obvious. The secessionists increased in violence and audacity, and the extreme Republicans, provoked to more obstinate resistance, renewed their declarations of opposing all compromises. Wade, the Republican senator for Ohio, said, in a forcible speech: "We beat you on the plainest and most palpable issue ever presented to the American people, and one which every man understood; and now, when we come to the capital, we tell you that our candidates must and shall be inaugurated-must and shall administer this government precisely as the Constitution prescribes. It would not only be humiliating, but highly dishonorable to us, if we listened to any compromise by which we should lay aside the honest verdict of the people. When it comes to that, you have no government, but anarchy intervenes, and civil war may follow, and all the evils that human imagination can raise may be consequent upon such a course as that. The American people would lose the sheet-anchor of Liberty whenever it is denied on this floor that a majority fairly given shall rule. I know not what others may do, but I tell you, that with that verdict of the people in my pocket, and standing on the platform on which these candidates were clected, I would suffer anything before I would compromise in any way. I deem it no case where we have a right to extend courtesy or generosity. The absolute right, the most sacred that a free people can bestow upon any man, is their verdict that gives him a full title to the office he holds. If we can not stand there we can not stand anywhere, and, my friends, any other verdict would be as fatal to you as to us." The moderate men of both the North and the South with an amiable persistency still persevered in their endeavors to preserve the national peace by plans of conciliation and compromise. These, however, met with little encouragement from the embittered partisans of extreme opinions, and the hope of "saving the Union" by mutual concessions daily diminished. The resolutions of Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky, seemed from the high character of the veteran statesman who offered them, to make the greatest impression upon public opinion. These proposed to renew the Missouri Compromise line-prohibiting slavery in the Territory north of 36 deg. 30 min., and protecting it south of that latitude; to admit new States with or without slavery, as their constitutions shall provide; to prohibit the abolition of slavery by Congress in the States; to prohibit its abolition in the District of Columbia so long as it exists either in Virginia or Maryland; to permit the transportation of slaves in any of the States by land or water; to provide for the payment of fugitive slaves, when rescued; to repeal one obnoxious feature of the Fugitive Slave law-the inequality of the fee to the commissioner; to ask the repeal of all the Personal Liberty bills in the Northern States, and effectually to execute the laws for the suppression of the African slave-trade. These were to be submitted to the people as amendments to the Constitu BANKRUPTCY. tion, and to be changed at no subsequent time. 41 To add to this financial embarrassment, the national treasury was threatened with bankruptcy. So little faith had the country in the government as controlled by the Southern advisers of the President, that the secretary of the treasury, Howell Cobb, of Georgia, could only obtain a loan at a discount While treason was being uttered in Congress, plotted in the cabinet, and encouraged to overt act in the slave States, unchecked by the national authority, which seemed indisposed, if not incapable of vindicating its supremacy, there was a general feeling of discour-of 25 per cent. of the usual market rates agement throughout the country. This in periods of national prosperity. Cobb was increased by the universal depres- was so perplexed by the financial emsion in trade and commerce. The great barrassments of his department, that, business of the Northern commercial under the pretence of a difference of and manufacturing cities with the South political views with the President, he rehad been almost entirely arrested. The signed, and betook himself to the more Southern merchants made no new, and congenial work of disturbing the loyalty failed to pay for their old, purchases. of his native State. His successor, John The payment of the great debt of three A. Dix, of New York, a Northern man, hundred millions of dollars due to the was enabled, however, through the conNorth suddenly stopped, and fears were fidence inspired by his integrity and already entertained that it would never patriotism, to restore the public credit be resumed. The Southern banks hav- and again fill the treasury. ing suspended the payment of specie, had so depreciated the value of their currency, that exchange upon the North rose to such a height as almost to preclude remittances from the South whenever there were still found those dis posed to make them. Northern merchants, thus suddenly deprived of their Southern resources, were forced into bankruptcy. The banks necessarily sympathized with the ruin of their customers, and although those of New York and Boston were enabled, through the abundance of their resources, to sustain their credit and even to increase their loans, the banks of Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and Richmond suspended specie payment. With all these causes, however, tending to depress the public feeling, there was still a strong belief among Northern people, that the civil troubles would, although none pretended to know how, be soon settled. This seemed to be based upon the supposed attachment to the Union among the people even in South Carolina. How far this belief in the loyalty of the Southern slave States prevailed is well illustrated by a speech of Seward, then senator, now secretary of state. He thus jauntily descanted on the grave subject of Southern disaffection: "Now, gentleman, my belief about all this is, that whether it is Massachu- Dec. setts or South Carolina, or whether 22. it is New York or Florida, it would turn out the same way in each case. There is no such thing in the book, no such thing in reason, no such thing in philcsophy, and no such thing in nature, as any State existing on the continent of North America outside of the United States of America. I do not believe a word of it; and I do not believe it for a good many reasons. Some I have already hinted at; and one is, because I do not see any good reason given for it. The best reason I see given for it is, that the people of some of the Southern States hate us of the free States very badly, and they say that we hate them, and that all love is lost between us. Well, I do not believe a word of that. On the other hand, I do know for myself and for you, that, bating some little differences of opinion about advantages, and about prescription, and about office, and about freedom, and about slavery, and all those which are family difficulties, for which we do not take any outsiders in any part of the world into our councils on either side, there is not a state on the earth, outside of the American Union, which I like half so well as I do the State of South Carolina-[cheers] neither England, nor Ireland, nor Scotland, nor France, nor Turkey; although from Turkey they sent me Arab horses, and from South Carolina they send me nothing but curses. Still, I like South Carolina better than I like any of them; and I have the presumption and vanity to believe that if there were nobody to overhear the State of South Carolina when she is talking, she would confess that she liked us tolerably well. I am very sure that if anybody were to make a descent on New York to-morrowwhether Louis Napoleon, or the Prince of Wales, or his mother [laughter], or the Emperor of Russia, or the Emperor of Austria, all the hills of South Carolina would pour forth their population for the rescue of New York. [Cries of 'Good,' and applause.] God knows how this may be. I do not pretend to know, I only conjecture. But this I do know, that if any of those powers were to make a descent on South Carolina, I know who would go to her rescue. [A voice-'We'd all go.'] We would all go-everybody. ['That's so,' and great applause.] Therefore they do not humbug me with their secession, and I do not think they will humbug you; and I do not believe that, if they do not humbug you and me, they will much longer succeed in humbugging themselves. [Laughter.] Now, fellow-citizens, this is the ultimate result of all this business. These States are always to be together-always shall. Talk of striking down a star from that constellation-it is a thing which can not be done. [Applause.] I do not see any less stars to-day than I did a week ago, and I expect to see more all the while. [Laughter.] The question then is, what in these times-when people are laboring under the delusion that they are going out of the Union and going to set up for themselves-ought we to do in order to hold them in? I do not know any better rule than the rule which every good father of a family ob SEWARD ON SECESSION. serves. It is this. If a man wishes not to keep his family together, it is the easiest thing in the world to place them apart. He will do so at once if he only gets discontented with his son, quarrels with him, complains of him, torments him, threatens him, coerces him. This is the way to get rid of the family, and to get them all out of doors. On the other hand, if you wish to keep them, you have got only one way to do it. That is, be patient, kind, paternal, forbearing, and wait until they come to reflect for themselves. The South is to us what the wife is to her husband. I do not know any man in the world who can not get rid of his wife if he tries. *** I do not know a man on earth who even though his wife was as troublesome as the wife of Socrates cannot keep his wife if he wants to do so; all that he needs is, to keep his own virtue and his own temper. [Applause.] Now, in all this business I propose that we shall keep our own virtue, which, in politics, is loyalty, and our own temper, which, in politics, consists in remembering that men may differ, that brethren may differ. If we keep entirely cool, and entirely calm, and entirely kind, a debate will ensue which will be kindly in itself, and it will prove very soon either that we are wrong-and we shall concede to our offended brethren-or else that we are right, and they will acquiesce and come back into fraternal relations with us. I do not wish to anticipate any question. We have a great many statesmen who demand at once to know what the North proposes to do 43 what the Government proposes to do whether we propose to coerce our Southern brethren back into their allegiance. They ask us, as of course they may rightly ask, what will be the value of fraternity which is compelled? All I have to say on that subject is, that so long ago as the time of Sir Thomas More, he discovered, and set down the discovery in his writings, that there were a great many schoolmasters, and that while there were a very few who knew how to instruct children, there were a great many who knew how to whip them. [Laughter.] I propose to have no question on that subject, but to hear complaints, to redress them if they ought to be redressed, and if we have the power to redress them; and I expect them to be withdrawn if they are unreasonable, because I know that the necessities which made this Union exist, for these States, are stronger to-day than they were when the Union was made, and that those necessities are enduring, while the passions of men are short-lived and ephemeral. I believe that secession was stronger on the night of the 6th of November last, when a President and Vice-President who were unacceptable to the slave States were elected, than it is now. That is now some fifty days since, and I believe that every day's sun which set since that time, has set on mollified passions and prejudices, and that if you will only give it time, sixty days' more suns will give you a much brighter and more cheerful atmosphere." [Loud and long continued applause.] CHAPTER V. The Inaction of Government.-The Bewilderment of the North.-Movement of the South.-Precipitancy of South Carolina.-Election of Convention of South Carolina.-Impatience of Action.-Anticipatory Programme.—Governor Gist's last Message.-Action of other Slave States.-Alabama Declaration of Causes.--Immediate Secession views of the Governor of Florida.-Immediate Secession views of the Governor of Georgia.-Vigilance Committees. ---Arming and Equipping.-Conventions called.-Meeting of South Carolina Convention.-Adjournment to Charleston.-Ordinance of Secession.-Manifestation of Popular Feeling in the South.-Audacity of Southern Members of Congress.-Proceedings of South Carolina Convention.-Proclamation of the Act of Secession of South Carolina.-Declaration of Causes.-Withdrawal from Congress of the Members of South Carolina.-Apparent attempts made to check the precipitate action of South Carolina.-Motives of such attempts.-Opposition to Disunion from Maryland. -Union Sentiments in Virginia.-Loyalty of Eastern and Western Virginia contrasted.-Proposed Conferences.— Disposition of Tennessee.-Firm stand for the Union of Johnson and Etheredge.-Letter of Bell, of Tennessee.Feeling in Kentucky.-Governor Magoffin's Propositions.-Manful resistance of Governor Houston, of Texas.Silence of Arkansas.-Irresolution of Georgia.-Union eloquence of Alexander H. Stephens.-Feeling in Alabama. -Mississippi.-Louisiana.-How the Propositions of the other Slave States were received by South Carolina.-South Carolina's Assurances.-Force of Example.—Anticipated Effect.—Ordinance of Concurrence. WHILE the President, meekly submissive to the influence of his traitorous advisers, was confessing and man1860. ifesting impotency; while the national councils, alternately frightened by the defiance of audacious rebels and provoked by their threats, were now striving to soothe them by plans of conciliation and compromise, and again contending with them in angry discussion; while the people of the North, bewildered by the inaction of the Federal authority, the perplexing deliberations of Congress, and the frivolous conjectures of their leaders, seemed doubtful whether to hope or to fear, and willing to yield their destiny to the uncertainties of chance, the South was moving with unhesitating strides toward rebellion. South Carolina, with characteristic precipitancy, established her claim to precedence in secession. The delegates to the convention called by the act of 30. the Legislature were elected on the 5th of December, to meet on the 17th. The leaders of South Carolina, however, as if impatient of all deliberation, did not await its action. They summoned the people in masses throughout the State, and distinctly announced the programme of rebellion. At a large meeting in Charleston, Mr. Memminger, an Nov. able lawyer of that city, and a prominent politician, declared even before the election of the delegates that the convention, within three days of its assembling, would declare South Carolina out of the Union; that a commissioner would be sent to the capital of the United States to treat in regard to the forts and other Federal property, which would be formally demanded, and if not given up, that the armed men of South Carolina would take them. Presuming upon the easy temper of Buchanan, or the corrupt connivance of his traitorous advisers, he did not hesitate |