We had this solemn warning to report to our Southern friends who assembled many an evening in our library: R. M. T. Hunter, Muscoe Garnett, Porcher Miles, L. Q. C. Lamar, Boyce, Barksdale of Mississippi, Keitt of South Carolina, with perhaps some visitors from the South. Then Susan would light her fires and show us the kind of oysters that could please her "own white folks," and James would bring in lemons and hot water, with some choice brand of old Kentucky.
These were not convivial gatherings. These men held troubled consultations on the state of the country,—the real meaning and intent of the North, the half-trusted scheme of Judge Douglas to allow the territories to settle for themselves the vexed question of slavery within their borders, the right of peaceable secession. The dawn would find them again and again with but one conclusion,—they would stand together: "Unum et commune periclum una salus!" But Holbein's spectre was already behind the door, and had marked his men! In a few months the swift bullet for one enthusiast; for another (the least considered of them all), a glorious death on the walls of a hard-won rampart—he the first to raise his colors and the shout of victory; for only one, or two, or three, that doubtful boon of existence after the struggle was all over; for all survivors, memories that made the next four years seem to be the sum of life,—the only real life,—beside which the coming years would be but a troubled dream.
The long session did not close until June, and in the preceding month Abraham Lincoln was chosen candidate by the Republican party for the presidency. Stephen A. Douglas was the candidate of the Democrats. The South and the "Old Line Whigs" also named their men. The words "irrepressible conflict" were much used during the ensuing campaign.
The authorship of these words has always been credited to Mr. Seward. Their true origin may be found in the address of Mr. Lincoln, delivered at Cincinnati, Ohio, in September, 1859. On page 262 of the volume published by Follett, Foster, and Company in 1860, entitled "Political Debates between Hon. Abraham Lincoln and Hon. Stephen A. Douglas," may be found the following extract from Mr. Lincoln's speech:—
"I have alluded in the beginning of these remarks to the fact that Judge Douglas has made great complaint of my having expressed the opinion that this government 'cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.' He has complained of Seward for using different language, and declaring that there is an 'irrepressible conflict' between the principles of free and slave labor. [A voice, "He says it is not original with Seward. That is original with Lincoln.">[ I will attend to that immediately, sir. Since that time Hickman of Pennsylvania expressed the same sentiment. He has never denounced Mr. Hickman; why? There is a little chance, notwithstanding that opinion in the mouth of Hickman, that he may yet be a Douglas man. That is the difference! It is not unpatriotic to hold that opinion, if a man is a Douglas man.
"But neither I, nor Seward, nor Hickman is entitled to the enviable or unenviable distinction of having first expressed that idea. That same idea was expressed by the Richmond Enquirer in Virginia, in 1856, quite two years before it was expressed by the first of us. And while Douglas was pluming himself that in his conflict with my humble self, last year, he had 'squelched out' that fatal heresy, as he delighted to call it, and had suggested that if he only had had a chance to be in New York and meet Seward he would have 'squelched' it there also, it never occurred to him to breathe a word against Pryor. I don't think that you can discover that Douglas ever talked of going to Virginia to 'squelch' out that idea there. No. More than that. That same Roger A. Pryor was brought to Washington City and made the editor of the par excellence Douglas paper, after making use of that expression, which in us is so unpatriotic and heretical."
On November 6, 1860, Mr. Lincoln was elected President of the United States. On the following December 20 we heard that South Carolina had seceded from the Union. We were all, at the time the news arrived, attending the wedding of Mr. Bouligny and Miss Parker. The ceremony had taken place, and I was standing behind the President's chair when a commotion in the hall arrested his attention. He looked at me over his shoulder and asked if I supposed the house was on fire.
"I will inquire the cause, Mr. President," I said. I went out at the nearest door, and there in the entrance hall I found Mr. Lawrence Keitt, member from South Carolina, leaping in the air, shaking a paper over his head, and exclaiming, "Thank God! Oh, thank God!" I took hold of him and said: "Mr. Keitt, are you crazy? The President hears you, and wants to know what's the matter."
"Oh!" he cried, "South Carolina has seceded! Here's the telegram. I feel like a boy let out from school."
I returned, and bending over Mr. Buchanan's chair, said in a low voice: "It appears, Mr. President, that South Carolina has seceded from the Union. Mr. Keitt has a telegram." He looked at me, stunned for a moment. Falling back and grasping the arms of his chair, he whispered, "Madam, might I beg you to have my carriage called?" I met his secretary and sent him in without explanation, and myself saw that his carriage was at the door before I reëntered the room. I then found my husband, who was already cornered with Mr. Keitt, and we called our own carriage and drove to Judge Douglas's. There was no more thought of bride, bridegroom, wedding-cake, or wedding breakfast.