The Great Conspiracy, Complete

by John Alexander Logan

Surely, surely,—thus ran his thoughts—when the brave, and gallant, and generous people of that Section came to read his message of Peace and Good-will, they must see the suicidal folly of their course! Surely their hearts must be touched and the mists of prejudice dissolved, so that reason would resume her sway, and Reconciliation follow! A little more time for reflection would yet make all things right. The young men of the South, fired by the Southern leaders' false appeals, must soon return to reason. The prairie fire is terrible while it sweeps along, but it soon burns out. When the young men face the emblem of their Nation's glory—the flag of the land of their birth—then will come the reaction and their false leaders will be hurled from place and power, and all will again be right. Yea, when it comes to firing on the old, old flag, they will not, cannot, do it! Between the Compromise within their reach, and such Sacrilege as this, they cannot waver long.

So, doubtless, all the long night, whether waking or sleeping, the mind of this true-hearted son of the West, throbbed with the mighty weight of the problem entrusted to him for solution, and the vast responsibilities which he had just assumed toward his fellow-men, his Nation, and his God.

And when, at last, the long lean frame was thrown upon the couch, and "tired Nature's sweet restorer" held him briefly in her arms, the smile of hopefulness on the wan cheek told that, despite all the terrible difficulties of the situation, the sleeper was sustained by a strong and cheerful belief in the Providence of God, the Patriotism of the People, and the efficacy of his Inaugural Peace-offering to the South. But alas, and alas, for the fallibility of human judgment and human hopes! Instead of a message of Peace, the South chose to regard it as a message of Menace;* and it was not received in a much better spirit by some of the Northern papers, which could see no good in it—"no Union spirit in it"—but declared that it breathed the spirit of Sectionalism and mischief, and "is the knell and requiem of the Union, and the death of hope."

["Mr. Lincoln fondly regarded his Inaugural as a resistless proffering of the olive branch to the South; the Conspirators everywhere interpreted it as a challenge to War."—Greeley's Am. Conflict, vol. i., p. 428.]

Bitter indeed must have been President Lincoln's disappointment and sorrow at the reception of his Inaugural. With the heartiest forgiveness, in the noblest spirit of paternal kindness, he had generously held out his arms, as far as they could reach, to clasp to his heart—to the great heart of the Union—the rash children of the South, if they would but let him. It was more with sorrow, than in anger, that he looked upon their contemptuous repulsion of his advances; and his soul still reproachfully yearned toward these his Southern brethren, as did that of a higher than he toward His misguided brethren, when He cried: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!"

On the day following his Inauguration, President Lincoln sent to the United States Senate the names of those whom he had chosen to constitute his Cabinet, as follows: William H. Seward, of New York, Secretary of State; Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, Secretary of the Treasury; Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, Secretary of War; Gideon Welles, of Connecticut, Secretary of the Navy; Caleb B. Smith, of Indiana, Secretary of the Interior; Edward Bates, of Missouri, Attorney General; and Montgomery Blair, of Maryland, Postmaster General.

On the other hand, the President of the rebellious Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, had partly constituted his Cabinet already, as follows: Robert Toombs, of Georgia, Secretary of State; Charles G. Memminger, of South Carolina, Secretary of the Treasury; Leroy Pope Walker, of Alabama, Secretary of War; to whom he afterwards added: Stephen R. Mallory, of Florida, Secretary of the Navy; and John H. Reagan, of Texas, Postmaster-General.

CHAPTER X.
THE WAR-DRUM "ON TO WASHINGTON".

Scarcely one week had elapsed after the Administration of Mr. Lincoln began, when (March 11th) certain "Commissioners of the Southern Confederacy" (John Forsyth, of Alabama, and Martin J. Crawford, of Georgia), appeared at Washington and served a written request upon the State Department to appoint an early day when they might present to the President of the United States their credentials "from the Government of the Confederate States of America" to the Government of the United States, and open "the objects of the mission with which they are charged."