The Great Conspiracy, Volume 5

by John Alexander Logan

The programme of action was therefore much the same as had been laid down in the first attempt in 1832:—first South Carolina would secede and declare her independence; then the other Slave States in quick succession would do likewise; then a new Constitution for a solid Southern Union; then, if necessary, a brief War to cement it—which would end, of course, in the independence of the South at least, but more probably in the utter subjugation and humiliation of the Free States.

When the time should come, during, or after this War—as come, in their belief, it would—for a change in the form of Government, then they could seize the first favorable occasion and change it. At present, however, the cry must be for "independence." That accomplished, the rest would be easy. And until that independence was accomplished, no terms of any sort, no settlement of any kind, were either to be proposed or accepted by them.

These were their dreams, their ambitions, their plans; and the tenacious courage with which they stuck to them "through thick and thin," through victory and disaster, were worthy of a better cause.

While, therefore, the pretexts for Secession were "Slavery" and "Free-Trade"—both of which were alleged to be jeopardized in the election and inauguration of Abraham Lincoln—yet, no sooner had hostilities commenced between the seceding States and the Union, than they declared to the World that their fight was not for Slavery, but for Independence.

They dared not acknowledge to the World that they fought for Slavery, lest the sympathies of the World should be against them. But it was well understood by the Southern masses, as well as the other people of the Union, that both Slavery and Free-Trade were involved in the fight—as much as independence, and the consequent downfall of the Union.

President Lincoln, however, had made up his mind to do all he properly could to placate the South. None knew better than he, the history of this Secession movement, as herein described. None knew better than he, the fell purpose and spirit of the Conspirators. Yet still, his kindly heart refused to believe that the madness of the Southern leaders was so frenzied, and their hatred of Free men, Free labor, and Free institutions, so implacable, that they would wilfully refuse to listen to reason and ever insist on absolutely inadmissible terms of reconciliation.

From the very beginning of his Administration, he did all that was possible to mollify their resentment and calm their real or pretended fears. Nor was this from any dread or doubt as to what the outcome of an armed Conflict would be; for, in his speech at Cincinnati, in the Autumn of 1859, he had said, while addressing himself to Kentuckians and other Southern men: "Why, gentlemen, I think you are as gallant and as brave men as live; that you can fight as bravely in a good cause, man for man, as any other people living; that you have shown yourselves capable of this upon various occasions; but man for man, you are not better than we are, and there are not so many of you as there are of us. You will never make much of a hand at whipping us. If we were fewer in numbers than you, I think that you could whip us; if we were equal it would likely be a drawn battle; but being inferior in numbers, you will make nothing by attempting to master us."

And early in 1860, in his famous New York Cooper Institute speech he had said "Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it." He plainly believed to the end, that "right makes might;" and he believed in the power of numbers—as also did Napoleon, if we may judge from his famous declaration that "The God of battles is always on the side of the heaviest battalions." Yet, so believing, President Lincoln exerted himself in all possible ways to mollify the South. His assurances, however, were far from satisfying the Conspirators. They never had been satisfied with anything in the shape of concession. They never would be. They had been dissatisfied with and had broken all the compacts and compromises, and had spit upon all the concessions, of the past; and nothing would now satisfy them, short of the impossible.

They were not satisfied now with Lincoln's promise that the Government would not assail them—organized as, by this time, they were into a so-called Southern "Confederacy" of States—and they proceeded accordingly to assail that Government which would not assail them. They opened fire on Fort Sumter.

This was done, as has duly appeared, in the hope that the shedding of blood would not only draw the States of the Southern Confederacy more closely together in their common cause, and prevent the return of any of them to their old allegiance, but also to so influence the wavering allegiance to the Union, of the Border States, as to strengthen that Confederacy and equivalently weaken that Union, by their Secession.