# The Life of Abraham Lincoln (Holland)/Chapter XVIII

The morning of the fourth of March broke beautifully clear, and it found General Scott and the Washington police in readiness for the day. The friends of Mr. Lincoln had gathered in from far and near, determined that he should be inaugurated. In the hearts of the surging crowds there was anxiety; but outside, all looked as usual on such occasions, with the single exception of an extraordinary display of soldiers. The public buildings, the schools and most of the places of business were closed during the day, and the stars and stripes were floating from every flag-staff. There was a great desire to hear Mr. Lincoln's inaugural; and, at an early hour, Pennsylvania Avenue was full of people, wending their way to the east front of the capitol, from which it was to be delivered.
At five minutes before twelve o'clock, Vice-President Breckinridge and Senator Foote escorted Mr. Hamlin, the Vice-President elect, into the Senate Chamber, and gave him a seat at the left of the chair. At twelve, Mr. Breckinridge announced the Senate adjourned without day, and then conducted Mr. Hamlin to the seat he had vacated. At this moment, the foreign diplomats, of whom there was a very large and brilliant representation, entered the chamber, and took the seats assigned to them. At a quarter before one o'clock, the Judges of the Supreme Court entered, with the venerable Chief Justice Taney at their head, each exchanging salutes with the new Vice-President, as they took their seats. At a quarter past one o'clock, an unusual stir and excitement announced the coming of the most important personage of the occasion. It was a relief to many to know that he was safely within the building; and those who were assembled in the hall regarded with the profoundest interest the entrance of President Buchanan and the President elect--the outgoing and the incoming man. A procession was then formed which passed to the platform erected for the ceremonies of the occasion, in the following order: Marshal of the District of Columbia, Judges of the Supreme Court and Sergeant-at-Arms, Senate Committee of Arrangements, President of the United States and President elect, Vice-President, Clerk of the Senate, Senators, Diplomatic Corps, heads of departments, Governors of states, and such others as were in the chamber. On arriving at the platform, Senator Baker of Oregon, whose name as one of Mr. Lincoln's old friends and political rivals in Illinois has been frequently mentioned in this volume, introduced Mr. Lincoln to the assembly. There was not a very hearty welcome given to the President, as he stepped forward to read his inaugural. His enemies were too many: and his friends too much in fear of exasperating them. The representative of American loyalty carried his burden alone. The inaugural was listened to with profound attention, every passage being vociferously cheered which contained any allusion to the Union, and none listening more carefully than Mr. Buchanan and Judge Taney, the latter of whom, with much agitation, administered the oath of office to Mr. Lincoln when his address was concluded.
Mr. Lincoln himself must have wondered at the strange conjunction of personages and events. The "Stephen" of his first speech in the old senatorial campaign was a defeated candidate for the presidency who then stood patriotically at his side, holding the hat of the republican President, which he had politely taken at the beginning of the inaugural address; "James" had just walked out of office to make room for him; "Franklin" had passed into comparative obscurity or something worse, and "Roger" had just administered to him the oath of office.
No thorough understanding of the moderate and conciliatory tone of the inaugural can be acquired without a perusal of the document itself. Its arguments were unanswerable, and its tone of respectful friendliness toward the South so marked that great pains were subsequently taken by the southern press to misrepresent it, and to counteract its effects. Mr. Lincoln said:
   "Fellow-Citizens of the United States:--In compliance with a custom as old as the government itself, I appear before you to address you briefly, and to take, in your presence, the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United States to be taken by the President before he enters on the execution of his office.
   "I do not consider it necessary, at present, for me to discuss those matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety or excitement. Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the southern states, that, by the accession of a republican administration, their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed, and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches, when I declare that 'I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists.' I believe I have no lawful right to do so; and I have no inclination to do so. Those who nominated and elected me did so with the full knowledge that I had made this, and made many similar declarations, and had never recanted them. And, more than this, they placed in the platform, for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read:
   " 'Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the states, and especially the right of each state to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any state or territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.'
   "I now reiterate these sentiments; and in doing so I only press upon the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible, that the property, peace, and security of no section are to be in anywise endangered by the now incoming administration.
   "I add, too, that all the protection which, consistently with the Constitution and the laws, can be given, will be cheerfully given to all the states when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause, as cheerfully to one section as to another.
   "There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:
   "'No person held to service or labor in one state under the law thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.'
   "It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the lawgiver is the law.
   "All members of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitution--to this provision as well as any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this clause 'shall be delivered up,' their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could they not, with nearly equal unanimity, frame and pass a law by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath?
   "There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be enforced by national or by state authority; but surely that difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him or to others by which authority it is done; and should any one, in any case, be content that this oath shall go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept?
   "Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the safeguards of liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a free man be not, in any case, surrendered as a slave? And might it not be well at the same time to provide by law for the enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that 'the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states?'
   "I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservations, and with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical rules; and while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to and abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them, trusting to find impunity in having them held to be unconstitutional.
   "It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a President under our national Constitution. During that period fifteen different and very distinguished citizens have in succession administered the executive branch of the government. They have conducted it through many perils, and generally with great success. Yet, with all this scope for precedent, I now enter upon the same task, for the brief constitutional term of four years, under great and peculiar difficulties.
   "A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably attempted. I hold that in the contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution, the Union of these states is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our national Constitution, and the Union will endure forever, it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.
   "Again, if the United States be not a government proper, but an association of states in the nature of a contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it--break it, so to speak; but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it? Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual, confirmed by the history of the Union itself.
   "The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued in the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen states expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of the Confederation, in 1778; and, finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was to form a more perfect union. But if the destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the states be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before, the Constitution having lost the vital element of perpetuity.
   "It follows from these views that no state, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void; and that acts of violence within any state or states against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances.
   "I therefore consider that, in view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken, and, to the extent of my ability, I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union shall be faithfully executed in all the states. Doing this, which I deem to be only a simple duty on my part, I shall perfectly perform it, so far as is practicable, unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisition, or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary.
   "I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend and maintain itself.
   "In doing this there need be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it is forced upon the national authority.
   "The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere.
   "Where hostility to the United States shall be so great and so universal as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people that object. While strict legal right may exist of the government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating, and so nearly impracticable withal, that I deem it best to forego for the time the uses of such offices.
   "The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished in all parts of the Union.
   "So far as possible, the people everywhere shall have that sense of perfect security which is most favorable to calm thought and reflection.
   "The course here indicated will be followed, unless current events and experience shall show a modification or change to be proper; and in every case and exigency my best discretion will be exercised according to the circumstances actually existing, and with a view and hope of a peaceful solution of the national troubles, and the restoration of fraternal sympathies and affections.
   "That there are persons, in one section or another, who seek to destroy the Union at all events, and are glad of any pretext to do it, I will neither affirm nor deny. But if there be such, I need address no word to them.
   "To those, however, who really love the Union, may I not speak, before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our national fabric, with all its benefits, its memories, and its hopes? Would it not be well to ascertain why we do it? Will you hazard so desperate a step, while any portion of the ills you fly from have no real existence? Will you, while the certain ills you fly to are greater than all the real ones you fly from? Will you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake? All profess to be content in the Union if all constitutional rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, that any right, plainly written in the Constitution, has been denied? I think not. Happily the human mind is so constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this.
   "Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly-written provision of the Constitution has ever been denied. If, by the mere force of numbers. a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly-written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution; it certainly would, if such right were a vital one. But sUch is not our case.
   "All the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured to them by affirmations and negations, guaranties and prohibitions in the Constitution, that controversies never arise concerning them. But no organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. No foresight can anticipate, nor any document of reasonable length contain, express provisions for all possible questions. Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or by state authorities? The Constitution does not expressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in the territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. From questions of this class, spring all our constitutional controversies, and we divide upon them into majorities and minorities.
   "If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the government must cease. There is no alternative for continuing the government but acquiescence on the one side or the other. If a minority in such a case will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent, which, in turn, will ruin and divide them, for a minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such a minority. For instance, why not any portion of a new confederacy, a year or two hence, arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim to secede from it? All who cherish disunion sentiments are now being educated to the exact temper of doing this. Is there such perfect identity of interests among the states to compose a new Union as to produce harmony only, and prevent renewed secession? Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy.
   "A majority held in restraint by constitutional check and limitation, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it, does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible. So that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism, in some form, is all that is left.
   "I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court, nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding in any case upon the parties to a suit, as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to a very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the government; and while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled an never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice.
   "At the same time the candid citizen must confess that, if the policy of the government upon the vital question affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by the decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, as in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own masters, unless having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.
   "Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink, to decide cases properly brought before them; and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes. One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be extended, and this is the only substantial dispute; and the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave trade, are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligations in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, cannot be perfectly cured, and it would be worse, in both cases, after the separation of the sections, than before. The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived, without restriction, in one section; while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all by the other.
   "Physically speaking we can not separate; we can not remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other, but the different parts of our country cannot do this. They can not but remain face to face; and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides, and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon you.
   "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. I can not be ignorant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having the national Constitution amended. While I make no recommendation of amendment, I fully recognize the full authority of the people over the whole subject, to be exercised in either of the modes prescribed in the instrument itself, and I should, under existing circumstances, favor rather than oppose a fair opportunity being afforded the people to act upon it.
   "I will venture to add, that to me the convention mode seems preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate with the people themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or reject propositions originated by others not especially chosen for the purpose, and which might not be precisely such as they would wish either to accept or refuse. I understand that a proposed amendment to the Constitution (which amendment, however, I have not seen) has passed Congress, to the effect that the federal government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of states, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments, so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.
   "The chief magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and they have conferred none upon him to fix the terms for the separation of the states. The people themselves, also, can do this if they choose, but the executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer the present government as it came to his hands, and to transmit it unimpaired by him to his successor. Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In our present differences is either party without faith of being in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of nations, with his eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal, the American people. By the frame of the government under which we live, this same people have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief, and have with equal wisdom provided for the return of that little to their own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years.
   "My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time.
   "If there be an object to hurry any of you, in hot haste, to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time: but no good object can be frustrated by it.
   "Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new administration will have no immediate power, it it would, to change either.
   "If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there is still no single reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulties.
   "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you.
   "You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government; while I shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect, and defend' it.
   "I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.
   "The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
The address delivered and the oath administered, the august ceremonies of the occasion were concluded; and, passing back through the Senate Chamber, the President was escorted to the White House, where Mr. Buchanan took leave of him, and where the people were received by him in large numbers. Mr. Lincoln, on being asked whether he felt frightened while delivering his address, in consequence of the threats of assassination, replied that he had frequently experienced greater fear in addressing a dozen western men on the subject of temperance. Of one thing the "fire-eaters" were assured by the address, viz: that if a war was to be inaugurated, they would be obliged to fire the first gun. Mr. Lincoln had pledged himself to take no step of even doubtful propriety. He proposed simply to possess and hold the property of the United States.
And now began the great work of Mr. Lincoln's life. The humble boy, reared in a log cabin, was the great man, occupying the proudest place in the nation, in the most perilous period of that nation's existence. He was in the White House as God's and the people's instrument, to work for both.
His first duty was the formal designation of a cabinet, for undoubtedly his choice of secretaries was essentially settled in his own mind before he left home. The highest position was offered to Mr. Seward, the first statesman in the republican party, and the equal if not the superior of any in the country. Concerning the filling of the office of Secretary of State, it is believed that Mr. Lincoln had no hesitation. Mr. Seward was his first and last choice. With equal promptitude he decided to call Edward Bates of Missouri to the office of Attorney General. Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania was known to be an aspirant for cabinet honors; and, it is believed, would have accepted the post of Secretary of the Treasury with more alacrity than he did that of Secretary of War, to which Mr. Lincoln called him. Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, who shared with Mr. Seward the highest regards of the republican party and the confidence of the country, was appointed to the Treasury. The men thus brought into the government were all prominent candidates for the presidency at Chicago, and on the first ballot received an aggregate of three hundred and twenty-one votes of the four hundred and sixty-five cast. The great majority of the party thus had the expression of their first choice for the presidency honored by Mr. Lincoln in a remarkable degree. Gideon Welles of Connecticut was appointed Secretary of the Navy. Caleb B. Smith of Indiana, an old personal friend of Mr. Lincoln, and for many years a distinguished politician of the West, was offered the Portfolio of the Interior, and accepted it; and Montgomery Blair of Maryland was appointed Postmaster General.
Thus furnished with his secretaries, another most important work opened before him--the clearing the departments of the sympathizers with treason. This was indeed a Herculean task. Treason was everywhere. Every department was infected. The men had been manipulated so long by treasonable hands--had been moulded into such thorough sympathy with the rebellion--and had so imbibed its treacherous spirit, that no measure could be discussed or adopted by the new administration that was not reported to the rebels by some clerk or confidant. The government was betrayed every day by its own agents. Not a step could be taken by Mr. Lincoln in any direction, that some spy in the departments, or some traitor in his confidence, did not report to his enemies.
There were certain things that Mr. Lincoln specially endeavored to do in his inaugural address, and in all the preliminary work of his administration. He endeavored to show that the rebellion was without an adequate cause--to show this first to his own people, and then to the governments and peoples on the other side of the Atlantic. He endeavored to leave no way untried that promised to procure or preserve an honorable peace. He endeavored so to manage affairs that whenever open hostilities should come, they should be begun by the rebels and not by the government. He intended to preserve for himself and for the government a clean record. He intended to bear with the rebellion just so long as it confined itself to paper--nay, further than this--to bear with it to the silent sufferance of many practical indignities. He did not mean to unsheath a sword, or fire a gun, until the rebellion absolutely compelled him to do so. Yet, while waiting the development of events, he was very busily engaged in clearing the government for action. Many of the revelations and movements of the first few weeks would doubtless be startling, even to-day, but the time has not yet come for their exposure.
Mr. Lincoln found not only the departments corrupt and unreliable, but he found the public mind abroad thoroughly poisoned against him, and fully in sympathy with the secessionists. Perhaps a majority of the representatives of the government in Europe were in the secrets of the seceders, and, in company with many who had gone from the southern states to shape public opinion to the interests of treason, were doing everything in their power to injure the government which had honored them. The places thus disgraced and made instruments in the hands of treason were to be filled by loyal men; and a set of influences were to be put in motion which should secure respect for the government, and a sound understanding of the merits of the controversy between the government and slavery. To fill these places was not an easy task, but it was done quickly and, in the main, wisely.
It is proper here to give an explanation of Mr. Lincoln's pacific policy, at this time. Great fault was subsequently found with him by the extremists among his northern friends, for his deference to the border states; and a full understanding of his policy, as it related to these states, cannot be had without going back to this period when it was initiated. There were fifteen slave states, which those engaged in the rebellion hoped to lead or to force into secession. At the time of the inauguration, only seven of these fifteen--less than a majority--had revolted. The cotton states alone had followed the lead of South Carolina out of the Union. Several weeks had passed since a state had seceded; and unless other states could be dragooned into the movement, the rebellion would be practically a failure from the start. Such a confederacy could not hope to live a year, and would be obliged to find its way back into the Union upon some terms. In the meantime, two or three conventions in the border states, delegated freshly from the people, had voted distinctly and decidedly not to secede. The affairs of the confederacy were really in a very precarious condition when Mr. Lincoln came into power. The rebel government was making very much more bluster than progress.
It became Mr. Lincoln's policy so to conduct affairs as to strengthen the Union feeling in the border states, and to give utterance to no sentiment and to do no deed which should drive these states toward the confederacy. He saw that if he could hold these states, there could not be a very serious war; for the first condition of success to the rebel cause was its general adoption by the border slave states. To hold these states by every means that did not bring absolute disgrace upon the government was his object. He must do nothing that would weaken the hands of Union men. The difficult position of these Union men he fully comprehended and considered. Of course, he had a hard path to pursue; and it is not strange. that those more hasty than himself should sometimes think he was loitering by the way, or was making it more tortuous than was either necessary or expedient. It is doubtful whether the politicians of New England ever gave Mr. Lincoln the credit which was his due for retaining in the Union those slave states which never left their allegiance. An early and decided war policy could have been morally certain to drive every slave state into the confederacy, except Maryland and Delaware, and they would only have been retained by force.
The confederacy found that it must make progress or die. The rebel Congress passed a measure for the organization of an army, on the ninth of March, and on the twelfth two confederate commissioners--Mr. Forsyth of Alabama and Mr. Crawford of Georgia--presented themselves at the State Department at Washington for the purpose of making a treaty with the United States. They knew, of course, that they could not be received officially, and that they ought to be arrested for treason. The President would not recognize them, but sent to them a copy of his Inaugural, as the embodiment of the views of the government. The commissioners hung about Washington for a month, learning what they could, and in daily communication with the traitors who still haunted the confidence of the heads of the government. Mr. Seward's reply to them, on the eighth of April, was delayed at their own request until that time, and when it came they probably knew what its contents and character would be. In order to give secession a new impetus, they wished, in some way, to throw the responsibility of beginning war upon the Washington authorities, and to make it appear that they had exhausted all peaceable measures for an adjustment of the difficulties.
In the meantime, Lieutenant Talbot, on behalf of Mr. Lincoln, was having interviews with Governor Pickens of South Carolina and with General Beauregard, in command of the confederate forces there, in which he informed them that provisions would be sent to Fort Sumter peaceably if possible, otherwise by force. This was communicated to L.P. Walker, then rebel Secretary of War. Before Talbot had made his communication, Beauregard had informed Major Anderson, in command of Fort Sumter, that he must have no further intercourse with Charleston; and Talbot himself was refused permission to visit that gallant and faithful officer.
These were very dark days with Mr. Lincoln. The rebels were determined to wrest from him a pretext for war--determined to make him take a step which could be made to appear to be the first step. At the same time, he was making rapid preparations for war, all of which must be kept secret from friends, that they might not exasperate foes. The loyal press became impatient with his apparent inactivity, and under the inspiration of this press the loyal masses became uneasy. Under these circumstances, there were not wanting disloyal men in the North, who became bold in the entertainment of schemes for a revolution. Mr. Douglas himself did not support the administration, although he had publicly declared for coercion. He could not forget his hatred of the republican party; and was ready for almost any scheme for its destruction. He wished to organize a great compromise party, which would consent to the reconstruction of the Union, with slavery recognized and protected in all its departments. Until the first overt act of war had been committed, he brought no aid to the government.
While Mr. Lincoln's friends were clamoring for a policy--as if he had not a very decided one--and his foes north and south were busy with their schemes for the destruction of himself, his party and his country, he was performing the most exhausting labors. He was thronged with office-seekers, to whose claims he gave his personal attention. He was holding protracted cabinet meetings. He was in almost hourly intercourse with prominent men from every section of the country. All these labors he was performing with the consciousness that his nominal friends were doubtful, that seven states were in open revolt, and that a majority throughout the Union had not the slightest sympathy with him.
There was distraction, also, in his counsels. Loyal men, burning with patriotic indignation, were demanding that Fort Sumter should be reinforced and provisioned, while the veteran Lieutenant General was advising its abandonment as a military necessity. The wisdom of Mr. Lincoln's waiting became evident at a day not too long delayed. Fort Pickens, which the rebels had not taken, was quietly reinforced, and when the vessels which carried the relief were dispatched, Mr. Lincoln gave official information to General Beauregard that provisions were to be sent to Major Anderson in Fort Sumter, by an unarmed vessel. He was determined that no hostile act on the part of the government should commence the war, for which both sides were preparing; although an act of open war had already transpired in Charleston harbor, for which the rebel forces were responsible. The steamer Star of the West, loaded with troops and provisions for Major Anderson, was fired upon and driven out of the harbor two months before the expiration of Mr. Buchanan's term of office. The supplying the garrison with food was an act of humanity, and not an act of war, except as it might be so construed.
Beauregard laid this last intelligence before his Secretary of War, and under special instructions, on the twelfth of April, he demanded the surrender of Fort Sumter. He was ready to make the demand, and to back it by force. The city of Charleston was full of troops, and, for months, batteries had been in course of construction, with the special purpose of compelling the surrender of the fort. Major Anderson had seen these batteries going up, day after day, without the liberty to fire a gun. He declined to surrender. He was called upon to state when he would evacuate the fort. He replied that on the fifteenth he would do so, should he not meantime receive controlling instructions from the government, or additional supplies. The response which he received was that the confederate batteries would open on Fort Sumter in one hour from the date of the message. The date of the message was "April 12, 1861, 3:30 A.M." Beauregard was true to his word. At half past four, the batteries opened upon the fort, which, after a long and terrible bombardment, and a gallant though comparatively feeble defense by a small and half-starved garrison, was surrendered the following day.
This was practically the initial act of war. Mr. Lincoln, by his determined forbearance, had thrown the onus of its commencement upon the rebel government. Never by word, or deed, or declared or concealed intention, had he wronged the South, or denied its rights under the Constitution. By no hostile act had he provoked war. From the time he had first opened his lips as President of the United States, he had breathed none but pacific words. He had claimed the least that he could claim for the government, and still preserve a show of right and power. Upon the heads of the conspirators rested every particle of responsibility for the beginning of the war, and the train of horrors that followed. The rebellion was conceived in perjury, brought forth in violence, cradled in ignorance, and reared upon spoil. It never had an apology for existence that will be entertained for a moment at the bar of history. It never was anything from its birth to its death but a crime--a crime against Christianity, against patriotism, against humanity, against civilization, against progress, against personal and political honor, against the people who were forced to support it, against the people who voluntarily put it down, and against that God to whom it blasphemously appealed for justification, and arrogantly prayed for success.
The fall of Sumter was the resurrection of patriotism. The North needed just this. Such a universal burst of patriotic indignation as ran over the North under the influence of this insult to the national flag has never been witnessed. It swept away all party lines as if it had been flame and they had been flax. No combination of moral influences could thus have united in one feeling and purpose the elements which the fire from those batteries welded into a burning union. All disloyalty was silenced. Compromise was a word that had no significance. "Coercion"--a word which had had a fearful meaning among the timid--lost its terrors. There was a universal desire, all over the North, to avenge the foul insult. It was worth a life-time of indifference or discord to feel and to see a nation thus once more united in thought and purpose, and to realize that underneath all divisions of party and sect, and deeper down than selfish interest and personal prejudice, there was a love of country which made us a nation.
Now was the time for Mr. Lincoln to act. Up to this date he had had no basis for action in the popular feeling. If he had raised an army, that would have been an act of hostility--that would have been a threat of "coercion." A thousand northern presses would have pounced upon him as a provoker of war. On the fifteenth of April he issued a proclamation, calling upon the loyal states for seventy-five thousand men to protect the national capital, and suppress such combinations as had been made to resist the inforcement of the laws of the United States. "I appeal," said Mr. Lincoln, in this proclamation, "to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate and aid this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity and existence of our national Union, and the perpetuity of popular government, and to redress the wrongs already long enough endured." The first service, he stated, to which the forces thus called for would be subjected would be to repossess the forts, places and property taken from the Union by the rebels. By the same proclamation he convened both Houses of Congress to assemble on the fourth of July.
The utterance of this proclamation was so clearly a necessity, and was so directly a response to the uprising of the people, that not a voice was raised against it. It was received with no small degree of excitement, but it was a healthy excitement. It was a necessity; and loyal men everywhere felt that the great struggle between slavery and the country was upon them. "Better that it should be settled by us than by our children," said men, everywhere; and in their self-devotion they were encouraged by their mothers, sisters and wives. The South knew that war must come, and they were prepared. Nearly all the southern forts were already in their hands. They had robbed the northern arsenals through the miscreant Floyd. They had cut off the payment of all debts due the North. They had ransacked the mails, so that the government could have no communication with its friends and forces. They had been instructing officers for years, and drilling troops for months. They knew that there were not arms enough in the North to furnish an army competent to overcome them. When, therefore, Mr. Lincoln called for his seventy-five thousand men, they met the proclamation with a howl of derision.
Massachusetts was the first state to respond to the call for troops. Governor Andrew, a devoted friend of the administration, acted as promptly then in the support of the government as he afterwards labored with efficient persistence in the destruction of the rebellion; but the credit of having the troops ready for motion and action was due mainly to the foresight of Governor N.P. Banks, afterwards a Major General in the federal service. He was Governor Andrew's predecessor; and three years before the breaking out of the rebellion declared, when rallied on his devotion to the military, that the troops would be called upon within a few years to suppress a slaveholders' rebellion. The prediction seemed very wild then, and probably would never have been recalled but for its exact fulfillment. The troops which he had made ready, Governor Andrew, coming after him, promptly dispatched.
The moral effect of the marching of the Massachusetts Sixth was very great. The hearts of the people were stirred all along their route by the most powerful emotions. They were fed and applauded at every considerable station. Women thronged around the cars, bringing to them their Bibles and other gifts, and giving them their tearful blessing. New York city was much impressed by their sturdy march through the great metropolis. It was a new sensation. Men forgot their counting--rooms and ware-houses, and gave themselves up to the emotions excited by so prompt and gallant an exhibition of patriotism. But the tramp of the Sixth awoke the young men everywhere to deeds of emulation. Within forty-eight hours after this regiment left Boston, two more regiments had been made ready, and were dispatched. On its way through Baltimore, the Sixth Regiment was attacked by a mob, carrying a secession flag, and several of its members killed and wounded. This outrage added new fuel to the fire. The North was growing angry. The idea that a loyal regiment could not pass through a nominally loyal city, on its way to protect the national capital, without fighting its way through, aroused a storm of indignation that swept over the whole of loyal America.
Governor Hicks of Maryland and Mayor Brown of Baltimore were frightened. They did not wish to have any more troops taken through Baltimore. Mr. Lincoln assured them that he made no point of bringing troops through that city, and that he left the matter with General Scott, who had said in his presence that the troops might be marched around Baltimore. By this arrangement a collision with the people of Baltimore would be avoided, unless they should go out of the way to seek it. "Now and ever," said Mr. Lincoln, in closing a note to these gentlemen, "I shall do all in my power for peace, consistently with the maintenance of the government."
Governor Hicks wished the quarrel between the North and South referred to Lord Lyons, the British minister, for arbitration. To this Mr. Seward, speaking for the President, made a most admirable reply, stating that "whatever noble sentiments, once prevalent in Maryland, had been obliterated, the President would be hopeful, nevertheless, that there is one that would forever remain there and everywhere. That sentiment is that no domestic contention whatever, that may arise among the parties of this republic, ought, in any case, to be referred to any foreign arbitrament--least of all to the arbitrament of a foreign monarchy."
Governor Hicks occupied, without doubt, a difficult position. Out of ninety-two thousand votes cast at the presidential election, only a little more than two thousand had been cast for Mr. Lincoln. More than forty-two thousand votes had been given for Mr. Breckinridge, and almost an equal number for John Bell. Maryland was a southern slave-holding state, and the sympathies of four persons in every five were with the rebellion. His people threatened him, while the government would have its troops, and insisted that they should pass through Maryland.
After the passage of the Massachusetts Sixth, the mob had control. They burnt the bridges north of Baltimore, so as to cut off the means of access to the city; and then, against the protests of the governor, the troops were forwarded by way of Annapolis.
Four days after Mr. Lincoln's call for troops--on the day of the bloody passage of the Massachusetts Sixth through Baltimore--he issued a proclamation declaring a blockade of the ports of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. This call for troops and the establishment of a blockade were the preliminaries of one of the most remarkable wars that have occurred in the history of the human race--a war which, for the number of men involved, the amount of spaces traversed, of coast line blockaded, of material consumed and results achieved, surpasses all the wars of history.
The South had calculated upon the disloyalty of Maryland. Nay, more, it had calculated on the assistance of a large party at the North. It did not intend to be confined in its warlike operations to its own territory. Northern politicians, and among them ex-President Pierce, had told them it would not be. It expected to take and hold Washington, and to banish the government; and Maryland had an important part to play in the drama. Jefferson Davis had openly declared that the North and not the South should be the field of battle. The rebel Secretary of War said publicly in Montgomery that while no man could tell where the war would end, he would prophesy that the flag which then flaunted the breeze at Montgomery would float over the dome of the old capitol at Washington before the first of May; and that it "might float eventually over Fanueil Hall itself." To make good these predictions, the rebel government organized and sent toward Virginia, a force of 20,000 men, calculating upon the secession of Virginia which had not then joined the confederacy, and which, left to the popular choice, never would have taken that fatal step.
The attitude of the two governments at this period presented a strong contrast--a most instructive contrast to all who are curious to mark the respective degrees of responsibility attaching to them for the war which followed. The confederate forces, or the state forces in the confederate interest, had seized and occupied nearly every fort, arsenal and dock-yard belonging to the United States, upon the southern territory. The rebel government had opened its batteries upon United States vessels, and had bombarded and captured Fort Sumter. It had issued letters of marque to distress our commerce. It was engaged in the attempt to force every border slave state into the support of its schemes. It was pushing its soldiers northward for a war of aggression; and its highest representatives were publicly boasting that their flag would soon float over the capitol at Washington, and that the war should not be carried on upon confederate soil. The attitude of the rebel government was that of direct, bitter, determined, aggressive hostility.
Virginia at this time was holding a state convention which, to the dismay and vexation of the rebel leaders, was controlled by a large majority of Union men. Nothing is more demonstrable than that the choice of Virginia was to remain in the Union. These delegates were chosen as Union men; yet every possible influence was brought to bear upon them to cajole or coerce them into disunion. Threats, misrepresentations, promises of power, social proscription, appeals to personal and sectional interest, everything that treasonable ingenuity could suggest were resorted to to urge the laggard state into the vortex of secession. The fall of Sumter, the inaugural of President Lincoln and the failure of the confederate commissioners to secure a treaty were used in different ways to inflame southern pride, and loosen the love of the loyal members from the old Union. The President's Inaugural had been so misconstrued as to convey the idea that his policy was one of coercion; and the convention sent a committee to Mr. Lincoln, commissioned to ask him to communicate to the convention the policy which the federal executive intended to pursue, in regard to the confederate states, complaining that great and injurious uncertainty prevailed in the public mind in regard to this policy.
To this request Mr. Lincoln gave a formal answer; and in this answer appears the contrast to which attention has been called. He expressed his regret and mortification that, after having stated his position and policy as plainly as he was able to state it in his inaugural address, there should be any uncertainty on the subject. "As I then and therein said," the reply proceeds, "'the power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy and possess property and places belonging to the government, and to collect duties and imposts; but, beyond what is necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against, or among, people anywhere.'" Fort Sumter, he declared it his purpose to repossess, with all the other places seized from the government, and to the best of his ability he should repel force by force. In consequence of the attack on Sumter, it was possible that he should cause the withdrawal of the mails from the states which claimed to have seceded. He closed by reiterating the claim of the government upon the military posts and property which had been seized, and by stating that, whatever else he might do for the purpose, he should not "attempt to collect the duties and imposts by any armed invasion of any part of the country," not meaning by that, however, to cut himself off from the liberty to land a force necessary to relieve a fort upon the border of the country.
On one side was rampant treason and a policy of aggressive war; on the other, patient forbearance, and the most considerate care not to take any step not absolutely necessary to the maintenance of the indisputable rights of the government. No man in the United States who pretended to be loyal could find fault with Mr. Lincoln for claiming too much, or being harsh with those "erring sisters" who, it was believed by many, might be gently led back to their allegiance.
On the seventeenth of April, Virginia went out of the Union by a convention vote of eighty-eight to fifty-five; and on the twenty-first of May the confederate capital was transferred to Richmond. Thenceforth Virginia went straight toward desolation. Its "sacred soil" was from that hour devoted to trenches, fortifications, battle-fields, military roads, camps and graves.
The conciliatory policy of Mr. Lincoln had threatened the ruin of the confederacy; but the confederacy made war, and then appealed to the border states for sympathy and help. Governor Pickens of South Carolina telegraphed the fall of Sumter to the Governor of Virginia, and appealed to Virginia to know what she was going to do. This was the policy--to precipitate war, and then appeal to sectional pride and interest for sectional assistance. The first practical show of sectional feeling on the part of the border states was contained in the angry and insulting responses which they returned to Mr. Lincoln's call for troops. These responses exhibited the sympathies of their Governors, at least. Tennessee, North Carolina and Arkansas followed Virginia out of the Union, and thus the confederate cause made the gain it sought.
At the North and West the response to the President's call for soldiers was rendered with enthusiastic alacrity, the states vieing with each other in the office of raising, fitting out and dispatching troops. Money was offered to the government by millions, and the President found that he had a basis for a policy in the national feeling. After a week of great anxiety, Washington was relieved; and while troops from the North were rushing southward, a still larger number from the South were pushing northward in preparation for the grand struggle.
One of the most encouraging incidents of this opening chapter of the war was a visit of Mr. Douglas to Mr. Lincoln, in which the former gave to the latter the assurance of his sympathy and support in the war for the preservation of the Union. It is to be remembered that Mr. Douglas was an ambitious man, that he was a strong party man, that he had battled for power with all the persistence of a strong and determined nature, and that he was a sadly disappointed man. The person with whom he had had his hardest fights occupied the chair to which he had for many years aspired.
On Sunday, the fourteenth of April, all Washington was alive with excitement under the effect of the news of the fall of Sumter. Secessionists could not conceal their joy, and the loyal were equally sad and indignant. Churches were forsaken, and the opening of the war was the only topic of thought and conversation. Under these circumstances, Hon. George Ashmun of Massachusetts, who was personally on the most friendly terms with Mr. Lincoln and. Mr. Douglas, called on the latter in the evening, to obtain from him some public declaration that should help the government in its extremity. He found the Senator surrounded by political friends, who were soon dismissed, and then, for an hour, the two men discussed the relations of Mr. Douglas to the administration. The first impulse of the Senator was against Mr. Ashmun's wishes, who desired him to go to the President at once, and tell him he would sustain him in all the needful measures which the exigency demanded. His reply was: "Mr. Lincoln has dealt hardly with me, in removing some of my friends from office, and I don't know as he wants my advice or aid." Mr. Ashmun remarked that he had probably followed democratic precedents in making removals, but that the present question was above party, and that it was now in the power of Mr. Douglas to render such a service to his country as would not only give him a title to its lasting gratitude, but would show that in the hour of his country's need he could trample all party considerations and resentments under feet. At this juncture, Mrs. Douglas came in, and gave the whole weight of her affectionate influence in the direction in which Mr. Ashmun was endeavoring to lead him. He could not withstand the influence of his friend, his wife, and that better nature to which they appealed. He gave up all his enmity, all his resentment, cast every unworthy sentiment and selfish feeling behind him, and cordially declared his willingness to go to Mr. Lincoln, and offer him his earnest and hearty support.
It was nearly dark when the two gentlemen started for the President's house. Mr. Lincoln was alone, and on learning their errand gave them a most cordial welcome. For once, the life-long antagonists were united in heart and purpose. Mr. Lincoln took up the proclamation, calling for seventy-five thousand troops, which he had determined to issue the next day, and read it. When he had finished, Mr. Douglas rose from his chair and said: "Mr. President, I cordially concur in every word of that document, except that instead of the call for seventy-five thousand men I would make it two hundred thousand. You do not know the dishonest purposes of those men as well as I do." Then he asked the President and Mr. Ashmun to look at a map of the United States which hung at one end of the room. On this he pointed out, in detail, the principal strategic points which should be at once strengthened for the coming contest. Among the more prominent of these were Fortress Monroe, Washington, Harper's Ferry and Cairo. He then enlarged upon the firm, warlike course which should be pursued, while Mr. Lincoln listened with earnest interest, and the two old foes parted that night thorough friends, perfectly united in a patriotic purpose.
After leaving the President, Mr. Ashmun said to Mr. Douglas: "You have done justice to your own reputation and to the President; and the country must know it. The proclamation will go by telegraph all over the country in the morning, and the account of this interview must go with it. I shall send it, either in my own language or yours. I prefer that you should give your own version." Mr. Douglas said he would write it; and so the dispatch went with the message wherever the telegraph would carry it, confirming the wavering of his own party, and helping to raise the tide of loyal feeling, among all parties and classes, to its flood. The dispatch, the original of which Mr. Ashmun still retains, was as follows:
   "Mr. Douglas called on the President this evening, and had an interesting conversation on the present condition of the country. The substance of the conversation was that while Mr. Douglas was unalterably opposed to the administration on all its political issues, he was prepared to sustain the President in the exercise of all his constitutional functions to preserve the Union, and maintain the government and defend the federal capital. A firm policy and prompt action were necessary. The capital of our country was in danger and must be defended at all hazards, and at any expense of men or money. He spoke of the present and future without reference to the past."
The writer of the life of Mr. Lincoln and the chronicler of the rebellion will find few more delightful tasks than that of recording the unwearied devotion of Mr. Douglas to the cause of his country during the brief remainder of his life. He was done with his dreams of power, done with the thought that compromise would save the country, and done, for the time at least, with schemes for party aggrandizement. Six days after his interview with Mr. Lincoln he was on his way home, and at Bellair, Ohio, he was called out to make a speech. All parties received him with the greatest enthusiasm, and every word he uttered had the genuine ring of patriotism. Subsequently he addressed the legislature of Illinois, at Springfield, and his own fellow-citizens at Chicago. The old party talk and the old party policy were all forgotten, and only the sturdy, enthusiastic patriot spoke. In one of the last letters he ever wrote he said: "We should never forget that a man cannot be a true democrat unless he is a loyal patriot." In May he became sick, and on the third of June he died. In the low delirium that attended his disease he talked of nothing but his country, and almost his last coherent words were shaped to a wish for its honor and prosperity, through the defeat and dispersion of its enemies.
Mr. Lincoln felt his death as a calamity. He had been of great service to him in unveiling the designs of the rebels, and in bringing to the support of the government an element which a word from him at a favorable moment would have alienated. He freely said that he regarded Mr. Douglas as one of his best and most valuable friends.
To those who are curious in marking strange coincidences, it will be interesting to remember that just four years to an hour after Mr. Douglas parted with Mr. Lincoln, at the close of the interview that has been described, Mr. Lincoln was slain by an assassin. Both died with a common purpose uppermost in their minds, one in the threatening morning of the rebellion, and the other when its sun had just set in blood; and both sleep in the dust of that magnificent state almost every rod of which, within a quarter of a century, had echoed to their contending voices as they expounded their principles to the people.