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

The negotiation which the seceding State of South Carolina had unsuccessfully attempted with President Buchanan, for the surrender of Fort Sumter, was now formally renewed by the Confederate Government with the administration of Mr. Lincoln. The week following the inauguration, John Forsythe of Alabama and Martin J. Crawford of Georgia appeared in Washington in the character of Commissioners from the Confederate States, "with a view," as they defined it, "to a speedy adjustment of all questions growing out of the political separation, upon such terms of amity and good will as the respective interests, geographical contiguity, and future welfare of the two nations, may render necessary." They addressed their communication to the Secretary of State as a matter pertaining to the Foreign Department of the government, and waited with confidence for an answer that would practically recognize the nationality which they assumed to represent. Judge Campbell of the Supreme Court, a citizen of Alabama, had held some conferences with Mr. Seward, the result of which was his personal assurance to the Commissioners that Fort Sumter would be evacuated before the 25th of March; and he urged them not to insist upon too prompt an answer to their demand. At his instance, the reply of Mr. Seward was withheld from official delivery, and, though dated the 15th of March, was really not read by the Commissioners until the 7th or 8th of April.

THE CONFEDERATE COMMISSIONERS.

Mr. Seward's answer threw the Commissioners and the entire South into a rage. He declined to comply with the request of Messrs. Forsythe and Crawford. He saw in them, "not a rightful and accomplished revolution, not an independent nation with an established government, but only the perversion of a temporary and partisan excitement, and an inconsiderate purpose of unjustifiable and unconstitutional aggression upon the rights and the authority vested in the Federal Government." Mr. Seward further advised them that he "looked for the cure of evils which should result from proceedings so unnecessary, so unwise, so unusual, so unnatural, not to irregular negotiations having in view untried relations, but to regular, considerate action of the people of those States through the Congress of the United States, and through such extraordinary conventions, if there be need thereof, as the Federal Constitution contemplates and authorizes to be assembled." Under these circumstances, Mr. Seward informed the Commissioners that his official duties were confined to the conduct of the foreign relations of his country, and did not at all embrace domestic questions, or questions arising between the several States and the Federal Government.

The Secretary of State was unable, therefore, to comply with the request of Messrs. Forsythe and Crawford, and declined to appoint a day on which they might submit the objects of their visit to the President of the United States. He refused to recognize them as diplomatic agents, and would not hold correspondence or further communication with them. Lest the Commissioners might console themselves with the reflection that Mr. Seward was speaking only for himself, and that the President might deal with them less curtly, he informed them that he had cheerfully submitted his answer to Mr. Lincoln, who coincided in the views it expressed, and sanctioned the Secretary's decision declining official intercourse with Messrs. Forsythe and Crawford. The rejoinder of the Confederate Commissioners to Mr. Seward was in a threatening tone, upbraiding him with bad faith, and advising him that "Fort Sumter cannot be provisioned without the effusion of blood;" reminding him also that they had not come to Washington to ask the Government of the United States to recognize the independence of the Confederacy, but for an "adjustment of new relations springing from a manifest and accomplished revolution."

Up to this time there had not been the slightest collision between the forces of the Confederacy and the forces of the Union. The places which had been seized, belonging to the Federal Government, had been taken without resistance; and the authorities of Montgomery appeared to a great many Southern people to be going through blank motions, and to be aping power rather than exercising it. Their defiant attitude had been demoralizing to the public sentiment in the North, but their failure to accomplish any thing in the way of concession from the National Government, and their apparent timidity in refraining from a shock of arms, was weakening the Disunion sentiment in the States which composed the Confederacy. Jefferson Davis had been inaugurated with great pomp and pretension in February, and now April had been reached with practically nothing done but the issuing of manifestoes, and the maintenance of a mere shadow of government, without its substance. The Confederates had as yet no revenue system and no money. They had no armed force except some military companies in the larger cities, organized long before secession was contemplated. They had not the pretense of a navy, or any power apparently to create one. While the administration of Mr. Lincoln, therefore, was disappointing great numbers in the North by its failure to do something decisive towards re-establishing the National authority in the rebellious States, the inhabitants of those States were becoming daily dissatisfied with the fact that the administration of Mr. Davis was doing nothing to consolidate and protect the Confederacy.

DISSATISFACTION WITH THE CONFEDERACY.

Ever since the inauguration of Jefferson Davis, the flag of the United States had been flying over the strongest fortress in the Confederacy, and no forcible effort had been made to displace it. The first flush of joy and congratulation was over, and re-action had begun throughout the revolting States. The Confederate Government was reminded by many of the leading newspapers of the South that unless some decisive step were taken to assert its authority and establish its prestige, it would quietly crumble to pieces. The apparent non-resistance of Mr. Lincoln's administration had, in many minds, the effect of casting contempt upon the whole Southern movement, and the refusal to recognize or receive commissioners of Mr. Davis's appointment was regarded as a direct insult to their government, which, unless met by some decisive step, would subject the leaders to the derision of public opinion throughout the new Confederacy. Mr. Buchanan had been willing to receive commissioners from seceding States, so far as to confer with them, even when he declared that he had no power to take any action in the premises. Mr. Lincoln had advanced beyond the position of Mr. Buchanan when he refused even to give audience to representatives bearing the commission of the Confederate States.

The situation therefore had become strained. The point had been reached where it was necessary to go forward or go backward; where the Confederacy must assert itself, or the experiment of secession be abandoned. From all quarters of the seven States came the demand upon the Montgomery government to do something decisive. A prominent member of the Alabama Legislature told Jefferson Davis that "unless he sprinkled blood in the face of the Southern people they would be back in the old Union in less than ten days." Public meetings were held to urge the government to action. At Charleston, in answer to a large crowd who came to pay him honor, Roger A. Pryor (whose attractive eloquence has since been used to better ends) told the people that only one thing was necessary to force Virginia into the Southern Confederacy: "to strike a blow." That done, he promised them that "Virginia would secede in less than an hour by Shrewsbury clock."

The indifference of Mr. Lincoln's administration to the program of the Southern Confederacy was apparent and not real. In his Inaugural he had declared that the power confided to him would be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts, but, beyond what was necessary for those objects, there would be no invasion, no use of force against or among the people anywhere. Influential persons connected with Mr. Lincoln's administration may have wavered in regard to the expediency of re-enforcing Major Anderson and holding possession of Fort Sumter, but the President himself wisely concluded that to retreat from that point would be an almost fatal step. There was not a citizen in the North who had not become interested in the fate of Major Anderson and the brave soldiers under his command. Though many patriotic men of conservative or timid nature advised a quiet withdrawal from Fort Sumter rather than an open conflict for its possession, there was an instinctive undertone in the masses of the people in the Northern States against a concession so humiliating. If prestige were needed for the government at Montgomery, Mr. Lincoln felt that it was needed for the government at Washington, and if he withdrew from Sumter he could not see any point where he could make a stand.

The President determined, therefore, to send supplies to Major Anderson. He wisely saw that if he failed to do this he would be receding from the temperate and conservative position taken in the Inaugural, and that it would give to the Confederates a degree of courage, and to the North a degree of despondency, which would vastly increase the difficulty of restoring the Union. In Mr. Lincoln's own language: "the abandonment of Sumter would be utterly ruinous, under the circumstances." . . . "At home it would discourage the friends of the Union, embolden its adversaries, and go far to insure to the latter a recognition abroad. In fact, it would be our national destruction consummated." Having taken this determination, he communicated it to Governor Pickens of South Carolina just at the time that Mr. Seward delivered to the commissioners of Jefferson Davis the government's refusal to receive them. The answer to the commissioners, and the determination not to permit Anderson to be starved out of Fort Sumter with the hostile guns of the Confederacy pointed at him, brought on the conflict. As soon as the two events were made public, the Confederate Secretary of War instructed General Beauregard that if the information conveyed to Governor Pickens was authentic, he should proceed to reduce the fort. The conflict came on the 12th of April, and after a furious cannonade of thirty-four hours, Major Anderson, being out of provisions, was compelled to surrender. The fleet that was bringing him relief arrived too late, and the flag of the United States was lowered to the Confederacy. Those who had urged Mr. Davis to strike a blow and to sprinkle blood in the faces of the people as a means of consolidating Southern opinion, were undoubtedly successful. Throughout the States of the Confederacy the inhabitants were crazed with success. They had taken from the National Government its strongest fortress on the South-Atlantic coast. They felt suddenly awakened to a sense of power, and became wild with confidence in their ability to defy the authority of the United States.