government of white men and was established exclusively for the white race"; that "the negroes are not entitled to and ought not to be admitted to political and social equality with the white race."

DEMOCRATIC PLATFORMS IN 1862.

The Democratic Convention of Ohio made an equally open appeal to race prejudice. They avowed their belief that the Emancipation policy of the Republican party if successful "would throw upon the Border free States an immense number of negroes to compete with and under-work the white laborers and to constitute in various ways an unbearable nuisance"; and that "it would be unjust to our gallant soldiers to compel them to free the negroes of the South, and thereby fill Ohio with a degraded population to compete with these same soldiers upon their return to the peaceful avocations of life." It was not by mere chance that the Democratic party of these two great States held their conventions on the National Anniversary. It had been carefully pre-arranged with the view of creating a serious impression against the Administration.

The Democrats of Indiana went beyond their brethren of Ohio and Pennsylvania in the vigor with which they denounced the anti-slavery policy of the President. Their convention was held a month later, and unanimously demanded that "the public authorities of Indiana should see that the constitution and laws of the State are enforced against the entrance of free negroes and mulattoes," declaring that "when the people of Indiana adopted the negro exclusion clause in their constitution by a majority of ninety-four thousand votes they meant that the honest laboring white man should have no competitor in the black race; that the soil of Indiana should belong to the white man, and that he alone was suited to the form of her institutions." In Illinois the Democratic party adopted substantially the same platform as that proclaimed in Indiana. They made the distinct and unmistakable issue that a war for the abolition of slavery could not have their support; that the Government of the United States was made for white men, and that negroes could not be admitted to terms of equality in civil rights.

The most important election of the year was that to be held in New York, not merely because of the prestige and power of the State, but on account of the peculiar elements that entered into the contest. The Democratic party proceeded in the selection of candidates and in the definition of issues with great circumspection. They avoided the rancorous expressions used in Pennsylvania and Ohio, declared that they would continue to render the government their sincere and united support in the use of all legitimate means to suppress the rebellion, and cited the Crittenden Resolution, unanimously passed by Congress in July, 1861, as embodying the principles upon which they appealed for popular support. They expressed their "willingness to withhold their views upon all questions not rendered imperative by the imperiled condition of the country." The had not one word to say on the subject of slavery, and they avowed their readiness to act in the coming election with any class of loyal citizens who agreed with them in the principles embodied in their platform. This last clause related to a third party, the remnant of those who had supported Mr. Bell in 1860 and who had just held a convention at Troy. They had comprised their entire platform in "the Constitution, the Union and the enforcement of the laws," and had nominated Horatio Seymour for governor.

It was not difficult to see that politically the case was well managed, and that the most partisan of partisans in the person of Mr. Seymour, was enabled to appear before the voters of New York in the attitude of one who could graciously correct the errors of the Administration, and direct the course of the war in channels of patriotism that would harmonize the entire people. The nomination of Mr. Seymour was made with great enthusiasm by the Democracy, and the policy of the National Administration was thus challenged in the leading State of the Union. Mr. Lincoln looked upon the situation as one of exceeding gravity. The loss to the Administration, of the House of Representatives in the Thirty-eighth Congress, would place the control of the war in the hands of its opponents, and, as the President believed, would imperil the fate of the National struggle. The power of the purse controls the power of the sword. The armies in the field required a vast and constant expenditure, and to secure the money a rigorous system of taxation must be enforced. A House of Representatives controlling the power to tax and the power to appropriate could, if hostile to the war, neutralize and destroy all the efforts of the Executive.