Emissaries soon came out from Great Britain to the United States and began the agitation of the abolition of slavery there. The preponderance of women in the New England States caused them to be selected as proselytes for the new crusade. There was also a class of men in that section, offshoots of the old persecuting theocracy who furnished recruits to the agitators. There were doubtless many who really believed slavery to be a great sin and wrong, who joined in the crusade from conscientious motives. Knaves there were in plentiful supply, gowned and ungowned, who were ready for anything which would tend to their personal advancement in position or their pecuniary profit. Out of these materials abolition societies were formed and petitions began to pour into Congress for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and other places within the Federal jurisdiction, while the mails were filled with incendiary publications calculated to stir up insurrections. John Quincy Adams, who had held political office from his earliest manhood, until he became President, obtained a return to political life by his election to the lower House of Congress. Shortly after his return there, in presenting one of the chronic petitions of the Quakers for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, he had taken occasion to notify the House and the country that he had no sympathy with the views of the politicians, yet he joined the new agitators.
This new agitation in Congress began about 1834-5 and was continued with great violence for several years, a petition being presented by Mr. Adams, during the time, for the dissolution of the Union. After much exasperation of feeling growing out of the presentation of the petitions in both Houses of Congress and the circulation of incendiary publications, some respite from the excitement in Congress was obtained by the adoption of a rule in the lower House for laying petitions on the table on their presentation, without debate, and by the conservative action of the Senate. The agitation, however was continued at the North and began to have an important influence upon the canvass for the presidential elections. The law for the recovery of fugitive slaves, always inefficient because of the refusal or failure of the states' officers to enforce it, had now become a dead letter by the resistance to its execution by mobs and the still more mischievous action of several of the legislatures of the free states. The circulation of incendiary publications through the mails had been forbidden by Congress, but the Northern press was prolific in the production of gross libels upon the character of the people of the Southern states and misrepresentations of the institution of slavery as it existed there; even the Constitution of the United States was denounced by the new lights as "a league with hell and a covenant with death."
Arkansas had been admitted as a slave state in the year 1836 and Michigan as a free state in 1837; and in 1845 Florida was admitted as a slave state, the same act providing for the admission of Iowa, which was a free state, but did not come in until 1846.
On the 29th of December, the independent Republic of Texas was admitted into the Union as a state, and came in with slavery already established there. This admission, or annexation as it was called, of Texas, resulted in the war with Mexico and the establishment, at the close of the war in 1848, of the Rio Grande as the southern boundary of Texas and the acquisition of the provinces or territories of New Mexico and upper California as United States territory.
The admission of Texas gave a new impulse to the antislavery agitation, and the acquisition, by the war, of the new territory brought it again prominently before Congress. Even before the close of the war with Mexico, the old proposition for the exclusion of slavery from the public territories was revived, with a view to its application to any territory that might be acquired as a result of the war, and it was then designated as the "Wilmot Proviso" from the name of the member re-introducing it. On all propositions to establish governments of the newly acquired territory, after the close of the war, the "Wilmot Proviso" was pressed with great vehemence by Northern politicians, and was strenuously resisted by those of the South.
The most extreme of the Southern politicians were willing to extend the so-called Missouri Compromise line of 36° 30´ to the Pacific ocean, and regard it as a final settlement of the question, but the Northern advocates of the proviso would listen to no terms for an adjustment, and thus again repudiated the principle and spirit of the settlement made by the Missouri bill. Southern statesmen, while willing to accept the line of 36° 30´ for the sake of peace, did not claim the right to foster slavery even upon the territory south of that line, by the action of Congress, but they claimed that the question should be left where the Constitution of the United States left it, that is, that the people settling in the territories should be allowed freedom to adopt their own institutions when they came to form state governments, and that Congress in the meantime should adopt no measures to forestall their action. They urged that the territory was acquired by the common blood and treasure, and that Congress, therefore, in its action, should not give preference to one section over another and thus virtually exclude the people of the South from the newly acquired domain. This was a reasonable and just view of the subject, and did not look to the increase of the number of slaves, but merely to their expansion over a wider area, and the older states from the rapidly increasing slave population. Nor was the proposition to exclude slavery ever in the interest of freedom, for it sought merely to confine slavery to the country where it already existed, and thus surround the slave states with a cordon of free states, so as to increase year by year, the difficulties of prospective emancipation, and render any but a subversion of the institution by violence an impossibility. It was as injurious to the slaves themselves as to the white population of the states.
Had the would-be philanthropists been governed by an enlightened regard for the welfare or freedom of the slaves, they would not have objected to their introduction, either into the territory north of 36° 30´ or that acquired from Mexico, for with the greater eagerness existing at the North for emigration, as well as that from foreign countries and the want of adaptation of the soil and climate of the greater part of the territory, old and new, to the staples in the production of which slave labor could be profitably employed, it was certain that much the larger population settling in that territory would be from the free states and foreign countries, and it was equally certain that, when the people came to form new states, slavery would be prohibited and freedom given to the slaves within the limits of most, if not all of those states.
But fanaticism of no kind, whether political or religious, listens to reason, and among the pseudo-philanthropists there was much of the leaven of that old spirit, which had prompted the hanging, burning and scourging of "heretics and witches."
There were many politicians by trade, whose aspirations had been unsuccessful and who cared nothing for the negro or the cause of freedom, but who fell in with the "free-soil" movement, as it was called with the selfish hope of building up a great sectional party under the auspices of which they could obtain and retain that power which they had failed to acquire otherwise. A very large mass of men rarely think for themselves and among this class the leaders of the "free-soil" operated extensively by impassioned appeals to their prejudices and passions, inducing them to believe that their vital interests required that slavery should be excluded by law from the territories. One of the shrewdest and most far-seeing of the "free-soil" leaders boldly declared that there was a "higher law" than the Constitution and that there was "an impassable conflict between slavery and freedom."
It cannot be denied that there were extreme men at the South on the other side, but they were made so mostly by the hostile attitude assumed by their opponents.
The result of the agitation was that for some time no government could be formed for any part of the new territory. The exasperation of feeling between the two sections of the Union, and the danger to that Union itself, became so great that in 1850 the more moderate of the leading statesmen of the country, with Clay and Webster at their head, devoted themselves to the adjustment of the threatening questions and their efforts resulted in the adoption of certain measures commonly called the "Compromise Measures of 1850." These measures consisted of a bill for the admission of California into the Union, under a constitution excluding slavery, which had been irregularly adopted a bill to establish a territorial government for Utah and a bill to establish the northern and western boundaries of Texas with her assent, and to establish a territorial government for New Mexico, it being provided in the territorial bills that states created out of the two territories organized when the population should be sufficient, should be admitted into the Union with or without slavery, as the people themselves might decide.
Along with these bills another was passed for enforcing the provision of the Constitution in regard to the return of fugitive slaves, as the former one could not be executed because most of the free states had prohibited their officers from acting under it. These measures as a whole were not acceptable to the extreme men of either section, but the more moderate portion of the two leading political parties hoped that they would put an end to the agitation and restore peace and concord to the country. Such appeared to be their first effect, and both of the great political parties, into which the country had been divided, without reference to sections for many years—Democrat and Whig—in their platforms of principles adopted in the canvass for President in 1852, gave their adhesion to the "Compromise Measures of 1850" as a final settlement of the questions embraced by them.
In 1848, a portion of the "free-soilers" had run Martin Van Buren, a former President and a defeated candidate for the Democratic nomination, as their candidate for the Presidency, but the party did not have cohesiveness enough to give him its whole vote, and in 1852 the "free-soil" party had no candidate, the members of it voting with the parties to which they had previously been attached according to their predilections, though there was still much muttering by the leaders.
The abolition party proper, however, had a candidate for form's sake.
In 1848, Wisconsin had been added to the Union as a free state, and there were now in the Union sixteen free states and fifteen slave states, giving to the free states the preponderance in the Senate, as they had long had in the lower House. Neither Utah nor New Mexico was fitted at all for slave labor, and there was no territory out of which it was likely that another slave state could be formed, except by the sub-division of Texas, while there was a prospect for the formation of several more free states, at no distant day, out of the territory west of the Mississippi and north of 36° 30´ and on the Pacific coast, the territories of Minnesota and Oregon having already been organized.
By what was called the Compromise of 1850, the South had gained nothing whatever, except the abstract principle inserted in the Utah and New Mexico bills, of non-interference by Congress with the question of slavery and the submission of the decision of the question to the people of the territories when they came to frame their state governments, while the North had gained the rich and growing state of California. The bill for the restoration of fugitive slaves was in accordance with an express stipulation in the Constitution, without which it would never have been adopted. Yet the execution of this law was resisted from the very beginning and very soon most of the free states passed laws, called "personal liberty bills" which virtually nullified the act of Congress. Several collisions ensued between the United States officers in their efforts to execute the law and mobs in the free states who resisted its execution, and even members on the floor of Congress denounced the law and counselled resistance to it. This served to prevent that harmonious feeling which had been expected from the adoption of the measures of adjustment, and the new fugitive slave act became soon a dead letter from the danger, difficulty and expense attending its execution. Not only was the guaranty contained in the Constitution, and the act of Congress to enforce it, thus rendered nugatory, but for many years slaves had been enticed by agents from the North to make their escape and aid had been furnished them while doing so, under a system which obtained the designation of "The underground railroad." This was not confined to citizens merely but was participated in by state officers who were sworn to support the Constitution of the United States, and instead of compelling their citizens and officers to comply with the Constitution and law, many of the free states passed laws to make it a felony for the owner to arrest his slave or for any one to assist him.
At the session of Congress for 1853-54 in the introduction of a bill for the establishment of governments for the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, both north of 36° 30´, a proposition was made by Mr. Douglas, a senator from Illinois, to incorporate a provision in regard to slavery similar to that contained in the Utah and New Mexico bills. When the measure was offered by a Northern man, it was supported by nearly all of the Southern representatives as correct in principle, though it met with the opposition of a few Southern representatives and statesmen, who deprecated it as tending to arouse again the excitement which had partially subsided.
The question was not one of any great practical importance, as the climate and soil of Kansas and Nebraska furnished a more formidable barrier to the introduction of slaves than any legal enactment. The proposition to repeal the enactment as to the line of 36° 30´ violated no compromise, as has been shown, and it violated no right of any of the Northern states or people, but merely asserted a principle deducible from the Constitution and right in itself; though in this case it was an abstract one.
The measure was passed with the assistance of some of the Northern Democrats, and it had the effect so much dreaded by the conservative men who opposed it, of reviving with new intensity the fires of the former agitation and of giving new life to the languishing free-soil or Republican party. Though they had never acceded to or complied with the compromise in regard to Missouri or that of 1850, or even those of the Constitution itself, the leaders of the free-soil party raised a tremendous clamor about the violation of plighted faith, and soon the agitation spread over the whole North with ten fold force.
The Puritan ministers of New England, successors of the Cotton-Mathers of religious persecution and witches-killing notoriety, abandoned the gospel of peace for dissertations upon the merits of Sharp's rifles, and under their auspices a considerable number of armed emigrants were sent to Kansas. In consequence of this movement some hot heads from the South imprudently went to Kansas for the purpose of disputing the settlement of that territory with the emissaries of the New England parsons. The result was that a very disorderly condition of things ensued in the new territories, as is always the case where reason gives way to passion. Many wrongs and acts of violence were committed on both sides and there was a tremendous howl about "bleeding Kansas" by the Northern parsons and agitators, but not one slave was carried into Kansas and no one thought of carrying any there.
The result of the agitation consequent on the theoretic extension of slavery to Kansas and Nebraska, and of the troubles in Kansas, was the appearance of John C. Fremont as the Republican free-soil candidate for the presidency in 1856. He was beaten, but his vote showed the existence of a formidable sectional party, in all of the free states, based on a solitary idea. The strength of this party was still further increased by an attempt to secure the admission of Kansas into the Union, under a Constitution liberating slavery and adopted by a convention held during the prevalence of the bitter feud there, but the most important result of the Kansas troubles was the development of the character of John Brown, a bold, desperate and fanatical Northern man, who made his appearance on the scene of action, and participated largely in the outrages committed by the free-soilers and abolitionists.
What gave the crowning stroke to the already over-heated animosity between the two sections, was the appearance of John Brown on a new theatre of action. The political parsons and the agitators of the North did not confine themselves to the denunciation of the Southern people and of slavery, but they lavished their anathemas upon the Constitution which tolerated slavery and the Union which gave it, as they alleged, protection. Nor were the denunciations confined to Northern pulpits and abolition or free-soil papers, but were heard in the Senate Chamber and on the floor of the House of Representatives, and were accompanied with the most atrocious libels on the Southern people, in which they were represented as barbarians who delighted in inflicting upon their slaves the most revolting cruelties, and who engaged in the most debasing immoralities. Encouraged by these open denunciations of the Constitution and the Union, and stimulated by the picture of Southern wrongs and cruelty to the slaves, which were constantly placed before his eyes, John Brown gave way to the wild conceptions of a fanatical mind and undertook to subvert the government of the United States and to redress the wrongs of the slaves by deluging the Southern states in blood.
In the year 1858, he held a secret meeting or convention of reckless fanatics like himself at Chatham, in Canada West, and devised a scheme for a provisional government of the United States, of which he was to be the head, with a cabinet appointed by himself, and he concocted a plan for putting his government in operation by raising a rebellion among the slaves and freeing them. All of these proceedings were kept from the public until the month of October, 1859, when John Brown, with a band of followers, made his appearance suddenly at Harper's Ferry, within the limits of Virginia, surprised and captured the United States arsenal at that place, which was without a guard; killed several citizens; captured and imprisoned others, and committed a number of depredations and robberies in the neighborhood. His pretended provisional government was proclaimed and the object of the movement declared, but failing to receive some expected re-inforcements, and not meeting with co-operation on the part of the slaves for whom he brought a supply of arms and expected to get others from the arsenal, he and his band of desperadoes were soon surrounded and the greater part captured or killed. John Brown himself was made a prisoner in a wounded condition and he and several of his followers were tried under the laws of Virginia, convicted and executed for treason and murder.
His plan of operations contemplated a servile insurrection in all of the Southern states with all of the horrors of blood and rapine, and his acts amounted to treason, not only against the state of Virginia, but against the United States; yet there was reason to suspect that some of the leaders of the Republican or free-soil party, were cognizant of his designs if they did not secretly favor them. Certain it is that very great sympathy was openly expressed for him by many individuals and by public meetings at the North, and that the legislature of Massachusetts, by an almost unanimous vote, adjourned over so as not to be in session on the day of his execution, avowedly as a mark of respect for him, and of condemnation at his execution.
When this desperate undertaking of John Brown to deluge the South with fire and sword, and the marked sympathy for him expressed at the North, were added to the failure of the Northern states to comply with their plighted faith in regard to the restoration of fugitive slaves—to their interference with the institutions of those states, the persistent libels upon the Southern people, the encouragement given to the slaves to revolt by incendiary publications, the attitude of hostility assumed by a great number of the Northern representatives to the South on every occasion in which anything had been proposed or done in regard to slavery, and to the rapid growth of the party now coming into the ascendency on the ground of enmity to the South and her institutions—it may be well conceived that a profound sensation was created in the latter section.
South Carolina then proposed some agreement between the Southern states, for the purpose of withdrawing from a compact, the obligations of which had been so disregarded, but Virginia discouraged this proposition, as she was exceedingly loth to take any step looking to the severance of a Union which she had done so much to establish, and for which she had made so many sacrifices.
By the commencement of the canvass for the Presidency in 1860, the Democratic party had become divided on the question of the construction of the slavery clause in the Kansas-Nebraska bill: that is whether the power to exclude or adopt slavery could be exercised by the people of the territories while in the territorial condition. Mr. Douglas and the greater portion of the Northern Democrats contended for the former view, while nearly all of the Southern Democrats advocated the latter. It was contended by the Southern Democrats with great force and justice that if Congress did not have the power to exclude slavery, the legislatures of the territories, which derived their powers from the acts organizing the territories could not have that power. This view was conclusive, for the territorial legislatures, being now temporary bodies deriving their sole powers from the acts of Congress, could not exercise greater powers than the body which created them, while the people, when they came to form constitutions, under that clause of the Constitution of the United States providing for the admission of new states on the same footing with the old, were necessarily vested with that sovereign power over this subject and all others which belonged to the original states.
The Northern Democrats contended for what was called "Squatter Sovereignty," that is, that this sovereign power of legislation vested in the settlers of the territories from the beginning, and to propitiate the free-soil sentiment, many of them contended that the clause in the Kansas-Nebraska bill secured the territories to the north and free-soil more effectually than could be done by Congressional legislation, as settlers from the North could more readily take possession of the territories and exclude slavery from them, than settlers from the South could introduce slavery there, while in Congress the Southern Representatives especially in the Senate where the sections were more nearly equal, could, with the aid of a few Northern men, prevent any interference with slavery. This view of the subject made the doctrine of squatter sovereignty even more offensive than what was called the Wilmot proviso, and Southern men contended that it was a trap to entrap them.
It was in fact not a question of construction of the clause in the Kansas-Nebraska bill but of the Constitution itself. If Congress had no power to legislate on the subject, then it could delegate none, and if there was such a thing as "squatter sovereignty" it extended to all other subjects as well as to slavery, and the settlers in the territories might set up for themselves without any authority from Congress, which would involve some very extraordinary consequences, including that even of disposing of the public lands. The squatter sovereignty view of the question was one not to be tolerated; and it applied to the Utah and New Mexico bills as well as to that in regard to Kansas and Nebraska.
The great mass of Southern Whigs agreed with the Southern Democrats in their way of interpreting the principle, but they did not regard the question as one of sufficient practical importance to make a fight over, and old party divisions and feuds prevented a coalescence of all of the Southern men.
Though considered by many an abstract question, as it certainly was so far as it applied to Kansas and Nebraska, it seemed to divide the Democratic party into two wings, a Northern and a Southern one, with some adherents to either wing from the opposite section. This division resulted in the nomination of two sets of candidates by the Democratic party—Douglas of Illinois and Johnson of Georgia by the Northern wing, and Breckenridge of Kentucky and Lane of Oregon by the Southern wing. The Republican free-soil or abolition party nominated Lincoln of Illinois and Hamlin of Maine, while the Southern Whigs and a remnant of Northern Whigs, who had not fused with the free-soilers and abolitionists, nominated Bell of Tennessee and Everett of Massachusetts. The advocates of this latter ticket proposed to sink every other issue and stand for "The Union, the Constitution, and the enforcement of the Laws."
At the election in 1860, Lincoln and Hamlin received the majority of the popular vote in nearly all of the Northern states and by that vote alone secured a majority of the votes of the electoral colleges, but they lacked very nearly 1,000,000 votes of receiving a majority of the combined popular vote of the United States. In this election the Southern people were unanimous in their opposition to Lincoln and Hamlin though divided as to the other candidates, the few thousands of votes given on the border for the Republican ticket, being given by Northern men who had emigrated across the line, and amounting to a very inconsiderable fraction.
It was the first time in the history of the Government that a mere sectional candidate had been elected and this was done upon sectional issues alone. This result presented an alarming state of things and developed the fact that under a Republican form of Federal Government, with suffrage nearly universal, it was perfectly practicable for a minority to get possession of the government on sectional issues and perhaps control it permanently. There had been, before, presidents elected by a minority popular vote, but this was on National issues and the support of the successful candidate was confined to no particular section. Of the thirteen presidents elected, seven had been elected from Southern states, and all of them received majorities of the popular vote except Mr. Polk of Tennessee, and his principal opponent was Mr. Clay of Kentucky, a Southern man.
Six had been selected from Northern states, and but one of them, Harrison of Ohio, but a native of Virginia, received a majority of the popular votes.
Of the Southern presidents, Washington's electoral vote was unanimous. Jefferson received twenty Northern electoral votes at his first election, and all but nine of them at his second. Madison received a majority of Northern electoral votes at his first election and forty of them at his second. Monroe received a very large majority of Northern electoral votes at his first election and all but one at his last, that being the only vote cast against him. Jackson received 73 Northern and Northwestern electoral votes out of 147 cast, at his first election and a very large majority at his second election. Polk received 103 of the same vote to 58 cast for Mr. Clay and Taylor received a large majority of the same vote.
Of the Northern presidents, John Adams received 12 electoral votes from the South. John Quincy Adams received six electoral votes from the slave states and was elected by the House of Representatives, receiving the votes of several slave states. Van Buren received 61 out of 126 votes cast by the slave states, 28 of the rest being cast for Harrison. Harrison received a large majority of Southern electoral votes, as did Pierce and Buchanan and in every election the majority of Northern electoral votes had been cast for the successful candidates, except at Jefferson's first election, Madison's second, Jackson's first and Buchanan's election and in this the majority of that vote had been cast for Fremont, the sectional Republican candidate. Two vice-presidents, Tyler from Virginia and Fillmore of New York, had succeeded to the presidency by the deaths of the incumbents and both of them had received majorities of the popular vote as well as of the Northern electoral vote.
Lincoln's election therefore was the first instance of the election of a mere sectional president. It was very evident that if the party electing him continued in possession of the government for any length of time, there would inevitably follow a subversion of the rights of the states and a consolidation of all power in the Federal government under the control of a sectional majority, not a majority of the whole. This form of consolidation promised to be infinitely worse than an entire obliteration of all state lines and a concentration of power in the hands of the entire people.
Under the circumstances attending the election of Lincoln, those of the Southern states which are usually designated the "Cotton States" deemed that their own safety required their withdrawal from the Union, and they consequently withdrew. The legislature of South Carolina was in session for the purpose of appointing electors for president, and when the result was ascertained, a convention for that state was called, which adopted an ordinance of secession on the 20th of December, 1860. Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana soon followed the example of South Carolina, and a Congress of the seceding states met at Montgomery, Alabama, early in February, 1861, and organized a provisional government under the style of the "Confederate States of America," of which the Honorable Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, was appointed President, and the Honorable A. H. Stephens, of Georgia, Vice-President.
Texas had previously adopted an ordinance of secession which went into effect when it was certified by the popular vote and that state soon afterwards became also one of the Confederate States.
A permanent constitution was adopted for the Confederate States to go into effect on the 22d of February, 1862, modelled after that of the United States, but containing some changes in the details and the powers delegated, with more ample recognition of states rights and a prohibition of the introduction of slaves from any other than the slave-holding states and territories of the United States.
The secession of these states had been without violence, except to take possession of some forts and arsenals of the United States within the limits of the seceding states, which had been accomplished without bloodshed. Commissioners were appointed to the United States government, to effect a peaceful settlement of all questions between the two governments in regard to the public debt, territory, etc.
This change in the relations of the seceding states to the United States resulted in no change whatever in the domestic affairs of those states, but they continued to be regulated as before under the laws and constitutions of the several states.
Action of the Border Slave States—Convention of Virginia
The "Border Slave States," as they were called, including North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas, which immediately joined the "Cotton States" on the south, though equally appreciating the outrages upon their rights and the dangers to be apprehended in the future, were not at first disposed to secede, as they had cherished such an habitual attachment to the Union that they were exceedingly loth to give it up, being governed by that sentiment described in the Declaration of Independence in the assertion "that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."
The majority of the people of those states were actuated by hope that the party which was about to obtain possession of the government would not long hold together, and they trusted that the sober second thought of the people of the North would keep the dominant party within bounds until it could be ejected from power, and that in the meantime guaranties might be obtained for the rights of the states, so as to bring the government back to a conformity with its original designs, and effect a restoration of the Union. This was especially the case with the State of Virginia, which had made so many sacrifices to establish and perpetuate the Union, which in great part had been the work of her own hands. The legislature of Virginia was in session when the secession of the "Cotton States" began, and the crisis was of such a threatening nature that an act was passed, providing for the assemblage of a convention, vested with the sovereign power of the state, but directing at the same time, that a vote should be taken upon the question of any ordinance of secession which might be adopted, and that it should be submitted to the popular vote for ratification before it should be effectual. The legislature also by resolution, invited a convention of commissioners from all of the non-seceding states, North and South, to assemble at Washington for the purpose of consulting upon and devising some plan for adjusting the pending difficulties with a view to a restoration of the Union. This latter convention assembled and was known as the "Peace Convention."
The election for members of the Virginia convention took place on the first Monday in February, 1861, and a large majority of the delegates elected were opposed to secession. The convention assembled at the Capitol in Richmond, on the 13th of February, and a decided union man, Mr. John Janney, of Loudoun, was chosen President. A deliberative body containing more general talent and worth had rarely, if ever, assembled in the state, and all of the members seemed to be impressed with the momentous character of the crisis. This convention contained one distinguished gentleman who had been President of the United States, another who had been governor of the state, a number who had filled seats in the Federal Congress, two who had been heads of departments in the Cabinet at Washington, besides many others among the most talented and distinguished statesmen and lawyers of the state.
There was a variety of sentiment among the Union members as to the terms upon which it would be safe for the state to remain in the Union, but a very large majority were earnestly in favor of some adjustment in the way of amendments to the Constitution of the United States, by which the seceded states could be induced to return, while the members favoring immediate secession constituted a very small minority. A committee was at once appointed, which after considerable deliberation reported a plan of adjustment for submission to the other states through Congress, after its adoption by the convention. In the meantime the Peace Convention which assembled at Washington, had adopted a proposition for adjustment which met with no favor at the hands of the Republican members of Congress, and was not entirely satisfactory to a majority of the Virginia Convention. Propositions of compromise in Congress had also failed.
The Virginia Convention engaged earnestly in the discussion of the report of its committee and counter propositions, and continued it until the month of April, having in the meantime voted down, by a very large majority, a direct proposition for secession.
It is difficult to describe the intense anxiety felt by most of the members of the convention to preserve the peace of the country and effect an amicable settlement of the troubles. Lincoln had been inaugurated president on the 4th of March, and had delivered an inaugural address that was enigmatical in its terms. During the whole of the discussion which was progressing in the Virginia convention, the members engaged in the effort to preserve peace and restore the Union, received no offer whatever of co-operation from the occupant of the White House, and no direct answer ever reached them as coming from him to persons who approached him on the questions engrossing all hearts and minds in the state.
In the early part of April, the convention had become very anxious in regard to the uncertain condition of things, and appointed a committee of three of its members, of great ability and experience to wait upon Mr. Lincoln and ascertain from him, in a respectful manner, what course he proposed to take in regard to the seceded states. This committee reached Washington a little before the attack on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, and had an interview with Mr. Lincoln, receiving very little encouragement from him. While the committee was awaiting a formal answer, which was promised, the news of the commencement of the bombardment of Fort Sumter was received, and the reply from Mr. Lincoln appeared in extra issues from the press without having been communicated to the committee.
This reply was enigmatical in its terms like the inaugural, but was rather stronger on the question of coercion. The committee at once returned and reported to the convention the result of its mission, and Fort Sumter having fallen, a proclamation from Lincoln soon followed, on the 15th of April, calling on the states, Virginia included, for 75,000 troops "to repossess the forts, places and property which have been seized from the Union."
There was no mistaking that this meant war on the seceded states, and the Virginia convention went into secret session, when an ordinance of secession was introduced by Mr. Ballard Preston, Chairman of the Committee, which had waited on Lincoln, and up to that time an opponent of secession. After a very earnest discussion, that ordinance was adopted on the 17th day of April.
A number of members of the convention, including myself, who afterwards fully sustained the action of the state, voted against the passage of this ordinance with the hope, even in that stage of the controversy, that the people of the North would not respond to the call of Lincoln for troops, and that a disruption of the Union and the horrors of war might still be avoided. The scenes which occurred during the discussion which ensued after the convention went into secret session, were characterized by a solemnity rarely witnessed in a deliberative body and several members while speaking were unable to restrain their tears. As for myself, it was exceedingly difficult to surrender the attachment of a lifetime to that Union which had been cemented by the blood of so many patriots, and which I had been accustomed to look upon (in the language of Washington) as the palladium of the political safety and prosperity of the country, and therefore I had hoped even against hope, but I soon became convinced fully that the action of the convention was right, and that it could have pursued no other course, consistently with the honor and dignity of Virginia, and in this opinion I have remained firmly fixed, notwithstanding the result of the war which ensued.
After the passage of the ordinance of secession, provision was made for submitting it to the popular vote for ratification, at the elections to be held on the fourth Thursday in May. In the meantime steps were taken for placing the state in a condition of defence, and an ordinance was passed directing the governor to call into service of the state as many volunteers as might be necessary to defend it against invasion. Colonel Robert E. Lee, a native and citizen of Virginia, who had resigned his commission in the United States Army on hearing the action of his state, was appointed by the governor, with the consent of the convention, commander-in-chief of all of the forces of the state with the rank of Major General.
In the meantime an arrangement was made with the Confederate Government for assistance in defending the state, in the event of an attempt by the government at Washington to march troops into or through it with a view to an invasion of any of the seceded states, and the Confederate Government was invited to remove to the City of Richmond.
The convention remained in session until the first day of May, when it adjourned over to the second week in June to await the result of the popular vote on the ordinance of secession. The ratification was given by an overwhelming majority of the popular vote, and upon the re-assembling of the convention the ordinance was duly signed by the greater part of the members. I had voted for the ratification at the polls and now put my signature to the ordinance.
Virginia now had fully and completely dissolved her connection with the United States, and resumed the powers she had delegated when she ratified the Constitution. To this step she had been impelled against her previous inclinations, by the course of the government at Washington, to avoid being dragged into an unholy war against the Cotton States, and to maintain the cherished principles for which she had fought, and which she had uniformly asserted since the adoption of the United States Constitution. When the act of secession was complete, she adopted the Constitution of the Confederate States, both provisional and permanent, and was fully admitted into the Confederacy.
North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas likewise withdrew from the Union and became members of the Confederacy for the same reasons which influenced Virginia. Missouri subsequently passed an ordinance of secession and joined the Confederacy, but that state was soon overrun by United States troops, and the regular government was subverted and another substituted in its place by the force of Federal bayonets. Kentucky undertook to occupy a neutral position until the greater part of that state was in the power of the Federal troops, when an irregular government was formed which passed an ordinance of secession and joined the Confederacy. The situation of Maryland was such that she was soon overrun by troops and prevented any legislative expression of opinion, the members of her legislature being seized and imprisoned. Little Delaware was so situated that its voice was never heard at all.
The Right to Withdraw
The causes which led to the secession of the Southern States have never been given, and when they are compared with those which led to the American Revolution as given by the First Continental Congress, the latter sink into comparative insignificance. A large portion of the wrongs complained of in the Declaration of Independence were acts committed after the commencement of the collisions between the British troops and the Colonists, and if these were compared with those committed by the Federal troops in the beginning of the war, in Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri, to say nothing of the long list of outrages perpetrated during its progress, the indictment against King George contained in the eloquent language of the Declaration of Independence, would be a very tame affair in comparison with that which could be preferred against the Government at Washington.
The third article of the Confederation had specified the object for which it had been formed, and that it was "A firm league of friendship" for the common defence, the security of the liberties and the mutual and general welfare, and that the states bound themselves to assist each other against all force offered to or attacks made upon them or any of them "on account of religion, sovereignty, trade or any other pretense whatever." The preamble to the Constitution recites that it was made "to form a more perfect union." More perfect how? To the subversion of the liberties and sovereignty of the states? Had the conduct of the Northern States been that of the members of "a firm league and friendship?" And when they had so flagrantly violated and neglected the plain stipulations of the Constitution, did not the Southern States have the same right to withdraw from the connection with them, that the colonies had to withdraw from the connection with Great Britain, because the government which had been instituted for "the common defence and general welfare" had become "destructive of those ends?"
Who was to judge of whether there was a necessity for severing the connection, the oppressor or the oppressed? If the former, then the decision would have been against the colonies. If colonies, the mere offshoots from the mother country, could undertake to judge the sufficiency of the grievances and the mode and measure of redress, could not sovereign states which had framed the government of which they complained, do the same thing? In seceding from the Union, the Cotton States had acted as states, and not as factious individuals resisting the laws or authority of the government. The right of no one had been violated, and it was not proposed to violate the rights of any individuals or states, but merely to dissolve a compact, the terms of which had been violated. To undertake to coerce those states by military force was subversive of the whole spirit and purpose of the Constitution, and made the government the master, instead of the agent, of the powers which had created it. This doctrine of coercion had never been asserted by any respectable statesman since the foundation of the government, and was at war with all of its principles and aims. When therefore the other states were called upon to engage in this war of coercion against the Cotton States, it was not only their right but their duty to resist. By the very terms of the Constitution, it was made the duty of the Federal Government to protect the states against invasion. Did that government have the right to invade the state it was bound to protect? It was not authorized even to protect the states against domestic violence except upon invitation of the legislature or of the executive, when the legislature was not in session. Was it authorized to create that domestic violence? The power of coercion involved the anomalous consequence of reducing the states to conquered provinces when exercised, and this involved the self-destruction of the government itself.
In regard to this question of the right of the states to withdraw, and the power of coercion, it is not inappropriate to call attention to the following views expressed by Mr. Horace Greeley, one of the ablest writers and firmest supporters of the Republican or abolition party. In an article published in the New York Tribune a few days after the election of Lincoln in 1860, and reproduced in his work styled "The American Conflict" he says:
"That was a base and hypocritic row that was once raised at Southern dictation about the ears of John Quincy Adams, because he presented a petition for the dissolution of the Union. The petitioner had a right to make the request; it was the member's duty to present it. And now if the Cotton States consider the value of the Union debatable, we maintain their perfect right to discuss it. Nay! we hold, with Mr. Jefferson, to the inalienable right of communities to alter or abolish forms of government that have become injurious or oppressive, and if the Cotton States shall decide that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we insist upon letting them go in peace. The right to secede may be a revolutionary one but it exists nevertheless, and we do not see how one party can have a right to do what another party has a right to prevent. We must ever resist the asserted right of any state to coercion in the Union, and nullify and defy the laws thereof; to withdraw from the Union is quite another matter. And whenever a considerable section of our Union shall deliberately resolve to go out, we shall resist all coercive measures to keep it in. We hope never to live in a republic whereof one section is pinned to another by bayonets.
"But while we uphold the practical liberty, if not the abstract right of secession, we must insist that the step be taken, if ever it shall be, with the deliberation and gravity becoming so momentous an issue.
"Let ample time be given for reflection, let the subject be fully canvassed before the people, and let a popular vote be taken in every case before secession is decreed. Let the people be told just why they are asked to break up the Confederation; let them reflect, deliberate, then vote; and let the act of secession be the echo of an unmistakable popular fiat. A judgment thus rendered, a demand for separation so backed, would either be acquiesced in without effusion of blood, or those who rushed upon carnage to defy or defeat it, would place themselves clearly in the wrong."
It would be hard to conceive language more forcible for defining the right of the states to withdraw and the wrong and criminality of the attempt to coerce them when they had exercised that right, than this of Mr. Greeley's. It derives additional force as coming from him, when it is recollected that he had ever been inimical to the institutions of the South, and it announced principles which had been previously asserted in all questions of the Union, and underlay the whole superstructure of a government which itself was founded on the right of revolution. It is difficult to realize the fact that the man who uttered language like that quoted, subsequently became one of the most strenuous advocates of the war of coercion, which was waged on the Southern states. Mr. Greeley cannot avoid the effect of his statement of the principles asserted in his article, by contending that the act of separation was not "the echo of an unmistakeable popular fiat," and that the Southern people were precipitated into secession without due deliberation.
When the right to discuss, deliberate and decide, exists, those possessing it, must necessarily be the sole judges of how it is to be exercised. The Southern states did deliberate and did decide that they could no longer remain in the Union with safety, and therefore they determined to withdraw from it. If the Southern people had been hurried into secession by their leaders, they are the parties to complain and to hold the guilty ones responsible. They have not done so, and what right had Mr. Greeley and his party to become their champions against their wishes? He and his party are estopped from denying that the Southern people, did with almost entire unanimity, adopt secession and willingly gave their support to the cause of separation; for since their country was overrun by a superior military force, their state governments overthrown; military despotisms established over them; and in the effort to reconstruct the Union, the great mass of the people disfranchised, and the right of suffrage given to the freed slaves, because it was alleged that the Southern people were still rebellious, and so wedded to the idea of secession, notwithstanding the bitter experience of the war, that they could not be trusted with the right to vote and hold office. All of this was done with Mr. Greeley's full knowledge and sanction.
It has been shown how long, how earnestly, and how anxiously the question was discussed in Virginia, and that secession was resorted to by that state only when a war of coercion had been proclaimed, and she had been required to furnish troops to carry it on. The state of Virginia believed, with Mr. Greeley, that it would be a grievous wrong to "rush upon carnage to defy and defeat" the right of the Cotton States to withdraw from the Union; and she determined to do what he had declared his purpose of doing: that is "resist all coercive measures." The ordinance of secession was submitted to the popular vote at an election held more than one month after its adoption by the convention, and it was ratified by an overwhelming majority, thus showing beyond dispute that it was "the echo of an unmistakable popular fiat." Did not "those who rushed upon carnage to defy and defeat" "a judgment thus rendered, a separation so backed," "place themselves clearly in the wrong?"
Yet Virginia was the first of the seceding states invaded by the Federal army; her towns and plains were devastated by a long and cruel war; her people plundered, imprisoned and murdered; her territory severed, and a new state erected within her limits, in violation of the Constitution of the United States. Subsequently a military despotism was thrust upon them, and the freed slaves were vested with the right of suffrage and the capacity to hold office, while such wide measures of disfranchisement were adopted that enough men competent to fill the petty offices of state, even with those whose fears and cupidity led them to apostatize and the influx of adventurers could not be found in all the limits of that old commonwealth which has been designated "the mother of states and of statesmen."
In the case of Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri, the people were overrun by Federal troops owing to the peculiar nature of their situation, and they were deprived of the opportunity of freely discussing and deliberating upon the questions involved, though the legislature of Missouri did pass an ordinance of secession. Did not those people, under such circumstances, have the right individually to resist so flagrant an outrage upon their rights and liberties? They were not only deprived of the liberty of peaceably assembling to discuss their grievances, but it was sought to deprive them of the right "to keep and bear arms," as expressly guaranteed by the second amendment to the Constitution, in order that they might have the means always of defending their liberties and rights, and the only resource they had was to unite as individuals in the defence of the common cause, and of their own violated homes and liberties.
It has been said that the Confederate states began the war by firing upon Fort Sumter. If those states had the right to withdraw from the Union and the United States had no right to resist or coerce them then the attempt to maintain a garrisoned fort in one of the most important harbors of the Confederacy, was an act of war. This had, nevertheless, been patiently borne with, for nearly three months after the secession of South Carolina, in whose principal harbor the Fort was situated, and it was only when the Government of the United States had given notice of its intention to supply Fort Sumter "peaceably, if possible, otherwise by force," and the vessels for that purpose had appeared off the harbor, that the attack began. The commissioners sent to Washington to effect a peaceable settlement of all questions had then been denied an audience, and informed that the authorities at Washington would hold no intercourse with them.
The war was thus inevitable, and the Federal authorities were quietly preparing for it, in order to entrap the border states. The threat to supply Fort Sumter indicated a purpose of war; was then the Confederate Government to wait until the measures of the Government at Washington had been so completely taken that the former would find itself helpless in the hands of its enemy? The port of Charleston was necessary to it as an inlet for obtaining supplies and arms for its defence, was it then to allow the port, which could block the entrance to that harbor, to be placed in a condition to render the blockade complete, the harbor worthless and Charleston untenable?
There can be no question of the right of the Confederate Government to force a surrender of the fort, which had been refused, and that it was fully warranted in pursuing the course it did. I must confess that, at the time, I deeply deplored and condemned the attack on Fort Sumter, on the score of policy, because I regarded the threat of the Washington Government as designed to provoke a commencement of the conflict by the firing of the first shot, and not intended really to be carried into effect. It is now manifest that war had already been resolved upon, and the firing of the first gun on Fort Sumter was not its commencement. The war was begun by the attempt to hold the forts in the Confederate harbors.
It has been alleged that the Southern States had previously controlled the policy of the government, and that they seceded because they had now lost that power. There had never been a president elected from any of the Cotton States, which established the Confederate Government except from Louisiana, of which state General Taylor was a nominal resident, but really a native of Virginia, and an officer in the army, and he lived but a little over a year after his inauguration. These Cotton States had furnished comparatively few cabinet ministers, and they had in the main been opposed to the policy pursued by the government in regard to the most important branches of legislation, such as internal improvements, the public lands, tariff, etc. Their leading interest, the culture of cotton, had received no fostering care whatever from the government, and South Carolina had been complaining for more than thirty years that her interest had been sacrificed to Northern cupidity by high tariff and at one time she had taken steps to nullify the laws on that subject. In no sense could the state which initiated secession, be said to be actuated by disappointment at the loss of Federal power.
It is true that they had lost the power to protect themselves in the Union, as the Constitution had been so flagrantly violated and were now threatened with submission—and for this they seceded.
The state of Virginia had given four of the Southern presidents to the Union, and Tennessee the other two. Washington had been the unanimous choice of all of the states; Jefferson, Madison and Munroe had been national men in their policy and had received the support of a large majority of the Northern vote; Munroe being accepted without opposition at his last election and receiving all of the votes, North and South, but one northern electoral vote. Munroe was the last Virginian elected or nominated as President. It is true Tyler had succeeded to the office by the death of Harrison, but he had not received the vote of Virginia even as vice-president.
Virginia had voted against Clay, Harrison, Taylor and Scott, all natives of the state, when they were candidates for the presidency, and she had cast her vote three times against Mr. Clay, and in the cases of Harrison, Taylor and Scott, her vote had been cast for Northern men against them. All of the presidents she had given had been re-elected, because there was nothing sectional or local in their policy, while no Northern president had been re-elected, though three out of the six had been candidates again. In the election of 1860, the state of Virginia cast its vote for Bell and Everett, by a plurality vote over Breckenridge and Lane, and Douglas and Johnson, showing that in this election she was not liable to the charge of sectionalism, even if that charge could be brought against the supporters of Breckenridge and Lane, which is by no means admitted. No interest of Virginia had at any time been fostered by the action of the government, in any stage of its history, and the government had not even taken steps to obtain from foreign countries a diminution of the enormous duties placed on her leading staple, tobacco, but her statesmen, when in office, had pursued a policy looking to the general welfare and prosperity. If she had furnished many statesmen to the common councils, it was because of the general confidence in their patriotism, and freedom from all selfish ambition and narrow-minded notions of policy.
Her history from the beginning of the controversy with Great Britain had been one of sacrifices for the benefit of all of the states. She had promptly sent troops to Massachusetts on the commencement of the war of the Revolution in that state, all of its battlefields were red with the blood of her sons; and that war had been terminated on her own soil. With a territory larger than that of all of the other states at the conclusion of peace, she had surrendered an empire beyond the Ohio river, for the sake of Union and for the common benefit; and subsequently, she had consented to the erection of the state of Kentucky within her remaining territory.
As the acknowledgement of the independence of the states had left her, she would have been amply able to take care of herself, and erect a powerful government of her own, yet she had contracted her power and narrowed her limits for what she considered the common good.[A]