THE REPUBLICAN A DISUNION MOVEMENT.

379

wild impulse of an unnatural and unwholesome excitement. Most of the Whig newspapers finally took open ground upon the Republican side; and in most of the Northern States, the party carried with it two-thirds of the Whigs, one-third of the Democrats, and, of course, the abolitionists, and the whole body of those, who, for so many years, had been seeking to bring the North into collision with the South. No wonder the faithful of the Whigs, and the steady masses of the Democrats, saw that the hour of deadly peril to the Constitution and Union had come. In reality, the moment that the Republican organization placed itself distinctly upon a sectional basis-Constitution and Union, and all public and personal rights and privileges dependent upon them, in the North, as well as in the South, stood in immediate and imminent danger of utter overthrow.

CHAPTER XVI.

After the Election, the Country first awoke to the Situation.--The Conservatives had the decided Majority in the Senate, and the Control of the House.-The majority of the Republicans in the North opposed to all Violent Measures, besides the strong Democratic and Conservative Strength in that Quarter.-The Majority at the South opposed to Secession.-Movements at the North to procure the Repeal of the "Personal Liberty Bills," by Ex-Chief-Justice Shaw, Mr. Curtis, lately Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, and others.-Public Meetings of Citizens.-Ridiculed by the Radical Journals.-Governor Andrew on the " Clean Hands" of Massachusetts.The Concession required to save War really slight.-But the Radicals determined to force Matters to an Issue.-Mr. Wade, Senator from Ohio.-Mr. F. P. Blair in regard to Mr. Chase.-Opinion of Mr. Weed, late Editor of the Albany Journal.-Description of Disunionists, North and South, by Mr. Andrew Johnson, now President of the United States.-The New York Tribune.—General Scott.

AFTER the result of the election was ascertained, this startling situation of affairs became much more apparent to the popular masses than before. To those who had resisted the advance of the tumultuous tide, it was an hour of the deepest solicitude and tribulation. With the Republicans, it soon became a pressing question, whether to advance or to recede. There can be no doubt, that preparations for secession had been on foot in most, or all, of the slave States, in anticipation of the election; and as little doubt that the extreme party at the South had looked forward with hope to the event of Republican success, on that occasion, as a fact which must afford them an argument of great weight in that quarter. They represented it, of course, as the climax of whatever existing causes of complaint they conceived themselves to have; and as furnishing indisputable evidence of the purpose of the North to force the sectional question to an absolute issue, and to compel the South to submit to the

THE SOUTH SAFE AFTER THE ELECTION.

381

emancipation of its slaves. The fact remained, however, that the South, at the moment, had the command of the Senate, in combination with the Democratic members; and, if not in actual control of the House, might count upon a majority in that branch, with entire assurance, against any violent measures. The other fact, also, stood out with transparent clearness, that, although a minority party had been able to carry the election, owing to the divisions in the Democratic party itself—yet the plurality of the Republicans in the North was considerably less than two hundred thousand, in a Northern vote of more than three millions two hundred and seventy-five thousand.' It is evident, upon this state of the case, that here was little encouragement or opportunity for the administration to propose radical measures, whatever disposition tending in that direction might have existed; and, notwithstanding the indications of the election, those familiar with the temper of the masses at the North might justly have felt entire confidence, that any attempt to oppress the South, by unconstitutional proceedings, would have produced such a powerful reaction in many of the free States, as would soon have supplied the lower branch of Congress with an unexampled Democratic majority. It was to the radicals alone that secession gave just the opportunity they sought; for it enabled them at once to shift their ground of virtual, if partially disguised hostility to the constitutional Union, to one in which they could use the whole power of the Union against its open assailants, and make those who professed to rebel for the cause of the Constitution the instruments of effecting their own unconstitutional and ulterior purposes.

It was also evident, from the result of the election, that the majority of the people of the South were by no means inclined to revolutionary proceedings. On the supposition that most of those who voted for Mr. Breckinridge, in the

3 Lincoln, in the free States, had 1,731,182; Douglas, Breckinridge, and Bell, combined, had 1,544,218.

South, may have been so disposed, though such a supposition would involve a very unjust imputation upon the two hundred and fifty thousand persons who gave him their suffrages in the North also. Yet, on the other hand, of the twelve hundred and fifty-one thousand votes cast in the Southern States, Mr. Bell and Mr. Douglas took six hundred and ninety thousand nearly, constituting of course a clear majority of the whole. Besides, it has been already stated, that three of the most powerful of the slave States-Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee-gave a popular plurality for Mr. Bell, a Southern Whig, and one-Missouri-for Mr. Douglas, a Northern Democrat.

In the natural state of alarm at the North, for which many public indications furnished only too much cause, thoughtful men, including not a few who had acted with the Republican party, now sought what means might be at their command to stay, if possible, the unhappy course of events. One of the chief grounds of complaint, on the part of the South, had long been the "Personal Liberty Bills," so called, adopted by nearly every Northern State legislature, for the purpose of obstructing the execution of the Fugitive Slave Act, passed by Congress in 1850. Accordingly, in Massachusetts, an address to the citizens of the State on this subject was published, December 18th, 1860, shortly before the meeting of the legislature, under circumstances calculated to givé it no little weight with men of principle and reflection. The paper set forth, in forcible but temperate language, the immediate danger of disunion, and urged the repeal of the laws in question, as being inconsistent with constitutional obligations, and unfriendly in spirit to the people of sister States. It was signed by Judge Shaw, who had recently retired from his place of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the State, by Mr. B. R. Curtis, lately one of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, and by about thirty others, of the best known and most respected citizens of the Commonwealth; several of whom had served as its Governors, and others in judicial or other prominent and responsible positions. A similar

UNION MEETINGS IN THE NORTH.

383

manifestation had proved of much service not a great while before. That was a strong expression of public sentiment in the North, towards the close of the year 1859, which had exerted the most salutary influence in composing popular agitation at the South, resulting from Brown's midnight assault upon Harper's Ferry. The resentment occasioned by that atrocious transaction, and by various isolated instances of exultation over it in the Northern States, had given rise to many indications of disunion feeling in Virginia, and everywhere below Mason and Dixon's line. Members of Congress from that quarter, as they reached Washington, in anticipation of the approaching session, came in "breathing disunion," to use an expression employed by a person of influence upon the spot, to signify the prevalent state of feeling. But very large and imposing assemblages of citizens were called together in the principal cities and towns of the North, and were addressed by leading persons, which clearly made known with what strong disapprobation the "raid" and whatever was in sympathy with it were regarded by the more respectable portion of the community; and the excitement in the Southern quarter died away.

It remained to be seen what would be the effect of the address, just mentioned, upon the Legislature of Massachusetts, and by its example upon other legislative bodies of the free States, and, in the end, upon the public mind in the other section of the Union. It was too late for immediate influence, for it appeared that within two days after its publication an ordinance of secession was passed by the unanimous vote of the Legislature of South Carolina, the first of the States which took this step; thus, to a certain extent, committing the rest of the slave States to similar precipitate action, or to adopt the alternative of abandoning her to her fate. To exhibit in a striking light the singular composition of the party which had succeeded in the election, many of the leading journals of the State in its interest, especially those which had been formerly Whig organs, seconded the appeal of the gentlemen referred to; while the radical newspapers,