CHAPTER XXVIII

THE CONSPIRACY PROCLAIMED

To a great majority of the people the hopes and chances of a successful compromise seemed still cheering and propitious. There was indeed a prevailing agitation in the Southern part of the Union, but it had taken a virulent form in less than half a dozen States. In most of these a decided majority still deprecated disunion. Three of the great political parties of the country were by the voice of their leaders pledged to peace and order; the fourth, apparently controlled as yet by the powerful influences of official subordination and patronage, must, so it seemed, yield to the now expressed and public advice of the President in favor of Union and the enforcement of the law; especially in view of the forbearance and kindness he was personally exercising towards the unruly elements of his faction. Throughout the Northern States the folly and evils of disunion appeared so palpable that it was not generally regarded as an imminent danger, but rather as merely a possible though not probable event. The hasty and seemingly earnest

## action of the people and authorities of South Carolina was looked upon

as a historical repetition of the nullification crisis of 1831-32; and without examining too closely the real present condition of affairs, men hoped, rather than intelligently expected, that the parallel would continue to the end. Some sort of compromise of the nature of that of 1850 was the prevailing preoccupation in politics.

This was the popular view of the situation. But it was an erroneous view, because it lacked the essential information necessary to form a correct and solid judgment. The deep estrangement between the sections was imperfectly realized. The existence of four parties, a very unusual occurrence in American politics, had seriously weakened party cohesion, and more than quadrupled party prejudice and mistrust. There was a strong undercurrent of conviction and purpose, not expressed in speeches and platforms. But the most serious ignorance was in respect to the character and fidelity of the high officers of the Government. Of the timidity of Mr. Buchanan, of the treachery of three members of the Cabinet, of the exclusion of General Scott from military councils, of the President's refusal to send troops to Anderson, of his stipulation with the South Carolina Members, of the intrigue which drove General Cass from the head of the State Department and from the Cabinet, the people at large knew nothing, or so little that they could put no intelligent construction upon the events. The debates of Congress shed the first clear light upon the situation, but the very violence and bitterness of the secession speeches caused the multitude to doubt their sincerity, or placed their authors in the category of fanatics who would gain no followers.

While, therefore, the Republicans in Congress and in the country maintained, as a rule, an expectant and watchful silence, the conservatives, made up for the greater part of the supporters of Bell and Everett, were active in setting on foot a movement for compromise, in the final success of which they had the fullest confidence; and it is but justice to their integrity and ability to add that this confidence was warranted by the delusive indications of surface politics. Highly patriotic in purpose and prudent in act, their leading men in Congress had promptly opposed secession, had moved a Senate Committee of Thirteen, and secured the appointment and the organization of the House Committee of Thirty-three. Already some twenty-three different propositions of adjustment had been submitted to this committee, and under the circumstances it actually seemed as if only a little patience and patriotic earnestness were needed to find a compromise,--perhaps an amendment of the Constitution,--which the feverish unrest and impatience of the nation would compel Congress to enact or propose, and the different States and sections, willing or unwilling, to accept arid ratify.

Superior political wisdom and more thorough information, as well as a finer strategy, a quicker enthusiasm, and a more unremitting industry, must be accorded to the conspirators who now labored night and day in the interest of disunion. They discerned more clearly than their opponents the demoralization of parties at the North, the latent revolutionary discontent at the South, the influence of brilliant and combined leadership, and the social, commercial, and political conditions which might be brought into action. They recognized that they were but a minority, a faction; but they also realized that as such they had a substantial control of from six to eleven States whenever they chose to make that control effective, and that, for present uses at least, the President was, under their influence, but as clay in the hands of the potter.

Better than the Republicans from the North, or even the conservatives from the border States, they knew that in the Cotton States a widespread change of popular sentiment was then being wrought and might very soon be complete. Except upon the extreme alternative of disunion, the people of the border States were eager to espouse their quarrel, and join them in a contest for alleged political rights. Nearly half the people of the North were ready to acknowledge the justness of their complaints. The election of Lincoln was indeed a flimsy pretext for separation, but it had the merit of universal publicity, and of rankling irritation among the unthinking masses of the South. Agriculture was depressed, commerce was in panic, manufacturing populations were in want, the national treasury was empty, the army was dispersed, the navy was scattered. The national prestige was humbled, the national sentiment despondent, the national faith disturbed.

Meanwhile their intrigues had been successful beyond hope. The Government was publicly committed to the fatal doctrine of non-coercion, and was secretly pursuing the equally fatal policy of concession. Reënforeements had been withheld from Charleston, and must, from motives of consistency, be withheld from all other forts and stations. An unofficial stipulation, with the President, and a peremptory order to Anderson, secured beyond chance the safe and early secession of South Carolina, and the easy seizure of the Government property. The representatives of foreign governments were already secretly coquetting for the favor of a free port and an advantageous cotton-market. Friendly voices came to the South from the North, in private correspondence, in the public press, even in the open debates of Congress, promising that cities should go up in flames and the fair country be laid waste before a single Northern bayonet should molest them in their meditated secession.

Upon such a real or assumed state of facts the conspirators based their theory, and risked their chances of success in dismembering the republic,--and it must be admitted that they chose their opportunity with a skill and foresight which for a considerable period of time gave them immense advantages over the friends of the Union. One vital condition of success, however, they strangely overlooked, or rather, perhaps, deliberately crowded out of their problem--the chance of civil war, without foreign intervention. For the present their whole plan depended upon the assumption that they could accomplish their end by means of the single instrumentality of peaceable secession; and with this view they proceeded to put their scheme into prompt execution.

[Sidenote] Correspondence New York "Tribune", Dec. 10, 1860.

The House Committee of Thirty-three had been organized by the selection of Thomas Corwin as its chairman, and had entered hopefully upon the task confided to it. A caucus of active conspirators was said to have been held the week previous, to intimidate the members from the Cotton States and induce them to refuse to serve on the committee, but this coercive movement only partly succeeded. The Committee of Thirty-three held a long meeting on December 12, and now, on the morning of the 13th, was once more convened for work. The informal propositions and discussions of the day previous were renewed, but resulted only in calling out views and schemes too vague on the one hand or too extreme on the other. The subject was about to be laid over to the following Saturday, when Albert Rust, of Arkansas, startled the committee with the information that the extremists were obtaining signatures to a paper to announce to the South that no further concession was expected from the North, and that any adjustment of pending difficulties had become impossible. He, therefore, offered a resolution to meet this unexpected crisis, but accepted the following substitute, offered by William McKee Dunn, of Indiana:

_Resolved_, That in the opinion of this Committee, the existing discontent among the Southern people and the growing hostility among them to the Federal Government are greatly to be regretted, and that whether such discontent and hostility are without just cause or not, any reasonable, proper, and constitutional remedies and effectual guarantees of their peculiar rights and interests, as recognized by the Constitution, necessary to preserve the peace of the country and the perpetuation of the Union, should be promptly and cheerfully granted.

[Sidenote] Proceedings of the committee and card of Hon. Reuben Davis, "National Intelligencer," Dec. 14 and 15, 1860.

[Sidenote] Gen. Scott, "Autobiography," Vol. II., p. 613.

Other amendments were voted down, and this proposition was adopted by a vote of twenty-two to eight, and thus, in good faith, a tender of reasonable concession and honorable and satisfactory compromise was made by the North to the South. But the peace-offering was a waste of patience and good-will. Caucus after caucus of the secession leaders had only grown more aggressive, and deepened and strengthened their inflexible purpose to push the country into disunion. The presence of General Scott, who after a long illness had come from New York to Washington, on December 12, to give his urgent advice to the work of counteracting secession by vigorous military preparation, did not disconcert or hinder the secession leaders. His patriotic appeal to the Secretary of War on the 13th naturally fell without effect upon the ears of one of their active confederates. Neither the temporizing concession of the President nor the conciliatory and half-apologetic resolution of the Committee of Thirty-three for one instant changed or affected the determination to destroy the Government and dissolve the Union.

Friday, December 14, 1860, was a day of gloom and despondency in Mr. Buchanan's office, bringing to his mind more forcibly than he had ever before realized the utter wreck into which he had guided his Administration. To the jubilant secessionists it was not only a day of triumph achieved, but also of apparently assured successes yet to come. The hitherto official organ of the Administration in its issue of the following morning contained two publications which gave startling notice to the country of the weakness of the right and the strength of the wrong in the swiftly approaching struggle for national existence.

The first of these documents was a proclamation from the President of the United States, saying that in response to numerous appeals he designated the fourth day of January, proximo, as a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer. The "dangerous and distracted condition of our country" was therein thus set forth:

[Sidenote] Washington "Constitution," Dec. 15, 1860.

The Union of the States is at the present moment threatened with alarming and immediate danger--panic and distress of a fearful character prevail throughout the land--our laboring population are without employment, and consequently deprived of the means of earning their bread--indeed, hope seems to have deserted the minds of men. All classes are in a state of confusion and dismay, and the wisest counsels of our best and purest men are wholly disregarded.... Humbling ourselves before the Most High, ... let us implore him to remove from our hearts that false pride of opinion which would impel us to persevere in wrong for the sake of consistency, rather than yield a just submission to the unforeseen exigencies by which we are now surrounded.... An omnipotent Providence may overrule existing evils for permanent good.

The second manifesto was more practical and resolute. As the first public and combined action of the conspirators, it forms the hinge upon which they well-nigh turned the fate of the New World Republic. It was a brief document, but contained and expressed all the essential purposes of the conspiracy. It was signed by about one-half the Senators and Representatives of the States of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas. It precedes every ordinance of secession, and is the "official" beginning of the subsequent "Confederate States," just as Governor Gist's October circular was the "official" beginning of South Carolina secession.

[Sidenote] Washington "Constitution," Dec. 15, 1860.

ADDRESS OF CERTAIN SOUTHERN MEMBERS OF CONGRESS. TO OUR CONSTITUENTS.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 1860.

The argument is exhausted. All hope of relief in the Union through the agency of committees, Congressional legislation, or constitutional amendments is extinguished, and we trust the South will not be deceived by appearances or the pretense of new guarantees. In our judgment the Republicans are resolute in the purpose to grant nothing that will or ought to satisfy the South. We are satisfied the honor, safety, and independence of the Southern people require the organization of a Southern Confederacy--a result to be obtained only by separate State secession--that the primary object of each slave-holding State ought to be its speedy and absolute separation from a Union with hostile States.

J.L. Pugh of Alabama. David Clopton of Alabama. Sydenham Moore of Alabama. J.L.M. Curry of Alabama. J.A. Stallworth of Alabama. J.W.H. Underwood of Georgia. L.J. Gartrell of Georgia. James Jackson of Georgia. John J. Jones of Georgia. Martin J. Crawford of Georgia. Alfred Iverson, U.S. Senator, Georgia. George S. Hawkins of Florida. T.C. Hindman of Arkansas. Jefferson Davis, U.S. Senator, Mississippi. A.G. Brown, U.S. Senator, Mississippi. Wm. Barksdale of Mississippi. O.R. Singleton of Mississippi. Reuben Davis of Mississippi. Burton Craige of North Carolina. Thomas Ruffin of North Carolina. John Slidell, U.S. Senator, Louisiana. J.P. Benjamin, U.S. Senator, Louisiana. J.M. Landrum of Louisiana. Louis T. Wigfall, U.S. Senator, Texas. John Hemphill, U.S. Senator, Texas. J.H. Reagan of Texas. M.L. Bonham of South Carolina. Wm. Porcher Miles of South Carolina. John McQueen of South Carolina. John D. Ashmore of South Carolina.

This proclamation of revolution, when analyzed, reveals with sufficient clearness the design and industry with which the conspirators were step by step building up their preconcerted movement of secession and rebellion. Every justifying allegation in the document was notoriously untrue.

Instead of the argument being exhausted, it was scarcely begun. So far from Congressional or constitutional relief having been refused, the Southern demand for them had not been formulated. Not only had no committee denied hearing or action, but the Democratic Senate, at the instance of a Southern State, had ordered the Committee of Thirteen, which the Democratic and Southern Vice-President had not yet even appointed; and when the names were announced a week later, Jefferson Davis, one of the signers of this complaint of non-action, was the only man who refused to serve on the committee--a refusal he withdrew when persuaded by his co-conspirators that he could better aid their designs by accepting. On the other hand, the Committee of Thirty-three, raised by the Republican House, appointed by a Northern Speaker, and presided over by a Northern chairman, had the day before by more than a two-thirds vote distinctly tendered the Southern people "any reasonable, proper, and constitutional remedies and effectual guarantees."

Outside of Congressional circles there was the same absence of any new complications, any new threats, any new dangers from the North. Since the day when Abraham Lincoln was elected President there had been absolutely no change of word or act in the attitude and intention of himself or his followers. By no possibility could they exert a particle of adverse political power, executive, legislative, or judicial, for nearly three months. Not only was executive authority in the hands of a Democratic Administration, which had made itself the peculiar champion of the Southern party, but it had yielded every successive demand of administrative policy made by the conspirators themselves. The signers of this address to their Southern constituents had not one single excuse.

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