Stephen A. Douglas by Allen Johnson
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Allen Johnson >> Stephen A. Douglas
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Not receiving any response, Douglas took the floor in defense of his
resolution. He believed that the country should have the information
which his resolution was designed to elicit. The people were
apprehensive of civil war. He had put his construction upon the
President's inaugural; but "the Republican side of the Chamber remains
mute and silent, neither assenting nor dissenting." The answer which
he believed the resolution would call forth, would demonstrate two
points of prime importance: "First, that the President does not
meditate war; and, secondly, that he has no means for prosecuting a
warfare upon the seceding States, even if he desired."
With his wonted dialectic skill Douglas sought to establish his case.
The existing laws made no provision for collecting the revenue on
shipboard. It was admitted on all sides that collection at the port of
entry in South Carolina was impossible. The President had no legal
right to blockade the port of Charleston. He could not employ the army
to enforce the laws in the seceded States, for the military could be
used only to aid a civil process; and where was the marshal in South
Carolina to execute a writ? The President must have known that he
lacked these powers. He must have referred to the future action of
Congress, then, when he said that he should execute the laws in all
the States, unless the "requisite means were withheld." But Congress
had not passed laws empowering the Executive to collect revenue or to
gain possession of the forts. What, then, was the inference? Clearly
this, that the Republican senators did not desire to confer these
powers.
If this inference is not correct, if this interpretation of the
inaugural address is faulty, urged Douglas, why preserve this
impenetrable silence? Why not let the people know what the policy of
the administration is? They have a right to know. "The President of
the United States holds the destiny of this country in his hands. I
believe he means peace, and war will be averted, unless he is
overruled by the disunion portion of his party. We all know the
irrepressible conflict is going on in their camp.... Then, throw aside
this petty squabble about how you are to get along with your pledges
before election; meet the issues as they are presented; do what duty,
honor, and patriotism require, and appeal to the people to sustain
you. Peace is the only policy that can save the country or save your
party."[971]
On the Republican side of the chamber, this appeal was bitterly
resented. It met with no adequate response, because there was none to
give; but Wilson roundly denounced it as a wicked, mischief-making
utterance.[972] Unhappily, Douglas allowed himself to be drawn into a
personal altercation with Fessenden, in which he lost his temper and
marred the effect of his patriotic appeal. There was probably some
truth in Douglas's charge that both senators intended to be personally
irritating.[973] Under the circumstances, it was easier to indulge in
personal disparagement of Douglas, than to meet his embarrassing
questions.
How far Douglas still believed in the possibility of saving the Union
through compromise, it is impossible to say. Publicly he continued to
talk in an optimistic strain.[974] On March 25th, he expressed his
satisfaction in the Senate that only one danger-point remained; Fort
Sumter, he understood, was to be evacuated.[975] But among his friends
no one looked into the future with more anxiety than he. Intimations
from the South that citizens of the United States would probably be
excluded from the courts of the Confederacy, wrung from him the
admission that such action would be equivalent to war.[976] He noted
anxiously the evident purpose of the Confederated States to coerce
Kentucky and Virginia into secession.[977] Indeed, it is probable that
before the Senate adjourned, his ultimate hope was to rally the Union
men in the border States.[978]
When President Lincoln at last determined to send supplies to Fort
Sumter, the issue of peace or war rested with Jefferson Davis and his
cabinet at Montgomery. Early on the morning of April 12th, a shell,
fired from a battery in Charleston harbor, burst directly over Fort
Sumter, proclaiming to anxious ears the close of an era.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 892: Rhodes, History of the United States, III, pp. 116 ff.]
[Footnote 893: Rhodes, History of the United States, III, pp.
131-132.]
[Footnote 894: Chicago _Times and Herald_, December 7, 1860.]
[Footnote 895: _Ibid._]
[Footnote 896: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 12.]
[Footnote 897: _Ibid._, p. 29.]
[Footnote 898: _Ibid._, p. 3.]
[Footnote 899: _Ibid._, pp. 11-12.]
[Footnote 900: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 28.]
[Footnote 901: _Ibid._, p. 57.]
[Footnote 902: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 52.]
[Footnote 903: Rhodes, History of the United States, III, pp.
151-153.]
[Footnote 904: Report of the Committee of Thirteen, pp. 11-12.]
[Footnote 905: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 158.]
[Footnote 906: December 21st.]
[Footnote 907: MS. Letter, Douglas to C.H. Lanphier, December 25,
1860.]
[Footnote 908: Report of the Committee of Thirteen, p. 16.]
[Footnote 909: _Ibid._, p. 18.]
[Footnote 910: McPherson, Political History of the Rebellion, p. 38.]
[Footnote 911: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., App., p. 35.]
[Footnote 912: _Ibid._, p. 38.]
[Footnote 913: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., App., p. 39. It is not
unlikely that Douglas may have been reassured on this point by some
communication from Lincoln himself. The Diary of a Public Man (_North
American Review_, Vol. 129,) p. 130, gives the impression that they
had been in correspondence. Personal relations between them had been
cordial even in 1859, just after the debates; See Publication No. 11,
of the Illinois Historical Library, p. 191.]
[Footnote 914: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., App., p. 39.]
[Footnote 915: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., App., p. 41.]
[Footnote 916: _Ibid._, p. 42.]
[Footnote 917: January 10th, 11th, and 19th.]
[Footnote 918: The resolution was carried, 25 to 23, six Southern
Senators refusing to vote. _Globe_, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 409.]
[Footnote 919: McPherson, Political History of the Rebellion, p. 39.]
[Footnote 920: Diary of a Public Man, pp. 133-134. Douglas was on
terms of intimacy with the writer, and must have shared these
communications. Besides, Douglas had independent sources of
information.]
[Footnote 921: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., pp. 445-446.]
[Footnote 922: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 508.]
[Footnote 923: _Ibid._, p. 586.]
[Footnote 924: Senate Bill, No. 549, 36 Cong., 2 Sess.]
[Footnote 925: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 661.]
[Footnote 926: _Ibid._]
[Footnote 927: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., pp. 669.]
[Footnote 928: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 764.]
[Footnote 929: _Ibid._]
[Footnote 930: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 764.]
[Footnote 931: _Ibid._, p. 765.]
[Footnote 932: _Ibid._, p. 766.]
[Footnote 933: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 1205.]
[Footnote 934: It is printed in full in _Globe_, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p.
1207.]
[Footnote 935: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 1391.]
[Footnote 936: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 1081.]
[Footnote 937: Diary of a Public Man, p. 261.]
[Footnote 938: _Ibid._, p. 260.]
[Footnote 939: _Ibid._, p. 261.]
[Footnote 940: Correspondent of the New York _Times_, February 25,
1861.]
[Footnote 941: Diary of a Public Man, pp. 260-261.]
[Footnote 942: _Ibid._, p. 264.]
[Footnote 943: _Ibid._, pp. 264, 268; the interview of February 26th
was commented upon by the Philadelphia _Press_, February 28.]
[Footnote 944: Herndon-Weik, Lincoln, II, p. 73, note.]
[Footnote 945: Diary of a Public Man, p. 268.]
[Footnote 946: Diary of a Public Man, p. 268.]
[Footnote 947: _Ibid._, p. 268.]
[Footnote 948: _Ibid._, p. 268.]
[Footnote 949: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 1405.]
[Footnote 950: _Ibid._, p. 1405.]
[Footnote 951: _Ibid._, p. 1403.]
[Footnote 952: Diary of a Public Man, p. 380.]
[Footnote 953: _Ibid._, p. 379.]
[Footnote 954: _Ibid._, p. 383.]
[Footnote 955: Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, III, pp. 340-341. These
authors note that Lincoln rewrote this paragraph, but take it for
granted that he did so upon his own motion, after rejecting Seward's
suggestion.]
[Footnote 956: Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, III, p. 340, note.]
[Footnote 957: Seward's letter was written on the evening of February
24th. Douglas called upon the President February 26th. See Nicolay and
Hay, Lincoln, III, p. 319; Diary of a Public Man, pp. 264, 268.]
[Footnote 958: New York _Times_, March 6, 1861.]
[Footnote 959: _Globe_, 36 Cong., Special Sess., p. 1437.]
[Footnote 960: _Globe_, 36 Cong., Special Sess., p. 1438]
[Footnote 961: _Ibid._, p. 1442.]
[Footnote 962: Diary of a Public Man, p. 493.]
[Footnote 963: Diary of a Public Man, p. 493.]
[Footnote 964: New York _Times_, March 8, 1861; also the Philadelphia
_Press_, March 11, 1861.]
[Footnote 965: New York _Times_, March 10, 1861.]
[Footnote 966: Rhodes History of the United States, III, p. 332.]
[Footnote 967: Diary of a Public Man, p. 493.]
[Footnote 968: _Ibid._, pp. 495-496.]
[Footnote 969: _Globe_, 36 Cong., Special Sess., p. 1452.]
[Footnote 970: Diary of a Public Man, pp. 495-496.]
[Footnote 971: _Globe_, 36 Cong., Special Sess., p 1461.]
[Footnote 972: _Ibid._, p. 1461.]
[Footnote 973: _Globe_, 36 Cong., Special Sess., p. 1465.]
[Footnote 974: _Ibid._, pp. 1460, 1501, 1504.]
[Footnote 975: _Ibid._, p. 1501.]
[Footnote 976: Diary of a Public Man, p. 494.]
[Footnote 977: _Ibid._, p. 494.]
[Footnote 978: _Globe_, 36 Cong., Special Sess., pp. 1505, 1511.]
CHAPTER XX
THE SUMMONS
The news of the capitulation of Fort Sumter reached Washington on
Sunday morning, April 14th. At a momentous cabinet meeting, President
Lincoln read the draft of a proclamation calling into service
seventy-five thousand men, to suppress combinations obstructing the
execution of the laws in the Southern States. The cabinet was now a
unit. Now that the crisis had come, the administration had a policy.
Would it approve itself to the anxious people of the North? Could it
count upon the support of those who had counselled peace, peace at any
cost?
Those who knew Senator Douglas well could not doubt his loyalty to the
Union in this crisis; yet his friends knew that Union-loving men in
the Democratic ranks would respond to the President's proclamation
with a thousandfold greater enthusiasm, could they know that their
leader stood by the administration. Moved by these considerations,
Hon. George Ashmun of Massachusetts ventured to call upon Douglas on
this Sunday evening, and to suggest the propriety of some public
statement to strengthen the President's hands. Would he not call upon
the President at once and give him the assurance of his support?
Douglas demurred: he was not sure that Mr. Lincoln wanted his advice
and aid. Mr. Ashmun assured him that the President would welcome any
advances, and he spoke advisedly as a friend to both men. The peril of
the country was grave; surely this was not a time when men should let
personal and partisan considerations stand between them and service to
their country. Mrs. Douglas added her entreaties, and Douglas finally
yielded. Though the hour was late, the two men set off for the White
House, and found there the hearty welcome which Ashmun had
promised.[979]
Of all the occurrences of this memorable day, this interview between
Lincoln and Douglas strikes the imagination with most poignant
suggestiveness. Had Douglas been a less generous opponent, he might
have reminded the President that matters had come to just that pass
which he had foreseen in 1858. Nothing of the sort passed Douglas's
lips. The meeting of the rivals was most cordial and hearty. They held
converse as men must when hearts are oppressed with a common burden.
The President took up and read aloud the proclamation summoning the
nation to arms. When he had done, Douglas said with deep earnestness,
"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."[980] Why has not some artist seized
upon the dramatic moment when they rose and passed to the end of the
room to examine a map which hung there? Douglas, with animated face
and impetuous gesture, pointing out the strategic places in the coming
contest; Lincoln, with the suggestion of brooding melancholy upon his
careworn face, listening in rapt attention to the quick, penetrating
observations of his life-long rival. But what no artist could put upon
canvas was the dramatic absence of resentment and defeated ambition in
the one, and the patient teachableness and self-mastery of the other.
As they parted, a quick hearty grasp of hands symbolized this
remarkable consecration to a common task.
As they left the executive mansion, Ashmun urged his companion to send
an account of this interview to the press, that it might accompany the
President's message on the morrow. Douglas then penned the following
dispatch: "Senator Douglas called upon the President, and had an
interesting conversation on the present condition of the country. The
substance of it was, on the part of Mr. Douglas, that while he was
unalterably opposed to the administration in all its political issues,
he was prepared to fully sustain the President in the exercise of all
his constitutional functions, to preserve the Union, maintain the
government, and defend the Federal capital. A firm policy and prompt
action was necessary. The capital was in danger, and must be defended
at all hazards, and at any expense of men and money. He spoke of the
present and future without any reference to the past."[981] When the
people of the North read the proclamation in the newspapers, on the
following morning, a million men were cheered and sustained in their
loyalty to the Union by the intelligence that their great leader had
subordinated all lesser ends of party to the paramount duty of
maintaining the Constitution of the fathers. To his friends in
Washington, Douglas said unhesitatingly, "We must fight for our
country and forget all differences. There can be but two parties--the
party of patriots and the party of traitors. We belong to the
first."[982] And to friends in Missouri where disunion sentiment was
rife, he telegraphed, "I deprecate war, but if it must come I am with
my country, and for my country, under all circumstances and in every
contingency. Individual policy must be subordinated to the public
safety."[983]
From this day on, Douglas was in frequent consultation with the
President. The sorely tried and distressed Lincoln was unutterably
grateful for the firm grip which this first of "War Democrats" kept
upon the progress of public opinion in the irresolute border States.
It was during one of these interviews, after the attack upon the Sixth
Massachusetts Regiment in the streets of Baltimore, that Douglas urged
upon the President the possibility of bringing troops by water to
Annapolis, thence to Washington, thus avoiding further conflict in the
disaffected districts of Maryland.[984] Eventually the Eighth
Massachusetts and the Seventh New York reached Washington by this
route, to the immense relief of the President and his cabinet.
Before this succor came to the alarmed capital, Douglas had left the
city for the West. He had received intimations that Egypt in his own
State showed marked symptoms of disaffection. The old ties of blood
and kinship of the people of southern Illinois with their neighbors in
the border States were proving stronger than Northern affiliations.
Douglas wielded an influence in these southern, Democratic counties,
such as no other man possessed. Could he not best serve the
administration by bearding disunionism in its den? Believing that
Cairo, at the confluence of the Mississippi and the Ohio, was destined
to be a strategic point of immense importance in the coming struggle,
and that the fate of the whole valley depended upon the unwavering
loyalty of Illinois, Douglas laid the matter before Lincoln. He would
go or stay in Washington, wherever Lincoln thought he could do the
most good. Probably neither then realized the tremendous nature of the
struggle upon which the country had entered; yet both knew that the
Northwest would be the makeweight in the balance for the Union; and
that every nerve must be strained to hold the border States of
Kentucky and Missouri. Who could rouse the latent Unionism of the
Northwest and of the border States like Douglas? Lincoln advised him
to go. There was a quick hand-grasp, a hurried farewell, and they
parted never to meet again.[985]
Rumor gave strange shapes to this "mission" which carried Douglas in
such haste to the Northwest. Most persistent of all is the tradition
that he was authorized to raise a huge army in the States of the upper
Mississippi Valley, and to undertake that vast flanking movement which
subsequently fell to Grant and Sherman to execute. Such a project
would have been thoroughly consonant with Douglas's conviction of the
inevitable unity and importance of the great valley; but evidence is
wanting to corroborate this legend.[986] Its frequent repetition,
then and now, must rather be taken as a popular recognition of the
complete accord between the President and the greatest of War
Democrats. Colonel Forney, who stood very near to Douglas, afterward
stated "by authority," that President Lincoln would eventually have
called Douglas into the administration or have placed him in one of
the highest military commands.[987] Such importance may be given to
this testimony as belongs to statements which have passed unconfirmed
and unchallenged for half a century.
On his way to Illinois, Douglas missed a train and was detained half a
day in the little town of Bellaire, Ohio, a few miles below Wheeling
in Virginia.[988] It was a happy accident, for just across the river
the people of northwestern Virginia were meditating resistance to the
secession movement, which under the guidance of Governor Letcher
threatened to sever them from the Union-loving population of Ohio and
Pennsylvania. It was precisely in this region, nearly a hundred years
before, that popular sovereignty had almost succeeded in forming a
fourteenth State of the Confederacy. There had always been a disparity
between the people of these transmontane counties and the tide-water
region. The intelligence that Douglas was in Bellaire speedily brought
a throng about the hotel in which he was resting. There were clamors
for a speech. In the afternoon he yielded to their importunities. By
this time the countryside was aroused. People came across the river
from Virginia and many came down by train from Wheeling,[989] Men who
were torn by a conflict of sentiments, not knowing where their
paramount allegiance lay, hung upon his words.
Douglas spoke soberly and thoughtfully, not as a Democrat, not as a
Northern man, but simply and directly as a lover of the Union. "If we
recognize the right of secession in one case, we give our assent to it
in all cases; and if the few States upon the Gulf are now to separate
themselves from us, and erect a barrier across the mouth of that great
river of which the Ohio is a tributary, how long will it be before New
York may come to the conclusion that she may set up for herself, and
levy taxes upon every dollar's worth of goods imported and consumed in
the Northwest, and taxes upon every bushel of wheat, and every pound
of pork, or beef, or other productions that may be sent from the
Northwest to the Atlantic in search of a market?" Secession meant
endless division and sub-division, the formation of petty
confederacies, appeals to the sword and the bayonet instead of to the
ballot.
"Unite as a band of brothers," he pleaded, "and rescue your government
and its capital and your country from the enemy who have been the
authors of your calamity." His eye rested upon the great river. "Ah!"
he exclaimed, a great wave of emotion checking his utterance, "This
great valley must never be divided. The Almighty has so arranged the
mountain and the plain, and the water-courses as to show that this
valley in all time shall remain one and indissoluble. Let no man
attempt to sunder what Divine Providence has rendered indivisible."[990]
As he concluded, anxious questions were put to him, regarding the
rumored retirement of General Scott from the army. "I saw him only
Saturday," replied Douglas. "He was at his desk, pen in hand, writing
his orders for the defense and safety of the American Capital." And as
he repeated the words of General Scott declining the command of the
forces of Virginia--"'I have served my country under the flag of the
Union for more than fifty years, and as long as God permits me to
live, I will defend that flag with my sword; even if my own State
assails it,'"--the crowds around him broke into tumultuous cheers.
Within thirty days the Unionists of western Virginia had rallied,
organized, and begun that hardy campaign which brought West Virginia
into the Union. On the very day that Douglas was making his fervent
plea for the Union, Robert E. Lee cast in his lot with the South.
At Columbus, Douglas was again forced to break his journey; and again
he was summoned to address the crowd that gathered below his window.
It was already dark; the people had collected without concert; there
were no such trappings, as had characterized public demonstrations in
the late campaign. Douglas appeared half-dressed at his bedroom
window, a dim object to all save to those who stood directly below
him. Out of the darkness came his solemn, sonorous tones, bringing
relief and assurance to all who listened, for in the throng were men
of all parties, men who had followed him through all changes of
political weather, and men who had been his persistent foes. There was
little cheering. As Douglas pledged anew his hearty support to
President Lincoln, "it was rather a deep 'Amen' that went up from the
crowd," wrote one who had distrusted hitherto the mighty power of
this great popular leader.[991]
On the 25th of April, Douglas reached Springfield, where he purposed
to make his great plea for the Union. He spoke at the Capitol to
members of the legislature and to packed galleries. Friend and foe
alike bear witness to the extraordinary effect wrought by his words.
"I do not think that it is possible for a human being to produce a
more prodigious effect with spoken words," wrote one who had formerly
detested him.[992] "Never in all my experience in public life, before
or since," testified the then Speaker of the House, now high in the
councils of the nation, "have I been so impressed by a speaker."[993]
Douglas himself was thrilled with his message. As he approached the
climax, the veins of his neck and forehead were swollen with passion,
and the perspiration ran down his face in streams. At times his clear
and resonant voice reverberated through the chamber, until it seemed
to shake the building.[994] While he was in the midst of a passionate
invective, a man rushed into the hall bearing an American flag. The
trumpet tones of the speaker and the sight of the Stars and Stripes
roused the audience to the wildest pitch of excitement.[995] Men and
women became hysterical with the divine madness of patriotism. "When
hostile armies," he exclaimed with amazing force, "When hostile armies
are marching under new and odious banners against the government of
our country, the shortest way to peace is the most stupendous and
unanimous preparation for war. We in the great valley of the
Mississippi have peculiar interests and inducements in the struggle
... I ask every citizen in the great basin between the Rocky Mountains
and the Alleghanies ... to tell me whether he is ever willing to
sanction a line of policy that may isolate us from the markets of the
world, and make us dependent provinces upon the powers that thus
choose to isolate us?... Hence, if a war does come, it is a war of
self-defense on our part. It is a war in defense of the Government
which we have inherited as a priceless legacy from our patriotic
fathers, in defense of those great rights of freedom of trade,
commerce, transit and intercourse from the center to the circumference
of our great continent."[996]
The voice of the strong man, so little given to weak sentiment, broke,
as he said, "I have struggled almost against hope to avert the
calamities of war and to effect a reunion and reconciliation with our
brethren in the South. I yet hope it may be done, but I am not able to
point out how it may be. Nothing short of Providence can reveal to us
the issues of this great struggle. Bloody--calamitous--I fear it will
be. May we so conduct it, if a collision must come, that we will stand
justified in the eyes of Him who knows our hearts, and who will
justify our every act. We must not yield to resentments, nor to the
spirit of vengeance, much less to the desire for conquest or ambition.
I see no path of ambition open in a bloody struggle for triumphs over
my countrymen. There is no path of ambition open for me in a divided
country.... My friends, I can say no more. To discuss these topics is
the most painful duty of my life. It is with a sad heart--with a grief
I have never before experienced--that I have to contemplate this
fearful struggle; but I believe in my conscience that it is a duty we
owe to ourselves and to our children, and to our God, to protect this
Government and that flag from every assailant, be he who he may."
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