444

Lincoln's early history

[1837-58

nine States were added to the Union. Illinois rose in population from 157,445 to 1,711,951, Chicago from a frontier trading-post to a commercial metropolis, Springfield from a settlement to a flourishing State capital. Roads, post routes, towns, commerce, courts, replaced the forest and prairie solitude. The dug-out canoe changed to the steamboat, the buckskin garb of the hunter to the broadcloth of the doctor, the lawyer, and the clergyman. In this growth Abraham Lincoln took an active and essential part. He personally helped to build his country's cabins, survey its roads, defend its frontier, frame its laws, administer its courts of justice, shape its national policy. In this practical school of applied politics he learned the fundamental principles of American statesmanship.

In 1837 he left his first home at New Salem to form a law partnership at Springfield, the new capital of his State. In the political campaigns of 1840 and 1844 he was a Whig candidate for the office of presidential elector. In 1846 he was chosen to the Lower House of Congress, serving one term of two years. During the five years which followed he practised law with marked success, and only re-entered politics when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused the whole country to an intense heat of public discussion. In the exciting party strife over the new question, Lincoln's maturing intellect and growing oratorical power at once attracted marked attention, and gave him such prominence that in 1855 he was the candidate of his party before the Illinois legislature for the post of Senator; and, though defeated, he maintained a leadership that secured to him for the second time the unanimous nomination of his party for the same office, when the term of Stephen A. Douglas was about to expire. Lincoln's seven joint debates with that popular and skilful Democratic champion in the Illinois senatorial campaign of 1858, while they did not save him from a second defeat, extended his fame and gave him high reputation as a national statesman.

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Two speeches made by him in that memorable campaign had deep influence on public opinion and wrought far-reaching party consequences. The first was his address before the Republican State Convention, in which he uttered the bold prophecy that, "This government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, north as well as south." This proposition he demonstrated by a critical analysis of the course and consequences of the Kansas-Nebraska legislation and the Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court. The second was his Freeport debate with Douglas, when he forced that adroit tactician to declare that a territorial legislature might by "unfriendly legislation " exclude slavery in defiance of the Supreme Court dictum. For this avowal Douglas was

1858-60]

Lincoln elected President

445

branded as a party apostate by his Democratic presidential rivals; the schism broke up the Charleston Convention, and severed the Democratic party into two irreconcilable factions. The prudent attitude which Lincoln maintained in his speeches between the extremes of radical and conservative opinion on the slavery issue rendered him the most suitable man to unite the somewhat heterogeneous elements of the new Republican party; and the National Republican Convention at Chicago in May, 1860, nominated him for President of the United States on the third ballot, over Seward, Chase, Cameron, Bates, and other prominent leaders. Six months later the suffrages of the American people confirmed the choice of the Chicago Convention.

In the election of November 6, 1860, the popular vote chose a constitutional majority of presidential electors, who a month later (December 5) cast 180 votes for Lincoln. Of the other three candidates, Breckinridge received 72 votes, Bell 39, and Douglas 12, Lincoln's majority over them collectively being 57. Practically it was the vote of the eighteen Free States of the Union against the vote of the fifteen Slave States divided among three candidates. Even had there been only one instead of three opposing candidates, Lincoln would still have been returned by the electoral college. A complete fusion of the opposition vote, such as wholly or partly occurred in five States, would have only diminished his electoral majority to 35. The verdict thus expressed gave notice to the South that its dream of slavery extension was over, and that thereafter the North held the political balance of power. But it is to be remarked that a majority of the popular vote, even when the States of the Confederacy were excluded, was against him. He was the choice of a minority- a fact which renders his career as President still more remarkable.

While this portended no danger to the Slave States, South Carolina immediately led off in the long-meditated scheme of secession. Already a month before, her then governor had sounded other Slave State executives on the project; and, though receiving but meagre assurance of support, he now convened his legislature in special session, and sent it a revolutionary message. In response, that body provided for promptly choosing a State convention, and enacted various military measures. On December 20, 1860, the newly elected convention passed an ordinance of secession.

A week earlier, on December 14, about one-half of the senators. and representatives in Congress from the Slave States issued at Washington a manifesto addressed "To our Constituents," in which they announced that the honour, safety, and independence of the Southern people required the organisation of a Southern Confederacy, and that the primary object of each slave-holding State ought to be its speedy and absolute separation from a union with hostile States.

Such a recommendation naturally brought the elements of revolution

446

The Secession movement

[1860into speedy action. Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and Louisiana rapidly followed the example of South Carolina. Legislatures were convened, conventions organised, commissioners sent from State to State to encourage popular and legislative action; military legislation was enacted; militia companies were organised and drilled. Secession ordinances quickly succeeded each other during the earlier half of January, 1861; and, almost immediately afterwards, the governors each sent a small military force to demand and receive the surrender of the feebly garrisoned federal forts within their respective States, as well as to take possession of arsenals, custom-houses, mints, and other public buildings and property of the United States. By this method twelve to fifteen harbour forts along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, capable of mounting a thousand guns, half-a-dozen arsenals with an aggregate of 115,000 arms, an extensive navy-yard at Pensacola, Florida, three mints, four important custom-houses, and three revenue cutters on duty at seaports, with a variety of other miscellaneous government property, passed without opposition, almost without effort, into the hands of the Secessionists.

There occurred, however, three notable exceptions. The State of Texas, whose governor opposed secession, was carried into the revolt by a military conspiracy and usurpation. No attempt was made against Fort Taylor at Key West, Fort Jefferson on Tortugas Island, or Fort Pickens on Santa Rosa Island near Pensacola, on account of the distance and danger. The forts in Charleston harbour underwent peculiar vicissitudes. Major Robert Anderson, a brave and loyal officer commanding a garrison of about sixty men, finding his position in Fort Moultrie on the mainland too much exposed, transferred his force by a sudden movement to Fort Sumter, situated midway in the harbour's mouth, and unapproachable except by water. Here he maintained himself nearly four months, during which time he was gradually surrounded by rebel batteries, and was only forced to capitulate by a two days' bombardment and the exhaustion of his provisions.

During most of these proceedings the newly elected President was compelled to remain a silent spectator. Though chosen in November, his term of office did not begin till the following 4th of March. In the interim the outgoing President, James Buchanan, was still responsible for the maintenance of the Government and Constitution of the United States, which his official oath bound him to "preserve, protect, and defend." Unfortunately, President Buchanan was, by reason both of advanced age and feeble will, totally unequal to the emergency. In the political struggle just ended his personal sympathy and party connexion had been rather with the South than with the North. He had championed the candidature of Breckinridge for the presidency; the leaders of the revolt had been his lifelong personal and party friends; and he could not immediately free himself from the influence of their past domination or present advice and suggestion. Three of the seven members of his Cabinet were

-1861]

Weakness of Buchanan

447

outspoken or covert disunionists; and his annual message to Congress reflected not only his own indecision, but the antagonism of his official advisers. Denying the right to secede, he also denied the right to coerce. Confessing his duty to execute the laws, he argued it impossible to do so against universal public opinion. Warned by General Scott to reinforce the Southern forts, he treated the advice with indifference, on the plea that the force at his disposal was insufficient. Little by little also, he involved himself in a practical truce with the authorities of South Carolina, beginning on December 8, 1860, and continuing until February 9, 1861, agreeing that he would not reinforce Fort Sumter if they would not attack it, and meanwhile leaving them free to build batteries for its eventual reduction.

In spite of all these efforts to steer a middle course, his perplexities constantly increased. Cobb, his disloyal Secretary of the Treasury, resigned on December 8, to embark in active secession. The loyal members of the Cabinet could not shut their eyes to the fact that disunion was rapidly changing to insurrection and rebellion; and two days before the Congressional secession manifesto, Cass, the Secretary of State, resigned because the President would not order the Charleston forts to be strengthened. A new Cabinet crisis arose, when on December 26 Anderson suddenly removed his force from Fort Moultrie to Sumter. Buchanan's disloyal Secretary of War, Floyd, indignantly demanded that he should be sent back. This time, under healthier advice, Mr Buchanan refused thus to censure a loyal officer for a brave act. He accepted Floyd's resignation, promoting his Postmaster-General, Holt, a firm Unionist, to be Secretary of War. The event created great consternation in Secessionist circles, and on January 5 a “caucus of Cotton-State senators was held in one of the committee rooms of the Capitol, at which a final programme of revolution was outlined, and the following points were agreed upon. 1. Immediate secession. 2. A convention at Montgomery, Alabama, not later than the 15th of February, to organise a confederacy of seceding States. 3. That the CottonState senators should remain in Congress "to keep the hands of Mr Buchanan tied." Most important of all, the caucus appointed a committee, consisting of Senators Jefferson Davis, Slidell, and Mallory, "to carry out the objects of this meeting." Thus the future chief of the great rebellion was chosen to preside over its primary organisation.

For the present the resolutions of January 5 were withheld from the public. Under the direction of Holt, the new Secretary of War, General Scott attempted to reinforce Fort Sumter by secretly sending 200 recruits from New York in a merchant steamer. But Thompson, the Secessionist Secretary of the Interior, whom Buchanan had with weak indulgence permitted to remain in his Cabinet, and who by accident became informed of the movement, notified the Charleston authorities; and when, on the morning of January 9, 1861, the Star of the West

448

Attempts at compromise

[1861 attempted to enter Charleston harbour, with the men and supplies, she was fired upon by a Confederate battery, and, turning back, abandoned the attempt.

A new crisis and cabinet reorganisation grew out of this attempt and failure; and for the first time President Buchanan had a council of united and loyal constitutional advisers. All their patriotism however could only nerve the timid and vacillating President to a few minor and secondary measures of national defence. The most important of these was his permission to Secretary Holt to concentrate at Washington 480 men of the regular United States army, and organise a supplementary force of 925 men of the Volunteer Militia of the District of Columbia, to secure the peace and order of the national capital during the official counting of the presidential vote by the two houses of Congress on February 13, 1861, as well as at the inauguration of the new executive on the 4th of March.

During this long interim the public opinion of the Free States, or as they were called, the North, had been in a somewhat conflicting state between apprehension, doubt, and lethargy. In the presidential election the existence of four parties and four candidates had greatly complicated party organisation, and produced sectional jealousy and dissension. The Southern threat of disunion had long served merely as a party menace. The recent more formal proceedings of Southern legislatures and conventions appeared only a prolongation of well-worn spectacular manifestations to extort compromise and concession from Northern voters. It seemed incredible that the South would resist with arms the lawful authority of a President, after having herself taken part in the election by which he was chosen. Vigorous as were the expressions of political defiance, neither North nor South believed that they would end in bloodshed and war. The people of both parties not only hoped but believed that again, as on former occasions, some compromise would allay the quarrel. Congress also reflected this phase of public feeling. During the month of December the House of Representatives appointed a committee of thirty-three, and the Senate a committee of thirteen, to bring about such a result. Continuous failure, however, attended the proceedings of both committees. No single plan among the seven presented to the Senate committee, nor among the forty or fifty suggested to the House committee, could obtain the assent of the majority; nor did any better success attend the efforts of a peace convention composed of delegates sent by the governors of fourteen States of the Union, all prominent, able and influential men, which met in Washington City, and held earnest debate from the 4th to the 27th of February.

Amid all this babel of demand and refusal, accusation and recrimination, there were but two undercurrents of logical and consistent action. The South, persisting in her demand for the full statutory protection of