66

matters looked, he replied, with an expression of eountenance in which great anxiety and sorrow were apparent, Very bad; it seems almost certain that the resistance party will carry Georgia." Not many days afterwards, on our meeting, I asked him what he thought of the prospects. He answered, with great elation of manner, "First rate; we can carry Georgia on Rhett's speech." Soon afterwards, on my meeting Mr. Clay, he said, with a look of triumph, "Have you seen Rhett's speech? What do you think of that?" Mr. Rhett, after the termination of the session of the Nashville Convention, made a speech, in which he claimed that great progress was made towards disunion, and boastfully said that even "Tennessee had wheeled into line." Mr. Rhett, with considerable ability, was a gentleman who could make himself particularly offensive to his opponents, and could even present a truthful proposition in such a manner as to render it distasteful. He was, on the Southern side, a political scarecrow, as Garrison and Giddings were on the Northern side; with this difference, however, that whereas the latter disclaimed connection with the Northern party, and thus relieved it of the odium that their violent speeches created, Mr. Rhett, on important occasions, sought to render himself as prominent as possible, and with merciless friendship, crippled his allies.

Gidding's declaration, that the slave ought to "keep his knife close to his master's throat," was better calculated "to fire the Southern heart" than the ablest speech a "fire-eater" could make. We occasionally see men who without the power, by any speech they can utter, to render the slightest aid to the party they profess to belong to, nevertheless, possess a negative influence as potently repellant as that of a fly in a bowl of soup. Napoleon once said that war was a succession of blunders in which those triumphed who made the fewest.

If a party were governed always by its wisest men, it would beat its adversaries easily, and might live forever.

In the progress of the struggle some events occurred, which came very near changing the entire order of the battle. They are set forth concisely, but with sufficient detail, perhaps, to make them well understood, in a letter heretofore published in the New York Herald, August 17, 1876, which is as follows:

TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD:

WASHINGTON, August 13, 1876.

My attention has been called to a letter of the Hon. Alexander H. Stephens which appears in your paper of the 8th inst., in which some references are made to me in connection with Messers. Stephens and Toombs. I understand that there were some previous letters of Mr. Thurlow Weed in which mention was made of my name. The transactions which led to the mistake of Mr. Weed were in themselves sufficiently interesting to justify an elaborate article in one of the magazines of the day; but I shall content myself with as concise a statement as I can present to make the matter understood. I know much more of the transactions than any one else, but there are gentlemen living to whom all the several facts I shall refer to are known as far as they are material.

During the session of 1850, at which the compromise measures were passed, Mr. Clay resided at the National Hotel. I was also a boarder there, and, though opposing Mr. Clay's plan, I was in constant com

munication with him. In fact, if several days had passed without my calling at his room in the evening, he would, on casually meeting me about the Capitol, say, "Where have you been all this while? I expect you have been in some mischief." He would say frequently, "I wish to hear from you all, and then I will decide for myself."

During a conversation one evening I said to him that there were three forces or obstacles to his scheme of compromise that were sufficient to defeat it, viz: First, the opposition of the anti-slavery party, led by such men as Mr. Seward; second, that of the administration of General Taylor, and third, that of the Southern rights men. That he would not win the support of Mr. Seward's party, because they desired to keep up sectional agitation for political effect, and were opposed, therefore, to any settlement, and that as the administration had a plan of its own, it would regard itself as defeated if any other form of settlement was adopted; but that the Southern men would be induced to co-operate if certain changes were adopted in his scheme of adjustment. That one of two things would bring him Southern votes enough to enable him to pass his bills-either to cut off the southern portion of California by the line of thirty-six thirty, or, what I preferred, to let California come in whole, and, as an equivalent, on the western border of Missouri, to change the line of thirty-six thirty to the fortieth parallel, and, after running it back to what was the eastern border of Utah, then deflect it to the south and extend it to the Pacific Ocean with the southern boundary of California. I had in a speech made in January previously, urged this plan. Mr. Clay rejected instantly the proposition to change the line of the Missouri Compromise. He also at first said, "You had as well talk of dividing the moon as California," but, after some further conversation, seemed to yield somewhat, though he left his purpose undecided, or at least did not then announce it.

A few evenings after this, on my meeting him, he said impetuously, and with seeming disappointment, "You were mistaken, for the Southern Senators will not support my plan, even if we agree to the division. of California." He then stated that Senator Foote, of Mississippi, had that day spoken to Hunter, Soule, Yulee, and Turney, and that they all refused. I told him that such a hasty movement as that which he had tried was ill-judged and certain to have failed; that time was necessary to make the preliminary movements which, I felt confident would bring them in. I then explained in detail to Mr. Clay what I proposed should be done. It was in substance this:

General Taylor, it was understood, was then contemplating the use of the army to settle the dispute as to the boundary of Texas. There was alarm at the prospect of the country being precipitated into a civil war. The Southern Whigs especially were excited, feeling that they had already gone as far in their support of the extreme Northern views of their party as they could afford to do. My colleague, Mr. Outlaw; Mr. Humphrey Marshall, of Kentucky, and others, were disposed to abandon the administration if such a policy was insisted on. After finding that most if not all of the more moderate of the Southern Whigs concurred in these views, a caucus was called composed of

Southern Whigs alone. After a full interchange of views it was agreed that a proper effort should be made to induce General Taylor to change his policy, and in the event of failure so to change his purpose it was evident that the Southern Whigs, probably all with the exception of Mr. Stanley, would abandon the administration, cut loose from the Northern Whigs and act with the Democratic party. Three gentlemen were selected to confer with General Taylor-Mr. Charles M. Conrad, of Louisiana, a personal friend of General Taylor and a Representative from his own State; Mr. Humphrey Marshall, who had served under him in Mexico, and Mr. Toombs, who had been one of the most active and influential men in bringing forward General Taylor as a Presidential candidate. In order that there might not seem to be any menace implied in the movement, it was agreed that these gentlemen should converse with General Taylor separately. Mr. Conrad first saw him and stated to me the result of the interview, He said that the President was obstinately fixed in his purpose, and that his mind was so prejudiced that he regarded the opposition to his scheme as factious, and stimulated by Messrs. Clay and Webster from chagrin because he had superseded them as a Presidential candidate, while Cass was hostile on account of his defeat. Mr. Marshall soon after had an interview with a similar result. While speaking of it to me he burst into a fit of laughter, saying, "The old fellow takes the military view of the question; he said he had ninety men from the North and only thirty from the South (referring to the relative number of Whig members from the two sections), and asked, 'Am I to give up my ninety in the North for your thirty in the South?'"

Mr. Toombs did not see General Taylor until after he had been taken ill, but before he was supposed to be in danger. He became ill, it may be remembered, after attending the celebration of the Fourth of July, and died on the 9th. About the time of his death some of those papers which were in sympathy with Mr. Weed's views had exaggerated statements of Mr. Toombs' interview, and represented him as standing over the dying President and using threatening language to him. I presume that Mr. Weed's mistake is due to some vague recollections of these publications.

The death of the President changed the condition of the whole question, and the caucus did not reassemble again. The machinery with which the Southern Whigs were to be detached on this question from their Northern associates was destroyed. I had felt confident that General Taylor would refuse our request, and was equally confident that in such a contingency the Southern Whigs would unite with the democracy North and South, and under the lead of Mr. Clay, aided by General Cass, make a common war on the administration. As Mr. Clay's personal influence would have brought in a few Northern Whigs we should have had about two-thirds of the Congress, and would easily have carried a substantial measure of compromise. It would have been an extension of the Missouri line to the Pacific, or such a modification as would have been an improvement. We should have escaped the mischievous non-intervention ambiguity, which, in its results, verified the evil then apprehended from it. We should thus have

avoided the excitement resulting from the Kansas and Nebraska struggle, which expedited the collision between the sections many years, and likewise the split at Charleston, which precipitated the country into immediate war.

The death of General Taylor threw the issue again back into its condition of uncertainty. Mr. Clay changed his line of policy. He had refused to take the amendment of Norris, though he said it would if, adopted, give him four additional votes in the Senate for his bills. He now, however, decided to accept it. Toward the latter part of July I had some conversation with him in the Senate. That morning he was dressed all in spotless white, except his blue dress coat, and looked more buoyant in spirits than I had seen him during the session. On my reminding him of former conversations he said that he would take Norris' amendment and gain votes enough to pass the bill. I said: "Mr. Clay, you have been disappointed three times this session." With an impetuous wave of his hand and a haughty look, he said: "The administration was the only obstacle to the passage of my measures and I shall now carry them without difficulty." I walked across the chamber and spoke to Messrs. Hunter and Soule, who were standing together. It may be proper to explain that though they and their Southern associates would not support Mr. Clay's plan, yet they protected it from destruction by the attacks made on it by the Seward wing of its opponents, in the hope that it might ultimately be gotten into such a shape that they would support it. On my stating to them what Mr. Clay had decided on Mr. Hunter said, "Then you think we had better let it be destroyed." I told him I was decidedly of that opinion. Immediately afterward, as the record of the proceedings show, the compromise of Mr. Clay was cut to pieces, and a single plank in it, the Utah bill, was passed. On the morning afterward Mr. Clay made a denunciatory speech in the Senate and went up to Newport to recruit his health. Senator Pierce's bill, in certain respects more favorable to the South came in, and ultimately the series of measures were adopted called the Compromise of 1850.

Not having seen either of Mr. Weed's letters, I can only infer their contents from reading that of Mr. Stephens. I never had a conversation with Gen. Taylor on a political subject, unless it was a casual remark at one of his dinners or evening receptions. Nor did I ever hear of any one having such an interview as that spoken of by Mr. Weed. I scarcely think such a thing could have occurred without my knowledge, for I felt a great interest in the issue, was very active, seldom going to bed during that ten months' session till after two o'clock.. Having learned who were the late sitters up I was able to occupy myself with interviews till a late hour in the evenings, and from week to week I was able to understand the position on the question of almost every member of each House during the session. The non-intervention scheme I considered as an ingeniously devised stratagem to produce a collision between the sections, because it was regarded at the North as making all the territory free, while at the South it was asserted that under it all the Territories were slaveholding. It is to me a matter of regret that my declarations, in 1851, that in ten years on

account of that settlement, we should have either a dissolution of the Union or a civil war, were verified by the event. While Mr. Weed and his friends regarded the death of General Taylor as a loss to their side, I both at that time and ever since looked on it as one of those important events that greatly tended to produce the results which subsequently occurred.

Respectfully, &c.,

T. L. CLINGMAN.

During the continuance of the contest, it was obvious that the Southern side was steadily gaining strength. Not only were the extreme measures of the anti-slavery party rejected, but gradually the people of the North were coming to the conclusion that the peace and safety of the whole country would be more secure if a settlement was made, which did substantial justice to both sections. While the body of the Northern members of Congress evidently wished to yield as little as possible, yet there were enough of them combined with the Southern vote to secure the passage of a just measure. In September, however, several Southern gentlemen, who had been standing till then on what was regarded as the Southern side, suddenly changed their attitude, and the so-called compromise of 1850 was adopted. I then, and ever since have felt confident, that if they had stood still a little longer, such was the anxiety of the Northern people for a settlement, that far better terms could have been obtained for the Sonth; such terms in fact as would have produced a permanent peace between the sections.

Some days after the matter had been disposed of, Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, a gentleman with whom, on account of his extreme anti-slavery views, I had never been intimate, sat down by my seat and said, "Clingman, I know you are a candid man; tell why it was, that after you all had scared our people in the North so much, that they were willing to give you whatever you asked, that some of you men gave way, and surrendered every thing to us, and got nothing for their own section?" I replied, in substance, that I thought they had made a great mistake and had shown an entire lack of judgment. He answered, "Well, you may depend upon it, that you will never again be able to scare our people; they will say that if after making all this fuss and getting up so much excitement, you were willing to give up everything, and get nothing for your section, that anything else you may attempt is all a sham, and that nothing serious is meant by it." This statement corresponded so well with my own impressions, that his words imprinted themselves strongly on my memory.

The passage of the measures was, however, generally received with satisfaction, and bands of music waited on some of the prominent Union savers and heard patriotic speeches.

This session, continuing for ten months, was not only the longest known in the history of the government, but it was also the most interesting and eventful. The House of Representatives was superior in the character of the members composing it, to any I ever knew, and its debates were the ablest, surpassing as a whole those in the Senate at that session.