vious month," he writes; "but with the verbal explanation I did not consider it a matter then to complain of."

The commissioners and their game here drop into the background, and Justice Campbell takes up the rôle of leading conspirator. Two days afterwards we find him making a confidential report to the insurrectionary chief at Montgomery, as follows:

I do not doubt that Sumter will be evacuated shortly, without any effort to supply it; but in respect to Pickens I do not think there is any settled plan, and it will not be abandoned spontaneously, and under any generous policy, though perhaps they may be quite willing to let it be beleaguered and reduced to extremities. I can only infer as to this. All that I have is a promise that the status will not be attempted to be changed prejudicially to the Confederate States without notice to me. It is known that I make these assurances on my own responsibility. I have no right to mention any name or to pledge any person. I am the only responsible person to you, I consenting to accept such assurances as are made to me and to say, "I have confidence that this will or will not be done." I have no expectation that there will be bad faith in the dealings with me.

Now I do not see that I can do more. I have felt them in a variety of forms as to the practicability of some armistice or truce that should be durable and would relieve the anxiety of the country. But at present there can be no compact, treaty, or recognition of any kind. There will be no objection to giving the commissioners their answer; but if the answer is not called for it will not be sent, and it is intimated that it would be more agreeable to withhold it. So far as I can judge, the present desire is to let things remain as they are, without action of any kind. There is a strong indisposition for the call of Congress, and it will not be done except under necessity. The radicals of the Senate went off in anger, and Trumbull's coercion resolution was offered after a

CH. XXIV.
Campbell

to Seward,
April 13,
1861.
Moore,

"Rebellion

Record."

Vol. I., Doc

uments,

p. 427.

CH. XXIV. contumelious interview with the President. My own notion is that the inactive policy is as favorable to you as any that this Administration could adopt for you, and that I would not interrupt it.

Here the learned judge might have stopped, and perhaps would have left posterity to question his method rather than his motives. But inexorable History demanded her tribute of truth: under her master-spell he went on, and in the concluding paragraph of the letter his own hand recorded a confession little to have been expected from an officer whose duty it was to expound and to administer the law of treason as written in the Constitution of the United States and the acts of Congress.

The great want of the Confederate States is peace. I shall remain here some ten or fifteen days. My own future course is in some manner depending upon circumstances and the opinions of friends. At present I have access to the Administration I could not have except under my present relations to the Government, and I do not know who could have the same freedom. I have therefore deferred any settlement on the subject until Campbell the chance of being of service at this critical period has terminated. This letter is strictly confidential and private.

to Jefferson

Davis, April 3, 1861. MS.

There is no need of comment on this "aid and comfort" to the enemies of his Government by a member of the highest court of the United States. It only remains to note the acknowledgment and estimate of it by Jefferson Davis, replying from Montgomery under date of April 6:

Accept my thanks for your kind and valuable services to the cause of the Confederacy and of peace between those who, though separated, have many reasons to feel

towards each other more than the friendships common among nations. Our policy is, as you say, peace. In any event I will gratefully remember your zealous labor in a sacred cause, and hope your fellow-citizens may at some time give you acceptable recognition of your service, and appreciate the heroism with which you have encountered a hazard from which most men would have shrunk.

While this direct correspondence between Davis and Campbell was being carried on, the commissioners, to whom A. B. Roman had been sent as a reënforcement, were, partly as a matter of form, partly for ulterior purposes, kept in Washington by the Montgomery cabinet to "loiter in the ante-chambers of officials." The occupation seems to have grown irksome to them; for, nowise deceived or even encouraged by Campbell's pretended "pledges," they asked, under date of March 26, "whether we shall dally longer with a Government hesitating and doubting as to its own course, or shall we demand our answer at once?" On April 2, Toombs gave them Jefferson Davis's views at length. He thought the policy of Mr. Seward would prevail. He cared nothing for Seward's motives or calculations. So long as the United States neither declare war nor establish peace, "it affords the Confederate States the advantages of both conditions, and enables them to make all the necessary arrangements for the public defense, and the solidifying of their Government, more safely, cheaply, and expeditiously than they could were the attitude of the United States more definite and decided." The commissioners were, therefore, to make no demand for their answer, but maintain their present position. In view of

CH. XXIV.

Jefferson Davis to Campbell, April 6, 1861. MS.

The Commissioners to Toombs, Mar.26,1861.

MS.

Toombs to missioners,

the Com

April 2, 1861.

MS.

CH. XXIV. this confident boast of the chief of the rebellion of "the advantages of both conditions," his subsequent accusation of bad faith on the part of the Lincoln Administration is culminating proof of the insincerity and tortuous methods of the rebel game.

CHAPTER XXV

VIRGINIA

XXV.

CIVIL war, though possible, did not at the cu. xxv.

moment seem imminent or necessary: Lincoln had declared in his inaugural that he would not begin it; Jefferson Davis had written in his instructions to the commissioners that he did not desire it. This threw the immediate contest back upon the secondary question-the control and adhesion of the border slave States; and of these Virginia was the chief subject of solicitude. The condition of Virginia had become anomalous; it was little understood by the North, and still less by her own citizens. She retained all the ideal sentiment growing out of her early devotion to and sacrifices for the Union; but it was warped by her coarser and stronger material interest in slavery. She still deemed she was the mother of presidents; whereas she had degenerated into being, like other border States, the mother of slave-breeders and of an annual crop of black-skinned human chattels to be sold to the cotton, rice, and sugar planters of her neighboring commonwealths. She thought herself the leader of the South; whereas she was only a dependent of the Gulf States. She yet believed herself the teacher of original statesmanship;

1861.