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Title: The Great Conspiracy, Volume 6
Author: Logan, John Alexander, 1826-1886
Language: English
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THE GREAT CONSPIRACY
Its Origin and History
Part 6
BY
JOHN LOGAN
CHAPTER XXII.
FREEDOM'S SUN STILL RISING.
After President Lincoln had issued his Proclamation of Emancipation, the
friends of Freedom clearly perceived--and none of them more clearly than
himself that until the incorporation of that great Act into the
Constitution of the United States itself, there could be no real
assurance of safety to the liberties of the emancipated; that unless
this were done there would be left, even after the suppression of the
Rebellion, a living spark of dissension which might at any time again be
fanned into the flames of Civil War.
Hence, at all proper times, Mr. Lincoln favored and even
urged Congressional action upon the subject. It was not, however, until
the following year that definite action may be said to have commenced in
Congress toward that end; and, as Congress was slow, he found it
necessary to say in his third Annual Message: "while I remain in my
present position I shall not attempt to retract or modify the
Emancipation Proclamation; nor shall I return to Slavery any person who
is Free by the terms of that Proclamation, or by any of the Acts of
Congress,"
Meantime, however, occurred the series of glorious
Union victories in the West, ending with the surrender to Grant's
triumphant Forces on the 4th of July, 1863, of Vicksburg--"the Gibraltar
of the West"--with its Garrison, Army, and enormous quantities of arms
and munitions of war; thus closing a brilliant and successful Campaign
with a blow which literally "broke the back" of the Rebellion; while,
almost simultaneously, July 1-3, the Union Forces of the East, under
Meade, gained the great victory of Gettysburg, and, driving the hosts of
Lee from Pennsylvania, put a second and final end to Rebel invasion of
Northern soil; gaining it, on ground dedicated by President Lincoln,
before that year had closed--as a place of sepulture for the
Patriot-soldiers who there had fallen in a brief, touching and immortal
Address, which every American child should learn by heart, and every
American adult ponder deeply, as embodying the very essence of true
Republicanism.
[President Lincoln's Address, when the National Cemetery at
Gettysburg, Pa., was dedicated Nov. 19, 1863, was in these
memorable words:
"Fourscore and seven years ago, our Fathers brought forth upon this
continent a new Nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal.
"Now we are engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether that
Nation, or any Nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long
endure.
"We are met on a great battlefield of that War. We have come here
to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for
those who here gave their lives that that Nation might live.
"It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
"But in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate,
we can not hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead,
who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add
or detract.
"The World will little note, nor long remember, what we say here;
but it can never forget what they did here.
"It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the
unfinished work which they who fought here have, thus far, so nobly
advanced.
"It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task
remaining before us; that from these honored dead we take increased
devotion to that Cause for which they gave the last full measure of
devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not
have died in vain; that this Nation, under God, shall have a new
birth of Freedom; and that Government of the People, by the People,
and for the People, shall not perish front the Earth."]
That season of victory for the Union arms, coming, as it did, upon a
season of depression and doubtfulness, was doubly grateful to the loyal
heart of the Nation. Daylight seemed to be breaking at last.
Gettysburg had hurled back the Southern invader from our soil; and
Vicksburg, with the immediately resulting surrender of Port Hudson, had
opened the Mississippi river from Cairo to the Gulf, and split the
Confederacy in twain.
But it happened just about this time that, the enrollment of the whole
Militia of the United States (under the Act of March, 1863), having been
completed, and a Draft for 300,000 men ordered to be made and executed,
if by a subsequent time the quotas of the various States should not be
filled by volunteering, certain malcontents and Copperheads, inspired by
agents and other friends of the Southern Conspirators, started and
fomented, in the city of New York, a spirit of unreasoning opposition
both to voluntary enlistment, and conscription under the Draft, that
finally culminated, July 13th, in a terrible Riot, lasting several days,
during which that great metropolis was in the hands, and completely at
the mercy, of a brutal mob of Secession sympathizers, who made day and
night hideous with their drunken bellowings, terrorized everybody even
suspected of love for the Union, plundered and burned dwellings,
including a Colored Orphan Asylum, and added to the crime of arson, that
of murdering the mob-chased, terror-stricken Negroes, by hanging them to
the lamp-posts.
These Riots constituted a part of that "Fire in the Rear" with which the
Rebels and their Northern Democratic sympathizers had so frequently
menaced the Armies of the Union.
Alluding to them, the N. Y. Tribune on July 15th, while its office was
invested and threatened with attack and demolition, bravely said: "They
are, in purpose and in essence, a Diversion in favor of Jefferson Davis
and Lee. Listen to the yells of the mob and the harangues of its
favorite orators, and you will find them surcharged with 'Nigger,'
'Abolition,' 'Black Republican,' denunciation of prominent Republicans,
The Tribune, etc. etc.--all very wide of the Draft and the exemption.
Had the Abolitionists, instead of the Slaveholders, revolted, and
undertaken to upset the Government and dissolve the Union, nine-tenths
of these rioters would have eagerly volunteered to put them down. It is
the fear, stimulated by the recent and glorious triumphs of the Union
Arms, that Slavery and the Rebellion must suffer, which is at the bottom
of all this arson, devastation, robbery, and murder."
The Democratic Governor, Seymour, by promising to "have this Draft
suspended and stopped," did something toward quieting the Riots, but it
was not until the Army of the Potomac, now following Lee's retreat, was
weakened by the sending of several regiments to New York that the
Draft-rioting spirit, in that city, and to a less extent in other
cities, was thoroughly cowed.
[In reply to Gov. Seymour's appeal for delay in the execution of
the Draft Law, in order to test its Constitutionality, Mr. Lincoln,
on the 7th of August, said he could not consent to lose the time
that would be involved in obtaining a decision from the U. S.
Supreme Court on that point, and proceeded: "We are contending with
an Enemy who, as I understand, drives every able-bodied man he can
reach into his ranks, very much as a butcher drives bullocks into a
slaughter-pen. No time is wasted, no argument is used.
"This system produces an Army which will soon turn upon our now
victorious soldiers already in the field, if they shall not be
sustained by recruits as they should be.
It produces an Army with a rapidity not to be matched on our side,
if we first waste time to re-experiment with the Volunteer system,
already deemed by Congress, and palpably, in fact, so far exhausted
as to be inadequate; and then more time to obtain a Court decision
as to whether a law is Constitutional which requires a part of
those not now in the Service to go to those who are already in it,
and still more time to determine with absolute certainty that we
get those who are to go, in the precisely legal proportion to those
who are not to go.
"My purpose is to be in my action Just and Constitutional, and yet
Practical, in performing the important duty with which I am
charged, of maintaining the Unity and the Free principles of our
common Country."]
Worried and weakened by this Democratic opposition to the Draft, and the
threatened consequent delays and dangers to the success of the Union
Cause, and depressed moreover by the defeat of the National forces under
Rosecrans at Chickamauga; yet, the favorable determination of the Fall
elections on the side of Union and Freedom, and the immense majorities
upholding those issues, together with Grant's great victory (November,
1863) of Chattanooga--where the three days of fighting in the
Chattanooga Valley and up among the clouds of Lookout Mountain and
Mission Ridge, not only effaced the memory of Rosecrans's previous
disaster, but brought fresh and imperishable laurels to the Union Arms
--stiffened the President's backbone, and that of Union men everywhere.
Not that Mr. Lincoln had shown any signs of weakness or wavering, or any
loss of hope in the ultimate result of this War for the preservation of
the Union--which now also involved Freedom to all beneath its banner.
On the contrary, a letter of his written late in August shows
conclusively enough that he even then began to see clearly the coming
final triumph--not perhaps as "speedy," as he would like, in its coming,
but none the less sure to come in God's "own good time," and furthermore
not appearing "to be so distant as it did" before Gettysburg, and
especially Vicksburg, was won; for, said he: "The signs look better.
The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the Sea".
[This admirable letter, reviewing "the situation" and his policy,
was in these words
EXECUTIVE MANSION,
WASHINGTON, August 26. 1863.
HON. JAMES C. CONKLING
MY DEAR SIR; Your letter inviting me to attend a Mass Meeting of
unconditional Union men to be held at the Capital of Illinois, on
the 3rd day of September, has been received. It would be very
agreeable for me thus to meet my old friends at my own home; but I
cannot just now be absent from here so long a time as a visit there
would require.
The meeting is to be of all those who maintain unconditional
devotion to the Union; and I am sure that my old political friends
will thank me for tendering, as I do, the Nation's gratitude to
those other noble men whom no partisan malice or partisan hope can
make false to the Nation's life.
There are those who are dissatisfied with me. To such I would say:
you desire Peace, and you blame me that we do not have it. But how
can we attain it? There are but three conceivable ways: First, to
suppress the Rebellion by force of Arms. This I am trying to do.
Are you for it? If you are, so far we are agreed. If you are not
for it, a second way is to give up the Union. I am against this.
Are you for it? If you are, you should say so plainly. If you are
not for Force, nor yet for Dissolution, there only remains some
imaginable Compromise.
I do not believe that any Compromise embracing the maintenance of
the Union is now possible. All that I learn leads to a directly
opposite belief. The strength of the Rebellion is its Military,
its Army. That Army dominates all the Country, and all the people,
within its range. Any offer of terms made by any man or men within
that range, in opposition to that Army, is simply nothing for the
present: because such man or men have no power whatever to enforce
their side of a Compromise, if one were made with them.
To illustrate: Suppose refugees from the South, and Peace men of
the North, get together in Convention, and frame and proclaim a
Compromise embracing a restoration of the Union. In what way can
that Compromise be used to keep Lee's Army out of Pennsylvania?
Meade's Army can keep Lee's Army out of Pennsylvania, and, I think,
can ultimately drive it out of existence. But no paper Compromise
to which the controllers of Lee's Army are not agreed, can at all
affect that Army. In an effort at such Compromise we would waste
time, which the Enemy would improve to our disadvantage; and that
would be all.
A Compromise, to be effective, must be made either with those who
control the Rebel Army, or with the people, first liberated from
the domination of that Army, by the success of our own Army. Now,
allow me to assure you that no word or intimation from that Rebel
Army, or from any of the men controlling it, in relation to any
Peace Compromise, has ever come to my knowledge or belief. All
charges and insinuations to the contrary are deceptive and
groundless. And I promise you that if any such proposition shall
hereafter come, it shall not be rejected and kept a secret from
you. I freely acknowledge myself to be the servant of the People,
according to the bond of service, the United States Constitution;
and that, as such, I am responsible to them.
But, to be plain. You are dissatisfied with me about the Negro.
Quite likely there is a difference of opinion between you and
myself upon that subject. I certainly wish that all men could be
Free, while you, I suppose, do not. Yet I have neither adopted nor
proposed any measure which is not consistent with even your view,
provided that you are for the Union. I suggested compensated
Emancipation; to which you replied you wished not to be taxed to
buy Negroes. But I had not asked you to be taxed to buy Negroes,
except in such a way as to save you from greater taxation to save
the Union, exclusively by other means.
You dislike the Emancipation Proclamation, and perhaps would have
it retracted. You say it is Unconstitutional. I think
differently. I think the Constitution invests the
Commander-in-Chief with the Law of War in Time of War. The most
that can be said, if so much, is, that Slaves are property. Is
there, has there ever been, any question that, by the Law of War,
property, both of enemies and friends, may be taken when needed?
And is it not needed whenever it helps us and hurts the Enemy?
Armies, the World over, destroy enemies' property when they cannot
use it; and even destroy their own to keep it from the Enemy.
Civilized belligerents do all in their power to help themselves or
hurt the Enemy, except a few things regarded as barbarous or cruel.
Among the exceptions are the massacre of vanquished foes and
non-combatants, male and female.
But the Proclamation, as law, either is valid or is not valid. If
it is not valid, it needs no retraction. If it is valid it cannot
be retracted, any more than the dead can be brought to life. Some
of you profess to think its retraction would operate favorably for
the Union. Why better after the retraction than before the issue?
There was more than a year and a half of trial to suppress the
Rebellion before the Proclamation was issued, the last one hundred
days of which passed under an explicit notice that it was coming,
unless averted by those in revolt returning to their allegiance.
The War has certainly progressed as favorably for us since the
issue of the Proclamation as before.
I know as fully as one can know the opinions of others that some of
the Commanders of our Armies in the field, who have given us our
most important victories, believe the Emancipation policy and the
use of Colored troops constitute the heaviest blows yet dealt to
the Rebellion, and that at least one of those important successes
could not have been achieved when it was, but for the aid of Black
soldiers.
Among the Commanders who hold these views are some who have never
had an affinity with what is called "Abolitionism," or with
"Republican party politics," but who hold them purely as Military
opinions. I submit their opinions as entitled to some weight
against the objections often urged that Emancipation and arming the
Blacks are unwise as Military measures, and were not adopted as
such, in good faith.
You say that you will not fight to Free Negroes. Some of them seem
willing to fight for you; but no matter. Fight you, then,
exclusively to save the Union. I issued the Proclamation on
purpose to aid you in saving the Union. Whenever you shall have
conquered all resistance to the Union, if I shall urge you to
continue fighting, it will be an apt time then for you to declare
you will not fight to Free Negroes. I thought that in your
struggle for the Union, to whatever extent the Negroes should cease
helping the Enemy, to that extent it weakened the Enemy in his
resistance to you. Do you think differently? I thought whatever
Negroes can be got to do as soldiers, leaves just so much less for
White soldiers to do in saving the Union. Does it appear otherwise
to you? But Negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why
should they do anything for us if we will do nothing for them? If
they stake their lives for us they must be prompted by the
strongest motives, even the promise of Freedom. And the promise,
being made, must be kept.
The signs look better. The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to
the Sea. Thanks to the great Northwest for it; nor yet wholly to
them. Three hundred miles up, they met New England, Empire,
Keystone, and Jersey, hewing their way right and left. The Sunny
South, too, in more colors than one, also lent a helping hand. On
the spot, their part of the history was jotted down in Black and
White. The job was a great National one, and let none be slighted
who bore an honorable part in it. And while those who have cleared
the Great River may well be proud, even that is not all. It is
hard to say that anything has been more bravely and well done than
at Antietam, Murfreesboro, Gettysburg, and on many fields of less
note. Nor must Uncle Sam's web-feet be forgotten. At all the
watery margins they have been present, not only on the deep Sea,
the broad Bay, and the rapid River, but also up the narrow, muddy
Bayou, and wherever the ground was a little damp they had been, and
made their tracks. Thanks to all. For the Great Republic--for the
principle it lives by, and keeps alive--for Man's vast future
--thanks to all.
Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come
soon, and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in
all future time. It will then have been proved that among Freemen
there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet,
and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case and
pay the cost. And there will be some Black men who can remember
that, with silent tongue, and clinched teeth, and steady eye, and
well poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great
consummation, while I fear there will be some White ones unable to
forget that with malignant heart and deceitful speech they have
striven to hinder it.
Still, let us not be over sanguine of a speedy, final triumph. Let
us be quite sober. Let us diligently apply the means, never
doubting that a just God, in his own good time, will give us the
rightful result.
Yours very truly,
A. LINCOLN.]
But Chattanooga, and the grand majorities in all the Fall
State-elections, save that of New Jersey,--and especially the manner
in which loyal Ohio sat down upon the chief Copperhead-Democrat and
Treason-breeder of the North, Vallandigham--came most auspiciously to
strengthen the President's hands.
[The head of the Knights of the Golden Circle, and the Democratic
candidate for Governor of Ohio]
And now he saw, more clearly still, the approach of that time when the
solemn promise and declaration of Emancipation might be recorded upon
the sacred roll of the Constitution, and thus be made safe for all time.
In his Annual Message of December, 1863, therefore, President Lincoln,
after adverting to the fact that "a year ago the War had already lasted
nearly twenty months," without much ground for hopefulness, proceeded to
say:
"The preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, issued in September, was
running its assigned period to the beginning of the New Year. A month
later the final Proclamation came, including the announcement that
Colored men of suitable condition would be received into the War
service. The policy of Emancipation, and of employing Black soldiers,
gave to the future a new aspect, about which hope, and fear, and doubt,
contended in uncertain conflict.
"According to our political system, as a matter of Civil Administration,
the General Government had no lawful power to effect Emancipation in any
State, and for a long time it had been hoped that the Rebellion could be
suppressed without resorting to it as a Military measure. It was all
the while deemed possible that the necessity for it might come, and that
if it should, the crisis of the contest would then be presented. It
came, and, as was anticipated, it was followed by dark and doubtful
days.
"Eleven months having now passed, we are permitted to take another view
* * * Of those who were Slaves at the beginning of the Rebellion, full
one hundred thousand are now in the United States Military service,
about one half of which number actually bear arms in the ranks; thus
giving the double advantage of taking so much labor from the Insurgent
cause, and supplying the places which otherwise must be filled with so
many White men. So far as tested, it is difficult to say they are not
as good soldiers as any.
"No servile insurrection, or tendency to violence or cruelty, has marked
the measures of Emancipation and arming the Blacks. These measures have
been much discussed in Foreign Countries, and contemporary with such
discussion the tone of public sentiment there is much improved. At
home, the same measures have been fully discussed, supported,
criticised, and denounced, and the annual elections following are highly
encouraging to those whose official duty it is to bear the Country
through this great trial. Thus we have the new reckoning. The crisis
which threatened to divide the friends of the Union is past."
After alluding to his Proclamation of Amnesty, issued simultaneously
with this Message, to all repentant Rebels who would take an oath
therein prescribed, and contending that such an oath should be (as he
had drawn it) to uphold not alone the Constitution and the Union, but
the Laws and Proclamations touching Slavery as well, President Lincoln
continued:
"In my judgment they have aided and will further aid, the Cause for
which they were intended. To now abandon them, would be not only to
relinquish a lever of power, but would also be a cruel and an astounding
breach of faith." And, toward the close of the Message, he added:
"The movements by State action, for Emancipation, in several of the
States not included in the Emancipation Proclamation, are matters of
profound gratulation. And while I do not repeat in detail what I have
heretofore so earnestly urged upon the subject, my general views remain
unchanged; and I trust that Congress will omit no fair opportunity of
AIDING THESE IMPORTANT STEPS TO A GREAT CONSUMMATION."
Mr. Lincoln's patient but persistent solicitude, his earnest and
unintermitted efforts--exercised publicly through his Messages and
speeches, and privately upon Members of Congress who called upon, or
whose presence was requested by him at the White House--in behalf of
incorporating Emancipation in the Constitution, were now to give
promise, at least, of bearing good fruit.
Measures looking to this end were submitted in both Houses of Congress
soon after its meeting, and were referred to the respective Judiciary
Committees of the same, and on the 10th of February, 1864, Mr. Trumbull
reported to the Senate, from the Senate Judiciary Committee, of which he
was Chairman, a substitute Joint Resolution providing for the submission
to the States of an Amendment to the United States Constitution in the
following words:
"ART. XIII., SEC. I. Neither Slavery nor Involuntary Servitude, except
as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to
their jurisdiction.
"SEC. II. Congress shall have power to enforce this Article by
appropriate legislation."
This proposed Amendment came up for consideration in the Senate, on the
28th of March, and a notable debate ensued.
On the same day, in the House of Representatives, Thaddeus Stevens--with
the object perhaps of ascertaining the strength, in that Body, of the
friends of out-and-out Emancipation--offered a Resolution proposing to
the States the following Amendments to the United States Constitution:
"ART. I. Slavery and Involuntary Servitude, except for the punishment
of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, is forever
prohibited in the United States and all its Territories.
"ART. II. So much of Article four, Section two, as refers to the
delivery up of Persons held to Service or Labor, escaping into another
State, is annulled."
The test was made upon a motion to table the Resolution, which motion
was defeated by 38 yeas to 69 nays, and showed the necessity for
converting three members from the Opposition. Subsequently, at the
instance of Mr. Stevens himself, the second Article of the Resolution
was struck out by 72 yeas to 26 nays.
The proceedings in both Houses of Congress upon these propositions to
engraft upon the National Constitution a provision guaranteeing Freedom
to all men upon our soil, were now interrupted by the death of one who
would almost have been willing to die twice over, if, by doing so, he
could have hastened their adoption.
Owen Lovejoy, the life-long apostle of Abolitionism, the fervid
gospeller of Emancipation, was dead; and it seemed almost the irony of
Fate that, at such a time, when Emancipation most needed all its friends
to make it secure, its doughtiest champion should fall.
But perhaps the eloquent tributes paid to his memory, in the Halls of
Congress, helped the Cause no less. They at least brought back to the
public mind the old and abhorrent tyrannies of the Southern Slave power;
how it had sought not not only to destroy freedom of Action, but freedom
of Speech, and hesitated not to destroy human Life with these; reminded
the Loyal People of the Union of much that was hateful, from which they
had escaped; and strengthened the purpose of Patriots to fix in the
chief corner-stone of the Constitution, imperishable muniments of human
Liberty.
Lovejoy's brother had been murdered at Alton, Illinois, while
vindicating freedom of Speech and of the Press; and the blood of that
martyr truly became "the seed of the Church." Arnold--recalling a
speech of Owen Lovejoy's at Chicago, and a passage in it, descriptive of
the martyrdom,--said to the House, on this sad occasion: "I remember
that, after describing the scene of that death, in words--which stirred
every heart, he said he went a pilgrim to his brother's grave, and,
kneeling upon the sod beneath which sleeps that brother, he swore, by
the everlasting God, eternal hostility to African Slavery." And,
continued Arnold, "Well and nobly has he kept that oath."
Washburne, too, reminded the House of the memorable episode in that very
Hall when, (April 5, 1860), the adherents of Slavery crowding around
Lovejoy with fierce imprecations and threats, seeking then and there to
prevent Free Speech, "he displayed that undaunted courage and matchless
bearing which extorted the admiration of even his most deadly foes."
"His"--continued the same speaker--"was the eloquence of Mirabeau, which
in the Tiers Etat and in the National Assembly made to totter the throne
of France; it was the eloquence of Danton, who made all France to
tremble from his tempestuous utterances in the National Convention.
Like those apostles of the French Revolution, his eloquence could stir
from the lowest depths all the passions of Man; but unlike them, he was
as good and as pure as he was eloquent and brave, a noble minded
Christian man, a lover of the whole human Race, and of universal Liberty
regulated by Law."
Grinnell, in his turn, told also with real pathos, of his having
recently seen Lovejoy in the chamber of sickness. "When," said
Grinnell, "I expressed fears for his recovery, I saw the tears course
down his manly cheek, as he said 'Ah! God's will be done, but I have
been laboring, voting, and praying for twenty years that I might see the
great day of Freedom which is so near and which I hope God will let me
live to rejoice in. I want a vote on my Bill for the destruction of
Slavery, root and branch.'"
[Sumner, afterward speaking of Lovejoy and this Measure, said: "On
the 14th of December, 1863, he introduced a Bill, whose title
discloses its character: 'A Bill to give effect to the Declaration
of Independence, and also to certain Provisions of the Constitution
of the United States.' It proceeds to recite that All Men were
Created Equal, and were Endowed by the Creator with the Inalienable
Right to Life, Liberty and the Fruits of honest Toil; that the
Government of the United States was Instituted to Secure those
Rights; that the Constitution declares that No Person shall be
Deprived of Liberty without due Process of Law, and also provides
--article five, clause two--that this Constitution, and the Laws of
the United States made in pursuance thereof, shall be the Supreme
Law of the Land, and the Judges in each State shall be bound
thereby, anything in the Constitution and Laws of any State to the
contrary notwithstanding; that it is now demonstrated by the
Rebellion that Slavery is absolutely incompatible with the Union,
Peace, and General Welfare for which Congress is to Provide; and it
therefore Enacts that All Persons heretofore held in Slavery in any
of the States or Territories of the United States are declared
Freedmen, and are Forever Released from Slavery or Involuntary
Servitude except as Punishment for Crime on due conviction. On the
same day he introduced another Bill to Protect Freedmen and to
Punish any one for Enslaving them. These were among his last
Public acts,"--Cong. Globe, 1st S., 38th C., Pt. 2, p. 1334]
And staunch old Thaddeus Stevens said: "The change to him, is great
gain. The only regret we can feel is that he did not live to see the
salvation of his Country; to see Peace and Union restored, and universal
Emancipation given to his native land. But such are the ways of
Providence. Moses was not permitted to enter the Promised Land with
those he had led out of Bondage; he beheld it from afar off, and slept
with his fathers." "The deceased," he impressively added, "needs no
perishable monuments of brass or marble to perpetuate his name. So long
as the English language shall be spoken or deciphered, so long as
Liberty shall have a worshipper, his name will be known!"
What influence the death of Owen Lovejoy may have had on the subsequent
proceedings touching Emancipation interrupted as we have seen by his
demise--cannot be known; but among all the eloquent tributes to his
memory called forth by the mournful incident, perhaps none, could he
have heard it, would have better pleased him than those two opening
sentences of Charles Summer's oration in the Senate--where he said of
Owen Lovejoy: "Could his wishes prevail, he would prefer much that
Senators should continue in their seats and help to enact into Law some
one of the several Measures now pending to secure the obliteration of
Slavery. Such an Act would be more acceptable to him than any personal
tribute,--" unless it might be these other words, which followed from
the same lips: "How his enfranchised Soul would be elevated even in
those Abodes to which he has been removed, to know that his voice was
still heard on Earth encouraging, exhorting, insisting that there should
be no hesitation anywhere in striking at Slavery; that this unpardonable
wrong, from which alone the Rebellion draws its wicked life, must be
blasted by Presidential proclamation, blasted by Act of Congress,
blasted by Constitutional prohibition, blasted in every possible way, by
every available agency, and at every occurring opportunity, so that no
trace of the outrage may continue in the institutions of the Land, and
especially that its accursed foot-prints may no longer defile the
National Statute-book. Sir, it will be in vain that you pass
Resolutions in tribute to him, if you neglect that Cause for which he
lived, and do not hearken to his voice!"
CHAPTER XXIII.
"THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT" IN THE SENATE.
During the great debate, which now opened in the Senate, upon the
Judiciary Committee's substitute resolution for the Amendment of the
Constitution, so as forever to prohibit Slavery within the United
States, and to empower Congress to pass such laws as would make that
prohibition effective--participated in by Messrs. Trumbull, Wilson,
Saulsbury, Davis, Harlan, Powell, Sherman, Clark, Hale, Hendricks,
Henderson, Sumner, McDougall and others--the whole history of Slavery
was enquired into and laid bare.
Trumbull insisted that Slavery was at the bottom of all the internal
troubles with which the Nation had from its birth been afflicted, down
to this wicked Rebellion, with all the resulting "distress, desolation,
and death;" and that by 1860, it had grown to such power and arrogance
that "its advocates demanded the control of the Nation in
its interests, failing in which, they attempted its overthrow." He
reviewed, at some length, what had been done by our Government with
regard to Slavery, since the breaking out of hostilities against us in
that mad attempt against the National life; how, "in the earlier stages
of the War, there was an indisposition on the part of the Executive
Authority to interfere with Slavery at all;" how, for a long time,
Slaves, escaping to our lines, were driven back to their Rebel masters;
how the Act of Congress of July, 1861, which gave Freedom to all Slaves
allowed by their Rebel masters to assist in the erection of Rebel works
and fortifications, had "not been executed," and, said Mr. Trumbull, "so
far as I am advised, not a single Slave has been set at liberty under
it;" how, "it was more than a year after its enactment before any
considerable number of Persons of African descent were organized and
armed" under the subsequent law of December, 1861, which not only gave
Freedom to all Slaves entering our Military lines, or who, belonging to
Rebel masters, were deserted by them, or were found in regions once
occupied by Rebel forces and later by those of the Union, but also
empowered the President to organize and arm them to aid in the
suppression of the Rebellion; how, it was not until this law had been
enacted that Union officers ceased to expel Slaves coming within our
lines--and then only when dismissal from the public service was made the
penalty for such expulsion; how, by his Proclamations of Emancipation,
of September, 1862, and January, 1863, the President undertook to
supplement Congressional action--which had, theretofore, been confined
to freeing the Slaves of Rebels, and of such of these only as had come
within the lines of our Military power-by also declaring, Free, the
Slaves "who were in regions of country from which the authority of the
United States was expelled;" and how, the "force and effect" of these
Proclamations were variously understood by the enemies and friends of
those measures--it being insisted on the one side that Emancipation as a
War-stroke was within the Constitutional War-power of the President as
Commander-in-Chief, and that, by virtue of those Proclamations, "all
Slaves within the localities designated become ipso facto Free," and on
the other, that the Proclamations were "issued without competent
authority," and had not effected and could not effect, "the Emancipation
of a single Slave," nor indeed could at any time, without additional
legislation, go farther than to liberate Slaves coming within the Union
Army lines.
After demonstrating that "any and all these laws and Proclamations,
giving to each the largest effect claimed by its friends, are
ineffectual to the destruction of Slavery," and protesting that some
more effectual method of getting rid of that Institution must be
adopted, he declared, as his judgment, that "the only effectual way of
ridding the Country of Slavery, so that it cannot be resuscitated, is by
an Amendment of the Constitution forever prohibiting it within the
jurisdiction of the United States."
He then canvassed the chances of adoption of such an Amendment by an
affirmative vote of two thirds in each House of Congress, and of its
subsequent ratification by three-fourths of the States of the Union, and
declared that "it is reasonable to suppose that if this proposed
Amendment passes Congress, it will, within a year, receive the
ratification of the requisite number of States to make it a part of the
Constitution." His prediction proved correct--but only after a
protracted struggle.
Henry Wilson also made a strong speech, but on different grounds. He
held that the Emancipation Proclamations formed, together, a "complete,
absolute, and final decree of Emancipation in Rebel States," and, being
"born of Military necessity" and "proclaimed by the Commander-in-Chief
of the Army and Navy, is the settled and irrepealable Law of the
Republic, to be observed, obeyed, and enforced, by Army and Navy, and is
the irreversible voice of the Nation."
He also reviewed what had been done since the outbreak of the Rebellion,
by Congress and the President, by Laws and Proclamations; and, while
standing by the Emancipation Proclamations, declared that "the crowning
Act, in this series of Acts, for the restriction and extinction of
Slavery in America, is this proposed Amendment to the Constitution
prohibiting the existence of Slavery in the Republic of the United
States."
The Emancipation Proclamation, according to his view, only needed
enforcement, to give "Peace and Order, Freedom and Unity, to a now
distracted Country;" but the "crowning act" of incorporating this
Amendment into the Constitution would do even more than all this, in
that it would "obliterate the last lingering vestiges of the Slave
System; its chattelizing, degrading, and bloody codes; its malignant,
barbarizing spirit; all it was, and is; everything connected with it or
pertaining to it, from the face of the Nation it has scarred with moral
desolation, from the bosom of the Country it has reddened with the blood
and strewn with the graves of patriotism."
While the debate proceeded, President Lincoln watched it with careful
interest. Other matters, however, had, since the Battle of Chattanooga,
largely engrossed his attention.
The right man had at last been found--it was believed--to control as
well as to lead our Armies. That man was Ulysses S. Grant. The grade
of Lieutenant General of the Army of the United States--in desuetude
since the days of Washington, except by brevet, in the case of Winfield
Scott,--having been especially revived by Congress for and filled by the
appointment and confirmation of Grant, March 2, 1864, that great soldier
immediately came on to Washington, received his commission at the hands
of President Lincoln, in the cabinet chamber of the White House, on the
9th, paid a flying visit to the Army of the Potomac, on the 10th, and at
once returned to Nashville to plan future movements.
On the 12th, a General Order of the War Department (No. 98) was issued,
relieving Major-General Halleck, "at his own request," from duty as
"General-in-Chief" of the Army, and assigning Lieutenant-General U. S.
Grant to "the command of the Armies of the United States," "the
Headquarters of the Army" to be in Washington, and also with
Lieutenant-General Grant in the Field, Halleck being assigned to "duty,
in Washington, as Chief-of-staff of the Army, under the direction of the
Secretary of War and the Lieutenant-General commanding."
By the same order, Sherman was assigned to the command of the "Military
Division of the Mississippi," composed of the Departments of the Ohio,
the Cumberland, the Tennessee, and the Arkansas; and McPherson to that
of the Department and Army of the Tennessee.
On the 23rd of March, Grant was back again at Washington, and at once
proceeded to Culpepper Court-house, Virginia, where his Headquarters in
the field were, for a time, to be.
Here he completed his plans, and reorganized his Forces, for the coming
conflicts, in the South-west and South-east, which were to result in a
full triumph to the Union Arms, and Peace to a preserved Union.
It is evident, from the utterances of Mr. Lincoln when Vicksburg fell,
that he had then become pretty well satisfied that Grant was "the coming
man," to whom it would be safe to confide the management and chief
leadership of our Armies. Chattanooga merely confirmed that belief--as
indeed it did that of Union men generally. But the concurrent judgment
of Congress and the President had now, as we have seen, placed Grant in
that chief command; and the consequent relief to Mr. Lincoln, in thus
having the heavy responsibility of Army-control, long unwillingly
exercised by him, taken from his own shoulders and placed upon those of
the one great soldier in whom he had learned to have implicit faith,--a
faith earned by steady and unvaryingly successful achievements in the
Field--must have been most grateful.
Other responsibilities would still press heavily enough upon the
President's time and attention. Questions touching the Military and
Civil government of regions of the Enemy's country, conquered by the
Union arms; of the rehabilitation or reconstruction of the Rebel States;
of a thousand and one other matters, of greater or lesser perplexity,
growing out of these and other questions; besides the ever pressing and
gigantic problems involved in the raising of enormous levies of troops,
and prodigious sums of money, needed in securing, moving, and supplying
them, and defraying the extraordinary expenses growing out of the
necessary blockade of thousands of miles of Southern Coast, and other
Naval movements; not to speak of those expenditures belonging to the
more ordinary business transactions of the Government.
But chief of all things claiming his especial solicitude, as we have
seen, was this question of Emancipation by Constitutional enactment, the
debate upon which was now proceeding in the Senate. That solicitude was
necessarily increased by the bitter opposition to it of Northern
Copperheads, and by the attitude of the Border-State men, upon whose
final action, the triumph or defeat of this great measure must
ultimately depend.
Many of the latter, were, as has already been shown in these pages,
loyal men; but the loyalty of some of these to their Country, was still
so questionably and so thoroughly tainted with their worshipful devotion
to Slavery--although they must have been blind indeed not to have
discovered, long ere this, that it was a "slowly-dying cause"--that they
were ever on the alert to delay, hamper, and defeat, any action, whether
Executive or Legislative, and however necessary for the preservation of
the Union and the overthrow of its mortal enemies, which, never so
lightly, impinged upon their "sacred Institution."
This fact was well set forth, in this very debate, by a Senator from New
England--[Wilson of Massachusetts]--when, after adjuring the
anti-Slavery men of the age, not to forget the long list of Slavery's
crimes, he eloquently proceeded:
"Let them remember, too, that hundreds of thousands of our countrymen in
Loyal States--since Slavery raised the banners of Insurrection, and sent
death, wounds, sickness, and sorrow, into the homes of the People--have
resisted, and still continue to resist, any measure for the defense of
the Nation, if that measure tended to impair the vital and animating
powers of Slavery. They resisted the Act making Free the Slaves used by
Rebels for Military purposes; the Confiscation of Rebel property and the
Freedom of the Slaves of Rebel masters; the Abolition of Slavery in the
Capital of the Nation, and the consecration of the Territories to Free
Labor and Free laboring men; the Proclamation of Emancipation; the
enlistment of Colored men to fight the battles of the Country; the
Freedom of the Black soldier, who is fighting, bleeding, dying for the
Country; and the Freedom of his wife and children. And now, when War
has for nearly three years menaced the life of the Nation, bathed the
Land in blood, and filled two hundred thousand graves with our slain
sons, these men of the Loyal States still cling to the falling fortunes
of the relentless and unappeasable Enemy of their Country and its
democratic institutions; they mourn, and will not be comforted, over the
expiring System, in the Border Slave-States; and, in tones of
indignation or of anguish, they utter lamentations over the Proclamation
of Emancipation, and the policy that is bringing Rebel States back again
radiant with Freedom."
Among these "loyal" Democratic opponents of Emancipation, in any shape,
or any where, were not wanting men--whether from Loyal Northern or
Border States--who still openly avowed that Slavery was right; that
Rebellion, to preserve its continuance, was justifiable; and that there
was no Constitutional method of uprooting it.
Saulsbury of Delaware, was representative and spokesman of this class,
and he took occasion during this very debate--[In the Senate, March 31,
1864.]--to defend Slavery as a Divine Institution, which had the
sanction both of the Mosaic and Christian Dispensations!
[Said he: "Slavery had existed under some form or other from the
first period of recorded history. It dates back even beyond the
period of Abraham, the Father of the Faithful, in whose seed all
the Nations of the Earth were to be blessed. We find that,
immediately after the Flood, the Almighty, for purposes inscrutable
to us, condemned a whole race to Servitude: 'Vayomer Orur Knoan
Efet Afoatim Yeahio Le-echot:' 'And he said, Cursed be Canaan;
Slave of Slaves he shall be to his brethren.' It continued among
all people until the advent of the Christian era. It was
recognized in that New Dispensation, which was to supersede the
Old. It has the sanction of God's own Apostle; for when Paul sent
back Onesimus to Philemon, whom did he send? A Freeman? No, Sir.
He sent his (doulos,) a Slave, born as such, not even his
andrapodon, who was such by captivity in War. Among all people,
and in all ages, has this Institution, if such it is to be called,
existed, and had the countenance of wise and good men, and even of
the Christian Church itself, until these modern times, up at least
to the Nineteenth Century. It exists in this Country, and has
existed from the beginning."
Mr. Harlan's reply to the position of Mr. Saulsbury that Slavery is
right, is a Divine Institution, etc., was very able and
interesting. He piled up authority after authority, English as
well as American, to show that there is no support of Slavery--and
especially of the title to services of the adult offspring of a
Slave--at Common Law; and, after also proving, by the mouth of a
favorite son of Virginia, that it has no legal existence by virtue
of any Municipal or Statutory Law, he declared that the only
remaining Law that can be cited for its support is the Levitical
Code"--as follows:
"'Both thy Bondmen, and thy Bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall
be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy
Bondmen and Bondmaids.
"'Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among
you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you,
which they begat in your land; and they shall be your possession.
"'And ye shall take them as an Inheritance for your children after
you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your Bondmen
forever."'
"I remark," said he, "in this connection, that the Levitical Code,
or the Hebrew Law, contains a provision for the Naturalization of
Foreigners, whether captives of War, or voluntary emigrants. By
compliance with the requirements of this law they became citizens,
entitled to all the rights and privileges and immunities of native
Hebrews. The Hebrew Slave Code, applicable to Enslaved Hebrews, is
in these words:
"'And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold
unto thee, and serve thee six years, then in the seventh year thou
shalt let him go Free from thee.'
"Here I request the attention of those who claim compensation for
Emancipated Slaves to the text:
"'And when thou sendest him out Free from thee, thou shalt not let
him go away empty:
"'Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy floor'--
"Which means granaries--
"'and out of thy wine-press: of that wherewith the Lord thy God
hath blessed thee, thou shalt give unto him.'
"'It shall not seem hard unto thee, when thou sendest him away Free
from thee, for he hath been worth a double-hired servant to thee,
in serving thee six years.'
"These Hebrew Statutes provide that the heathen might be purchased
and held as Slaves, and their posterity after them; that under
their Naturalization Laws all strangers and sojourners, Bond and
Free, have the privilege of acquiring the rights of citizenship;
that all Hebrews, natives or naturalized, might assert and maintain
their right to Freedom.
"At the end of six years a Hebrew Slave thus demanding his Liberty,
was not to be sent away empty; the owner, so far from claiming
compensation from his neighbors or from the Public Treasury for
setting him Free, was bound to divide with the Freedman, of his own
possessions: to give him of his flocks, of his herds, of his
granary, and of his winepress, of everything with which the Lord
Almighty had blessed the master during the years of his Servitude;
and then the owner was admonished that he was not to regard it as a
hardship to be required to Liberate the Slave, and to divide with
him of his substance.
"The Almighty places the Liberated Slave's claim to a division of
his former master's property on the eternal principles of Justice,
the duty to render an equivalent for an equivalent. The Slave
having served six years must be paid for his Service, must be paid
liberally because he had been worth even more than a hired servant
during the period of his enslavement.
"If, then," continued Mr. Harlan, "the justice of this claim cannot
be found either in Reason, Natural Justice, or the principles of
the Common Law, or in any positive Municipal or Statute regulation
of any State, or in the Hebrew Code written by the Finger of God
protruded from the flame of fire on the summit of Sinai, I ask
whence the origin of the title to the services of the adult
offspring of the Slave mother? or is it not manifest that there is
no just title? Is it not a mere usurpation without any known mode
of justification, under any existing Code of Laws, human or
Divine?"]
He also undertook to justify Secession on the singular ground that "we
are sprung from a Race of Secessionists," the proof of which he held to
be in the fact that, while the preamble to, as well as the body of the
Convention of Ratification of, the old Articles of Confederation between
the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and
Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and
Georgia, declared that Confederation to be a "Perpetual Union," yet,
within nine years thereafter, all the other States Seceded from New
York, Virginia, North Carolina, and Rhode Island by ratifying the new
Constitution for "a more perfect Union."
He also endeavored to maintain the extraordinary proposition that "if
the Senate of the United States were to adopt this Joint-resolution, and
were to submit it to all the States of this Union, and if three-fourths
of the States should ratify the Amendment, it would not be binding on
any State whose interest was affected by it, if that State protested
against it!" And beyond all this, he re-echoed the old, old cry of the
Border-state men, that "the time is unpropitious for such a measure as
this."
Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland, however, by his great speech, of April
5th, in the Senate, did much to clear the tangle in the minds of some
faltering Union statesmen on this important subject.
He reviewed the question of human Slavery from the time when the
Constitutional Convention was held; showed that at that period, as well
as at the time of the Declaration of our Independence "there was but one
sentiment upon the subject among enlightened Southern statesmen"--and
that was, that Slavery "is a great affliction to any Country where it
prevails;" and declared that "a prosperous and permanent Peace can never
be secured if the Institution is permitted to survive."
He then traversed the various methods by which statesmen were seeking to
prevent that survival of Slavery, addressing himself by turns to the
arguments of those who, with John Sherman, "seemed," said he, "to
consider it as within the power of Congress by virtue of its Legislative
authority;" to those of the "many well-judging men, with the President
at their head, who," to again use his own words, "seem to suppose that
it is within the reach of the Executive;" and lastly, to those "who
express the opinion that it is not within the scope of either Executive
or Legislative authority, or of Constitutional Amendment;" and after
demolishing the arguments of those who held the two former of these
positions, he proceeded to rebut the assumption that Slavery could not
be abolished at all because it was not originally abolished by the
Constitution.
Continuing, he said: "Remember, now, the question is, can that
Institution, which deals with Humanity as Property, which claims to
shackle the mind, the soul, and the body, which brings to the level of
the brute a portion of the race of Man, cease to be within the reach of
the political power of the People of the United States, not because it
was not at one time within their power, but because at that time they
did not exert the power?
"What says the Preamble to the Constitution? How pregnant with a
conclusive answer is the Preamble, to the proposition that Slavery
cannot be abolished! What does that Preamble state to have been the
chief objects that the great and wise and good men had at heart, in
recommending the Constitution, with that Preamble, to the adoption of
the American People? That Justice might be established; that
Tranquillity might be preserved; that the common Defense and general
Welfare might be maintained; and, last and chief of all, that Liberty
might be secured.
"Is there no Justice in putting an end to human Slavery? Is there no
danger to the Tranquillity of the Country in its existence? May it not
interfere with the common Defense and general Welfare? And, above all,
is it consistent with any notion, which the mind of man can conceive, of
human Liberty?"
He held that the very Amendatory clause of the Constitution under which
it was proposed to make this Amendment, was probably inserted there from
a conviction of that coming time "when Justice would call so loudly for
the extinction of the Institution that her call could not be disobeyed,"
and, when "the Peace and Tranquillity of the Land would demand, in
thunder tones," its destruction, "as inconsistent with such Peace and
Tranquillity."
To the atrocious pretence that "there was a right to make a Slave of any
human being"--which he said would have shocked every one of the framers
of the Constitution had they heard it; and, what he termed, the nauseous
declaration that "Slavery of the Black race is of Divine origin," and
was intended to be perpetual; he said:
"The Saviour of Mankind did not put an end to it by physical power, or
by the declaration of any existing illegality, in word. His mission
upon Earth was not to propagate His doctrines by force. He came to
save, not to conquer. His purpose was not to march armed legions
throughout the habitable Globe, securing the allegiance of those for
whose safety He was striving. He warred by other influences. He aimed
at the heart, principally. He inculcated his doctrines, more ennobling
than any that the World, enlightened as it was before His advent upon
Earth, had been able to discover. He taught to Man the obligation of
brotherhood. He announced that the true duty of Man was to do to others
as he would have others do to him--to all men, the World over; and
unless some convert to the modern doctrine that Slavery itself finds not
only a guarantee for its existence, but for its legal existence, in the
Scripture, excepts from the operation of the influences which His
morality brought to bear on the mind of the Christian world, the Black
man, and shows that it was not intended to apply to Black men, then it
is not true, it cannot be true, that He designed His doctrine not to be
equally applicable to the Black and to the White, to the Race of Man as
he then existed, or as he might exist in all after-time."
To the assumption that the African Slaves were too utterly deficient and
degraded, mentally and morally, to appreciate the blessings of Freedom,
he opposed the eloquent fact that "wherever the flag of the United
States, the symbol of human Liberty, now goes; under it, from their
hereditary bondage, are to be found men and women and children
assembling and craving its protection 'fleeing from' the iron of
oppression that had pierced their souls, to the protection of that flag
where they are 'gladdened by the light of Liberty.'"
"It is idle to deny," said he--"we feel it in our own persons--how, with
reference to that sentiment, all men are brethren. Look to the
illustrations which the times now afford, how, in the illustration of
that sentiment, do we differ from the Black man? He is willing to incur
every personal danger which promises to result in throwing down his
shackles, and making him tread the Earth, which God has created for all,
as a man, and not as a Slave."
Said he: "It is an instinct of the Soul. Tyranny may oppress it for
ages and centuries; the pall of despotism may hang over it; but the
sentiment is ever there; it kindles into a flame in the very furnace of
affliction, and it avails itself of the first opportunity that offers,
promising the least chance of escape, and wades through blood and
slaughter to achieve it, and, whether it succeeds or fails,
demonstrates, vindicates in the very effort, the inextinguishable right
to Liberty."
He thought that mischiefs might result from this measure, owing to the
uneducated condition of the Slave, but they would be but temporary. At
all events to "suffer those Africans," said he, "whom we are calling
around our standard, and asking to aid us in restoring the Constitution
and the power of the Government to its rightful authority, to be reduced
to bondage again," would be "a disgrace to the Nation." The
"Institution" must be terminated.
"Terminate it," continued he, "and the wit of man will, as I think, be
unable to devise any other topic upon which we can be involved in a
fratricidal strife. God and nature, judging by the history of the past,
intend us to be one. Our unity is written in the mountains and the
rivers, in which we all have an interest. The very differences of
climate render each important to the other, and alike important.
"That mighty horde which, from time to time, have gone from the
Atlantic, imbued with all the principles of human Freedom which animated
their fathers in running the perils of the mighty Deep and seeking
Liberty here, are now there; and as they have said, they will continue
to say, until time shall be no more: 'We mean that the Government in
future shall be, as it has been in the past--Once an exemplar of human
Freedom, for the light and example of the World; illustrating in the
blessings and the happiness it confers, the truth of the principles
incorporated into the Declaration of Independence, that Life and Liberty
are Man's inalienable right."
Fortunately the Democratic opposition, in the Senate, to
this measure, was too small in numbers to beat the proposed Amendment,
but by offering amendments to it, its enemies succeeded in delaying its
adoption.
However, on the 5th of April, an amendment, offered by Garrett Davis,
was acted upon. It was to strike out all after the preamble of the
XIIIth Article of Amendment to the Constitution, proposed by the
Judiciary Committee, and insert the words:
"No Negro, or Person whose mother or grandmother is or was a Negro,
shall be a citizen of the United States and be eligible to any Civil or
Military office, or to any place of trust or profit under the United
States."
Mr. Davis's amendment was rejected by a vote of 5 yeas to 32 nays; when
he immediately moved to amend, by adding precisely the same words at the
end of Section 1 of the proposed Article. It was again rejected. He
then moved to amend by adding to the said Section these words:
"But no Slave shall be entitled to his or her Freedom under this
Amendment if resident at the time it takes effect in any State, the laws
of which forbid Free Negroes to reside therein, until removed from such
State by the Government of the United States."
This also was rejected. Whereupon Mr. Powell moved to add, at the end
of the first Section, the words:
"No Slave shall be Emancipated by this Article unless the owner thereof
shall be first paid the value of the Slave or Slaves so Emancipated."
This likewise was rejected, on a yea and nay vote, by 2 yeas (Davis and
Powell) to 34 nays; when Mr. Davis moved another amendment, viz.: to add
at the end of Section 2 of the proposed Article, the following:
"And when this Amendment of the Constitution shall have taken effect by
Freeing the Slaves, Congress shall provide for the distribution and
settlement of all the population of African descent in the United States
among the several States and Territories thereof, in proportion to the
White population of each State and Territory to the aggregate population
of those of African descent."
This met a like fate; whereupon the Senate adjourned, but, on the
following day, the matter came up again for consideration:
Hale, of New Hampshire, jubilantly declared that "this is a day that I
and many others have long wished for, long hoped for, long striven for.
* * * A day when the Nation is to commence its real life; or, if it is
not the day, it is the dawning of the day; the day is near at hand * * *
when the American People are to wake up to the meaning of the sublime
truths which their fathers uttered years ago, and which have slumbered,
dead-letters, upon the pages of our Constitution, of our Declaration of
Independence, and of our history."
McDougall, of California, on the other hand,--utterly regardless of the
grandly patriotic resolutions of the Legislature of his State, which had
just been presented to the Senate by his colleague--lugubriously
declared:
"In my judgment, it may well be said of us:
'Let the Heavens be hung in black
And let the Earth put mourning on,'
for in the history of no Free People, since the time the Persians came
down upon Athens, have I known as melancholy a period as this day and
year of Our Lord in our history; and if we can, by the blessing of God
and by His favor, rise above it, it will be by His special providence,
and by no act of ours."
The obstructive tactics were now resumed, Mr. Powell leading off by a
motion to amend, by adding to the Judiciary Committee's proposed
Thirteenth Article of the Constitution, the following:
"ART. 14.--The President and Vice-President shall hold their Offices for
the term of four--[Which he subsequently modified to: 'six years']
--years. The person who has filled the Office of President shall not be
reeligible."
This amendment was rejected by 12 yeas to 32 nays; whereupon Mr. Powell
moved to add to the Committee's Proposition another new Article, as
follows:
"ART. 14.--The principal Officer in each of the Executive Departments,
and all persons connected with the Diplomatic Service, may be removed
from office at the pleasure of the President. All other officers of the
Executive Departments may be removed at any time by the President or
other appointing power when their services are unnecessary, or for
dishonesty, incapacity, inefficiency, misconduct, or neglect of duty,
and when so removed, the removal shall be reported to the Senate,
together with the reasons therefor."
This amendment also being rejected, Mr. Powell offered another, which
was to add a separate Article as follows:
"ART. 14.--Every law, or Resolution having the force of law, shall
relate to but one subject, and that shall be expressed in its title."
This also being rejected--the negative vote being, as in other cases,
without reference to the merits of the proposition--and Mr. Powell
having now apparently exhausted his obstructive amendatory talents, Mr.
Davis came to the aid of his Kentucky colleague by moving an amendment,
to come in as an additional Article, being a new plan of Presidential
election designed to do away with the quadrennial Presidential campaign
before the People by giving to each State the right to nominate one
candidate, and leaving it to a Convention of both Houses of Congress
--and, in case of disagreement, to the Supreme Court of the United States
--to elect a President and a Vice-President.
The rejection of this proposition apparently exhausted the stock of
possible amendments possessed by the Democratic opposition, and the
Joint Resolution, precisely as it came from the Judiciary Committee,
having been agreed to by that body, "as in Committee of the Whole," was
now, April 6th, reported to the Senate for its concurrence.
On the following day, Mr. Hendricks uttered a lengthy jeremiad on the
War, and its lamentable results; intimated that along the Mississippi,
the Negroes, freed by the advance of our invading Armies and Navies,
instead of being happy and industrious, were without protection or
provision and almost without clothing, while at least 200,000 of them
had prematurely perished, and that such was the fate reserved for the
4,000,000 Negroes if liberated; and declared he would not vote for the
Resolution, "because," said he, "the times are not auspicious."
Very different indeed was the attitude of Mr. Henderson, of Missouri,
Border-State man though he was. In the course of a speech, of much
power, which he opened with an allusion to the 115,000 Slaves owned in
his State in 1860--as showing how deeply interested Missouri "must be in
the pending proposition"--the Senator announced that: "Our great
interest, as lovers of the Union, is in the preservation and
perpetuation of the Union." He declared himself a Slaveholder, yet none
the less desired the adoption of this Thirteenth Article of Amendment,
for, said he: "We cannot save the Institution if we would. We ought not
if we could. * * * If it were a blessing, I, for one, would be
defending it to the last. It is a curse, and not a blessing. Therefore
let it go. * * * Let the iniquity be cast away!"
It was about this time that a remarkable letter written by Mr. Lincoln
to a Kentuckian, on the subject of Emancipation, appeared in print. It
is interesting as being not alone the President's own statement of his
views, from the beginning, as to Slavery, and how he came to be "driven"
to issue the Proclamation of Emancipation, and as showing how the Union
Cause had gained by its issue, but also in disclosing, indirectly, how
incessantly the subject was revolved in his own mind, and urged by him
upon the minds of others. The publication of the letter, moreover, was
not without its effect on the ultimate action of the Congress and the
States in adopting the Thirteenth Amendment. It ran thus:
"EXECUTIVE MANSION.
"WASHINGTON, April 4, 1864.
"A. G. HODGES, Esq., Frankfort, Ky.
"MY DEAR SIR: You ask me to put in writing the substance of--what I
verbally said the other day, in your presence, to Governor Bramlette and
Senator Dixon. It was about as follows:
"I am naturally anti-Slavery. If Slavery is not wrong, nothing is
wrong. I cannot remember when I did not so think and feel, and yet I
have never understood that the 'Presidency conferred upon me an
unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling.
"It was in the oath I took, that I would to the best of my ability
preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I
could not take the Office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view
that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using the
power.
"I understood, too, that in ordinary and Civil Administration this oath
even forbade me to practically indulge my primary abstract judgment on
the moral question of Slavery. I had publicly declared this many times,
and in many ways.
"And I aver that, to this day, I have done no Official act in mere
deference to my abstract judgment and feeling on Slavery.
"I did understand, however, that my oath to preserve the Constitution to
the best of my ability, imposed upon me the duty of preserving by every
indispensable means, that Government--that Nation, of which that
Constitution was the Organic Law.
"Was it possible to lose the Nation and yet preserve the Constitution?
"By General Law, life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb must
be amputated to save a life; but a life is never wisely given to save a
limb. I felt that measures, otherwise Unconstitutional, might become
lawful, by becoming Indispensable to the Constitution through the
preservation of the Nation.
"Right or wrong, I assumed this ground, and now avow it. I could not
feel that, to the best of my ability, I have even tried to preserve the
Constitution, if, to save Slavery, or any minor matter, I should permit
the wreck of Government, Country, and Constitution, altogether.
"When, early in the War, General Fremont attempted Military
Emancipation, I forbade it, because I did not then think it an
Indispensable Necessity.
"When, a little later, General Cameron, then Secretary of War, suggested
the Arming of the Blacks, I objected, because I did not yet think it an
Indispensable Necessity.
"When, still later, General Hunter attempted Military Emancipation, I
again forbade it, because I did not yet think the Indispensable
Necessity had come.
"When in March, and May, and July, 1862, I made earnest and successive
appeals to the Border-States to favor compensated Emancipation, I
believed the Indispensable Necessity for Military Emancipation and
arming the Blacks would come, unless averted by that measure.
"They declined the proposition, and I was, in my best judgment, driven
to the alternative of either surrendering the Union, and with it, the
Constitution, or of laying strong hand upon the Colored element. I
chose the latter. In choosing it, I hoped for greater gain than loss,
but of this I was not entirely confident.
"More than a year of trial now shows no loss by it in our Foreign
Relations, none in our home popular sentiment, none in our white
Military force, no loss by it anyhow, or anywhere. On the contrary, it
shows a gain of quite a hundred and thirty thousand soldiers, seamen,
and laborers.
"These are palpable facts, about which, as facts, there can be no
cavilling. We have the men; and we could not have had them without the
measure.
"And now let any Union man who complains of this measure, test himself
by writing down in one line, that he is for subduing the Rebellion by
force of arms; and in the next, that he is for taking one hundred and
thirty thousand men from the Union side, and placing them where they
would be best for the measure he condemns. If he cannot face his case
so stated, it is only because he cannot face the truth.
"I add a word which was not in the verbal conversation. In telling this
tale, I attempt no compliment to my own sagacity. I claim not to have
controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.
Now at the end of three years' struggle, the Nation's condition is not
what either Party, or any man, devised or expected. God alone can claim
it.
"Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a
great wrong, and wills also that we of the North, as well as you of the
South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial
history will find therein new causes to attest and revere the Justice
and goodness of God.
"Yours truly,
"A. LINCOLN."
The 8th of April (1864) turned out to be the decisive field-day in the
Senate. Sumner endeavored to close the debate on that day in a speech
remarkable no less for its power and eloquence of statement, its
strength of Constitutional exposition, and its abounding evidences of
extensive historical research and varied learning, than for its
patriotic fervor and devotion to human Freedom.
Toward the end of that great speech, however, he somewhat weakened its
force by suggesting a change in the phraseology of the proposed
Thirteenth Amendment, so that, instead of almost precisely following the
language of the Jeffersonian Ordinance of 1787, as recommended by the
Judiciary Committee of the Senate, it should read thus:
"All Persons are Equal before the Law, so that no person can hold
another as a Slave; and the Congress may make all laws necessary and
proper to carry this Article into effect everywhere within the United
States and the jurisdiction thereof."
Mr. Sumner's idea in antagonizing the Judiciary Committee's proposition
with this, was to introduce into our Organic Act, distinctive words
asserting the "Equality before the Law" of all persons, as expressed in
the Constitutional Charters of Belgium, Italy and Greece, as well as in
the various Constitutions of France--beginning with that of September,
1791, which declared (Art. 1) that "Men are born and continue Free and
Equal in Rights;" continuing in that of June, 1793, which declares that
"All Men are Equal by Nature and before the Law:" in that of June, 1814,
which declares that "Frenchmen are Equal before the Law, whatever may be
otherwise their title and ranks;" and in the Constitutional Charter of
August, 1830 in similar terms to the last.
"But," said he, "while desirous of seeing the great rule of Freedom
which we are about to ordain, embodied in a text which shall be like the
precious casket to the more precious treasure, yet * * * I am consoled
by the thought that the most homely text containing such a rule will be
more beautiful far than any words of poetry or eloquence, and that it
will endure to be read with gratitude when the rising dome of this
Capitol, with the Statue of Liberty which surmounts it, has crumbled to
dust."
Mr. Sumner's great speech, however, by no means ended the debate. It
brought Mr. Powell to his feet with a long and elaborate contention
against the general proposition, in the course of which he took occasion
to sneer at Sumner's "most remarkable effort," as one of his "long
illogical rhapsodies on Slavery, like:
'--a Tale
Told by an Idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.'"
He professed that he wanted "the Union to be restored with the
Constitution as it is;" that he verily believed the passage of this
Amendment would be "the most effective Disunion measure that could be
passed by Congress"--and, said he, "As a lover of the Union I oppose
it."
[This phrase slightly altered, in words, but not in meaning, to
"The Union as it was, and the Constitution as it is," afterward
became the Shibboleth under which the Democratic Party in the
Presidential Campaign of 1864, marched to defeat.]
He endeavored to impute the blame for the War, to the northern
Abolitionists, for, said he: "Had there been no Abolitionists, North,
there never would have been a Fire-eater, South,"--apparently ignoring
the palpable fact that had there been no Slavery in the South, there
could have been no "Abolitionists, North."
He heatedly denounced the "fanatical gentlemen" who desired the passage
of this measure; declared they intended by its passage "to destroy the
Institution of Slavery or to destroy the Union," and exclaimed: "Pass
this Amendment and you make an impassable chasm, as if you were to put a
lake of burning fire, between the adhering States and those who are out.
You will then have to make it a War of conquest and extermination before
you can ever bring them back under the flag of the Government. There is
no doubt about that proposition."
Mr. Sumner, at this point, withdrew his proposed amendment, at the
suggestion of Mr. Howard, who expressed a preference "to dismiss all
reference to French Constitutions and French Codes, and go back to the
good old Anglo-Saxon language employed by our Fathers, in the Ordinance
of 1787, (in) an expression adjudicated upon repeatedly, which is
perfectly well understood both by the public and by Judicial Tribunals
--a phrase, which is peculiarly near and dear to the people of the
Northwestern Territory, from whose soil Slavery was excluded by it."
[The following is the language of "the Ordinance of 1787" thus
referred to:
"ART. 6.--There shall be neither Slavery nor Involuntary Servitude
in the said Territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes,
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: * * *."]
Mr. Davis thereupon made another opposition speech and, at its
conclusion, Mr. Saulsbury offered, as a substitute, an Article,
comprising no less than twenty sections--that, he said, "embodied in
them some things" which "did not meet his personal approbation," but he
had consented to offer them to the Senate as "a Compromise"--as "a Peace
offering."
The Saulsbury substitute being voted down, the debate closed with a
speech by Mr. McDougall--an eloquent protest from his standpoint, in
which, after endorsing the wild statement of Mr. Hendricks that 250,000
of the people of African descent had been prematurely destroyed on the
Mississippi, he continued.
"This policy will ingulf them. It is as simple a truth as has ever been
taught by any history. The Slaves of ancient time were not the Slaves
of a different Race. The Romans compelled the Gaul and the Celt,
brought them to their own Country, and some of them became great poets,
and some eloquent orators, and some accomplished wits, and they became
citizens of the Republic of Greece, and of the Republic of Rome, and of
the Empire.
"This is not the condition of these persons with whom we are now
associated, and about whose affairs we undertake to establish
administration. They can never commingle with us. It may not be within
the reading of some learned Senators, and yet it belongs to demonstrated
Science, that the African race and the European are different; and I
here now say it as a fact established by science, that the eighth
generation of the Mixed race formed by the union of the African and
European, cannot continue their species. Quadroons have few children;
with Octoroons reproduction is impossible.
"It establishes as a law of nature that the African has no proper
relation to the European, Caucasian, blood. I would have them kindly
treated. * * * Against all such policy and all such conduct I shall
protest as a man, in the name of humanity, and of law, and of truth, and
of religion."
The amendment made, as in Committee of the Whole, having been concurred
in, etc., the Joint Resolution, as originally reported by the Judiciary
Committee, was at last passed, (April 8th)--by a vote of 38 yeas to 6
nays--Messrs. Hendricks and McDougall having the unenviable distinction
of being the only two Senators, (mis-)representing Free States, who
voted against this definitive Charter of American Liberty.
[The full Senate vote, on passing the Thirteenth Amendment, was:
YEAS-Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Chandler, Clark, Collamer, Conness,
Cowan, Dixon, Doolittle, Fessenden, Foot, Foster, Grimes, Hale,
Harding, Harlan, Harris, Henderson, Howard, Howe, Johnson, Lane of
Indiana, Lane of Kansas, Morgan, Morrill, Nesmith, Pomeroy, Ramsey,
Sherman, Sprague, Sumner, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Wade,
Wilkinson, Willey, and Wilson--38.
NAYs--Messrs. Davis, Hendricks, McDougall, Powell, Riddle, and
Saulsbury.]
CHAPTER XXIV.
TREASON IN THE NORTHERN CAMPS.
The immortal Charter of Freedom had, as we have seen, with comparative
ease, after a ten days' debate, by the power of numbers, run the
gauntlet of the Senate; but now it was to be subjected to the much more
trying and doubtful ordeal of the House. What would be its fate there?
This was a question which gave to Mr. Lincoln, and the other friends of
Liberty and Union, great concern.
It is true that various votes had recently been taken in that body, upon
propositions which had an indirect bearing upon the subject of
Emancipation, as, for instance, that of the 1st of February, 1864, when,
by a vote of 80 yeas to 46 nays, it had adopted a Resolution declaring
"That a more vigorous policy to enlist, at an early day, and in larger
numbers, in our Army, persons of African descent, would meet the
approbation of the House;" and that vote, although indirect, being so
very nearly a two-thirds vote, was most encouraging. But, on the other
hand, a subsequent Resolution, squarely testing the sense of the House
upon the subject, had been carried by much less than a two-thirds vote.
This latter Resolution, offered by Mr. Arnold, after conference with Mr.
Lincoln, with the very purpose of making a test, was in these direct
terms:
"Resolved, That the Constitution shall be so amended as to Abolish
Slavery in the United States wherever it now exists, and to prohibit its
existence in every part thereof forever."
The vote, adopting it, was but 78 yeas to 62 nays. * This vote,
therefore, upon the Arnold Resolution, being nowhere near the two-thirds
affirmative vote necessary to secure the passage through the House of
the Senate Joint Resolution on this subject amendatory of the
Constitution, was most discouraging.
It was definite enough, however, to show the necessity of a change from
the negative to the affirmative side of at least fifteen votes. While
therefore the outlook was discouraging it was far from hopeless. The
debate in the Senate had already had its effect upon the public mind.
That, and the utterances of Mr. Lincoln--and further discussion in the
House, it was thought, might produce such a pressure from the loyal
constituencies both in the Free and Border Slave-States as to compel
success.
But from the very beginning of the year 1864, as if instinctively aware
that their Rebel friends were approaching the crisis of their fate, and
needed now all the help that their allies of the North could give them,
the Anti-War Democrats, in Congress, and out, had been stirring
themselves with unusual activity.
In both Houses of Congress, upon all possible occasions, they
had been striving, as they still strove, with the venom of their
widely-circulated speeches, to poison the loyal Northern and
Border-State mind, in the hope that the renomination of Mr. Lincoln
might be defeated, the chance for Democratic success at the coming
Presidential election be thereby increased, and, if nothing else came
of it, the Union Cause be weakened and the Rebel Cause correspondingly
strengthened.
At the same time, evidently under secret instructions from their
friends, the Conspirators in arms, they endeavored to create
heart-burnings and jealousies and ill-feeling between the Eastern
(especially the New England) States and the Western States, and
unceasingly attacked the Protective-Tariff, Internal Revenue, the
Greenback, the Draft, and every other measure or thing upon which the
life of the Union depended.
Most of these Northern-Democratic agitators, "Stealing the livery of
Heaven to serve the Devil in," endeavored to conceal their treacherous
designs under a veneer of gushing lip-loyalty, but that disguise was
"too thin" to deceive either their contemporaries or those who come
after them. Some of their language too, as well as their blustering
manner, strangely brought back to recollection the old days of Slavery
when the plantation-whip was cracked in the House, and the air was blue
with execration of New England.
Said Voorhees, of Indiana, (January 11, 1864) when the House was
considering a Bill "to increase the Internal Revenue and for other
purposes:"
"I want to know whether the West has any friends upon the floor of this
House? We pay every dollar that is to be levied by this Tax Bill. * *
* The Manufacturing Interest pays not a dollar into the public Treasury
that stays there. And yet airs of patriotism are put on here by men
representing that interest. I visited New England last Summer, * * *
when I heard the swelling hum of her Manufactories, and saw those who
only a short time ago worked but a few hands, now working their
thousands, and rolling up their countless wealth, I felt that it was an
unhealthy prosperity. To my mind it presented a wealth wrung from the
labor, the sinews, the bone and muscle of the men who till the soil,
taxed to an illegitimate extent to foster and support that great System
of local wealth. * * * I do not intend to stand idly by and see one
portion of the Country robbed and oppressed for the benefit of another."
And the same day, replying to Mr. Morrill of Vermont, he exclaimed: "Let
him show me that the plethoric, bloated Manufacturers of New England are
paying anything to support the Government, and I will recognize it."
Washburne, of Illinois got back at this part of Mr. Voorhees's speech
rather neatly, by defending the North-west as being "not only willing to
stand taxation" which had been "already imposed, but * * * any
additional taxation which," said he, "may be necessary to crush out this
Rebellion, and to hang the Rebels in the South, and the Rebel
sympathizers in the North." And, he pointedly added: "Complaint has
been made against New England. I know that kind of talk. I have heard
too often that kind of slang about New England. I heard it here for ten
years, when your Barksdales, and your Keitts's, and your other Traitors,
now in arms against the Government, filled these Halls with their
pestilential assaults not only upon New England, but on the Free North
generally."
Kelley of Pennsylvania, however, more fitly characterized the speech of
Voorhees, when he termed it "a pretty, indeed a somewhat striking,
paraphrase of the argument of Mr. Lamar, the Rebel Agent,--[in 1886,
Secretary of the Interior]--to his confreres in Treason, as we find it
in the recently published correspondence: 'Drive gold coin out of the
Country, and induce undue Importation of Foreign products so as to
strike down the Financial System. You can have no further hope for
Foreign recognition. It is evident the weight of arms is against us;
and it is clear that we can only succeed by striking down the Financial
System of the Country.' It was an admirable paraphrase of the
Instructions of Mr. Lamar to the Rebel Agents in the North."
The impression was at this time abroad, and there were not wanting
elements of proof, that certain members of Congress were trusted
Lieutenants of the Arch-copperhead and Outlaw, Vallandigham. Certain it
is, that many of these leaders, six months before, attended and
addressed the great gathering from various parts of the Country, of
nearly one hundred thousand Vallandigham-Anti-War Peace-Democrats, at
Springfield, Illinois--the very home of Abraham Lincoln--which adopted,
during a lull, when they were not yelling themselves hoarse for
Vallandigham, a resolution declaring against "the further offensive
prosecution of the War" as being subversive of the Constitution and
Government, and proposing a National Peace Convention, and, as a
consequence, Peace, "the Union as it was," and, substantially such
Constitutional guarantees as the Rebels might choose to demand! And
this too, at a time (June 13, 1863), when Grant, after many recent
glorious victories, had been laying siege to Vicksburg, and its Rebel
Army of 37,000 men, for nearly a month, with every reason to hope for
its speedy fall.
No wonder that under such circumstances, the news of such a gathering of
the Northern Democratic sympathizers with Treason, and of their adoption
of such treasonable Resolutions, should encourage the Rebels in the same
degree that Union men were disheartened! No wonder that Lee, elated by
this and other evidences of Northern sympathy with Rebellion, at once
determined to commence a second grand invasion of the North, and on the
very next day (June 14th,) moved Northward with all his Rebel hosts to
be welcomed, he fondly hoped, by his Northern friends of Maryland and
elsewhere! As we have seen, it took the bloody Battle of Gettysburg to
undeceive him as to the character of that welcome.
Further than this, Mr. Cox had stumped Ohio, in the succeeding election,
in a desperate effort to make the banished Traitor, Vallandigham--the
Chief Northern commander of the "Knights of the Golden Circle"
(otherwise known as the "Order of the Sons of Liberty," and "O. A. K."
or "Order of American Knights")--Governor of that great State.
[The Rebel General Sterling Price being the chief Southern
commander of this many-named treasonable organization, which in the
North alone numbered over 500,000 men.
August, 1864.--See Report of Judge Advocate Holt on certain "Secret
Associations," in Appendix,]
And it only lacked a few months of the time when quantities of copies of
the treasonable Ritual of the "Order of American Knights"--as well as
correspondence touching the purchase of thousands of Garibaldi rifles
for transportation to the West--were found in the offices of leading
Democrats then in Congress.
When, therefore, it is said, and repeated, that there were not wanting
elements of proof, outside of Congressional utterances and actions, that
leading Democrats in Congress were trusted Lieutenants of the Supreme
Commander of over half a million of Northern Rebel-sympathizers bound
together, and to secrecy, by oaths, which were declared to be paramount
to all other oaths, the violation of which subjected the offender to a
shameful death somewhat like that, of being "hung, drawn, and
quartered," which was inflicted in the middle ages for the crime of
Treason to the Crown--it will be seen that the statement is supported by
circumstantial, if not by positive and direct, evidence.
Whether the Coxes, the Garret Davises, the Saulsburys, the Fernando
Woods, the Alexander Longs, the Allens, the Holmans, and many other
prominent Congressmen of that sort,--were merely in close communion with
these banded "Knights," or were actual members of their secret
organizations, may be an open question. But it is very certain that if
they all were not oath-bound members, they generally pursued the precise
methods of those who were; and that, as a rule, while they often loudly
proclaimed loyalty and love for the Union, they were always ready to act
as if their loyalty and love were for the so-called Confederacy.
Indeed, it was one of these other "loyal" Democrats, who even preceded
Voorhees, in raising the Sectional cry of: The West, against New
England. It was on this same Internal Revenue Bill, that Holman of
Indiana had, the day before Voorhees's attack, said:
"If the Manufacture of the Northwest is to be taxed so heavily, a
corresponding rate of increase must be imposed on the Manufactures of
New England and Pennsylvania, or, will gentlemen tax us without limit
for the benefit of their own Section? * * * I protest against what I
believe is intended to be a discrimination against one Section of the
Country, by increasing the tax three-fold, without a corresponding
increase upon the burdens of other Sections."
But these dreadfully "loyal" Democrats--who did the bidding of
traitorous masters in their Treason to the Union, and thus, while
posturing as "Patriots," "fired upon the rear" of our hard-pressed
Armies--were super-sensitive on this point. And, when they could get
hold of a quiet sort of a man, inclined to peaceful methods of
discussion, how they would, terrier-like, pounce upon him, and extract
from him, if they could, some sort of negative satisfaction!
Thus, for instance, on the 22nd of January, when one of these quiet men
--Morris of New York--was in the midst of an inoffensive speech, Mr. Cox
"bristled up," and blusteringly asked whether he meant to say that he
(Cox) had "ever been the apologist or the defender of a Traitor?"
And Morris not having said so, mildly replied that he did "not so
charge"--all of which little bit of by-play hugely pleased the touchy
Mr. Cox, and his clansmen.
But on the day following, their smiles vanished under the words of
Spalding or Ohio, who, after referring to the crocodile-tears shed by
Democratic Congressmen over the Confiscation Resolution--on the pretense
that it would hunt down "innocent women and children" of the Rebels,
when they had never a word of sympathy for the widows and children of
the two hundred thousand dead soldiers of the Union-continued:
"They can see our poor soldiers return, minus an arm, minus a leg, as
they pass through these lobbies, but their only care is to protect the
property of Rebels. And we are asked by one of my colleagues, (Mr. Cox)
does the gentleman from New York intend to call us Traitors? My friend,
Mr. Morris, modestly answered no! If he had asked that question of me,
he knows what my answer would have been! I have seen Rebel officers at
Johnson's Island, and I have taken them by the hand because they have
fought us fairly in the field and did not seek to break down the
Government while living under its protection. Yes, Sir, that gentleman
knows that I would have said to him that I have more respect for an open
and avowed Traitor in the field, than for a sympathizer in this Hall.
Four months have scarcely gone by since that gentleman and his political
friends were advocating the election of a man for the Gubernatorial
office in my State, who was an open and avowed advocate of Secession--AN
OUTLAW AT THAT!"
And old Thaddeus Stevens--the clear-sighted and courageous "Old
Commoner"--followed up Spalding, and struck very close to the root and
animus of the Democratic opposition, when he exclaimed:
"All this struggle by calm and dignified and moderate 'Patriots;' all
this clamor against 'Radicals;' all this cry of 'the Union as it Was,
and the Constitution as it Is;' is but a persistent effort to
reestablish Slavery, and to rivet anew and forever the chains of Bondage
on the limbs of Immortal beings. May the God of Justice thwart their
designs and paralyze their wicked efforts!"
CHAPTER XXV.
"THE FIRE IN THE REAR."
The treacherous purposes of professedly-loyal Copperheads being seen
through, and promptly and emphatically denounced to the Country by Union
statesmen, the Copperheads aforesaid concluded that the profuse
circulation of their own Treason-breeding speeches--through the medium
of the treasonable organizations before referred to, permeating the
Northern States,--would more than counteract all that Union men could
say or do. Besides, the fiat had gone forth, from their Rebel masters
at Richmond, to Agitate the North.
Hence, day after day, Democrat after Democrat, in the one House or the
other, continued to air his disloyal opinions, and to utter more or less
virulent denunciations of the Government which guarded and protected
him.
Thus, Brooks, of New York, on the 25th of January (1864), sneeringly
exclaimed: "Why, what absurdity it is to talk at this Capitol of
prosecuting the War by the liberation of Slaves, when from the dome of
this building there can be heard at this hour the booming of cannon in
the distance!"
Thus, also, on the day following, Fernando Wood--the same man who,
while Mayor of New York at the outbreak of the Rebellion, had, under
Rebel-guidance, proposed the Secession from the Union, and the
Independence, of that great Metropolis,--declared to the House that: "No
Government has pursued a foe with such unrelenting, vindictive malignity
as we are now pursuing those who came into the Union with us, whose
blood has been freely shed on every battle-field of the Country until
now, with our own; who fought by our side in the American Revolution,
and in the War of 1812 with Great Britain; who bore our banners bravest
and highest in our victorious march from Vera Cruz to the City of
Mexico, and who but yesterday sat in these Halls contributing toward the
maintenance of our glorious institutions."
Then he went on, in the spirit of prophecy, to declare that: "No purely
agricultural people, fighting for the protection of their own Domestic
Institutions upon their own soil, have ever yet been conquered. I say
further, that no revolted people have ever been subdued after they have
been able to maintain an Independent government for three years." And
then, warming up to an imperative mood, he made this explicit
announcement: "We are at War. * * * Whether it be a Civil War,
Rebellion, Revolution, or Foreign War, it matters little. IT MUST
CEASE; and I want this Administration to tell the American People WHEN
it will cease!" Again, only two days afterward, he took occasion to
characterize a Bill, amendatory of the enrollment Act, as "this
infamous, Unconstitutional conscription Act!"
C. A. White, of Ohio, was another of the malcontents who undertook, with
others of the same Copperhead faith, to "maintain, that," as he
expressed it, "the War in which we are at present engaged is wrong in
itself; that the policy adopted by the Party in power for its
prosecution is wrong; that the Union cannot be restored, or, if
restored, maintained, by the exercise of the coercive power of the
Government, by War; that the War is opposed to the restoration of the
Union, destructive of the rights of the States and the liberties of the
People. It ought, therefore, to be brought to a speedy and immediate
close."
It was about this time also that, emboldened by immunity from punishment
for these utterances in the interest of armed Rebels, Edgerton of
Indiana, was put forward to offer resolutions "for Peace, upon the basis
of a restoration of the Federal Union under the Constitution as it is,"
etc.
Thereafter, in both Senate and House, such speeches by
Rebel-sympathizers, the aiders and abettors of Treason, grew more
frequent and more virulent than ever. As was well said to the House,
by one of the Union members from Ohio (Mr. Eckley):
"A stranger, if he listened to the debates here, would think himself in
the Confederate Congress. I do not believe that if these Halls were
occupied to-day by Davis, Toombs, Wigfall, Rhett, and Pryor, they could
add anything to the violence of assault, the falsity of accusation, or
the malignity of attack, with which the Government has been assailed,
and the able, patriotic, and devoted men who are charged with its
Administration have been maligned, in both ends of the Capitol. The
closing scenes of the Thirty-Sixth Congress, the treasonable
declarations there made, contain nothing that we cannot hear, in the
freedom of debate, without going to Richmond or to the camps of Treason,
where most of the actors in those scenes are now in arms against us."
With such a condition of things in Congress, it is not surprising that
the Richmond Enquirer announced that the North was "distracted,
exhausted, and impoverished," and would, "through the agency of a strong
conservative element in the Free States," soon treat with the Rebels "on
acceptable terms."
Things indeed had reached such a pass, in the House of Representatives
especially, that it was felt they could not much longer go on in this
manner; that an example must be made of some one or other of these
Copperheads. But the very knowledge of the existence of such a feeling
of just and patriotic irritation against the continued free utterance of
such sentiments in the Halls of Congress, seemed only to make some of
them still more defiant. And, when the 8th of April dawned, it was
known among all the Democrats in Congress, that Alexander Long proposed
that day to make a speech which would "go a bow-shot beyond them all" in
uttered Treason. He would speak right out, what the other Conspirators
thought and meant, but dared not utter, before the World.
A crowded floor, and packed galleries, were on hand to listen to the
written, deliberate Treason, as it fell from his lips in the House. His
speech began with an arraignment of the Government for treachery,
incompetence, failure, tyranny, and all sorts of barbarous actions and
harsh intentions, toward the Rebels--which led him to the indignant
exclamation:
"Will they throw down their arms and submit to the terms? Who shall
believe that the free, proud American blood, which courses with as quick
pulsation through their veins as our own, will not be spilled to the
last drop in resistance?"
Warming up, he proceeded to say: "Can the Union be restored by War? I
answer most unhesitatingly and deliberately, No, never; 'War is final,
eternal separation.'"
He claimed that the War was "wrong;" that it was waged "in violation of
the Constitution," and would "if continued, result speedily in the
destruction of the Government and the loss of Civil Liberty, and ought
therefore, to immediately cease."
He held also "that the Confederate States are out of the Union,
occupying the position of an Independent Power de facto; have been
acknowledged as a belligerent both by Foreign Nations and our own
Government; maintained their Declaration of Independence, for three
years, by force of arms; and the War has cut asunder all the obligations
that bound them under the Constitution."
"Much better," said he, "would it have been for us in the beginning,
much better would it be for us now, to consent to a division of our
magnificent Empire, and cultivate amicable relations with our estranged
brethren, than to seek to hold them to us by the power of the sword. *
* * I am reluctantly and despondingly forced to the conclusion that the
Union is lost, never to be restored. * * * I see neither North nor
South, any sentiment on which it is possible to build a Union. * * * in
attempting to preserve our Jurisdiction over the Southern States we have
lost our Constitutional Form of Government over the Northern. * * * The
very idea upon which this War is founded, coercion of States, leads to
despotism. * * * I now believe that there are but two alternatives, and
they are either an acknowledgment of the Independence of the South as an
independent Nation, or their complete subjugation and extermination as a
People; and of these alternatives I prefer the former."
As Long took his seat, amid the congratulations of his Democratic
friends, Garfield arose, and, to compliments upon the former's peculiar
candor and honesty, added denunciation for his Treason. After drawing
an effective parallel between Lord Fairfax and Robert E. Lee, both of
whom had cast their lots unwillingly with the enemies of this Land, when
the Wars of the Revolution and of the Rebellion respectively opened,
Garfield proceeded:
"But now, when hundreds of thousands of brave souls have gone up to God
under the shadow of the Flag, and when thousands more, maimed and
shattered in the Contest, are sadly awaiting the deliverance of death;
now, when three years of terrific warfare have raged over us, when our
Armies have pushed the Rebellion back over mountains and rivers and
crowded it back into narrow limits, until a wall of fire girds it; now,
when the uplifted hand of a majestic People is about to let fall the
lightning of its conquering power upon the Rebellion; now, in the quiet
of this Hall, hatched in the lowest depths of a similar dark Treason,
there rises a Benedict Arnold and proposes to surrender us all up, body
and spirit, the Nation and the Flag, its genius and its honor, now and
forever, to the accursed Traitors to our Country. And that proposition
comes--God forgive and pity my beloved State!--it comes from a citizen
of the honored and loyal Commonwealth of Ohio! I implore you, brethren
in this House, not to believe that many such births ever gave pangs to
my mother-State such as she suffered when that Traitor was born!"
As he uttered these sturdy words, the House and galleries were agitated
with that peculiar rustling movement and low murmuring sound known as a
"sensation," while the Republican side with difficulty restrained the
applause they felt like giving, until he sadly proceeded:
"I beg you not to believe that on the soil of that State another such
growth has ever deformed the face of Nature and darkened the light of
God's day."
The hush that followed was broken by the suggestive whisper:
"Vallandigham!"
"But, ah," continued the Speaker--as his voice grew sadder still--"I am
reminded that there are other such. My zeal and love for Ohio have
carried me too far. I retract. I remember that only a few days since,
a political Convention met at the Capital of my State, and almost
decided, to select from just such material, a representative for the
Democratic Party in the coming contest; and today, what claims to be a
majority of the Democracy of that State say that they have been cheated
or they would have made that choice!"
[This refers to Horatio Seymour, the Democratic Governor of New
York.]
After referring to the "insidious work" of the "Knights of the Golden
Circle" in seeking "to corrupt the Army and destroy its efficiency;" the
"riots and murders which," said he, "their agents are committing
throughout the Loyal North, under the lead and guidance of the Party
whose Representatives sit yonder across the aisle;" he continued: "and
now, just as the time is coming on when we are to select a President for
the next four years, one rises among them and fires the Beacon, throws
up the blue-light--which will be seen, and rejoiced over, at the Rebel
Capital in Richmond--as the signal that the Traitors in our camp are
organized and ready for their hellish work! I believe the utterance of
to-day is the uplifted banner of revolt. I ask you to mark the signal
that blazes here, and see if there will not soon appear the answering
signals of Traitors all over the Land. * * * If these men do mean to
light the torch of War in all our homes; if they have resolved to begin
the fearful work which will redden our streets, and this Capitol, with
blood, the American People should know it at once, and prepare to meet
it."
At the close of Mr. Garfield's patriotic and eloquent remarks, Mr. Long
again got the floor, declared that what he had said, he believed to be
right, and he would "stand by it," though he had to "stand solitary and
alone," and "even if it were necessary to brave bayonets, and prisons,
and all the tyranny which may be imposed by the whole power and force of
the Administration."
Said he: "I have deliberately uttered my sentiments in that speech, and
I will not retract one syllable of it." And, to "rub it in" a little
stronger, he exclaimed, as he took his seat, just before adjournment:
"Give me Liberty, even if confined to an Island of Greece, or a Canton
of Switzerland, rather than an Empire and a Despotism as we have here
to-day!"
This treasonable speech naturally created much excitement throughout the
Country.
On the following day (Saturday, April 9, 1864), immediately after
prayer, the reading of the Journal being dispensed with, the Speaker of
the House (Colfax) came down from the Speaker's Chair, and, from the
floor, offered a Preamble and Resolution, which ended thus:
"Resolved, That Alexander Long, a Representative from the second
district of Ohio, having, on the 8th day of April, 1864, declared
himself in favor of recognizing the Independence and Nationality of the
so-called Confederacy now in arms against the Union, and thereby 'given
aid, Countenance and encouragement to persons engaged in armed hostility
to the United States,' is hereby expelled."
The debate which ensued consumed nearly a week, and every member of
prominence, on both the Republican and Democratic sides, took part in
it--the Democrats almost invariably being careful to protest their own
loyalty, and yet attempting to justify the braver and more candid
utterances of the accused member.
Mr. Cox led off, April 9th, in the defense, by counterattack. He quoted
remarks made to the House (March 18, 1864) by Mr. Julian, of Indiana, to
the effect that "Our Country, united and Free, must be saved, at
whatever hazard or cost; and nothing, not even the Constitution, must be
allowed to hold back the uplifted arm of the Government in blasting the
power of the Rebels forever;"--and upon this, adopting the language of
another--[Judge Thomas, of Massachusetts.]--Mr. Cox declared that "to
make this a War, with the sword in one hand to defend the Constitution,
and a hammer in the other to break it to pieces, is no less treasonable
than Secession itself; and that, outside the pale of the Constitution,
the whole struggle is revolutionary."
He thought, for such words as he had just quoted, Julian ought to have
been expelled, if those of Long justified expulsion!
Finally, being pressed by Julian to define his own position, as between
the Life of the Nation, and the Infraction of the United States
Constitution, Mr. Cox said: "I will say this, that UNDER NO
CIRCUMSTANCES CONCEIVABLE BY THE HUMAN MIND WOULD I EVER VIOLATE THAT
CONSTITUTION FOR ANY PURPOSE!"
This sentiment was loudly applauded, and received with cries of "THAT IS
IT!" "THAT'S IT!" by the Democratic side of the House, apparently in
utter contempt for the express and emphatic declaration of Jefferson
that: "A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the
highest duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws
of Necessity, of Self-preservation, of SAVING OUR COUNTRY WHEN IN
DANGER, are of higher obligation. To LOSE OUR COUNTRY by a scrupulous
adherence to written law WOULD BE TO LOSE THE LAW ITSELF, with Life,
Liberty, Property, and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus
absolutely SACRIFICING THE END TO THE MEANS."
[In a letter to J. B. Colvin, Sept. 20, 1810, quoted at the time
for their information, and which may be found at page 542 of vol.
v., of Jefferson's Works.]
Indeed these extreme sticklers for the letter of the Constitution, who
would have sacrificed Country, kindred, friends, honesty, truth, and all
ambitions on Earth and hopes for Heaven, rather than violate it--for
that is what Mr. Cox's announcement and the Democratic endorsement of it
meant, if they meant anything--were of the same stripe as those
querulous Ancients, for the benefit of whom the Apostle wrote: "For THE
LETTER KILLETH, but the Spirit giveth life."
And now, inspired apparently by the reckless utterances
of Long, if not by the more cautious diatribe of Cox, Harris of
Maryland, determining if possible to outdo them all, not only declared
that he was willing to go with his friend Long wherever the House chose
to send him, but added: "I am a peace man, a radical peace man; and I am
for Peace by the recognition of the South, for the recognition of the
Southern Confederacy; and I am for acquiescence in the doctrine of
Secession." And, said he, in the midst of the laughter which followed
the sensation his treasonable words occasioned, "Laugh as you may, you
have got to come to it!" And then, with that singular obfuscation of
ideas engendered, in the heads of their followers, by the astute
Rebel-sympathizing leaders, he went on:
"I am for Peace, and I am for Union too. I am as good a Union man as
any of you. [Laughter.] I am a better Union man than any of you!
[Great Laughter.] * * * I look upon War as Disunion."
After declaring that, if the principle of the expulsion Resolution was
to be carried out, his "friend," Mr. Long, "would be a martyr in a
glorious cause"--he proceeded to announce his own candidacy for
expulsion, in the following terms:
"Mr. Speaker, in the early part of this Secession movement, there was a
Resolution offered, pledging men and money to carry on the War. My
principles were then, and are now, against the War. I stood, solitary
and alone, in voting against that Resolution, and whenever a similar
proposition is brought here it will meet with my opposition. Not one
dollar, nor one man, I swear, by the Eternal, will I vote for this
infernal, this stupendous folly, more stupendous than ever disgraced any
civilized People on the face of God's Earth. If that be Treason, make
the most of it!
"The South asked you to let them go in peace. But no, you said you
would bring them into subjugation. That is not done yet, and God
Almighty grant that it never may be. I hope that you will never
subjugate the South. If she is to be ever again in the Union, I hope it
will be with her own consent; and I hope that that consent will be
obtained by some other mode than by the sword. 'If this be Treason,
make the most of it!'"
An extraordinary scene at once occurred--Mr. Tracy desiring "to know
whether, in these Halls, the gentleman from Maryland invoked Almighty
God that the American Arms should not prevail?" "Whether such language
is not Treason?" and "whether it is in order to talk Treason in this
Hall?"--his patriotic queries being almost drowned in the incessant
cries of "Order!" "Order!" and great disorder, and confusion, on the
Democratic side of the House.
Finally the treasonable language was taken down by the Clerk, and, while
a Resolution for the expulsion of Mr. Harris was being written out, Mr.
Fernando Wood--coming, as he said, from a bed of "severe sickness,"
quoted the language used by Mr. Long, to wit:
"I now believe there are but two alternatives, and they are either the
acknowledgment of the Independence of the South as an independent
Nation, or their complete subjugation and extermination as a People; and
of these alternatives I prefer the former"--and declared that "if he is
to be expelled for the utterance of that sentiment, you may include me
in it, because I concur fully in that sentiment."
[He afterwards (April 11,) said he did not agree with Mr. Long's
opinions.]
Every effort was unavailingly made by the Democrats, under the lead of
Messrs. Cox--[In 1886 American Minister at Constantinople.]--and
Pendleton,--[In 1886 American Minister at Berlin.]--to prevent action
upon the new Resolution of expulsion, which was in these words:
"Whereas, Hon. Benjamin G. Harris, a member of the House of
Representatives of the United States from the State of Maryland, has on
this day used the following language, to wit: 'The South asked you to
let them go in peace. But no; you said you would bring them into
subjection. That is not done yet, and God Almighty grant that it never
may be. I hope that you will never subjugate the South.' And whereas,
such language is treasonable, and is a gross disrespect of this House:
Therefore, 'Be it Resolved, That the said Benjamin G. Harris be expelled
from this House.'"
Upon reaching a vote, however, the Resolution was lost, there being only
81 yeas, to 58 (Democratic) nays--two-thirds not having voted
affirmatively. Subsequently, despite Democratic efforts to obstruct, a
Resolution, declaring Harris to be "an unworthy Member" of the House,
and "severely" censuring him, was adopted.
The debate upon the Long-expulsion Resolution now proceeded, and its
mover, in view of the hopelessness of securing a two-thirds affirmative
vote, having accepted an amendment comprising other two Resolutions and
a Preamble, the question upon adopting these was submitted on the 14th
of April. They were in the words following:
"Whereas, ALEXANDER LONG, a Representative from the second district of
Ohio, by his open declarations in the National Capitol, and publications
in the City of New York, has shown himself to be in favor of a
recognition of the so-called Confederacy now trying to establish itself
upon the ruins of our Country, thereby giving aid and comfort to the
Enemy in that destructive purpose--aid to avowed Traitors, in creating
an illegal Government within our borders, comfort to them by assurances
of their success and affirmations of the justice of their Cause; and
whereas, such conduct is at the same time evidence of disloyalty, and
inconsistent with his oath of office, and his duty as a Member of this
Body: Therefore,
"Resolved, That the said Alexander Long, a Representative from the
second district of Ohio, be, and he is hereby declared to be an unworthy
Member of the House of Representatives.
"Resolved, That the Speaker shall read these Resolutions to the said
Alexander Long during the session of the House."
The first of these Resolutions was adopted, by 80 yeas to 69 nays; the
second was tabled, by 71 yeas to 69 nays; and the Preamble was agreed
to, by 78 yeas to 63 nays.
And, among the 63 Democrats, who were not only unwilling to declare
Alexander Long "an unworthy Member," or to have the Speaker read such a
declaration to him in a session of the House, but also refused by their
votes even to intimate that his conduct evidenced disloyalty, or gave
aid and comfort to the Enemy, were the names of such democrats as Cox,
Eldridge, Holman, Kernan, Morrisson, Pendleton, Samuel J. Randall,
Voorhees, and Fernando Wood.
Hence Mr. Long not only escaped expulsion for his treasonable
utterances, but did not even receive the "severe censure" which, in
addition to being declared (like himself) "an unworthy Member," had been
voted to Mr. Harris for recklessly rushing into the breach to help him!
[The Northern Democracy comprised two well-recognized classes: The
Anti-War (or Peace) Democrats, commonly called "Copperheads," who
sympathized with the Rebellion, and opposed the War for the Union;
and the War (or Union) Democrats, who favored a vigorous
prosecution of the War for the preservation of the Union.]
CHAPTER XXVI.
"THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT" DEFEATED IN THE HOUSE.
The debate in the House of Representatives, upon the Thirteenth
Amendment to the Constitution--interrupted by the treasonable episode
referred to in the last Chapter--was subsequently resumed.
Meanwhile, however, Fort Pillow had been stormed, and its garrison of
Whites and Blacks, massacred.
And now commenced the beginning of the end-so far as the Military aspect
of the Rebellion was concerned. Early in May, Sherman's Atlanta
Campaign commenced, and, simultaneously, General Grant began his
movement toward Richmond. In quick succession came the news of the
bloody battles of the Wilderness, and those around Spottsylvania, Va.;
at Buzzard Roost Gap, Snake Creek Gap, and Dalton, Ga.; Drury's Bluff,
Va.; Resaca, Ga.; the battles of the North Anna, Va.; those around
Dallas, and New Hope church, Ga; the crossing of Grant's forces to the
South side of the James and the assault on Petersburg. While the Union
Armies were thus valiantly attacking and beating those of the Rebels, on
many a sanguinary field the loyal men of the North, both in and out of
Congress, pressed for favorable action upon the Thirteenth Amendment.
"Friends of the wounded in Fredericksburg from the Battle of the
Wilderness"--exclaimed Horace Greeley in the New York Tribune, of May
31st,--"friends and relatives of the soldiers of Grant's Army beyond the
Wilderness, let us all join hands and swear upon our Country's altar
that we will never cease this War until African Slavery in the United
States is dead forever, and forever buried!"
Peace Democrats, however, were deaf to all such entreaties. On the very
same day, Mr. Holman, in the House, objected even to the second reading
of the Joint Resolution Amendatory of the Constitution, and there were
so many "Peace Democrats" to back him, that the vote was: 55 yeas to 76
nays, on the question "shall the Joint Resolution be rejected!"
The old cry, that had been repeated by Hendricks and others, in the
Senate and House, time and again, was still used--threadbare though it
was--"this is not the right time for it!" On this very day, for
instance, Mr. Herrick said: "I ask if this is the proper time for our
People to consider so grave a measure as the Amendment of the
Constitution in so vital a point? * * * this is no fitting time for
such work."
Very different was the attitude of Kellogg, of New York, and well did he
show up the depths to which the Democracy--the Peace Democracy--had now
fallen. "We are told," said he, "of a War Democracy, and such there
are--their name is legion--good men and true; they are found in the
Union ranks bearing arms in support of the Government and the
Administration that wields it. At the ballot-box, whether at home or in
the camp, they are Union men, and vote as they fight, and hold little in
common with the political leaders of the Democratic Party in or out of
this Hall--the Seymours, the Woods, the Vallandighams, the Woodwards,
and their indorsers, who hold and control the Democratic Party here, and
taint it with Treason, till it is a stench in the nostrils of all
patriotic men."
After referring to the fact that the leaders of the Rebellion had from
the start relied confidently upon assistance from the Northern
Democracy, he proceeded:
"The Peace Democracy, and mere Party-hacks in the North, are fulfilling
their masters' expectations industriously, unceasingly, and as far as in
them lies. Not even the shouts for victory, in these Halls, can divert
their Southern allies here. A sullen gloom at the defeat and
discomfiture of their Southern brethren settles down on their disastrous
countenances, from which no ray of joy can be reflected. * * * They
even vote solid against a law to punish guerrillas.
"Sir," continued he, "in my judgment, many of those who withhold from
their Country the support they would otherwise give, find allegiance to
Party too strong for their patriotism. * * * Rejecting the example and
counsels of Stanton and Dickinson and Butler and Douglas and Dix and
Holt and Andrew Johnson and Logan and Rosecrans and Grant and a host of
others, all Democrats of the straightest sect, to forget all other ties,
and cleave only to their Country for their Country's sake, and rejecting
the overtures and example of the Republican Party to drop and forget
their Party name, that all might unite and band together for their
Country's salvation as Union men, they turn a deaf ear and cold
shoulder, and sullenly pass by on the other side, thanking God they are
not as other men are, and lend, if at all, a calculating, qualified, and
conditional and halting support, under protest, to their Country's
cause; thus justifying the only hope of the Rebellion to-day, that Party
spirit at the North will distract its counsels, divide and discourage
and palsy its efforts, and ultimately make way for the Traitor and the
parricide to do their worst."
Besides the set speeches made against the proposed
Constitutional amendment in the House, Peace-Democrats of the Senate
continued to keep up a running fire at it in that Chamber, on every
possible occasion. Garrett Davis was especially garrulous on the
subject, and also launched the thunders of his wrath at the President
quite frequently and even vindictively. For instance, speaking in the
Senate--[May 31,1864,]--of the right of Property in Slaves; said he:
"This new-born heresy 'Military Necessity,' as President Lincoln claims,
and exercises it, is the sum of all political and Military villainies
* * * and it is no less absurd than it is villainous. * * * The man
has never spoken or lived who can prove by any provision of the
Constitution, or by any principle, or by any argument to be deduced
logically and fairly from it, that he has any such power as this vast,
gigantic, all-conquering and all-crushing power of Military Necessity
which he has the audacity to claim.
"This modern Emperor, this Tiberius, a sort of a Tiberius, and his
Sejanus, a sort of a Sejanus, the head of the War Department, are
organizing daily their Military Courts to try civilians. * * *
"Sir, I want one labor of love before I die. I want the President of
the United States, I want his Secretary of War, I want some of his high
officers in Military command to bring a civilian to a Military
execution, and me to have the proud privilege of prosecuting them for
murder. * * * I want the law and its just retribution to be visited
upon these great delinquents.
"I would sooner, if I had the power, bring about such an atonement as
that, than I would even put down the Rebellion. It would be a greater
victory in favor of Freedom and Constitutional Liberty, a thousand-fold,
of all the People of America besides, than the subjugation of the Rebel
States could possibly be."
But there seemed to be no end to the' attacks upon the Administration,
made, in both Houses, by these peculiar Peace-Democrats. Union blood
might flow in torrents on the fields of the rebellious South, atrocities
innumerable might be committed by the Rebels, cold-blooded massacres of
Blacks and Whites, as at Fort Pillow, might occur without rebuke from
them; but let the Administration even dare to sneeze, and--woe to the
Administration.
It was not the Thirteenth Amendment only, that they assailed, but
everything else which the Administration thought might help it in its
effort to put down the Rebellion. Nor was it so much their malignant
activity in opposition to any one measure intended to strengthen the
hands of the Union, but to all such measures; and superadded to this was
the incessant bringing forward, in both Houses of Congress, by these
restless Rebel-sympathizers, of Peace-Resolutions, the mere presentation
of which would be, and were, construed by the Rebel authorities at
Richmond, as evidences of a weakening.
Even some of the best of the Peace-Democrats, like S. S. Cox, for
instance, not only assailed the Tariff--under which the Union Republican
Party sought to protect and build up American Industry, as well as to
raise as much revenue as possible to help meet the enormous current
expenditures of the Government--but also denounced our great paper-money
system, which alone enabled us to secure means to meet all deficiencies
in the revenues otherwise obtained, and thus to ultimately conquer the
hosts of Rebellion.
He declared (June 2, 1864) that "The People are the victims of the
joint-robbery of a system of bounties under the guise of duties, and of
an inconvertible and depreciated paper currency under the guise of
money," and added: "No man is now so wise and gifted that he can save
this Nation from bankruptcy. * * * No borrowing system can save us.
The scheme of making greenbacks a legal tender, which enabled the debtor
to cheat his creditor, thereby playing the old game of kingcraft, to
debase the currency in order to aid the designs of despotism, may float
us for a while amidst the fluctuations and bubbles of the day; but as no
one possesses the power to repeal the Law of the Almighty, which decrees
(and as our Constitution has established) that gold and silver shall be
the standard of value in the World, so they will ever thus remain,
notwithstanding the legislation of Congress."
Not satisfied with this sort of "fire in the rear," it was attempted by
means of Democratic Free-Trade and antipaper-currency sophistries, to
arouse jealousies, heart-burnings and resentful feelings in the breasts
of those living in different parts of the Union--to implant bitter
Sectional antagonisms and implacable resentments between the Eastern
States, on the one hand, and the Western States, on the other--and thus,
by dividing, to weaken the Loyal Union States.
That this was the cold-blooded purpose of all who pursued this course,
would no doubt be warmly denied by some of them; but the fact remains no
less clear, that the effect of that course, whether so intended or not,
was to give aid and comfort to the Enemy at that critical time when the
Nation most needed all the men, money, and moral as well as material
support, it was possible to get, to put an end to the bloody Rebellion,
now--under the continuous poundings of Grant's Army upon that of Lee in
Virginia, and the advance of Sherman's Army upon that of Johnston in
Georgia--tottering to its overthrow. Thus this same speaker (S. S. Cox),
in his untimely speech, undertook to divide the Union-loving States
"into two great classes: the Protected States and the Unprotected
States;" and--having declared that "The Manufacturing States, mainly the
New England States and Pennsylvania, are the Protected States," and "The
Agricultural States," mainly the eleven Western States, which he named,
"are the Unprotected States"--proceeded to intemperately and violently
arraign New England, and especially Massachusetts, in the same way that
had years before been adopted by the old Conspirators of the South when
they sought--alas, too successfully!--to inflame the minds of Southern
citizens to a condition of unreasoning frenzy which made attempted
Nullification and subsequent armed Rebellion and Secession possible.
Well might the thoroughly loyal Grinnell, of Iowa--after exposing what
he termed the "sophistry of figures" by which Mr. Cox had seen fit "to
misrepresent and traduce" the Western States-exclaim: "Sir, I have no
words which I can use to execrate sufficiently such language, in
arraying the Sections in opposition during a time of War; as if we were
not one People, descended from one stock, having one interest, and bound
up in one destiny!"
The damage that might have been done to the Union Cause by such
malignant Democratic attacks upon the National unity and strength, may
be imagined when we reflect that at this very time the annual expenses
of our Government were over $600,000,000, and growing still larger; and
that $1.90 in legal tender notes of the United States was worth but
$1.00 in gold, with a downward tendency. Said stern old Thaddeus
Stevens, alluding on this occasion, to Statesmanship of the peculiar
stamp of the Coxes and Fernando Woods: "He who in this time will pursue
such a course of argument for the mere sake of party, can never hope to
be ranked among Statesmen; nay, Sir, he will not even rise to the
dignity of a respectable Demagogue!"
Within a week after this, (June 9, 1864), we find in the Senate also,
similarly insidious attacks upon the strength of the Government, made by
certain Northern Democrats, who never tired of undermining Loyalty, and
creating and spreading discontent among the People. The Bill then up,
for consideration, was one "to prohibit the discharge of persons from
liability to Military duty, by reason of the payment of money."
In the terribly bloody Campaign that had now been entered upon by Grant
--in the West, under Sherman, and in the East, under his own personal
eye--it was essential to send to the front, every man possible. Hence
the necessity for a Bill of this sort, which moreover provided, in order
as far as possible to popularize conscription, that all calls for drafts
theretofore made under the Enrolling Act of March 3, 1863, should be for
not over one year's service, etc.
This furnished the occasion for Mr. Hendricks, among other Peace
Democrats, to make opposing speeches. He, it seems, had all along been
opposed to drafting Union soldiers; and because, during the previous
Winter, the Senate had been unwilling to abolish the clause permitting a
drafted man to pay a commutation of $300 (with which money a substitute
could be procured) instead of himself going, at a time when men were not
quite so badly needed as now, therefore Mr. Hendricks pretended to think
it very strange and unjustifiable that now, when everything depended on
getting every possible man in the field, the Senate should think of
"abandoning that which it thought right last Winter!"
He opposed drafting; but if drafting must be resorted to, then he
thought that what he termed "the Horror of the Draft" should be felt by
as many of the Union people as possible!--or, in his own words: "the
Horror of the Draft ought to be divided among the People." As if this
were not sufficient to conjure dreadful imaginings, he added: "if one
set of men are drafted this year to serve twelve months, and they have
to go because the power of the Government makes them go, whether they
can go well or not, then at the end of the year their neighbors should
be subjected to the same Horror, and let this dreadful demand upon the
service, upon the blood, and upon the life of the People be distributed
upon all."
And, in order apparently to still further intensify public feeling
against all drafting, and sow the seeds of dissatisfaction in the hearts
of those drafted at this critical time, when the fate of the Union and
of Republican Government palpably depended upon conscription, he added:
"It is not so right to say to twenty men in a neighborhood: 'You shall
go; you shall leave your families whether you can or not; you shall go
without the privilege of commutation whether you leave starving wives
and children behind you or not,' and then say to every other man of the
neighborhood: 'Because we have taken these twenty men for three years,
you shall remain with your wives and children safely and comfortably at
home for these three years.' I like this feature of the amendment,
because it distributes the Horror of the Draft more equally and justly
over the whole People."
Not satisfied with rolling the "Horror of the Draft" so often and
trippingly over his tongue, he also essayed the role of Prophet in the
interest of the tottering god of Slavery. "The People," said he,
"expect great results from this Campaign; and when another year comes
rolling around, and it is found that this War is not closed, and that
there is no reasonable probability of its early close, my colleague
(Lane) and other Senators who agree with him will find that the People
will say that this effusion of blood must stop; that THERE MUST BE SOME
ADJUSTMENT. I PROPHESY THIS."
And, as a further declaration likely to give aid and comfort to the
Rebel leaders, he said: "I do not believe many men are going to be
obtained by a draft; I do not believe a very good Army will be got by a
draft; I do not believe an Army will be put in the field, by a draft,
that will whip General Lee."
But while all such statements were, no doubt, intended to help the foes
of the Union, and dishearten or dismay its friends, the really loyal
People, understanding their fell object, paid little heed to them. The
predictions of these Prophets of evil fell flat upon the ears of lovers
of their Country. Conspirators, however much they might masquerade in
the raiment of Loyalty, could not wholly conceal the ear-marks of
Treason. The hand might be the hand of Esau, but the voice was the
voice of Jacob.
On the 8th of June--after a month of terrific and bloody fighting
between the immediate forces of Grant and Lee--a dispatch from Sherman,
just received at Washington, was read to the House of Representatives,
which said: "The Enemy is not in our immediate front, but his signals
are seen at Lost Mountain, and Kenesaw." So, at the same time, at the
National Capital, while the friends of the Union there, were not
immediately confronted with an armed Enemy, yet the signals of his
Allies could be seen, and their fire upon our rear could be heard, daily
and almost hourly, both in the Senate and the House of Representatives.
The fight in the House, upon the Thirteenth Amendment, now seemed
indeed, to be reaching a climax. During the whole of June 14th, until
midnight, speech after speech on the subject, followed each other in
rapid succession. Among the opposition speeches, perhaps those of
Fernando Wood and Holman were most notable for extravagant and
unreasoning denunciation of the Administration and Party in power--whose
every effort was put forth, and strained at this very time to the
utmost, to save the Union.
Holman, for instance, declared that, "Of all the measures of this
disastrous Administration, each in its turn producing new calamities,
this attempt to tamper with the Constitution threatens the most
permanent injury." He enumerated the chief measures of the
Administration during its three and a half years of power-among them the
Emancipation Proclamation, the arming of the Blacks, and what he
sneeringly termed "their pet system of finance" which was to "sustain
the public credit for infinite years," but which "even now," said he,
"totters to its fall!" And then, having succeeded in convincing himself
of Republican failure, he exultingly exclaimed: "But why enumerate?
What measure of this Administration has failed to be fatal! Every step
in your progress has been a mistake. I use the mildest terms of
censure!"
Fernando Wood, in his turn also, "mildly" remarked upon Republican
policy as "the bloody and brutal policy of the Administration Party."
He considered this "the crisis of the fate of the Union;" declared that
Slavery was "the best possible condition to insure the happiness of the
Negro race"--a position which, on the following day, he "reaffirmed"
--and characterized those members of the Democratic Party who saw Treason
in the ways and methods and expressions of Peace Democrats of his own
stamp, as a "pack of political jackals known as War Democrats."
On the 15th of June, Farnsworth made a reply to Ross--who had claimed to
be friendly to the Union soldier--in which the former handled the
Democratic Party without gloves. "What," said he, referring to Mr.
Ross, "has been the course of that gentleman and his Party on this floor
in regard to voting supplies to the Army? What has been their course in
regard to raising money to pay the Army? His vote will be found
recorded in almost every instance against the Appropriation Bills,
against ways and means for raising money to pay the Army. It is only a
week ago last Monday, that a Bill was introduced here to punish
guerrillas * * * and how did my colleague vote? Against the Bill.* * *
On the subject of arming Slaves, of putting Negroes into the Army, how
has my colleague and his Party voted? Universally against it. They
would strip from the backs of these Black soldiers, now in the service
of the Country, their uniforms, and would send them back to Slavery with
chains and manacles. And yet they are the friends of the soldier!"* * *
"On the vote to repeal the Fugitive Slave Law, how did that (Democratic)
side of the House vote? Does not the Fugitive Slave Law affect the
Black soldier in the Army who was a Slave? That side of the House are
in favor of continuing the Fugitive Slave Law, and of disbanding Colored
troops. How did that side of the House vote on the question of arming
Slaves and paying them as soldiers? They voted against it. They are in
favor of disbanding the Colored regiments, and, armed with the Fugitive
Slave Law, sending them back to their masters!"
He took occasion also to meet various Democratic arguments against the
Resolution,--among them, one, hinging on the alleged right of Property
in Slaves. This was a favorite idea with the Border-State men
especially, that Slaves were Property--mere chattels as it were,--and,
only the day before, a Northern man, Coffroth of Pennsylvania, had said:
"Sir, we should pause before proceeding any further in this
Unconstitutional and censurable legislation. The mere abolition of
Slavery is not my cause of complaint. I care not whether Slavery is
retained or abolished by the people of the States in which it exists
--the only rightful authority. The question to me is, has Congress a
right to take from the people of the South their Property; or, in other
words, having no pecuniary interest therein, are we justified in freeing
the Slave-property of others? Can we Abolish Slavery in the Loyal State
of Kentucky against her will? If this Resolution should pass, and be
ratified by three-fourths of the States--States already Free--and
Kentucky refuses to ratify it, upon what principle of right or law would
we be justified in taking this Slave-property of the people of Kentucky?
Would it be less than stealing?"
And Farnsworth met this idea--which had also been advanced by Messrs.
Ross, Fernando Wood, and Pruyn--by saying: "What constitutes property?
I know it is said by some gentlemen on the other side, that what the
statute makes property, is property. I deny it. What 'vested right'
has any man or State in Property in Man? We of the North hold property,
not by virtue of statute law, not by virtue of enactments. Our property
consists in lands, in chattels, in things. Our property was made
property by Jehovah when He gave Man dominion over it. But nowhere did
He give dominion of Man over Man. Our title extends back to the
foundation of the World. That constitutes property. There is where we
get our title. There is where we get our 'vested rights' to property."
Touching the ethics of Slavery, Mr. Arnold's speech on the same occasion
was also able, and in parts eloquent, as where he said: 'Slavery is
to-day an open enemy striking at the heart of the Republic. It is the
soul and body, the spirit and motive of the Rebellion. It is Slavery
which marshals yonder Rebel hosts, which confront the patriot Armies
of Grant and Sherman. It is the savage spirit of this barbarous
Institution which starves the Union prisoners at Richmond, which
assassinates them at Fort Pillow, which murders the wounded on the field
of battle, and which fills up the catalogue of wrong and outrage which
mark the conduct of the Rebels during all this War.
"In view of all the long catalogue of wrongs which Slavery has inflicted
upon the Country, I demand to-day, of the Congress of the United States,
the death of African Slavery. We can have no permanent Peace, while
Slavery lives. It now reels and staggers toward its last death-struggle.
Let us strike the monster this last decisive blow."
And, after appealing to both Border-State men, and Democrats of the Free
States, not to stay the passage of this Resolution which "will strike
the Rebellion at the heart," he continued: "Gentlemen may flatter
themselves with a restoration of the Slave-power in this Country. 'The
Union as it was!' It is a dream, never again to be realized. The
America of the past, has gone forever. A new Nation is to be born from
the agony through which the People are now passing. This new Nation is
to be wholly Free. Liberty, Equality before the Law, is to be the great
Corner-stone."
So, too, Mr. Ingersoll eloquently said--among many other good things:
--"It is well to eradicate an evil. That Slavery is an evil, no sane,
honest man will deny. It has been the great curse of this Country from
its infancy to the present hour, And now that the States in Rebellion
have given the Loyal States the opportunity to take off that curse, to
wipe away the foul stain, I say let it be done. We owe it to ourselves;
we owe it to posterity; we owe it to the Slaves themselves to
exterminate Slavery forever by the adoption of the proposed Amendment to
the Constitution. * * * I believe Slavery is the mother of this
Rebellion, that this Rebellion can be attributed to no other cause but
Slavery; from that it derived its life, and gathers its strength to-day.
Destroy the mother, and the child dies. Destroy the cause, and the
effect will disappear.
"Slavery has ever been the enemy of liberal principles. It has ever
been the friend of ignorance, prejudice, and all the unlawful, savage,
and detestable passions which proceed therefrom. It has ever been
domineering, arrogant, exacting, and overbearing. It has claimed to be
a polished aristocrat, when in reality it has only been a coarse,
swaggering, and brutal boor. It has ever claimed to be a gentleman,
when in reality it has ever been a villain. I think it is high time to
clip its overgrown pretensions, strip it of its mask, and expose it, in
all its hideous deformity, to the detestation of all honest and
patriotic men."
After Mr. Samuel J. Randall had, at a somewhat later hour, pathetically
and poetically invoked the House, in its collective unity, as a
"Woodman," to "spare that tree" of the Constitution, and to "touch not a
single bough," because, among other reasons, "in youth it sheltered"
him; and furthermore, because "the time" was "most inopportune;" and,
after Mr. Rollins, of Missouri, had made a speech, which he afterward
suppressed; Mr. Pendleton closed the debate in an able effort, from his
point of view, in which he objected to the passage of the Joint
Resolution because "the time is not auspicious;" because, said he, "it
is impossible that the Amendment proposed, should be ratified without a
fraudulent use of the power to admit new States, or a fraudulent use of
the Military power of the Federal Government in the Seceded States,"
--and, said he, "if you should attempt to amend the Constitution by such
means, what binding obligation would it have?"
He objected, also, because "the States cannot, under the pretense of
amending the Constitution, subvert the structure, spirit, and theory of
this Government." "But," said he, "if this Amendment were within the
Constitutional power of amendment; if this were a proper time to
consider it; if three-fourths of the States were willing to ratify it;
and if it did not require the fraudulent use of power, either in this
House or in the Executive Department, to secure its adoption, I would
still resist the passage of this Resolution. It is another step toward
consolidation, and consolidation is Despotism; confederation is
Liberty."
It was about 4 o'clock in the afternoon of June 15th, that the House
came to a vote, on the passage of the Joint Resolution. At first the
strain of anxiety on both sides was great, but, as the roll proceeded,
it soon became evident that the Resolution was doomed to defeat. And so
it transpired. The vote stood 93 yeas, to 65 nays--Mr. Ashley having
changed his vote, from the affirmative to the negative, for the purpose
of submitting, at the proper time, a motion to reconsider.
That same evening, Mr. Ashley made the motion to reconsider the vote by
which the proposed Constitutional Amendment was rejected; and the motion
was duly entered in the Journal, despite the persistent efforts of
Messrs. Cox, Holman, and others, to prevent it.
On the 28th of June, just prior to the Congressional Recess, Mr. Ashley
announced that he had been disappointed in the hope of securing enough
votes from the Democratic side of the House to carry the Amendment.
"Those," said he, "who ought to have been the champions of this great
proposition are unfortunately its strongest opponents. They have
permitted the golden opportunity to pass. The record is made up, and we
must go to the Country on this issue thus presented." And then he gave
notice that he would call the matter up, at the earliest possible moment
after the opening of the December Session of Congress.
CHAPTER XXVII.
SLAVERY DOOMED AT THE POLLS.
The record was indeed made up, and the issue thus made, between Slavery
and Freedom, would be the chief one before the People. Already the
Republican National Convention, which met at Baltimore, June 7, 1864,
had not only with "enthusiastic unanimity," renominated Mr. Lincoln for
the Presidency, but amid "tremendous applause," the delegates rising and
waving their hats--had adopted a platform which declared, in behalf of
that great Party: "That, as Slavery was the cause, and now constitutes
the strength, of this Rebellion, and as it must be, always and
everywhere, hostile to the principles of Republican government, Justice
and the National safety demand its utter and complete extirpation from
the soil of the Republic; and that while we uphold and maintain the Acts
and Proclamations by which the Government, in its own defense, has aimed
a death-blow at this gigantic evil, we are in favor, furthermore, of
such an Amendment to the Constitution, to be made by the People in
conformity with its provisions, as shall terminate and forever prohibit
the existence of Slavery within the limits or the jurisdiction of the
United States."
So, too, with vociferous plaudits, had they received and adopted another
Resolution, wherein they declared "That we approve and applaud the
practical wisdom, the unselfish patriotism and the unswerving fidelity
to the Constitution and the principles of American Liberty, with which
Abraham Lincoln has discharged, under circumstances of unparalleled
difficulty, the great duties and responsibilities of the Presidential
Office; that we approve and endorse, as demanded by the emergency, and
essential to the preservation of the Nation, and as within the
provisions of the Constitution; the Measures and Acts which he has
adopted to defend the Nation against its open and secret foes; that we
approve, especially, the Proclamation of Emancipation, and the
employment, as Union soldiers, of men heretofore held in Slavery; and
that we have full confidence in his determination to carry these and all
other Constitutional Measures essential to the salvation of the Country,
into full and complete effect."
Thus heartily, thoroughly and unreservedly, endorsed in all the great
acts of his Administration--and even more emphatically, if possible, in
his Emancipation policy--by the unanimous vote of his Party, Mr.
Lincoln, although necessarily "chagrined and disappointed" by the
House-vote which had defeated the Thirteenth Amendment, might well feel
undismayed. He always had implicit faith in the People; he felt sure
that they would sustain him; and this done, why could not the votes of a
dozen, out of the seventy Congressional Representatives opposing that
Amendment, be changed? Even failing in this, it must be but a question
of time. He thought he could afford to bide that time.
On the 29th of August, the Democratic National Convention met at
Chicago. Horatio Seymour was its permanent President; that same
Governor of New York whom the 4th of July, 1863, almost at the moment
when Vicksburg and Gettysburg had brought great encouragement to the
Union cause, and when public necessity demanded the enforcement of the
Draft in order to drive the Rebel invader from Northern soil and bring
the Rebellion speedily to an end--had threateningly said to the
Republicans, in the course of a public speech, during the Draft-riots at
New York City: "Remember this, that the bloody, and treasonable, and
revolutionary doctrine of public necessity can be proclaimed by a mob as
well as by a Government. * * * When men accept despotism, they may have
a choice as to who the despot shall be!"
In his speech to this Democratic-Copperhead National Convention,
therefore, it is not surprising that he should, at this time, declare
that "this Administration cannot now save this Union, if it would."
That the body which elected such a presiding officer,--after the bloody
series of glorious Union victories about Atlanta, Ga., then fast leading
up to the fall of that great Rebel stronghold, (which event actually
occurred long before most of these Democratic delegates, on their
return, could even reach their homes)--should adopt a Resolution
declaring that the War was a "failure," was not surprising either.
That Resolution--"the material resolution of the Chicago platform," as
Vallandigham afterward characters it, was written and "carried through
both the Subcommittee and the General Committee" by that Arch-Copperhead
and Conspirator himself.--[See his letter of October 22, 1864, to the
editor of the New York News,]
It was in these words: "Resolved, That this Convention does explicitly
declare as the sense of the American People, that after four years of
failure to restore the Union by the experiment of War, during which,
under the pretense of a military necessity, or War-power higher than the
Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every
part, and public Liberty and private right alike trodden down and the
material prosperity of the Country essentially impaired--Justice,
Humanity, Liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts
be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate
Convention of the States, or other peaceable means, to the end that at
the earliest practicable moment Peace may be restored on the basis of
the Federal Union of the States."
With a Copperhead platform, this Democratic Convention thought it
politic to have a Union candidate for the Presidency. Hence, the
nomination of General McClellan; but to propitiate the out-and-out
Vallandigham Peace men, Mr. Pendleton was nominated to the second place
on the ticket.
This combination was almost as great a blunder as was the platform--than
which nothing could have been worse. Farragut's Naval victory at
Mobile, and Sherman's capture of Atlanta, followed so closely upon the
adjournment of the Convention as to make its platform and candidates the
laughing stock of the Nation; and all the efforts of Democratic orators,
and of McClellan himself, in his letter of acceptance, could not prevent
the rise of that great tidal-wave of Unionism which was soon to engulf
the hosts of Copperhead-Democracy.
The Thanksgiving-services in the churches, and the thundering salutes of
100 guns from every Military and Naval post in the United States, which
--during the week succeeding that Convention's sitting--betokened the
Nation's especial joy and gratitude to the victorious Union Forces of
Sherman and Farragut for their fortuitously-timed demonstration that the
"experiment of War" for the restoration of the Union was anything but a
"Failure" all helped to add to the proportions of that rapidly-swelling
volume of loyal public feeling.
The withdrawal from the canvass, of General Fremont, nominated for the
Presidency by the "radical men of the Nation," at Cleveland, also
contributed to it. In his letter of withdrawal, September 17th, he
said:
"The Presidential contest has, in effect, been entered upon in such a
way that the union of the Republican Party has become a paramount
necessity. The policy of the Democratic Party signifies either
separation, or reestablishment with Slavery. The Chicago platform is
simply separation. General McClellan's letter of acceptance is
reestablishment, with Slavery. The Republican candidate is, on the
contrary, pledged to the reestablishment of the Union without Slavery;
and, however hesitating his policy may be, the pressure of his Party
will, we may hope, force him to it. Between these issues, I think no
man of the Liberal Party can remain in doubt."
And now, following the fall of Atlanta before Sherman's Forces, Grant
had stormed "Fort Hell," in front of Petersburg; Sheridan had routed the
Rebels, under Early, at Winchester, and had again defeated Early at
Fisher's Hill; Lee had been repulsed in his attack on Grant's works at
Petersburg; and Allatoona had been made famous, by Corse and his 2,000
Union men gallantly repulsing the 5,000 men of Hood's Rebel Army, who
had completely surrounded and attacked them in front, flank, and rear.
All these Military successes for the Union Cause helped the Union
political campaign considerably, and, when supplemented by the
remarkable results of the October elections in Pennsylvania, Indiana,
and Maryland, made the election of Lincoln and Johnson a foregone
conclusion.
The sudden death of Chief-Justice Taney, too, happening, by a strange
coincidence, simultaneously with the triumph of the Union Party of
Maryland in carrying the new Constitution of that State, which
prohibited Slavery within her borders, seemed to have a significance*
not without its effect upon the public mind, now fast settling down to
the belief that Slavery everywhere upon the soil of the United States
must die.
[Greeley well said of it: "His death, at this moment, seemed to
mark the transition from the Era of Slavery to that of Universal
Freedom."]
Then came, October 19th, the Battle of Cedar Creek, Va. where the Rebel
General Early, during Sheridan's absence, surprised and defeated the
latter's forces, until Sheridan, riding down from Winchester, turned
defeat into victory for the Union Arms, and chased the armed Rebels out
of the Shenandoah Valley forever; and the fights of October 27th and
28th, to the left of Grant's position, at Petersburg, by which the
railroad communications of Lee's Army at Richmond were broken up.
At last, November 8, 1864, dawned the eventful day of election. By
midnight of that date it was generally believed, all over the Union,
that Lincoln and Johnson were overwhelmingly elected, and that the Life
as well as Freedom of the Nation had thus been saved by the People.
Late that very night, President Lincoln was serenaded by a Pennsylvania
political club, and, in responding to the compliment, modestly said:
"I earnestly believe that the consequences of this day's work (if it be
as you assure, and as now seems probable) will be to the lasting
advantage, if not to the very salvation, of the Country. I cannot at
this hour say what has been the result of the election. But whatever it
may be, I have no desire to modify this opinion, that all who have
labored to-day in behalf of the Union organization have wrought for the
best interests of their Country and the World, not only for the present
but for all future ages.
"I am thankful to God," continued he, "for this approval of the People;
but, while deeply gratified for this mark of their confidence in me, if
I know my heart, my gratitude is free from any taint of personal
triumph. I do not impugn the motives of any one opposed to me. It is
no pleasure to me to triumph over any one; but I give thanks to the
Almighty for this evidence of the People's resolution to stand by Free
Government and the rights of Humanity."
On the 10th of November, in response to another serenade given at the
White House, in the presence of an immense and jubilantly enthusiastic
gathering of Union men, by the Republican clubs of the District of
Columbia, Mr. Lincoln said:
"It has long been a grave question whether any Government, not too
strong for the Liberties of its People, can be strong enough to maintain
its existence in great emergencies. On this point the present
Rebellion. has brought our Republic to a severe test, and a
Presidential election, occurring in regular course during the Rebellion,
has added not a little to the strain. * * * But the election, along
with its incidental and undesired strife, has done good, too. It has
demonstrated that a People's Government can sustain a National election
in the midst of a great Civil War, until now it has not been known to
the World that this was a possibility. It shows, also, how sound and
how strong we still are.
"But," said he, "the Rebellion continues; and now that the election is
over, may not all having a common interest reunite in a common effort to
save our common Country?
"For my own part," continued he--as the cheering, elicited by this
forcible appeal, ceased--"I have striven, and shall strive, to avoid
placing any obstacle in the way. So long as I have been here I have not
willingly planted a thorn in any man's bosom. While I am deeply
sensible to the high compliment of a reelection, and duly grateful, as I
trust, to Almighty God for having directed my countrymen to a right
conclusion, as I think, for their own good, it adds nothing to my
satisfaction that any other man may be disappointed or pained by the
result."
And, as the renewed cheering evoked by this kindly, Christian utterance
died away again, he impressively added: "May I ask those who have not
differed with me, to join with me in this same spirit, towards those who
have?"
So, too, on the 17th of November, in his response to the complimentary
address of a delegation of Union men from Maryland.
[W. H. Purnell, Esq., in behalf of the Committee, delivered an
address, in which he said they rejoiced that the People, by such an
overwhelming and unprecedented majority, had again reelected Mr.
Lincoln to the Presidency and endorsed his course--elevating him to
the proudest and most honorable position on Earth. They felt under
deep obligation to him because he had appreciated their condition
as a Slave-State. It was not too much to say that by the exercise
of rare discretion on his part, Maryland to-day occupies her
position in favor of Freedom. Slavery has been abolished therefrom
by the Sovereign Decree of the People. With deep and lasting
gratitude they desired that his Administration, as it had been
approved in the past, might also be successful in the future, and
result in the Restoration of the Union, with Freedom as its
immutable basis. They trusted that, on retiring from his high and
honorable position, the universal verdict might be that he deserved
well of mankind, and that favoring Heaven might 'Crown his days
with loving kindness and tender mercies.']
The same kindly anxiety to soften and dispel the feeling of
bitterness that had been engendered in the malignant bosoms of the
Copperhead-Democracy by their defeat, was apparent when he said with
emphasis and feeling:
"I have said before, and now repeat, that I indulge in no feeling of
triumph over any man who has thought or acted differently from myself.
I have no such feeling toward any living man;" and again, after
complimenting Maryland for doing "more than double her share" in the
elections, in that she had not only carried the Republican ticket, but
also the Free Constitution, he added: "Those who have differed with us
and opposed us will yet see that the result of the Presidential election
is better for their own good than if they had been successful."
The victory of the Union-Republican Party at this election was an
amazing one, and in the words of General Grant's dispatch of
congratulation to the President, the fact of its "having passed off
quietly" was, in itself, "a victory worth more to the Country than a
battle won,"--for the Copperheads had left no stone unturned in their
efforts to create the utmost possible rancor, in the minds of their
partisans, against the Administration and its Party.
Of twenty-five States voting, Lincoln and Johnson had carried the
electoral votes of twenty-two of them, viz.: Maine, New Hampshire,
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New York,
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Michigan,
Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, California, Oregon, Kansas, West Virginia,
and Nevada; while McClellan and Pendleton had carried the twenty-one
electoral votes of the remaining three, viz.: New Jersey, Delaware, and
Kentucky--the popular vote reaching the enormous number of 2,216,067 for
Lincoln, to 1,808,725 for McClellan--making Lincoln's popular majority
407,342, and his electoral majority 191!
But if the figures upon the Presidential candidacy were so gratifying
and surprising to all who held the cause of Union above all others, no
less gratifying and surprising were those of the Congressional
elections, which indicated an entire revulsion of popular feeling on the
subject of the Administration's policy. For, while in the current
Congress (the 38th), there were only 106 Republican-Union to 77
Democratic Representatives, in that for which the elections had just
been held, (the 39th), there would be 143 Republican-Union to 41
Democratic Representatives.
It was at once seen, therefore, that, should the existing House of
Representatives fail to adopt the Thirteenth Amendment to the
Constitution, there would be much more than the requisite two-thirds
majority for such a Measure in both Houses of the succeeding Congress;
and moreover that in the event of its failure at the coming Session, it
was more than probable that President Lincoln would consider himself
justified in calling an Extra Session of the Thirty-ninth Congress for
the especial purpose of taking such action. So far then, as the
prospects of the Thirteenth Amendment were concerned, they looked
decidedly more encouraging.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Great Conspiracy, Volume 6" ***
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