Volume Iii Part 18 (1/2)

Champions of the northern side deemed it the less necessary to expatiate upon this question, since, admitting the South's basal contention, the right in question depended upon sufficiency of grievance. As, in the South's view, the case was one of sovereigns one party of whom, without referee, was about to break a compact without the other's consent, the adequacy of the grievance should, to excuse the step, have been absolutely beyond question. On the contrary it was subject to the gravest question.

The South's only significant indictment against the North was the one concerning the personal liberty laws. Moderates like Stephens, indeed, stoutly condemned this plea for secession as insufficient; but, believing in the State as sovereign, they had perforce to yield, and they became as enthusiastic as any when once this ”paramount authority”

had spoken. ”Fire-eaters,” at first a small minority, saw this advantage and worked it to the utmost. On its complaint touching the personal liberty legislation the South's case utterly broke down, theorizing the Union into a rope of sand, not ”more perfect” but far less so than the old, which itself was to be ”perpetual.” According to the Calhoun contention States were the parties to a pact, and it was a good way from clear that any northern State as such, even by personal liberty legislation, had broken the alleged pact. The liberty laws were innocent at least in form, and at worst had never been endorsed in any state convention. Buchanan himself testified that the fugitive slave law had been faithfully executed, and its operation is well known never to have been resisted by any public authority.

It was suspicious that no State ventured upon secession alone. It was equally remarkable that the Gulf States were the readiest to go, and made most of the personal liberty laws as their pretext, accounting this cry, as was ingenuously confessed, a necessary means for holding the border States solidly to the southern cause. Weak enough, indeed, was the complaint of ”consolidationist” aggression, of which certainly no party to the so-called pact was or could have been guilty. But the deeps of folly were sounded when northern ”persecution” of the South was mentioned, or Lincoln's election as threat of such. This was simply the election as President, in a perfectly const.i.tutional way, of a citizen, honest and unambitious, who was pledged against touching slavery in States. Having become President, he was unable to procure minister, law, treaty, or even adequate guard for his own person save by the consent of the party hitherto in power. Lincoln had failed of a popular majority by a million. Both Houses of Congress were against him at the time of his election, and, but for the absence of southern members, they would, it is likely, have continued so through his entire term. It was the South's bad logic on these points which gave the war Democrats their excellent plea for drawing sword on the northern side.

But even supposing secession technically justifiable, how strange that it should have been judged rational, prudent, or in the long run best for the South itself. Could aught but frenzy have so drowned in Americans the memories of our great past; or launched them upon a course that must have ended by Mexicanizing this nation, wresting from it the lead in freedom's march, and crus.h.i.+ng out, in the breast of struggling patriotism the world over, all hope of government by and for the people!

The South ought at least to have spared itself. Either its alleged horror at the advance of central-sovereignty sentiment at the North was sheer pretence, or it should have been certain that this section would not hesitate, as Buchanan so illogically did, to coerce ”rebellious”

state-bodies. If the North believed the totality of the nation to be the ”paramount authority,” Lincoln would surely imitate Jackson instead of Buchanan, and in doing so he would not seek military support in vain.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]

James Buchanan. From a photograph by Brady.

Quite as sure, too, must the final result have appeared from the census of 1850, had people been calm enough to read this. By that census the free States had a population fifty per cent. above the population of the slave states, slaves included, and the disparity was rapidly increasing.

Their wealth was even more preponderant, being, slaves apart, nearly one hundred per cent. the larger. Their merchant tonnage was five times the greater--even young inland Ohio out-doing old South Carolina in this, and the one district of New York City the whole South. The North had three or four times the South's miles of railway, all the sinews of war without importation, and mechanics unnumbered and of every sort. And while champions of the Union would fight with all the prestige of law, national history and the status quo on their side, Europe's aid to the South, or even that of the border slave States, was more than problematical, as was a successful career for the Confederacy in case its independence should chance to be won. Events proved that the very defence of slavery had best prospect in the Union, and it seems as if this might have been foreseen by all, as it actually was by some.

CHAPTER II.

SECESSION

[1861]

Secession was no new thought at the South. It lurked darkly behind the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798-99. It was brought out into broad daylight by South Carolina in the nullification troubles of 1832.

”Texas or disunion!” was the cry at the South in 1843-44. In 1850 South Carolina declared herself ready to secede in the event of legislation hostile to slavery. Two years later the same State solemnly affirmed that it had a right to secede, but that, out of deference to the wishes of the other slave States, it forbore to exercise such right.

It must be admitted that in early years the North had helped to make the thought of secession familiar. In 1803, in view of the great increase of southern territory by the Louisiana Purchase, and again in 1813, when New England opposition to the war with England culminated in the Hartford Convention, there had been talk of a separate northern confederacy. But from that time on the thought of disunion died out at the North, while the South dallied with it more and more boldly. During the presidential campaign of 1856, threats were made that if Fremont, the republican candidate, should be elected, the South would leave the Union. In October of that year a secret convention of southern governors was held at Raleigh, N. C., supposed to have been for the purpose of considering such a contingency. Governor Wise, of Virginia, who called the convention, afterward proclaimed that had Fremont been chosen he would have marched to Was.h.i.+ngton at the head of 20,000 troops, seized the Capitol, and prevented the inauguration. This threatening att.i.tude in 1856 may have been chiefly an electioneering device; but during the next four years the gulf between North and South widened rapidly, and the southern leaders turned more and more resolutely toward secession as the remedy for their alleged wrongs.

No sooner had the presidential campaign of 1860 begun than deep mutterings foretold the coming storm. ”Elect Lincoln, and the South will secede!” cried the campaign orators of the South, while the halls of Congress rang with threats similar in tenor. As the campaign went on and republican success became probable, the southern leaders began to nerve up their hosts for the conflict. In October the governor and congressmen of South Carolina, with other prominent politicians, met and unanimously resolved that if Lincoln should win, the Palmetto State ought to renounce the Union. Similar meetings were held in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. Governor Gist sent a confidential circular to the governors of all the cotton States declaring that South Carolina would secede with any other State, or would make the plunge alone if others would promise to follow. The governors of Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi replied that their States would certainly do this. Georgia proposed to wait for some overt act by the National Government. North Carolina and Louisiana, it was learned, would probably not go out at all.

But the enthusiasts in South Carolina had got all the encouragement they wanted, and bided their time. Their time was at hand. The presidential election fell on November 6th. Next day the tidings flashed over the land that Abraham Lincoln had been elected President by the vote of a solid North against a solid South. The wires had scarcely ceased to thrill with this message of death to slavery-extension, when South Carolina sounded a trumpet-call to the South. Her Legislature ordered a secession state convention to meet in December, issued a call for 10,000 volunteers, and voted money for the purchase of arms. Federal office-holders resigned. Judge Magrath, of the United States District Court, laid aside his robes, declaring, ”So far as I am concerned, the temple of Justice raised under the Const.i.tution of the United States is now closed.” Militia organized throughout the State. The streets of Charleston echoed nightly with the tramp of drilling minute-men.

Secession orators harangued enthusiastic crowds. Hardly a coat but bore a secession c.o.c.kade. November 17th, the Palmetto flag was unfurled in Charleston. It was a gala day. Cannon roared, bands played the Ma.r.s.eillaise, and processions paraded the streets bearing such mottoes as ”Let's Bury the Union's Dead Carca.s.s!” ”Death to All Abolitionists!”

The whole South was beside itself with excitement. One State after another a.s.sembled its convention to decide the question of secession.

Even the Georgia Legislature, within a week after the election of Lincoln, voted $1,000,000 to arm the State.

The South Carolina convention met at Charleston, and on December 20th unanimously adopted an ordinance declaring:

”The union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of the United States of America, is hereby dissolved.”

This action was hailed with wildest enthusiasm. Huge placards--”The Union is Dissolved!”--were posted throughout the city, while the clang of bells and the boom of cannon notified the country round. The sidewalks were thronged with ladies wearing secession bonnets made of cotton with palmetto decorations. A party of gentlemen visited the tomb of Calhoun, and there registered their vows to defend the southern cause with their fortunes and lives. In the evening the convention marched to the hall in procession, and formally signed the revolutionary ordinance.

The chairman then solemnly proclaimed South Carolina an ”independent commonwealth.” The little State, whose white population was less than 300,000, began to play at being a nation. The governor was authorized to appoint a cabinet and receive foreign amba.s.sadors, and the papers put information from other parts of the country under the head of ”foreign news.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: Street Banner in Charleston.]

”One voice and millions of strong arms to uphold the honor of South Carolina 1776-1860”