COMPOSITION OF THE CABINET.

449

and motive would prompt him to prevent its disruption, and to take no steps tending towards a dissolution, which would be imputed to the fact of his own elevation to the office of President. But the claims of party had required him to consult the several factions of the party in the selection of his cabinet. Mr. Seward himself, Mr. Smith, Secretary of the Interior, and Mr. Bates, the Attorney General, were as conservative as it was possible for men connected with the Republican party to be. Mr. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, and Mr. Blair, Postmaster General, represented the extreme radical wing; while, of the two remaining members, Mr. Cameron, Secretary of War, and Mr. Welles, Secretary of the Navy, neither of them persons of very marked characteristics, it may be only necessary to say here, that the naval and military expedition to the Southern coast was fitted out under the authority of their several Departments.

It is evident that Mr. Lincoln, on this first and fatal occasion, as upon others afterwards, yielded to "pressure." Mr. Seward had no choice but to submit, and was unable to afford any explanation in regard to the discrepancy between the policy at first declared and that finally adopted, without a betrayal of cabinet secrets, which could not but result in the dissolution of the cabinet, would necessarily divide the party, and possibly might lead to the overthrow of the administration itself. An article in the editorial columns of the New York Herald, of April 25th, gave indications, at least, of the state of sentiment in the cabinet after the bombardment of Fort Sumter.

"There are rumors here that Mr. Lincoln does not like the smell of gunpowder; that Mr. Seward would rather let the seceded States go than fight them, and that Mr. Secretary Chase thinks it would be the best antislavery policy to turn them adrift."

But on April 27th the same paper published an article still more significant. It was headed "Opposition of the Republican Journals," and thus made manifest the uneasy state of mind in the Republican ranks:

"What is the matter with the Republican journals of New York? What do they want? They continue to be deeply dissatisfied with the President and his cabinet. Some want Seward removed; some desire to oust Chase; some to get rid of the cabinet at one fell swoop. Some even insist upon having the President himself superseded to make room for a Cromwell, or a military dictator."

There can be no doubt that the pressure from these quar ters had been very great, ever since the day of the inauguration. The radicals had been utterly disgusted with the placable tone and indecisive policy exhibited by Mr. Lincoln's address, and had made their disappointment and dissatisfaction emphatically known. But, sad result, indeed, of a junetion of conservatives with radicals-while the former generally remained at home engaged in their own affairs, the other smaller faction of the party, through their newspapers and agents, kept up the "pressure," and had almost altogether the clean sweep of the field. It is not, perhaps, so surprising as deplorable, that they should have been able to bring about some change of policy in a divided administration, which was weak, of course, through its own inherent antagonisms. It must be remembered, that the State governments, as the result of the preceding election, were in the hands of Republican officials, who were generally in close alliance with the radical managers of the party. Northern Governors and Congressmen, and politicians of this class, were constantly going and coming between their places of residence and Washington, untiringly employed in efforts to make the President and his Secretaries as "stiff-backed" as those whom they had wished for as representatives of the States, at the Peace Conference. They were in mortal fear of losing all which they had hoped to gain as the fruits of the election; afraid that there would be no war, no emancipation, no dissolution of the Union; in a word, that, remembering he was in a decided minority at the election, and knowing that at least three-quarters of the whole people anxiously desired peace, the President was only too likely to place himself in the hands of the conservative masses and to effect a settle

POSITIVE CAUSES OF THE WAR.

451

ment, at last, with the seceded States, which would put an end, and forever, to the "agitation" upon which the radical leaders had so long lived and flourished. For it was plain, that an adjustment effected with the South would preclude, . for all future time, the interference of the North with the institution of slavery; and that, upon the ratification of such adjustment, the conservative majorities of the North and the South would become united again, and much more firmly united than ever before, in support of the Constitution and for the perpetuation of the Union.

It has thus been shown, in some detail, that radical influences at the North unfriendly to the Constitution and the Union, at work through a long series of years, and gradually inflaming the passions and moulding the sentiments of the people of the South, at length had the effect to place the Southern States in an attitude of hostility to the United States. In like manner the same baleful influences, as soon as the prospect of adjustment and peace, and eventually of renewed union, threatened disappointment to purposes so long cherished, and finally affording some promise of fruition, induced that change of policy which resulted in a hostile demonstration and "precipitated" the war. The positive causes of the war may be briefly summed up, as having consisted of that kind and degree of long-continued aberration from the principles of the Constitution, and its weak and false popular indulgence, against which the people were so affectionately and sagaciously warned by the injunctions of the Father of his Country, whose expostulations were so often repeated in spirit and in substance by the most illustrious citizens, in both sections, for many successive years.'

1 See Appendix VI.

CHAPTER XXI.

Object of this Volume.-Except for Causes arising in the North, any Attempt at Secession in the South would have been impossible.-Two Important Questions remaining after the War. The Speediest Restoration best for the Whole Country.-The Radical Policy. -The Emancipation Question.-An Illustration of Radical Policy from Spanish History four hundred Years ago.-The End of the Republican Movement corresponds with its Beginning. What would have been the Condition of the Country, if Emancipation had taken place when the Constitution was adopted.-The same Motive which led the Radical Managers to "precipitate" the War induces them to oppose Restoration — The Question must soon be-" Whether we will have a reestablished Constitution and a true Union, or a Government of Laws and not of Men"

Ir has been the object of this volume to trace the direct and indirect causes which led to the war. Less pains has been taken to exhibit in special detail the well-known sentiments, or the political demonstrations of determined secessionists at the South, either before or after those causes had accumulated and had become the basis of their action. Except for those causes it is plain that the promoters of seces sion would have had no ground of action, and could have made no such appeal to the people of the South, as to enlist them in a transaction so momentous as open rebellion against the Government of the country; or could have persuaded them that their interests and rights demanded of them the perils and sacrifices necessarily involved in such an attempt. Except for their belief in the existence and operation of those causes, and of the danger to their rights and interests which they conceived were thus threatened, any effort for secession must necessarily have been an object simply of derision in the Southern States, and any active movement in that direction would have been summarily put down by the South without calling to its aid a single man from the North.

THE PRESENT SITUATION.

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Upon these grounds, therefore, it was, and from such motives, that the country, against the decided and general wishes of the people, was finally betrayed into a war for the Union, by conspirators against the Union.

But now that the war itself is at an end, two very important questions yet remain for the solution of the American people.

What is to be the permanent loss or gain to the country by reason of the war?

What obstacles, if any, are in the way of its permanent restoration to the state before the war?

The superior power of the United States having been completely vindicated by the final result of the great struggle, the submission of the South is necessarily equivalent to an abandonment of all further purpose of resistance. This posture of affairs among a kindred people of "sister States," surely ought to be sufficient-for why should there be "a tribe lacking in Israel"? And since that submission, whether voluntary or involuntary, must be complete to all practical purposes, then the speediest possible restoration of the South ern States to equal rights under the Constitution is for the highest interest of the whole country, if the Union is to be, and to remain a republic of equal rights, in conformity with its own organic law. In that event, the loss will be but that of the life and property which the accomplishment of that end required; while the gain will be the more stable and lasting settlement of the Union upon a constitutional basis. In any other event, the whole country suffers under the operation. of an irregular, unequal, and disorganized system of government, which, for the common safety, ought not to be permit ted to continue for a moment longer than the most unavoidable necessity requires. For, so long as the condition of the States remains unequal, the stronger section occupies, at least, the attitude of a despot-the weaker that of a vassal. It would be a strange commentary upon the war, if in liberating negroes from slavery, its effect should be to reduce white men to bondage! So far as such a "policy" is insisted upon