Page images
PDF
EPUB

FALSE SECURITY FATAL.

365

of the North did not at all appreciate the impending danger of civil convulsion. They were sedulously encouraged in this false security by the Republican leaders. They were told by those who had just made a virtual proclamation of disunion and war, which required only a response from the other side to carry it into effect, that there was no sort of danger of disunion or of war. They believed that the crisis would pass away, like others which had preceded it. Forgetting, or unconscious, that the very fabric of the constitutional Union rested upon the shoulders of the people, to be carried along by them, in the use of constant vigilance and exertion, and that without their support it would fall, they were persuaded to make one mighty and simultaneous effort to slip their shoulders out, and let it topple over into the ditch.

CHAPTER XV.

What has been shown in this Volume.-A Declaration of Mr. Lincoln, in 1858.-The Prospects of the Canvass.-" Union-savers."-The Sentiment of the Army.---The Difference between the Whigs and the Freesoil Party.-The Election.-How Resentment at the West, on account of alleged Ill-Treatment of Mr. Douglas favored the Election of Mr. Lincoln.-The Party of "Progress."-Young America.

It has been already shown

That the Missouri Compromise Act was repealed, and was intended to be repealed by the Compromise measures of 1850; since the provisions of the latter were entirely inconsistent with those of the former; and a state of facts had arisen which rendered the earlier Compromise positively inoperative; that is, by the action of the people of California, to which Congress was under the moral necessity of conforming:

That the Whig party, by the resolutions of its Convention, in the year 1852, had adopted the latter measures, in spirit and in substance; and the Democratic party, by its Convention of the same year, placed itself on exactly the same footing:

That the Act of 1854, for the organization of territorial governments in Nebraska and Kansas, was in precise conformity with those measures:

That the Democratic Convention, in the year 1856, by its formal resolutions, adopted these principles, "as embodying the only sound and safe solution of the slavery question "and defined them to mean-"Non-interference by Congress with slavery in State and territory," etc.

The opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States,

DEMOCRATIC WAVERING.

367

pronounced afterwards, in the Dred Scott case, on the part of the majority of its justices, proved to be identical with these principles; though its determination was reached, of course, not upon popular, but upon legal considerations. That is to say, it held that, although Congress had authority to establish territorial governments wherever necessary, yet, by reason of constitutional limitation of its powers, it could not prohibit the ownership of slaves by citizens of territories. This was the "non-interference" doctrine of the Democratic platform, and principle of the Kansas-Nebraska Act; both of which recognized the right of the inhabitants of the territories to hold slaves, if they saw fit, while the territorial condition remained; and to determine for themselves, by vote of a majority, when they framed their constitutions, whether to come into the Union as slave States or free.

It has also been shown, upon what apparently narrow grounds the division of the Democratic party took place, in the spring of 1860. It appears that a reunion might have been effected, by an explicit endorsement of the Dred Scott decision; which would have been in conformity with the views of Mr. Douglas himself, as communicated to his supporters in the Convention. At Charleston, however, the "Northern wing" of that body-declaring that differences of opinion existed in the party upon this point-had resolved that it would "abide by the decisions" (not decision) "of the Supreme Court, on the questions of constitutional law." This expression implied, and was intended, no doubt, to imply, that there might be other and different decisions, affecting the point at issue, upon some future change of members of the bench. At Baltimore, after the adjournment, the "Northern wing" made its meaning still more evident, by resolving that the decision of the Supreme Court, in regard to the power of Congress over the territories, "as the same has been, or shall be hereafter finally determined," by the tribunal, should be "respected and enforced." This, as seamen would say, was clearly "laying an anchor to windward." It implied an opinion, on the part of the Northern section of

the Convention, that the question at issue had not been finally determined; perhaps, an expectation and a wish that it should be revised. In reality, it was casting a cloud of uncertainty, at least, over the whole basis of Democratic principles on this point. And, although it seems peculiarly unfortunate, that the future of a great country should have been made dependent upon a merely possible future contingency; yet it is obvious that the phraseology thus insisted upon by the Northern Democrats, left the Southern men to infer a want of fidelity to principles deemed of vital importance by themselves, and which had been so solemnly declared and so often acted upon by the whole party, upon former occasions, both in Congress and in the country. Evidently, therefore, the conclusion was reached by those who finally seceded from the Convention, that the Northern section of the party could not be depended upon in the future, as it had been in the past, for united action with its Southern allies, in opposition to fanaticism and abolition. Hence, therefore, is the reason and the cause of a division so deplorable in its ultimate consequences.

The Whig party stood before the country, at this crisis, in the attitude indicated by the motto it had adopted-"The Constitution, the Union, and the Enforcement of the Laws." Doubless much diversity of opinion existed among its members, in reference to some of the legislation of Congress upon the vexed questions at issue, and in relation to the decision of the Supreme Court. But they were, in general, of that class of citizens who uphold "law and order;" who are obedient to the laws, as they exist; and who resort only to legitimate means for any change in such measures of legislation as may seem to them objectionable.

.

The position of the Republican party has been sufficiently exhibited. Its candidate, Mr. Andrew remarked at the ratification meeting in Boston, was "the representative of the Republican party all over the Union"—that is to say, of course, in those States in which a Republican party had any existence. He was best known as the antagonist of Mr.

WASHINGTON AND LINCOLN AS PATRIOTS.

369

Douglas, during a protracted canvass of the State of Illinois, in the year 1858, in which the latter had proved the successful competitor for the Senatorship of the United States, which was the prize actually at stake. He was, like his party, opposed to the fugitive slave law, and had expressed his opinions with much freedom, and without much respectful consideration, in reference to the Supreme Court. He had been in advance of Mr. Seward, also, in regard to the "irrepressible conflict" doctrine. In this particular, he had assumed a position in direct antagonism to the exhortations of Washington, in the Farewell Address. The Father of his Country saw that there was danger of the formation of "geographical" parties, and had warned his countrymen. of their deadly influence against the Union. Mr. Lincoln, on the other hand, finding a "geographical" party in the process of formation, allowed himself to be placed at its head, and encouraged its action, by the inevitable sectional and disorganizing declaration-"I believe this Government cannot permanently endure half slave and half free." It need hardly be said, that this allegation was contradicted by the experience of eighty years; or, that it was the assumption of a fact, beforehand, which could only become one, in reality, by the exertions of the very persons who assumed it and were laboring to bring it about.

out.

1

The order of the great battle to ensue was thus marked But it was obvious, at once, that the vote of the Southern States would be completely neutralized, by the existing posture of affairs, and that the actual contest would take place in the North. For while Mr. Breckinridge would receive the vote of the party in those States represented by the seceding convention, Mr. Bell, an eminent citizen of a slaveholding State, on the same ticket with Mr. Everett, who enjoyed the highest reputation at the South as well as the North, would carry what remained of the old Whig

1 In a speech to the Convention which nominated him for Senator, delivered at Springfield, Illinois, June 17th, 1858.

« PreviousContinue »