Volume II Part 29 (1/2)
In this spirit Seward made his speech of January 12. He discussed the fallacies of secession, showing that it had no grounds, or even excuse, and declaring that disunion must lead to civil war. Then he avowed his adherence to the Union in its integrity and in every event, ”whether of peace or of war, with every consequence of honour or dishonour, of life or death.” Referring to the disorder, he said: ”I know not to what extent it may go. Still my faith in the Const.i.tution and in the Union abides. Whatever dangers there shall be, there will be the determination to meet them. Whatever sacrifices, private or public, shall be needful for the Union, they will be made. I feel sure that the hour has not come for this great nation to fall.”
In blazing the new line of thought which characterised his speech at the Astor House, Seward rose to the plane of higher patriotism, and he now broadened and enlarged the idea. During the presidential campaign, he said, the struggle had been for and against slavery. That contest having ended by the success of the Republicans in the election, the struggle was now for and against the Union. ”Union is not more the body than liberty is the soul of the nation. Freedom can be saved with the Union, and cannot be saved without it.” He deprecated mutual criminations and recriminations, a continuance of the debate over slavery in the territories, the effort to prove secession illegal, and the right of the federal government to coerce seceding States. He wanted the Union glorified, its blessings exploited, the necessity of its existence made manifest, and the love of country subst.i.tuted for the prejudice of faction and the pride of party. When this millennial day had come, when secession movements had ended and the public mind had resumed its wonted calm, then a national convention might be called--say, in one, two, or three years hence, to consider the matter of amending the Const.i.tution.[697]
[Footnote 697: New York _Tribune_, January 14, 1861. _Seward's Works_, Vol. 4, p. 651.]
This speech was listened to with deep attention. ”During the delivery of portions of it,” said one correspondent, ”senators were in tears.
When the sad picture of the country, divided into confederacies, was given, Mr. Crittenden, who sat immediately before the orator, was completely overcome by his emotions, and bowed his white head to weep.”[698] The _Tribune_ considered it ”rhetorically and as a literary performance unsurpa.s.sed by any words of Seward's earlier productions,”[699] and Whittier, charmed with its conciliatory tone, paid its author a n.o.ble tribute in one of his choicest poems.[700]
But the country was disappointed. The Richmond _Enquirer_, representing the Virginia secessionists, maintained that it destroyed the last hope of compromise, because he gave up nothing, not even prejudices, to save peace in the Union. For the same reason, Union men of Kentucky and other border States turned from it with profound grief. On the other hand, the radical Republicans, disappointed that it did not contain more powder and shot, charged him with surrendering his principles and those of his party, to avert civil war and dissolution of the Union. But the later-day historian, however, readily admits that the rhetorical words of this admirable speech had an effectual influence in making fidelity to the Union, irrespective of previous party affiliations, a rallying point for Northern men.
[Footnote 698: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 494.]
[Footnote 699: New York _Tribune_ (editorial), January 14, 1861.]
[Footnote 700: TO WILLIAM H. SEWARD.
”Statesman, I thank thee!--and if yet dissent Mingles, reluctant, with my large content, I can not censure what was n.o.bly meant.
But while constrained to hold even Union less Than Liberty, and Truth, and Righteousness, I thank thee, in the sweet and holy name Of Peace, for wise, calm words, that put to shame Pa.s.sion and party. Courage may be shown Not in defiance of the wrong alone; He may be bravest, who, unweaponed, bears The olive branch, and strong in justice spares The rash wrong-doer, giving widest scope To Christian charity, and generous hope.
If without damage to the sacred cause Of Freedom, and the safeguard of its laws-- If, without yielding that for which alone We prize the Union, thou canst save it now, From a baptism of blood, upon thy brow A wreath whose flowers no earthly soil has known Woven of the beat.i.tudes, shall rest; And the peacemaker be forever blest!”]
As the recognised representative of the President-elect, Seward now came into frequent conference with loyal men of both sections and of all parties, including General Scott and the new members of Buchanan's Cabinet. John A. Dix had become secretary of the treasury, Edwin Stanton attorney-general, and Jeremiah S. Black secretary of state.
Seward knew them intimately, and with Black he conferred publicly.
With Stanton, however, it seemed advisable to select midnight as the hour and a bas.e.m.e.nt as the place of conference. ”At length,” he wrote Lincoln, ”I have gotten a position in which I can see what is going on in the councils of the President.”[701] To his wife, he adds: ”The revolution gathers apace. It has its abettors in the White House, the treasury, the interior. I have a.s.sumed a sort of dictators.h.i.+p for defence.”[702] He advised the President-elect to reach Was.h.i.+ngton somewhat earlier than usual, and suggested having his secretaries of war and navy designated that they might co-operate in measures for the public safety. Under his advice, on the theory that the national emblem would strengthen wavering minds and develop Union sentiment, flags began to appear on stores and private residences. Seward was ablaze with zeal. ”Before I spoke,” he wrote Weed, ”not one utterance made for the Union elicited a response. Since I spoke, every word for the Union brings forth a cheering response.”[703]
[Footnote 701: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 488.]
[Footnote 702: _Ibid._, p. 490.]
[Footnote 703: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 497.
”In regard to February, 1861, I need only say that I desired to avoid giving the secession leaders the excuse and opportunity to open the civil war before the new Administration and new Congress could be in authority to subdue it. I conferred throughout with General Scott, and Mr. Stanton, then in Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet. I presume I conversed with others in a way that seemed to me best calculated to leave the inauguration of a war to the secessionists, and to delay it, in any case, until the new Administration should be in possession of the Government. On the 22d of February, in concert with Mr. Stanton, I caused the United States flag to be displayed throughout all the northern and western portions of the United States.” Letters of W.H.
Seward, June 13, 1867.--William Schouler, _Ma.s.sachusetts in the Civil War_, Vol. 1, pp. 41, 42.]
But, amidst it all, Seward's enemies persistently charged him with inclining to the support of the Crittenden compromise. ”We have positive information from Was.h.i.+ngton,” declared the _Tribune_, ”that a compromise on the basis of Mr. Crittenden's is sure to be carried through Congress either this week or the next, provided a very few more Republicans can be got to enlist in the enterprise.... Weed goes with the Breckenridge Democrats.... The same is true, though less decidedly, of Seward.”[704] It is probable that in the good-fellows.h.i.+p of after-dinner conversations Seward's optimistic words and ”mysterious allusions,”[705] implied more than he intended them to convey, but there is not a private letter or public utterance on which to base the _Tribune's_ statements. Greeley's attacks, however, became frequent now. Having at last swung round to the ”no compromise”
policy of the radical wing of his party, he found it easy to condemn the att.i.tude of Weed and the Unionism of Seward, against whom his lieutenants at Albany were waging a fierce battle for his election as United States senator.
[Footnote 704: New York _Tribune_, January 29 and February 6, 1861.]
[Footnote 705: A writer in the _North American Review_ (August, 1879, p. 135) speaks of the singular confidence of Siddon of Virginia (afterwards secretary of war of the Southern Confederacy) in Mr.
Seward, and the mysterious allusions to the skilful plans maturing for an adjustment of sectional difficulties.]
On January 31, Seward had occasion to present a pet.i.tion, with thirty-eight thousand signatures, which William E. Dodge and other business men of New York had brought to Was.h.i.+ngton, praying for ”the exercise of the best wisdom of Congress in finding some plan for the adjustment of the troubles which endanger the safety of the nation,”
and in laying it before the Senate he took occasion to make another plea for the Union. ”I have asked them,” he said, ”that at home they act in the same spirit, and manifest their devotion to the Union, above all other interests, by speaking for the Union, by voting for the Union, by lending and giving their money for the Union, and, in the last resort, fighting for the Union--taking care, always, that speaking goes before voting, voting goes before giving money, and all go before a battle. This is the spirit in which I have determined for myself to come up to this great question, and to pa.s.s through it.”
Senator Mason of Virginia, declaring that ”a maze of generalities masked the speech,” pressed Seward as to what he meant by ”contributing money for the Union.” Seward replied: ”I have recommended to them in this crisis, that they sustain the government of this country with the credit to which it is ent.i.tled at their hands.” To this Mason said: ”I took it for granted that the money was to sustain the army which was to conduct the fight that he recommends to his people.” Seward responded: ”If, then, this Union is to stand or fall by the force of arms, I have advised my people to do, as I shall be ready to do myself--stand with it or perish with it.” To which the Virginia Senator retorted: ”The honourable senator proposes but one remedy to restore this Union, and that is the _ultima ratio regna_.”
Seward answered quickly, ”Not to restore--preserve!”
Mason then referred to Seward's position as one of battle and bloodshed, to be fought on Southern soil, for the purpose of reducing the South to colonies. To Seward, who was still cultivating the att.i.tude of ”forbearance, conciliation, and magnanimity,” this sounded like a harsh conclusion of the position he had sought to sugar-coat with much rhetoric, and, in reply, he pushed bloodshed into the far-off future by restating what he had already declared in fine phrases, closing as follows: ”Does not the honourable senator know that when all these [suggestions for compromise] have failed, then the States of this Union, according to the forms of the Const.i.tution, shall take up this controversy about twenty-four negro slaves scattered over a territory of one million and fifty thousand square miles, and say whether they are willing to sacrifice all this liberty, all this greatness, and all this hope, because they have not intelligence, wisdom, and virtue enough to adjust a controversy so frivolous and contemptible.”[706]