"I again repeat, Mr. chairman, that we should not allow ourselves to be deceived by words. The question is not whether the United States will coerce a state, but whether a state shall coerce the government; whether this noble fabric, devised by our fathers, shall fall without a blow. I appeal to you again; I appeal to the Representatives of all the states, whether we shall allow Fort Sumter, the only place where our flag floats in the harbor of Charleston, to be surrendered at discretion.
"For one, I say, NEVER! NEVER! Even if to-morrow I should vote to give South Carolina license to leave the confederacy, if I had the power, yet, while that flag floats, it is the bounden and sacred duty of this government to protect it against all enemies, and at all hazards. I had fondly hoped, while we disagreed, and while I knew that our disagreement was marked and decided, that you, gentlemen of the south, would yourselves take the lead in the defense of our property and our honor; therefore I sat silent. I had hoped that, while we were discussing, you would insist upon the protection of the property of the United States, and that our flag should not be dishonored until we separated, in peace or in war.
"I was much struck by a remark made the other day by the honorable Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Davis), that if we could not agree with each other, we ought to separate in peace—that we should take this old flag, and fold it away, and keep it as a much-loved memento for us all. But, sir, we cannot do that now. It has been lowered and tarnished, and we all know and feel it.
"I was surprised that my colleague (Mr. Pendleton) did not vote for the resolution offered by the gentleman from New Jersey, in regard to Major Anderson. I hoped that the Ohio delegation would unite in favor of the resolution. I was still more surprised, allow me to say to the Representatives of Kentucky, that when their own gallant son had but performed his bounden duty they should have refused to vote to sustain him in his removal from Fort Moultrie to the strongest point in his command.
"The resolution simply expressed a desire to enforce the laws and to preserve the Union—no more. I am willing to stand on this platform. I can join heartily with all those who made that pledge, whatever else they may think or believe about the questions that divide our people. If we can stand by each other, if our constituents will stand by us in that emphatic declaration, I do believe the good ship that has borne us thus far on a prosperous voyage will outlive the storm. But, sir, if we yield too far to the fury of the waves; if we now surrender, without resistance, the forts, arsenals, dock-yards, and other property of the government, we only demonstrate that we are not fit for the duties assigned us; and, if our names survive our times, they will only be recorded as those of a degenerate race, who had not the manhood to preserve what their fathers won.
"Gentlemen cannot come here and say, 'We demand this; or, we demand that; stand and deliver.' That is the language of the highwayman. This is a great tribunal, where men reason and judge and weigh and doubt and hesitate and talk—and we have a good deal of that. No section and no state can, because the presidential election has gone against it, say, 'We will have this change in the constitution, or we will fire upon your flag; we will have that change in the constitution, or we will seize upon your forts.' That is not the principle upon which this government was founded. Mr. Jefferson, when elected President in 1801, declared the true principle. He said it was the duty of all good citizens to obey the constitution; to submit to a constitutional election; and he congratulated the country that the Federalists were willing to give the Democrats a fair trial. . . .
"Under the grave responsibility upon which we are acting, I feel it to be my duty to you, my fellow Members, and to my countrymen, north and south, to say frankly, that, in voting for this army bill, I vote with the expectation that the army will be used in protecting the acknowledged property of the United States, in recovering that which has been unlawfully taken, and in maintaining the Union.
"It may be said that the gravity of the events that surround us demands a greater force than is provided by this bill. The regular army is a mere skeleton. The present force will scarcely defend our frontier from Indian incursions; but it forms a nucleus capable of any re-enforcement demanded by the exigencies of the times. I do not contemplate, in any event, hostile invasions of the soil of any state, unless demanded for the defense of the acknowledged property of the United States. It is the duty of the government to suppress insurrection in a state; but in this event the military power can only be used in strict subordination to the civil authority. If the civil authority refuse to call for such aid, or suppress the courts, the military power cannot interfere. If the courts are closed, the duties of postmasters must necessarily be suspended. No doubt this measure will soon be adopted. If the revenue is refused, or cannot be collected, then goods cannot be imported, and ports must be closed. If a state shall, in violation of the constitution, undertake to regulate commerce, then her commerce must be suspended.
"No doubt other measures can be devised that will preserve the peace of the country until the people of the states may confer in a constitutional way, unless one or more of the seceding states shall, by military force, shed the blood of their fellow-citizens, or refuse to surrender to the proper authorities the acknowledged property of the government. I know that all the gentlemen around me must deeply deplore a civil war, especially if that war shall involve the fate of this capital and the disruption of the government. No man can contemplate the inevitable results of such a war without the most serious desire to avert it. It is our duty as Members of the House, it is the duty of Congress, I am happy to say it is now the acknowledged duty of the President, as it is of the incoming administration, to use forbearance to the extremest point. Let not physical force be arrayed in civil war until the last hope of peace and conciliation has been exhausted; then let each branch of the government, acting in concert with each other, perform its respective duties, though the heavens fall!
"What can we do for peace and conciliation? I anticipate at once your reply; you say, 'Let us compromise; yield what we demand of you. Let us compromise, and we will preserve the Union; civil war will be averted.' This, I know, is the earnest appeal of patriotic men in the southern states, who would gladly give their lives to stop the march of treason in those states. How useless it is to talk about compromises, concessions, conciliation, adjustment, when, if everything was conceded, the integrity of the government may be broken up by a majority of a single state. If we hold this Union, and all the rights it secures to us, and all the hopes we have upon it, upon the whim or will of a single state, then, indeed, it is the weakest government ever devised by man. If a single state may destroy our nationality, then, indeed, is the wisdom of our fathers the wisdom of babes. We can no longer talk about the weakness of the old confederacy or anarchy of Mexico.
"Sir, we owe it as the most sacred of duties to put down this heresy. If it now fortifies itself by sectional animosities, if it rises from party rebellion to sectional and civil war, still it must, and will, be met with determined resistance. Upon this point, I am glad to say, the people of Ohio are united, if the unanimous voice of the legislature of that state is a true indication.
"Again, I say, what is the use of concession, conciliation, or compromise, when, if we yield everything you demand, you cannot say to us 'It will save us from disunion or war?' Are we not in danger of quarreling about terms of conciliation, when traitors are overthrowing the government we wish to preserve? Are we not dividing ourselves for their benefit? What will satisfy South Carolina and Florida and Mississippi and Alabama? They want disunion, and not compromise or conciliation. The Democratic party would not agree to their terms, and they seceded from the Charleston and Baltimore conventions. Is it likely that we will yield what our northern Democratic friends could not yield? Can you expect this 'black Republican party,' as you please to call it, will yield to you what your northern Democratic associates dare not? It is utterly idle to talk about any such terms of concession. I do not believe any terms which our people could yield, and preserve their own self-respect, would satisfy South Carolina, Florida, or some of the other southern states, because they are bent upon disunion.
"We know that gentlemen who represented South Carolina on this floor, if the newspapers correctly report them, declared in the Charleston convention, held recently, that they had brooded over this matter for long years, and that they only sought an opportunity, an occasion, or, if I may use the word, a pretext, for the secession of the State of South Carolina and the disruption of the Union. Some stated that they had brooded over disunion and prayed for its consummation since boyhood. We know, sir, that the seeds of this revolution were sowed in the time of Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun. We know that in 1832 the doctrines upon which this revolution is going forward were initiated, and from that time the young men of South Carolina have been educated in the school of disunion. They have cherished these doctrines in their innermost hearts. All the concessions we might make, all the compromises we could agree to, all the offerings of peace we could make for the salvation of the Union, would not be able to secure the desired end, if South Carolina could prevent it.
"Again, we might, on this side, properly say we have done nothing to impair any constitutional right. We propose to do nothing to infringe yours. We have succeeded in a constitutional way in electing a President of the United States. All we ask is that he may be inaugurated in peace, and may develop his policy in the usual manner. We can add that this is the demand of all our people, not only of those who voted for Mr. Lincoln, but of every loyal citizen. You tell us your people are excited and alarmed, that they apprehend that an overwhelming anti-slavery element is about to be inaugurated in power that will, directly or indirectly, affect the constitutional rights of your states.
"Perhaps you will confess, what you know to be true, that for political purposes, in the struggle of partisans for ascendancy, both parties in the south have united to fire the southern mind against the hated 'black Republicans' of the north. Speeches have been distorted, single sentences have been torn from their context and made to deceive and mislead. Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Seward, Lincoln and latterly Douglas, have been mixed in a hated conglomerate, and used to excite your people. A philosophic opinion of Mr. Seward has been construed as the statement of a settled purpose to overthrow slavery in the states, although in the very paragraph itself all idea of interference by the people of the free states with slavery in the slave states is expressly excluded. It is but a year since you inflamed your constituents because some of your fellow-Members recommended, without reading, a book written by one of your own citizens, containing obnoxious opinions about slavery. Nearly all of you gave birth, vitality, and victory to the Republican party, by adopting a policy you now join in condemning. Some of you broke down the only political organization that could compete with us, and thus gave us an easy victory. You have all contributed, more or less, in perverting the public mind as to our principles and purposes. And I tell you, gentlemen, that when you call the Republican party an abolition party, in the sense you use the word abolition; when you quote from Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and from like extreme men, and circulate their opinions all over the south, telling the people of your states that the people of the north have been educated in these sentiments, profess them, and are going to put down slavery in the states, you do a great injustice to the intelligence and the safety of your people.
"I have heard here, over and over again, this course of agitation, pursued only the other day in the Senate of the United States. Mr. Douglas quoted from one of the speeches of Mr. Lincoln that passage so familiar to us all, that, in his opinion, that states would at some day be all slave or all free. Sir, in this time when the people of the southern states are in a storm of excitement, that speech of the Senator from Illinois is sent over those states as tending to show that Mr. Lincoln would in some way interfere with slavery in the states. Mr. Lincoln answered this inference with a solemn disclaimer over and over again on the same 'stump' with that Senator. I ask whether it was just to quote the opinion without giving the disclaimer? It certainly was not. We might answer all you say by declaring that the Republican party does not propose to interfere with your constitutional rights. I have no doubt that the administration of Mr. Lincoln will carry out the doctrines of the Chicago platform; but not the platform as you pervert it. Sir, it will convince the southern people that all the things said about us are unfounded. What, then, will be the fate of hundreds of politicians in the southern states who have stirred their people up to the present intense excitement?
"Yet the baptism of misrepresentation, through which this Republican party has thus far advanced, does not excuse us from doing all in our power to produce conciliation, harmony, peace, quiet, a fair and honest adjustment of all the difficulties that surround us. . . .
"Now, Mr. chairman, I have gone over the whole field. I have given my views, speaking for no other man, frankly and fearlessly, and I will stand by them now and in the future. I have given you my opinion upon all these points. I tell you that this whole controversy was fought and won by us two years ago, and all you have to do now is to admit Kansas. That is the only act of power now needed. There let it stand. Let us live together like a band of brothers. If we cannot agree with you about slavery, why, you do not agree with us. I know there has been a great deal of intemperance of language on this subject; but I ask, if it has been used upon our side, has it not been used upon yours? If there has been harsh and violent words used, I have not uttered them that I know of. If I have, I beg every man's pardon; because I think that violent language, calculated to stir up excitement and agitation, ought not be used in a deliberative assembly. I ask you if you have not sins to repent of, if we have? Let us be at peace. Let us go on with the administration of the government kindly, harmoniously, hopefully, trusting in that providence of Almighty God which has thus far guided and guarded us, until this nation has become a marvel to the world. Can we not go on in the same way in which we have gone on in the past? Why not let the Republican administration be inaugurated in peace and quiet? Try it in the name of God! Are you cowards, that you would flee from an apprehension? I know you are not. Stand by the old ship of state! Give the Republican administration a fair chance. If it does not do right, you will find thousands—ay, millions—in the northern states who will stand by you. I believe it will do right. Give it a trial. That is all we ask, and what we demand at all hazards."
The delegation from Ohio, during this Congress, was regarded as a very strong one. I do not disparage any by a brief reference to a few.
Thomas Corwin was, by far, the most distinguished member of the delegation. I have already referred to his eminence as a popular orator. His speech against the Mexican War, though unfortunate as a political event, has always been regarded as one of the most eloquent ever made in either House of Congress. His speech in reply to Crary, of Michigan, is still remembered as the best specimen of humorous satire in our language. He had served in the legislature of Ohio, as a Member of Congress for ten years, as Governor of Ohio, as a Member of the Senate, and as Secretary of the Treasury. After an absence from public life for six years, he was elected a Member of the 36th Congress. Here he was regarded as the "peacemaker" of the House. In the contest for speaker, he made a long speech, in which he exhibited marked ability, humor, pathos and persuasive eloquence. As chairman of the committee of thirty, he did all that man could do to quiet the storm, to compromise and soothe the contending factions, but this was beyond human power. He was re- elected to the 37th Congress, but in 1861 was appointed minister to Mexico by Mr. Lincoln. In December, 1865, he attended a party of his Ohio friends, at which I was present. He was the center of attraction, and, apparently, in good health and spirits. He was telling amusing anecdotes of life in Ohio "in the olden times," to the many friends who gathered around him, when, without warning, he suffered a stroke of apoplexy and died within two or three days, leaving behind him none but friends. Tom Corwin, "the wagon-boy," had traveled through all the gradations of life, and in every stage was a kind friend, a loving father, a generous, noble and honest man.
The life of George H. Pendleton was a striking contrast to that of Corwin. He was a favorite of fortune. His father was a distinguished lawyer and a Member of Congress. George had the advantage of a good education and high social position, a courtly manner, a handsome person and a good fortune. He served several terms in the House of Representatives and six years in the Senate. He was the candidate for Vice President on the Democratic ticket with McClellan, and a prominent candidate for nomination as President in 1868. He was minister to Germany during the first term of Cleveland as President. He died November 24, 1889. My relations with him were always pleasant.
Samuel S. Cox was an active, industrious and versatile Member of Congress for more than twenty years. He was born in Ohio, graduated at Brown University, was admitted to the bar, but, I believe, rarely practiced his profession. His natural bent was for editorial and political conflicts, in which most of his life was spent. He was a good debater, overflowing with humor without sarcasm. In the campaign of 1860, he and I had a running debate at long range. In a speech at Columbus, then his residence, I spoke of his erratic course on the Lecompton bill. He replied at Mansfield with shrewdness, humor and ability. I reviewed his speech at the same place, and we kept up a running fire during that canvass, but this did not disturb our friendly relations. Some years later, he removed to New York, where he was soon taken into favor, and was elected several times to Congress. He was the author of several books of merit, and was the champion of a measure establishing the life-saving service of the country upon its present footing. He may be classified as a leading Member of the House of Representatives, a bright and successful speaker and a copious author. He died September 10, 1889.
John A. Bingham was regarded, next to Mr. Corwin, as the most eloquent member of the Ohio delegation, and, perhaps with one or two exceptions, of the House of Representatives. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1840. He served for sixteen years in the House of Representatives on the judiciary and other important committees, and took an active and leading part in all the debates during this long period. He was a man of genial, pleasing address, rather too much given to flights of oratory, but always a favorite with his colleagues and associates. He was subsequently appointed United States minister to Japan, where he remained for many years. He still lives at a ripe old age at Cadiz, Ohio.
During the existence of the 36th Congress, I do not recall any political divisions in the committee of ways and means, unless the tariff is considered a political measure. It was not so treated by the committee. The common purpose was to secure sufficient revenue for the support of the government. The incidental effect of all duties was to encourage home manufactures, but, as the rule adopted was applied impartially to all productions, whether of the farm, mine, or the workshop, there was no controversy except as to the amount or rate of the duty. The recent dogma that raw materials should not have the benefit of protection did not enter the mind of anyone. The necessity of economy limited the amount of appropriations, but if the war had not changed all conditions, the revenues accruing would have been sufficient for an economical administration of the government.
In a retrospect of my six years as a Member of the House of Representatives, I can see, and will freely admit, that my chief fault was my intense partisanship. This grew out of a conscientious feeling that the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was an act of dishonor, committed by a dominating party controlled by slaveholders and yielded to by leading northern Democrats, headed by Douglas, with a view on his part to promote his intense ambition to be President of the United States. I felt that this insult to the north should be resented by the renewed exclusion, by act of Congress, of slavery north of the line of latitude 36 degrees 30 minutes. This feeling was intensified by my experience in Kansas during the investigation of its affairs. The recital by the Free State men of their story, and the appearance and conduct of the "border ruffians," led me to support extreme measures. The political feebleness of Mr. Buchanan, and the infamy of the Dred Scott decision, appeared to me conclusive evidence of the subserviency of the President and the Supreme Court to the slave power. The gross injustice to me personally, and the irritating language of southern Members in the speakership contest, aroused my resentment, so that in the campaign of 1860 I was ready to meet the threats of secession with those of open war.
It was unfortunate that the south at this time was largely represented in Congress by men of the most violent opinions. Such men as Keitt, Hindman, Barksdale, and Rust, were offensive in their conduct and language. They were of that class in the south who believed that the people of the north were tradesmen, hucksters, and the like, and therefore were cowards; that one southern man was equal in a fight to four northern men; that slavery was a patent of nobility, and that the owner of slaves was a lord and master. It is true that among the southern Members there were gentlemen of a character quite different. Such men as Letcher, Aiken and Bocock entertained no such opinions, but were courteous and friendly. But even these shared in the opinions of their people that, as slavery was recognized by the constitution, as an institution existing in many of the states, it should not be excluded from the common territory of the Union, except by the vote of the people of a territory when assuming the dignity and power of a state. It would appear that as in 1860 the exclusion of slavery from Kansas was definitely settled by the people of that state, and that as the only region open to this controversy was New Mexico, from which slavery was excluded by natural conditions, there was no reason or ground for an attempt to disrupt the Union. In fact, this pretense for secession was abandoned by South Carolina, and the only ground taken for attempting it was the election of Mr. Lincoln as President of the United States. If this was conceded to be a just cause for secession, our government would become a rope of sand; it would be worse than that of any South American republic, because our country is more populous, and sections of it would have greater strength of attack and defense. This pretense for secession would not have been concurred in by any of the states north of South Carolina, but for the previous agitation of slavery, which had welded nearly all the slaveholding states into a compact confederacy. This was done, not for fear of Lincoln, but to protect the institution of slavery, threatened by the growing sentiment of mankind. Upon this question I had been conservative, but I can see now that this contest was irrepressible, and that I would soon have been in favor of the gradual abolition of slavery in all the states. This could not have been effected under our constitution but for the Rebellion, so that, in truth, South Carolina, unwittingly, led to the only way by which slavery could be abolished in the present century.
The existence of slavery in a republic founded upon the declaration that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, and that among them are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, is an anomaly so pregnant with evil that it is not strange that while it existed it was the chief cause of all the serious contentions that threatened the life of the republic. The framers of the constitution, finding slavery in existence in nearly all the states, carefully avoided mention of it in that instrument, but they provided against the importation of slaves after a brief period, and evidently anticipated the eventual prohibition of slavery by the voluntary action of the several states. This process of prohibition occurred until one- half of the states became free, when causes unforeseen made slavery so profitable that it dominated in the states where it existed, and dictated the policy of the United States. The first controversy about slavery was happily settled by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. But a greater danger arose from the acquisition of territory from Mexico. This, too, was postponed by the compromise of 1850, but unhappily, within four years, the repeal of the Missouri Compromise re-opened the controversy that led to the struggle in Kansas. Douglas prescribed the doctrine of popular sovereignty. Davis contended that slaves were property and must be protected by law like other property. Lincoln declared that "a house divided against itself cannot stand," that slavery must be lawful or unlawful in all the states, alike north as well as south. Seward said that an irrepressible conflict existed between opposing and enduring forces, that the United States must and would become either entirely a slaveholding nation or entirely a free labor nation. Kansas became a free state in spite of Buchanan and then the conflict commenced. The southern states prepared for secession. Lincoln became President. The war came by the act of the south and ended with the destruction of slavery. This succession of events, following in due order, was the natural sequence of the existence of slavery in the United States.
"God moves in a mysterious way,His wonders to perform."
Abraham Lincoln, the President elect, arrived in the city of Washington on the 23rd day of February, 1861, and, with Mrs. Lincoln, stopped at Willard's Hotel where I was then living. On the evening of his arrival I called upon him, and met him for the first time. When introduced to him, he took my hands in both of his, drew himself up to his full height, and, looking at me steadily, said: "You are John Sherman! Well, I am taller than you; let's measure." Thereupon we stood back to back, and some one present announced that he was two inches taller than I. This was correct, for he was 6 feet 3½ inches tall when he stood erect. This singular introduction was not unusual with him, but if it lacked dignity, it was an expression of friendliness and so considered by him. Our brief conversation was cheerful, and my hearty congratulations for his escape from the Baltimore "roughs" were received with a laugh.
It was generally understood when Mr. Lincoln arrived that his cabinet was definitely formed, but rumors soon prevailed that dissensions existed among its members, that Seward and Chase were rivals, that neither could act in harmony with the other, and that both were discontented with their associates. I became satisfied that these rumors were true. I do not feel at liberty, even at this late day, to repeat what was said to me by some of the members selected, but I was convinced that Lincoln had no purpose or desire to change the cabinet he had selected in Springfield, and that he regarded their jealousies (if I may use such a word in respect to the gentlemen so distinguished) as a benefit and not an objection, as by that means he would control his cabinet rather than be controlled by it.
Mr. Lincoln delivered his inaugural address from the east steps of the capitol, on the 4th day of March, 1861. I sat near him and heard every word. Douglas stood conspicuous behind him and suggesting many thoughts. I have witnessed many inaugurations, but never one so impressive as this. The condition of the south already organized for war, the presence of United States troops with general Scott in command, the manifest preparation against threatened violence, the sober and quiet attention to the address, all united to produce a profound apprehension of evils yet to come. The eloquent peroration of Mr. Lincoln cannot be too often repeated, and I insert it here:
"Inyourhands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not inmine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors.Youhave no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, whileIshall 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 chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield 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."
Salmon P. Chase, then Senator, was appointed Secretary of the Treasury. I know with what doubt and reluctance he accepted this office. On the 7th of March his resignation as Senator was communicated to the Senate. In anticipation of it the legislature of Ohio was canvassing for his successor. My name was mentioned with many others. I was in doubt whether I ought to be a candidate, or even to accept the position if tendered. I had been elected as a Member of the next Congress and was quite certain of election as speaker of the House of Representatives. The Republicans had a decided majority in that body and a feeling was manifest that I should have, without opposition, the position to which I had been unjustly deprived by the previous House. This was to me a coveted honor. I, therefore, did not follow the advice of my friends and go to Columbus. A ballot was taken in the caucus of Republican members of the general assembly, and I received a plurality but not a majority, the votes being scattered among many other candidates of merit and ability. My name was then withdrawn. Several ballots were taken on a number of days without result. I was then telegraphed to come to Columbus. I went and was nominated on the first vote after my arrival, and promptly elected as Senator, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Mr. Chase.
I received many letters of congratulation, among which were two which I insert:
"Dubuque, March 23, 1861. "Hon. John Sherman:—Allow me to sincerely congratulate you upon your signal triumph at Columbus. I can assure you that no recent event has given me so much sincere gratification as your election, which I think a most worthy reward to a faithful public servant. Republics are not so ungrateful as I supposed when I was defeated for Dist. Atty.
"Sincerely your friend,"Wm. B. Allison."
"Strafford, April 1, 1861."Hon. John Sherman, Mansfield, Ohio.
"My Dear Sir:—I congratulate you upon your election to the Senate of the U. S., but still I regret that you have left the House where I think you might have rendered more important services to your country than you will find opportunity to do in the Senate. You could without doubt, I think, have been Speaker, had you possessed any ambition for the position. That would have been for two years only, but it would be at a crisis that will figure in our history. Then you are greatly needed in economical questions with our party —many of whom have no just idea of the responsibility of the Republican party or a Republican Representative. I see no material worth mentioning for leaders in our House, and though I am glad to have you suited, I do much regret your translation to the higher branch. I suppose we may be called back by Seward about the 1st of June.
"Our tariff bill is unfortunate in being launched at this time, as it will be made the scape-goat of all difficulties. In fact the southern Confederacy would have made a lower tariff had we left the old law in force and precisely the same troubles would have been presented.
"Yours, very sincerely,"Justin S. Morrill."
The Senate being then in special session, the oath prescribed by law was administered to me, and on the 23rd of March, 1861, I took my seat in that body. I had, however, before my election, witnessed, with deep humiliation, the Senate debates, feeling that the Republican Senators were too timid in the steps taken to purge that body of persons whom I regarded as traitors. I cannot now read the debates without a feeling of resentment. Breckenridge, Mason, Hunter and Powell still retained their seats as Senators from Kentucky and Virginia, and almost daily defended the secession of the southern states, declaring that the states they represented would do likewise. These and other declarations I thought should have been promptly resented by the immediate expulsion of these Senators. Wigfall, of Texas, though his state had seceded, was permitted to linger in the Senate and to attend executive sessions, where he was not only a traitor but a spy. His rude and brutal language and conduct should have excluded him from the Senate in the early days of the session, but he was permitted to retire without censure, after a long debate upon the terms of his proposed expulsion. I took no part in the debates of that session, which closed March 28, 1861, five days after my becoming a Member. I remained in Washington until after the fall of Sumter in April following.
During this period my brother, William Tecumseh, came to Washington to tender his services in the army in any position where he could be useful. I had corresponded with him freely in regard to his remaining in Louisiana, where he was president of the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy. He had been embarrassed in his position by my attitude in Congress, and, especially, by the outcry against me for signing the Helper book. He was very conservative in his opinions in regard to slavery, and no doubt felt that I was too aggressive on that subject. In the summer of 1860 he made his usual visit to Lancaster, and, finding that I was engaged in the canvass and would on a certain day be at Coshocton, he determined to go and hear me "to see whether I was an Abolitionist." He was greatly embarrassed by a memorable speech made by Mr. Corwin, the principal speaker on that occasion. We sat upon the stand together, and he very excitedly said: "John, you must not speak after Corwin." He was evidently impressed with the eloquence of that orator and did not wish me to speak, lest the contrast between our speeches would be greatly to my disparagement. I told him that he need not trouble himself, that I was to speak in the evening, though I might say a few words at the close of Mr. Corwin's address. He remained and heard me in the evening, and concluded on the whole that I was not an Abolitionist.
After the election of Mr. Lincoln I wrote him a letter, which will speak for itself, as follows:
"Mansfield, Ohio, November 26, 1860. "My Dear Brother:—Since I received your last letter, I have been so constantly engaged, first with the election and afterwards in arranging my business for the winter, that I could not write you.
"The election resulted as I all along supposed. Indeed, the division of the Democratic party on precisely the same question that separated the Republican party from the Democratic party made its defeat certain. The success of the Republicans has saved the country from a discreditable scramble in the House. The disorders of the last winter, and the fear of their renewal, have, without doubt, induced a good many citizens to vote for the Republican ticket. With a pretty good knowledge of the material of our House, I would far prefer that any one of the candidates be elected by the people rather than allow the contest to be determined by Congress. Well, Lincoln is elected. No doubt, a large portion of the citizens of Louisiana think this is a calamity. If they believe their own newspapers, or, what is far worse, the lying organs of the Democratic party in the free states, they have just cause to think so. But you were long enough in Ohio, and heard enough of the ideas of the Republican leaders, to know that the Republican party is not likely to interfere, directly or indirectly, with slavery in the states or with the laws relating to slavery; that, so far as the slavery question is concerned, the contest was for the possession of Kansas and perhaps New Mexico, and that the chief virtue of the Republican success was in its condemnation of the narrow sectionalism of Buchanan's administration and the corruption by which his policy was attempted to be sustained. Who doubts but that, if Buchanan had been true to his promises in submitting the controversy in Kansas to its own people, and had closed it by admitting Kansas as a free state, that the Democratic party would have retained its power? It was his infernal policy in that state (I can hardly think of the mean and bad things he allowed there without swearing) that drove off Douglas, led to the division of the Democratic party and the consequent election of Lincoln.
"As a matter of course, I rejoice in the result, for in my judgment the administration of Lincoln will do much to dissipate the feeling in the south against the north, by showing what are the real purposes of the Republican party. In the meantime, it is evident we have to meet in a serious way the movements of South Carolinian Disunionists. These men have for years desired this disunion; they have plotted for it. They drove Buchanan from his Kansas policy; they got up this new dogma about slave protection, they broke up the Charleston convention merely to advance secession; they are now hurrying forward excited men into acts of treason, without giving time for passion to cool or reason to resume its sway. God knows what will be the result. If, by a successful revolution, they can go out of the Union, they establish a principle that will break the government into fragments. Some local disaffection or temporary excitement will lead one state after another out of the Union. We shall have the Mexican Republic over again, with a fiercer race of men to fight with each other. Secession is revolution. They seem bent upon attempting it. If so, shall the government resist? If so, then comes civil war, a fearful subject for Americans to think of.
"Since the election I have been looking over the field for the purpose of marking out a course to follow this winter, and I have, as well as I could, tested my political course in the past. There has been nothing done by the Republican party but what merits the cordial approval of my judgment. There have been many things said and done by the Republican leaders that I utterly detest. Many of the dogmas of the Democratic party I like, but their conduct in administering the government, and especially in their treatment of the slavery question, I detest. I know we shall have trouble this winter, but I intend to be true to the moderate conservative course I think I have hitherto undertaken. Whatever may be the consequences, I will insist on preserving the unity of the states, and all the states, without exception and without regard to consequences. If any southern state has really suffered any injury or is deprived of any right, I will help reduce the injury and secure the right. These states must not, merely because they are beaten in election, or have failed in establishing slavery where it was prohibited by compromise, attempt to break up the government. If they will hold on a little while, they will find no injury can come to them, unless, by their repeated misrepresentation of us, they stir up their slaves to insurrection. I still hope that no state will follow in the wake of South Carolina; then the weakness of her position will soon bring her back again or subject her to ridicule and insignificance.
"It may be supposed by some that the excitement in the south has produced a corresponding excitement in the north. This is true in financial matters, especially in the cities. In political circles it only strengthens the Republican party. Even Democrats of all shades say, 'The election is against us; we will submit and all must submit.' Republicans say, 'The policy of the government has been controlled by the south for years, and we have submitted; now they must submit.' And why not? What can the Republicans do half as bad as Pierce and Buchanan have done?
"But enough of this. You luckily are out of politics, and don't sympathize with my Republicanism, but as we are on the eve of important events, I write about politics instead of family matters, of which there is nothing new.
"Affectionately yours,"John Sherman."
In December I received this letter from him:
"Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy,} "Alexandria, December 1, 1860. } "Dear Brother:—. . . The quiet which I thought the usual acquiescence of the people was merely the prelude to the storm of opinion that now seems irresistible. Politicians, by heating the prejudices of the people and running with the current, have succeeded in destroying the government. It cannot be stopped now, I fear. I was in Alexandria all day yesterday, and had a full and unreserved conversation with Dr. S. A. Smith, state senator, who is a man of education, property, influence, and qualified to judge. He was, during the canvass, a Breckenridge man, but, though a southerner in opinion, is really opposed to a dissolution of our government. He has returned from New Orleans, where he says he was amazed to see evidences of public sentiment which could not be mistaken.
"The legislature meets December 10, at Baton Rouge. The calling of a convention forthwith is to be unanimous, the bill for army and state ditto. The convention will meet in January, and only two questions will be agitated,—immediate dissolution, a declaration of state independence, and a general convention of southern states, with instructions to demand of the northern states to repeal all laws hostile to slavery and pledges of future good behavior. . . . When the convention meets in January, as they will assuredly do, and resolve to secede, or to elect members to a general convention with instructions inconsistent with the nature of things, I must quit this place, for it would be neither right for me to stay nor would the governor be justified in placing me in this position of trust; for the moment Louisiana assumes a position of hostility, then this becomes an arsenal and fort. . . .
"Let me hear the moment you think dissolution is inevitable. WhatMississippi and Georgia do, this state will do likewise.
"Affectionately,"W. T. Sherman."
On the 15th of December I wrote him:
"I am clearly of the opinion that you ought not to remain much longer at your present post. You will, in all human probability, be involved in complications from which you cannot escape with honor. Separated from your family and all your kin, and an object of suspicion, you will find your position unendurable. A fatal infatuation seems to have seized the southern mind, during which any act of madness may be committed. . . . If the sectional dissensions only rested upon real or alleged grievances, they could be readily settled, but I fear they are deeper and stronger. You can now close your connection with the seminary with honor and credit to yourself, for all who know you speak well of your conduct, while be remaining you not only involve yourself, but bring trouble upon those gentlemen who recommended you.
"It is a sad state of affairs, but it is nevertheless true, that if the conventions of the southern states make anything more than a paper secession, hostile collisions will occur, and probably a separation between the free and the slave states. You can judge whether it is at all probable that the possession of this capital, the commerce of the Mississippi, the control of the territories, and the natural rivalry of enraged sections, can be arranged without war. In that event, you cannot serve in Louisiana against your family and kin in Ohio. The bare possibility of such a contingency, it seems to me, renders your duty plain, to make a frank statement to all the gentlemen connected with you, and with good feeling close your engagement. If the storm shall blow over, your course will strengthen you with every man whose good opinion you desire; if not, you will escape humiliation.
"When you return to Ohio, I will write you freely about your return to the army, not so difficult a task as you imagine."
General Sherman then wrote me as follows:
"Alexandria, La., December, 1861. "Events here seem hastening to a conclusion. Doubtless you know more of the events in Louisiana than I do, as I am in an out-of- the-way place. But the special session of the legislature was so unanimous in arming the state and calling a convention that little doubt remains that Louisiana will, on the 23rd of January, follow the other seceding states. Governor Moore takes the plain stand that the state must not submit to a 'black Republican President.' Men here have ceased to reason; they seem to concede that slavery is unsafe in a confederacy with northern states, and that now is the time; no use of longer delay. All concessions, all attempts to remonstrate, seem at an end.
"A rumor says that Major Anderson, my old captain (brother ofCharles Anderson, now of Texas, formerly of Dayton and Cincinnati,Larz, William and John, all of Ohio), has spiked the guns of FortMoultrie, destroyed it, and taken refuge in Sumter. This is right.Sumter is in mid-channel, approachable only in boats, whereasMoultrie is old, weak, and easily approached under cover. If MajorAnderson can hold out till relieved and supported by steam frigates,South Carolina will find herself unable to control her commerce,and will feel, for the first time in her existence, that she can'tdo as she pleases. . . .
"A telegraph dispatch, addressed to me at Alexandria, could be mailed at New Orleans, and reach me in three days from Washington."
I wrote him the following letter on the 6th of January, 1861:
"Dear Brother:—. . . I see some signs of hope, but it is probably a deceptive light. The very moment you feel uncomfortable in your position in Louisiana, come away. Don't for God's sake subject yourself to any slur, reproach, or indignity. I have spoken to General Scott, and he heartily seconds your desire to return to duty in the army. I am not at all sure but that, if you were here, you could get a position that would suit you. I see many of your friends of the army daily.
"As for my views of the present crisis, I could not state them more fully than I have in the inclosed printed letter. It has been very generally published and approved in the north, but may not have reached you, and therefore I send it to you.
"Affectionately your brother,"John Sherman."
Later he wrote me:
"Alexandria, January 16, 1861. "My Dear Brother:—I am so much in the woods here that I can't keep up with the times at all. Indeed, you in Washington hear from New Orleans two or three days sooner than I do. I was taken aback by the news that Governor Moore had ordered the forcible seizure of the Forts Jackson and St. Philip, at or near the mouth of the Mississippi; also of Forts Pike and Wood, at the outlets of Lakes Bogue and Pontchartrain. All these are small forts, and have rarely been occupied by troops. They are designed to cut off approach by sea to New Orleans, and were taken doubtless to prevent their being occupied, by order of General Scott. But the taking the arsenal at Baton Rouge is a different matter. It is merely an assemblage of store-houses, barracks, and dwelling-houses, designed for the healthy residence of a garrison, to be thrown into one or the other of the forts in case of war. The arsenal is one of minor importance, yet the stores were kept there for the moral effect, and the garrison was there at the instance of the people of Louisiana. To surround with the military array, to demand surrender, and enforce the departure of the garrison, was an act of war. It amounted to a declaration of war and defiance, and was done by Governor Moore without the authority of the legislature or convention. Still, there is but little doubt but that each of these bodies, to assemble next week, will ratify and approve these violent acts, and it is idle to discuss the subject now. The people are mad on this question.
"I had previously notified all that in the event of secession I should quit. As soon as knowledge of these events reached me, I went to the vice president, Dr. Smith, in Alexandria, and told him that I regarded Louisiana as at war against the federal government, and that I must go. He begged me to wait until some one could be found to replace me. The supervisors feel the importance of system and discipline, and seem to think that my departure will endanger the success of this last effort to build up an educational establishment. . . . You may assert that in no event will I forego my allegiance to the United States as long as a single state is true to the old constitution. . . .
"Yours,"W. T. Sherman."
And again:
"Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy,}"Alexandria, January 18, 1861. }"Dear Brother:—Before receiving yours of the 6th, I had addresseda letter to Governor Moore at Baton Rouge, of which this is a copy:—
'Sir:—As I occupy a quasi military position under the laws of the state, I deem it proper to acquaint you that I accepted such position when Louisiana was a state in the union and when the motto of this seminary was inscribed in marble over the main door: "By the liberality of the General Government. The Union Esto perpetua." Recent events foreshadow a great change, and it becomes all men to choose. If Louisiana withdraw from the federal Union, I prefer to maintain my allegiance to the old constitution as long as a fragment of it survives, and my longer stay here would be wrong in every sense of the word. In that event, I beg that you will send or appoint some authorized agent to take charge of the arms and munitions of war here belonging to the state, or advise me what disposition to make of them. And furthermore, as president of the board of supervisors, I beg you to take immediate steps to relieve me as superintendent the moment the state determines to secede; for on no earthly account will I do any act or think any thought hostile to, or in defiance of, the United States.
'With respect, etc.,'W. T. Sherman.'
"I regard the seizure by Governor Moore of the United States arsenal as the worst act yet committed in the present revolution. I do think every allowance should be made to southern politicians for their nervous anxiety about their political powers and the safety of slaves. I think that the constitution should be liberally construed in their behalf, but I do regard this civil war as precipitated with undue rapidity. . . . It is inevitable. All legislation now would fall powerless on the south. You should not alienate such states as Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri. My notice is that this war will ruin all politicians, and that military leaders will direct the events.
"Yours"W. T. S."
On the first of February he wrote as follows:
"I have felt the very thoughts you have spoken. It is war to surround Anderson with batteries, and it is shilly-shally for the south to cry 'Hands off! No coercion!' It was war and insult to expel the garrison at Baton Rouge, and Uncle Sam had better cry 'Cave!' or assert his power. Fort Sumter is not material save for the principle; but Key West and the Tortugas should be held in force at once, by regulars if possible, if not, by militia. Quick! They are occupied now, but not in force. While maintaining the high, strong ground you do, I would not advise you to interpose an objection to securing concessions to the middle and moderate states, —Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri. Slavery there is local, and even if the world were open to them, its extension would involve no principle. If these states feel the extreme south wrong, a seeming concession would make them committed. The cotton states are gone, I suppose. Of course, their commerce will be hampered. . . .
"But of myself. I sent you a copy of my letter to the Governor.Here is his answer:
'Dear Sir:—It is with the deepest regret I acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 18th instant. In the pressure of official business I can only request you to transfer to Professor Smith the arms, munitions, and funds in your hands, whenever you conclude to withdraw from the position you have filled with so much distinction. You cannot regret more than I do the necessity which deprives us of your services, and you will bear with you the respect, confidence, and admiration of all who have been associated with you.
'Very truly, your friend and servant,'Thos. D. Moore.'
"This is very handsome, and I do regret this political imbroglio. I do think it was brought about by politicians. The people in the south are evidently unanimous in the opinion that slavery is endangered by the current of events, and it is useless to attempt to alter that opinion. As our government is founded on the will of the people, when that will is fixed, our government is powerless, and the only question is whether to let things slide into general anarchy, or the formation of two or more confederacies which will be hostile sooner or later. Still, I know that some of the best men of Louisiana think this change may be effected peacefully. But even if the southern states be allowed to depart in peace, the first question will be revenue.
"Now, if the south have free trade, how can you collect revenues in the eastern cities? Freight from New Orleans to St. Louis, Chicago, Louisville, Cincinnati, and even Pittsburg, would be about the same as by rail from New York, and importers at New Orleans, having no duties to pay, would undersell the east if they had to pay duties. Therefore, if the south make good their confederation and their plan, the northern confederacy must do likewise or blockade. Then comes the question of foreign nations. So, look on it in any view, I see no result but war and consequent changes in the form of government."
These letters, written at their dates, on the spur of the moment, present the condition of affairs as viewed by General Sherman and myself when they occurred.
With the conviction just stated General Sherman came to Washington about the time of my election to the Senate. He was deeply impressed with the certainty of war and of its magnitude, and was impelled by the patriotic sentiment that, as he had been educated at the expense of the government for military service, it was his duty, in the then condition of the country, to tender his services. I therefore escorted him to the White House. His statement of the interview given in his "Memoirs" is not very full, for, while Mr. Lincoln did say, in response to his tender, "I guess we will manage to keep house," he also expressed a hope, which General Sherman knew to be delusive, that the danger would pass by and that the Union would be restored by a peaceful compromise. This was, undoubtedly, the idea then uppermost in the minds of both the President and Mr. Seward. At this time the public mind in the north was decidedly in favor of concessions to the south. The Democrats of the north would have agreed to any proposition to secure peace and the Union, and the Republicans would have acquiesced in the Crittenden Compromise, or in any measure approved by Lincoln and Seward.
The period between the 4th of March and the 12th of April was the darkest one in the history of the United States. It was a time of humiliation, timidity and feebleness. Fortunately for the future of our country the rebels of the south were bent upon disunion; they were hopeful and confident, and all the signs of the times indicated their success. They had possession of all the forts of the south, except Fortress Monroe, Fort Sumter, and two remote forts in Florida. They had only to wait in patience, and Fort Sumter would necessarily be abandoned for want of supplies. Fortress Monroe could not be held much longer by the regular army, weakened as it was by the desertion of officers and men, and public sentiment would not justify a call for troops in advance of actual war. The people of South Carolina were frenzied by their success thus far, and, impatient of delay, forced an attack on Fort Sumter, then held by a small garrison under command of Major Robert Anderson. The first gun fired on the 12th of April, 1861, resounded throughout the United States and the civilized world, touching an electric chord in every family in the northern states and changing the whole current of feeling. From this time forth, among the patriotic people of the loyal states, there was no thought or talk of compromise. That this insult to our flag must be punished, "that the Union must and shall be preserved," were the resolves of millions of men, without respect to party, who but the day before were eager for compromise. The cold and cautious men of the north were at last awakened from their indifference.
The impression made upon my mind by the attack on Fort Sumter is expressed in a letter I wrote from Washington to my brother, General Sherman, as he was then called, at midnight of the 12th of April:
"Washington, April 12, 1861. "Dear Brother:—I was unexpectedly called here soon after receiving your letter of the 8th, and at midnight write you. The military excitement here is intense. Since my arrival I have seen several officers, many citizens, and all the heads of departments except Blair. There is a fixed determination now to preserve the Union and enforce the laws at all hazards. Civil war is actually upon us, and, strange to say, it brings a feeling of relief; the suspense is over. I have spent much of the day in talking about you. There is an earnest desire that you go into the war department, but I said this was impossible. Chase is especially desirous that you accept, saying that you would be virtually Secretary of War, and could easily step into any military position that offers.
"It is well for you seriously to consider your conclusion, although my opinion is that you ought not to accept. You ought to hold yourself in reserve. If troops are called for, as they surely will be in a few days, organize a regiment or brigade, either in St. Louis or Ohio, and you will then get into the army in such a way as to secure promotion. By all means take advantage of the present disturbances to get into the army, where you will at once put yourself in a high position for life. I know that promotion and every facility for advancement will be cordially extended by the authorities. You are a favorite in the army and have great strength in political circles. I urge you to avail yourself of these favorable circumstances to secure your position for life; for, after all, your present employment is of uncertain tenure in these stirring times.
"Let me now record a prediction. Whatever you may think of the signs of the times, the government will rise from this strife greater, stronger, and more prosperous than ever. It will display energy and military power. The men who have confidence in it, and do their full duty by it, may reap whatever there is of honor and profit in public life, while those who look on merely as spectators in the storm will fail to discharge the highest duty of a citizen, and suffer accordingly in public estimation. . . .
"I write this in great hurry, with numbers around me, and exciting and important intelligence constantly repeated, even at this hour; but I am none the less in earnest. I hope to hear that you are on the high road to the 'General' within thirty days.
"Affectionately your brother,"John Sherman."
Two days later I wrote him:
"Washington, Sunday, April 14, 1861. "Dear Brother:—. . . The war has really commenced. You will have full details of the fall of Sumter. We are on the eve of a terrible war. Every man will have to choose his position. You fortunately have a military education, prominence, and character, that will enable you to play a high part in the tragedy. You can't avoid taking such a part. Neutrality and indifference are impossible. If the government is to be maintained, it must be by military power, and that immediately. You can choose your own place. Some of your best friends here want you in the war department; Taylor, Shiras, and a number of others, talk to me so. If you want that place, with a sure prospect of promotion, you can have it, but you are not compelled to take it; but it seems to me you will be compelled to take some position, and that speedily. Can't you come to Ohio and at once raise a regiment? It will immediately be in service. The administration intends to stand or fall by the Union, the entire Union, and the enforcement of the laws. I look for preliminary defeats, for the rebels have arms, organization, unity; but this advantage will not last long. The government will maintain itself or our northern people are the veriest poltroons that ever disgraced humanity.
"For me, I am for a war that will either establish or overthrow the government and will purify the atmosphere of political life. We need such a war, and we have it now. . . .
"Affectionately yours,"John Sherman."
He wrote in reply:
"The time will come in this country when professional knowledge will be appreciated, when men that can be trusted will be wanted, and I will bide my time. I may miss the chance; if so, all right; but I cannot and will not mix myself in this present call. . . .
"The first movements of the government will fail and the leaders will be cast aside. A second or third set will rise, and among them I may be, but at present I will not volunteer as a soldier or anything else. If Congress meet, or if a national convention be called, and the regular army be put on a footing with the wants of the country, if I am offered a place that suits me, I may accept. But in the present call I will not volunteer."
He criticised the call for 75,000 militia for three months, saying that the best of men could only be made indifferent soldiers in three months, and that the best of soldiers could accomplish nothing in three months in such a country as ours. He therefore would not volunteer for such a service, but his mind was occupied with military plans. The correspondence between us shows that he had a better conception of the magnitude and necessities of the war than civilians like myself.
He wrote to Mr. Cameron, Secretary of War, from St. Louis, on May 8, 1861:
"I hold myself now, as always, prepared to serve my country in the capacity for which I was trained. I did not and will not volunteer for three months, because I cannot throw my family on the cold support of charity, but for the three years' call made by the President an officer could prepare his command and do good service. I will not volunteer, because, rightfully or wrongfully, I feel myself unwilling to take a mere private's place, and having for many years lived in California and Louisiana, the men are not well enough acquainted with me to elect me to my appropriate place. Should my services be needed, the record or the war department will enable you to designate the station in which I can render best service."
When Mr. Lincoln was elected President, there was no general feeling among the northern people that war would result from his election. It was not believed, although it had been threatened, that the southern states would take up arms to resist the accession of a President not of their choice. The love of Union and the orderly obedience to constituted authority had been so well established among our people that, while politicians might threaten, but few really believed that war, of which they knew nothing, was to come upon us. The result was that when the southern states, one by one, seceded, and Fort Sumter was fired upon, and the forts and arsenals of the south were captured, a new inspiration dawned upon the people of the north, a determination became general that, cost what it would, the Union should be preserved to our children and our children's children. That feeling was not confined to party lines. I am bound to say that the members of the Democratic party in the loyal States, in the main, evinced the same patriotic determination to maintain the cause of the Union, as those of the Republican party. Their sons and their kindred formed part of every regiment or force raised in the United States.
At this distance of time from the opening of the Civil War, I have endeavored to take an impartial retrospect of the causes that led the south to engage therein. Undoubtedly, the existence of negro slavery in the south was the governing excitement to war. The owners of slaves knew that the tenure of such property was feeble. Besides the danger of escape, there was the growing hostility to slavery in a preponderance of the people of the United States, restrained only by its recognition by the constitution. The slave owners believed that, by secession, they could establish a republic, founded on slavery, with an ample field in Mexico and Central America for conquest and expansion. They had cultivated a bitter sectional enmity, amounting to contempt, for the people of the north, growing partly out of the subserviency of large portions of the north to the dictation of the south, but chiefly out of the wordy violence and disregard of constitutional obligation by the Abolitionists of the north. They believed in the doctrine of an irrepressible conflict long before it was announced by Seward.
South Carolina, far in advance of other southern states, led in promulgating the legal rights of secession, until they came to be acquiesced in by all these states. They committed themselves to it in the Charleston convention. Their speakers declared, during the canvass, that if Lincoln was elected, their states would secede. When elected, the first gun was fired on Fort Sumter, in South Carolina, where all the people were determined on war. The struggle once commenced, the natural sympathy of the southern states was with South Carolina. The States of Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee, where a strong Union sentiment prevailed, hesitated and delayed, but the young and active spirits were with the south, and these carried the states named into the general conflict. Once in the war, there was no way but to fight it out. I have no sympathy with secession, but I can appreciate the action of those who were born and reared under the influence of such teachings. Who of the north can say, that in like conditions, he would not have been a rebel?
Looking back from my standpoint now, when all the states are re- united in a stronger Union, when Union and Confederate soldiers are acting together in both Houses of Congress in legislating for the common good, when, since 1861, our country has more than doubled its population and quadrupled its resources, when its institutions have been harmonized by the abolition of slavery, when the seceding states are entering into a friendly and hopeful rivalry, in the development of their great resources, when they have doubled or trebled their production of cotton, when they are producing the greater part of their food, when they are developing their manufactures of iron and steel, and introducing the spindle and loom into the cities and villages, it seems to me that men of the south surely will appreciate, if they do not approve, what I said in the Senate early in the war:
"I would stake the last life, the last dollar, the last man, upon the prosecution of the war. Indeed, I cannot contemplate the condition of my country if it shall be dissevered and divided. Take the loyal states as they now stand and look at the map of the United States, and regard two hostile confederacies stretching along for thousands of miles across the continent. Do you not know that the normal condition of such a state of affairs would be eternal, everlasting war? Two nations of the same blood, of the same lineage, of the same spirit, cannot occupy the same continent, much less standing side by side as rival nations, dividing rivers and mountains for their boundary. No, Mr. president, rather than allow this war to terminate except upon the restoration of the Union intact in all its breadth and length, I would sacrifice the last man and see the country itself submerged.
"Rather than yield to traitors or the intervention of foreign powers, rather than bequeath to the next generation a broken Union, and an interminable civil war, I would light the torch of fanaticism and destroy all that the labor of two generations has accumulated. Better a desert and universal poverty than disunion; better the war of the French Revolution than an oligarchy founded upon the labor of slaves. But, sir, there is no need of this. The resources, wealth, and labor of twenty millions of freemen are amply sufficient to meet not only the physical, but financial, difficulties of the war. Thank God! the test to which all nations in the course of their history are subjected, is applied to us when we have a insignificant national debt; when our resources were never more manifest; when the loyal states are so throughly united; when our people are filled with a generous enthusiasm that will make the loss of life and burden of taxation easy to bear. If we conquer a peace by preserving the Union, the constitution, our nationality, all our ample territories, the rebound of prosperity in this country will enable a single generation easily to pay the national debt, even if the war is protracted until desolation is written upon every rebel hearthstone."
This, I believe, expressed the spirit and determination of the loyal states of the north, at the beginning of the war. With opinions so widely divergent in the two sections, and with a fixed purpose of each to stand by them, there was no way that poor frail human nature could devise to decide the controversy except to fight.
From the graves of the dead, who fought on opposite sides for their country of their state, there has been a resurrection, honorable to both sections, a Union stronger, more united and glorious than the Union established by our fathers, and with a rebound of prosperity greater than we could conceive of in 1862. This war, though fearful in the sacrifice of property and life, has resulted in a better understanding among the people of both sections. Each has for the other a higher respect and regard. I sincerely hope and believe in the good time coming when sectional lines will not divide political parties, and common interests and a broader nationality will have destroyed sectional feeling and jealousy.
As the result of the war we command the respect of all foreign nations. The United States, as a great republic, has become an example already followed by European nations. It has at least secured the respect and forbearance of the ruling class in Great Britain, who never forgot or forgave the rebellion of our ancestors against King George III and the parliament of Great Britain. It has stamped the language, the laws, and the boasted freedom of Englishmen, upon a population double that in the mother country, and they, in turn, are taking lessons from us in extending to their people equality of rights and privileges.
I remained in Washington a few days and then started for my home at Mansfield, to encourage enlistments, but found that no help was needed; that companies were enlisted in a day. One was recruited by William McLaughlin, a gallant soldier in the war in Mexico, a major general of the Ohio militia who had arrived at the age of sixty years. He dropped his law books and in twelve hours had a company of one hundred men ready to move at the command of the governor. A like patriotism was aroused in all parts of the state, so that in a very short time two full regiments, numbering 2,000 men, were organized under the command of Colonel A. McD. McCook, of the United States army, and were on the way to Washington, then blockaded by the roughs of Baltimore. I met them at Harrisburg and went with them to Philadelphia. They were camped at Fairmount Park, and were drilled with other regiments by Colonel Fitz John Porter, the entire force being under the command of General Patterson.