CHAPTER XIV.

EFFORTS FOR PEACEFUL EMANCIPATION.

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE.

CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY. — DEATH OF BAKER.-EULOGIES UPON HIM.-STANTON, Secretary of War.— ABOLITION OF Slavery in the District of ColumbIA.-PROHIBITION IN THE TERRITORIES.-EMPLOYMENT OF NEGROES AS SOLDIERS. EMANCIPATION IN THE BORDER States.

WHEN Congress met, December 2, 1861, no decisive military events had occurred, but the great drama of civil war was at hand. Thus far the work had been one of preparation. Nearly two hundred thousand Union troops, under General George B. McClellan, on the banks of the Potomac, confronted a rebel army, then supposed to number about the same, but now known to have been much smaller. The President in his message, congratulated Congress that the patriotism of the people had proved more than equal to the demands made upon it, and that the number of troops tendered to the government greatly exceeded the force called for. He had not only been successful in holding Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri in the Union, but those three states, neither of which had in the beginning given, or promised through state organization, a single soldier, had now forty thousand men in the field under the Union flag. In West Virginia, after a severe struggle, the Union had triumphed, and there was no armed rebel force north of the Potomac or east of the Chesapeake, while the cause of the Union was steadily advancing southward.

On the slavery question, he said: "I have adhered to the act of Congress freeing persons held to service, used for

insurrectionary purposes." In relation to the emancipation, and arming the negroes, he said: "The maintenance of the integrity of the Union is the primary object of the contest."

*

"The Union must be preserved, and all indispensable means must be employed. We should not be in haste to determine that radical and extreme measures, which may reach the loyal, as well as the disloyal, are indispensable."

Before proceeding to view in detail the action, during this session, of Congress and the President on the slavery question, let us pause a moment to notice the honors paid in the Senate to the memory of Senator Baker. It will be remembered that he was killed at Ball's Bluff, on the 21st of October, while leading his troops against the enemy.

When Congress assembled in regular session, the 11th of December was fixed as the day on which the funeral orations in his honor should be pronounced in the Senate. The chamber of the Senate was draped in black; the brilliant colors of the national flag, which the war made all worship, were now mingled with the dark, in honor of the dead soldier and senator. The floor was crowded with senators, members of the House, governors of states, and distinguished civil and military officers, among whom Seward and Chase, and the Blairs and Stanton were conspicuous. The galleries were filled by members of the diplomatic corps, ladies, and prominent citizens from all parts of the republic. As soon as Vice-President Hamlin had called the Senate to order, President Lincoln, in deep mourning, slowly entered from the marble room, supported by the senators from Illinois: Trumbull and Browning. Not very long before he had been present among the chief mourners at the funeral in the White House of his protégé, young Ellsworth, shot down in the bloom of youth, and now it was Baker, his old comrade at the bar of Sangamon County; his successor in Congress; he for whom the President's second son, Edward Baker Lincoln, had been named, and to whom he was very warmly attached.

Senator Nesmith, of Oregon, sorrowfully announced the death of Baker, and was followed by McDougall of California, in one of the most touching and beautiful speeches ever heard in the Senate. Turning towards Lincoln, aud alluding to the dead senator's enthusiastic love of poetry, he said: "Many years since, on the wild plains of the West, in the midst of a starlight night, as we journeyed together, I heard from him the chant of that noble song, 'The Battle of Ivry.' "He loved freedom, if you please, Anglo-Saxon freedom, for he was of that grand old race."

As descriptive of the warlike scenes of every-day occurrence when Baker left the senatorial forum for the field, McDougall repeated in a voice which created a sensation throughout the Senate:

"Hurrah! the foes are moving. Hark to the mingled din
Of fife, and steed, and trump, and drum, and roaring culverin!
The fiery duke is pricking fast across St. André's plain,
With all the hireling chivalry of Guelders and Almayne.
Now by the lips of those ye love, fair gentlemen of France,
Charge for the golden lilies now upon them with the lance!'

And then comparing Baker at Ball's Bluffs with Henry of Navarre, McDougall quoted the words:

"And if my standard-bearer fall, as fall full well he may,

For never saw I promise yet, of such a bloody fray

Press where ye see my white plume shine, amidst the ranks of war,
And be your oriflamme to-day, the helmet of Navarre!"

It was a most eloquent speech, and as McDougall recalled the old comradeship of Lincoln and Baker, and Browning, and himself in early days as circuit riders in Central Illinois, every heart was touched, and few eyes were dry.

Sumner's speech was among the best he ever made. It was perhaps the only occasion upon which he ever cut loose from his manuscript, and gave free scope to the inspiration of the scene and the moment.

Senator Browning, the successor of Douglas, followed,

and his speech was as good as the best.

"Baker," said he, "to a greater extent than most men, combined the force and severity of logic, with grace, fancy, and eloquence, filling at the bar, at the same time the character of the astute and profound lawyer, and of the able, eloquent, and successful advocate; and in the Senate, the wise, prudent, and discreet statesman was combined with the chaste, classic, brilliant, and persuasive orator. He was not only a lawyer, an orator, a statesman, and a soldier, but he was also a poet, and at times spoke and acted under high poetic inspiration."

The remains of Baker were taken across the continent to California, and he was buried by the side of his friend Broderic,' in "The Lone Mountain Cemetery." There on that rocky cliff, by the Bay of San Francisco, looking out upon the Golden Gate and the Pacific, lies the dust of the gallant soldier and eloquent senator. At this session of Congress, three of Lincoln's old associates at the bar in Illinois (if Baker had been alive, there would have been four), occupied seats in the Senate: Trumbull and Browning, from Illinois, and McDougall, from California, while in the House, there were Lovejoy, Washburne, and others.

There was something very beautiful and touching in the attachment and fidelity of these his old Illinois comrades to Lincoln. They had all been pioneers, frontiersmen, circuitriders together. They were never so happy as when talking over old times, and recalling the rough experiences of their early lives. Had they met at Washington in calm and peaceful weather, on sunny days, they would have kept up their party differences as they did at home, but coming together in the midst of the fierce storms of civil war, and in the hour

1. Late a senator from California, and killed in a duel. Baker had pronounced in San Francisco, a funeral oration over his remains.

2. One evening in the summer of 1863, when the President was living in a cottage at the "Soldier's Home," on the heights north of the capital, some one spoke to him of Baker's burial place on the "Lone Mountain Cemetery." The name seemed to kindle his imagination and touch his heart. He spoke of this "Lone Mountain " on the shore of the Pacific, as a place of repose, and seemed almost to envy Baker his place of rest. Lincoln then gave a warm and glowing sketch of Baker's eloquence, full of generous admiration, and showing how he had loved this old friend.

of supreme peril, they stood together like a band of brothers. Not one of them would see an old comrade in difficulty or danger, and not help him out. The memory of these old Illinois lawyers and statesmen: Baker, McDougall, Trumbull, Lovejoy, Washburne, Browning, and others, recalls a passage in Webster's reply to Hayne. Speaking of Massachusetts and South Carolina, the great New England orator said: Shoulder to shoulder they went through the Revolution together; hand in hand they stood around the administration of Washington, and felt his own great arm lean on them for support."

So, in the far more difficult administration of Lincoln, these old comrades of his, Baker, McDougall, Trumbull, Browning, Lovejoy, and the others, whatever their former differences, stood shoulder to shoulder, and hand in hand, around the administration of Lincoln; his strong arm leaned on them for support, and that support was given vigorously and with unwavering loyalty.'

On the 14th of January, 1862, Simon Cameron resigned the position of Secretary of War, accepting the place of Minister to Russia. Edwin M. Stanton was appointed his successor. The new secretary soon gave evidence of his great energy, industry, and efficiency as an organizer. In accomplishing great objects he was not very scrupulous about the means of removing obstacles, and was somewhat

1. McDougall, before going to California, had been a prominent lawyer at Jack sonville and Chicago, and Attorney-General of Illinois. He was the bitter enemy of the Secretary of State, Mr. Seward having caused some of his California friends to be arrested, and confined in Fort LaFayette. I shall state what was universally known and deeply mourned by all of McDougall's friends, when I mention that habits of intemperance overclouded the last years of his life. But it could not be said of him that "when the wine was in, the wit was out." Poor McDougall's wit was always ready, drunk or sober.

Coming down from the Senate chamber, after a late executive session in which he had been opposing one of Seward's nominations, he found the rain falling in torrents, the night dark and dismal, and his own steps unsteady. As he passed from the Capitol gate towards Pennsylvania Avenue, the senator had to cross a ditch full of filth and water. McDougall, in the darkness, made a misstep, and tumbled in. A policeman ran to his aid, and helping him out, enquired gruffly: "Who are you, any. how?" "I, I was," said poor Mac, "I, I was Senator McDougall, when I fell in, now I think," looking at his filthy garments with disgust, "now, I think I, I am Seward."