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appreciation of the many past services you have rendered the Union, and my deep gratification at this evidence of your present active exertions to maintain the integrity and honor of the nation.

The President-elect was further gratified to receive about the same time from the veteran General Wool a letter of noble and uncompromising loyalty.

"Many thanks," he wrote in reply, January 14th, "for your patriotic and generous letter of the 11th instant. As to how far the military force of the Government may become necessary to the preservation of the Union, and more particularly how that force can best be directed to the object, I must chiefly rely upon General Scott and yourself. It affords me the profoundest satisfaction to know, that with both of you judgment and feeling go heartily with your sense of professional and official duty to the work." t

Meanwhile trusty friends in Washington, both in and out of Congress, had kept Lincoln informed by letter of public events occurring there, so far as they were permitted to come to the knowledge of Republicans: how the Cabinet divided, how the message was scouted, the bold utterances of treason, the growing apprehensions of the public. But general opinion was still in a hopeful mood.

"Mr. Mann," wrote one," who stated that he knew you personally, requested me to say that he had seen the Union dissolved twice- once when Southern members of Congress refused for three days to occupy their seats and that it all ended in smoke. He did not appear the least alarmed about the secession movement, but others, particularly Thurlow Weed and Horace Greeley, expressed great anxiety."

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These were influential names, and it may be well to cite their own words. "I am anticipating troubles," wrote Mr. Weed, December 2d, "not generally apprehended by our friends. I want the North to be sure she is right and then to go ahead." || Some days later he wrote further:

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In consultation yesterday with several friends, it was thought best to invite the governors of several States to meet in this city on Thursday of next week, so that, if possible, there should be harmony of views and action between them. It occurred to me that you should be apprised of this movement. Of course it is to be quiet and confidential. I have been acting without knowledge of your views, upon vital questions. But I find it safe to trust the head and heart when both are under the guidance of right motives. I do not want you to be saddled with the responsibilities of the Government before you take the helm. On the question of preserving the Union, I am unwilling to see a united South and a divided North. Nor is such an alternative necessary. With wisdom and prudence we can unite the North in upholding the supremacy of the Constitution and Laws, and thus united, your Administration will have its foundation upon a rock. . . ." §

* Lincoln to Scott, Jan. 11th, 1861. Unpublished MS. + Lincoln to Wool, Jan. 14th, 1861. Unpublished MS. Trumbull to Lincoln, Dec. 2d, 1860. Unpublished

MS.

Weed to Swett, Dec. 2d, 1860. Unpublished MS. Weed to Lincoln, Dec. 16th, 1860. Unpublished MS.

To this Mr. Lincoln replied as follows:

"SPRINGFIELD, ILL., December 17th, 1860. "MY DEAR SIR: Yours of the 11th was received two days ago. Should the convocation of governors of the present aspect of things, tell them you judge from which you speak seem desirous to know my views on my speeches that I will be inflexible on the territorial question; that I probably think either the Missouri line extended, or Douglas's and Eli Thayer's popular sovereignty, would lose us everything we gain by the election; that filibustering for all south of us, and making slave-States of it would follow, in spite of us, in either case; also that I probably think all opposition, real and apparent, to the fugitive-slave clause of the Con stitution ought to be withdrawn.

thing, in my speeches, about secession. But my opin"I believe you can pretend to find but little, if anyion is, that no State can in any way lawfully get out of the Union without the consent of the others; and that it is the duty of the President and other government functionaries to run the machine as it is. "Truly yours, A. LINCOLN."¶

Mr. Greeley not only had similar fears, but, what was much worse, by his editorials in the "Tribune" encouraged the South to hope for peaceable disunion. He wrote (November 30th):

"Webster and Marshall and Story have reasoned well; the Federal flag represents a government, not a mere league; we are in many respects one nation from the St. John to the Rio Grande; but the genius of our institutions is essentially Republican and averse to the employment of military force to fasten one section of our Confederacy to the other. If eight States, having five millions of people, choose to separate from us, they cannot be permanently withheld from so doing by Federal cannon.'

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"There is a pretty general belief here that the cotton-States will go out of the Union," wrote a correspondent from Washington. "One South Carolina member is sorry for the condition of things in his State — is at heart opposed to disunion; but I will not mention his name lest it should by some means get into the newspapers. Orr was forced into the secession movement against his will. This I have from good authority, and yet the statement may be a mistake. It is hard to get at the exact truth." t

From another Mr. Lincoln received information as to the course of his party friends: "A good feeling prevails among Republican senators. The impression with all, unless there be one exception, is, that Republicans have no concessions to make or compromises to offer, and that it is impolitic even to discuss making them. . . . I was a little surprised that the House voted to raise a committee on the state of the Union. . . . Inactivity and a kind spirit is, it seems to me, all that is left for us to do, till the 4th of March."‡‡

Weed, Memoirs, Vol. II., p. 310. ** N. Y. "Tribune," Nov. 30th, 1860. + Gurley to Lincoln, Dec. 3d, 1860. MS. Trumbull to Lincoln, Dec. 4th, 1860. Unpublished

MS.

HON. E. B. WASHBURNE.

(FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY BRADY.)

"I have never in my life," wrote Mr. Corwin, chairman of the Committee of Thirty-three (December 10th)," seen my country in such a dangerous position. I look upon it with great alarm, but I am resolved not to be paralyzed by dismay. Our safety can only be insured by looking the danger full in the face and acting with calm dignity in such way as [that] if possible we may ride out the storm."

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These few extracts out of a multitude must suffice to indicate the current and character of the reports which reached Mr. Lincoln from various quarters. The hopes of the more sanguine were, unfortunately, not realized. The timid grew more despondent, the traitors bolder, and the crisis almost became a panic. Business men and capitalists of the Eastern States were beginning to exert a pressure for concessions to avert civil war, under which stanch Republicans were on the point of giving way. The border States, through their presses and their public men, implored a compromise, but the entreaty was uniformly directed to the Republicans to make concessions, and more often to justify than to denounce disunion. Some of the conspirators themselves adroitly encouraged this effort to demoralize the North by a pretense of contrition. "South Carolina, I suppose," wrote a friend to Mr. Lincoln," will try on her secession project. Perhaps some of the cotton-States will follow. Their number will not be large. Indeed I know that some of the

Corwin to Lincoln, Dec. 10th, 1860. Unpublished MS. + Fogg to Lincoln, Dec. 17th, 1860. Unpublished MS. VOL. XXXV.-11.

heretofore most rabid secessionists now tremble before the brink on which they stand. They would retreat without trying the experiment if they had not kindled a fire at home which is beyond their control. This, in substance, Jefferson Davis stated to Fitch no longer ago than yesterday." The profession did not well accord with the signing of the conspirator's secession address by that senator only three days before. "I listened yesterday to Mr. Crittenden's speech," wrote another friend," in support of his proposed compromise. În my opinion he is one of the most patriotic and at the same time mischievous of the Southern senators. . . . After Mr. Crittenden, Mr. Johnson of Tennessee took the floor. . . . His simple declaration that the supposed wrongs must be settled inside of the Union is worth a hundred-fold more than all the patriotic wailing of the antediluvian Crittendens."‡

There were plenty of correspondents to announce and describe the present and impending dangers, but none to furnish a solution of the national difficulty. There was no end of wild suggestion, and that too from prominent men ordinarily capable of giving counsel. One, as we have seen, was for accepting disunion. Another thought a letter or proclamation from the Presidentelect would still the storm. A third wanted him to drop down into Washington "with a carpet-sack." A fourth advised him to march to the capital with a hundred thousand "wideawakes." Still a fifth proposed he should create a diversion by the purchase of Cuba.

It was a providential blessing that in such a crisis the President-elect was a man of unfailing common sense and complete self-control. He watched the rising clouds of insurrection; he noted the anxious warnings of his friends. He was neither buoyed up by reckless hopes, nor cast down by exaggerated fears. He bided his time, grasped at no rash counsels or experiments, uttered neither premature cry of alarm nor boast of overweening confidence. He resisted pressing solicitations to change his position, to explain his intention, to offer, either for himself or the great national majority which chose him, any apology for his or their high prerogative exercised in his election.

It must not, however, be inferred from the foregoing that Mr. Lincoln shut himself up in total silence. To discreet friends, as well as to honorable opponents, under the seal of conWilliams to Lincoln, Dec. 19th, 1860. Unpublished

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MS.

fidence, he was always free to repeat his well-formed convictions, and even in some degree to foreshadow his probable course. It is gratifying to note in this connection, especially since it evinces his acute judgment of human nature, that in few instances was such confidence violated during the whole period of his candidacy and official life. By unnoticed beginnings he easily and naturally assumed the leadership of his party in the personal interviews and private correspondence following the election, called out by the manifestations of Southern discontent. He was never obtrusive nor dictatorial; but in a suggestion to one, a hint to another, a friendly explana-, tion or admonition to a third, he soon gave direction, unity, and confidence to his adherents.

Mr. Bryant, for instance, was strongly opposed to Mr. Seward's going into the Cabinet. Lincoln wrote him a few lines in explanation, which brought back the following qualified acqui

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escence:

"I have this moment received your note. Nothing could be more fair or more satisfactory than the principle you lay down in regard to the formation of your council of official advisers. I shall always be convinced that whatever selection you make it will be made conscientiously."*

Mr. Greeley was, as we have seen, indulging in damaging vagaries about peaceable secession, and to him Lincoln sent a word of friendly caution. Greeley wrote a statement of his views in reply, but substantially yielded the point. He said a State could no more secede at pleasure from the Union than a stave could secede from a cask. That if eight or ten contiguous States sought to leave, he should say, "There's the door go!" But,

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"if the seceding State or States go to fighting and defying the laws, the Union being yet undissolved save by their own say-so, I guess they will have to be made to behave themselves. . I fear nothing, care for nothing, but another disgraceful back-down of the free States. That is the only real danger. Let the Union slide it may be reconstructed; let Presidents be assassinated, we can elect more; let the Republicans be defeated and crushed, we shall rise again. But another

nasty compromise, whereby everything is conceded and nothing secured, will so thoroughly disgrace and humiliate us that we can never again raise our heads, and this country becomes a second edition of the Barbary States, as they were sixty years ago. Take any form

but that.'" t

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THURLOW WEED. (FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY BRADY.)

On this point Lincoln's note had reassured his shrinking faith. The "Tribune" announced that Mr. Lincoln had no thought of concessions, and thenceforward that powerful journal took a more healthy and hopeful tone.

Hon. William Kellogg, the Illinois representative on the Committee of Thirty-three, wrote to him for instructions as to the course he should pursue. Under date of December 11th Mr. Lincoln replied to him as follows:

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"Entertain no proposition for a compromise in regard to the extension of slavery. The instant you do they have us under again: all our labor is lost, and sooner or later must be done over. Douglas is sure to be again trying to bring in his Popular Sovereignty.' Have none of it. The tug has to come, and better now than later. You know I think the fugitive-slave clause of the Constitution ought to be enforced-to put it in its mildest form, ought not to be resisted."

Some weeks later Kellogg visited Lincoln to urge his views of compromise on the Presidentelect. As a result of that visit Lincoln wrote the following letter to Seward on February 1st:

"On the 21st ult. Hon. W. Kellogg, a Republican member of Congress of this State, whom you probably know, was here in a good deal of anxiety for our friends to go in the way of compromise on the now vexed question. While he was with me I received a dispatch from Senator Trumbull, at Washington, althe border-State men, Kellogg's firmness gave way, and he announced his willingness to recede from the Republican declarations. The change effected nothing but the sacrifice of his own consistency. He lost his friends and gained no followers. His concession was spurned by the disunionists; and being a large and corpulent man, the wits of the day made themselves merry by dubbing his apostacy the "Mammoth Cave."

luding to the same question and telling me to await letters. I therefore told Mr. Kellogg that when I should receive these letters, posting me as to the state of affairs at Washington, I would write you, requesting you to let him see my letter. To my surprise, when the letters mentioned by Judge Trumbull came they made no allusion to the vexed question.' This baffled me so much that I was near not writing you at all, in compliance with what I had said to Judge Kellogg. I say now, however, as I have all the while said, that on the territorial question- that is, the question of extending slavery under the national auspices - I am inflexible. I am for no compromise which assists or permits the extension of the institution on soil owned by the nation. And any trick by which the nation is to acquire territory, and then allow some local authority to spread slavery, is as obnoxious as any other. I take it that to effect some such result as this, and to put us again on the high road to a slave empire, is the object of all these proposed compromises. I am against it. As to fugitive slaves, District of Columbia, slavetrade among the slave-States, and whatever springs of necessity from the fact that the institution is amongst us, I care but little, so that what is done be comely and not altogether outrageous. Nor do I care about New Mexico, if further extension were hedged against.'

We shall describe somewhat in detail the formation of Lincoln's Cabinet, and will only mention here that on December 13th he began that work by tendering the post of Secretary of State to Mr. Seward, which offer was accepted December 28th. The correspondence between these eminent men affords an interesting view of the beginnings of the new administration.

“Mr. Weed finding it not inconvenient to go West,"

wrote Seward, December 16th, "I have had some conversation with him concerning the condition and the prospect of public affairs, and he will be able to inform you of my present unsettled view of the subject upon which you so kindly wrote me a few days ago. I shall remain at home until his return, and shall then in further conference with him have the advantage of a knowledge of the effect of public events certain to occur this week.Ӡ

Weed went to Springfield and had several interviews with the President-elect. There is no record of these conferences; but it is likely that Mr. Weed urged on those occasions, as he did on all others, the utmost forbearance, conciliation, and concession to the South. To employ his favorite formula, he wanted Republicans "to meet secession as patriots and not as partisans." The sentiment and the alliteration were both pleasing: but Lincoln, trained in almost life-long debate with Douglas, the most subtle juggler in words ever known to American politics, was not a man to deal in vague phrases. He told Mr. Weed just what he would concede and just how far he would conciliate-drew him a sharp and definite line to show where partisanship ends and where patriotism begins. When Mr. Weed returned he bore with him the written statement of Lincoln; what he believed, *Lincoln to Seward, Feb. 1st, 1860. Unpublished MS. Seward to Lincoln, Dec. 16th, 1860. Unpublished

MS.

and was determined to assert and maintain on pending and probable issues.

Mr. Seward's letter of December 26th, to Lincoln, gives us the sequel of this visit.

Weed which was afforded by our journeying together on "I had only the opportunity for conferring with Mr. the railroad from Syracuse to Albany."

"He gave me verbally the substance of the suggestion you prepared for the consideration of the Republican members, but not the written proposition. This morning I received the latter from him, and also information for the first time of your expectation that I would write to you concerning the temper of parties and the public here. "I met on Monday my Republican associates on the Committee of Thirteen, and afterwards the whole committee. With the unanimous consent of our section I ofthe ground of the suggestion made by you through Mr. fered three propositions which seemed to me to cover Weed as I understood it.

tered so as to authorize Congress to abolish or interfere with slavery in the States. This was accepted.

"First. That the Constitution should never be al

amended by granting a jury trial to the fugitive. This "Second. That the fugitive-slave law should be in opposition to our votes was amended soas to give the jury in the State from which the fugitive fled, and so amended was voted down by our own votes. The committee had already agreed to Mr. Crittenden's amendment concerning the fees of the commissioner, making them the same when the fugitive is returned to slavery as when he is discharged.

"Our Third resolution was that Congress recom. mend to all the States to revise their legislation concerning persons recently resident in other States and to repeal all such laws which contravene the Constitution of the United States, or any law of Congress the pro-slavery vote of the committee. passed in pursuance thereof. This was rejected by

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with the concurrence of my political associates, a fourth To-day we have had another meeting. I offered, proposition, viz.: That Congress should pass a law to punish invasions of our States and conspiracies to effect such invasions, but the latter only in the State and district where the acts of such complicity were committed. This by the votes of our opponents was amended so as practically to carry out Mr. Douglas's suggestion of last winter for the revival of the old Seby our own votes. dition law of John Adams's time, and then was rejected

"This evening the Republican members of the committee with Judge Trumbull and Mr. Fessenden met at my house to consider your written suggestion and determine whether it shall be offered. While we think the ground has been already covered, we find that in the form you give it, it would divide our friends not only in the Committee but in Congress; a portion beof executing the constitutional provisions concerning ing unwilling to give up their old opinion that the duty fugitives from service belongs to the States, and not at all to Congress. But we shall confer and act as wisely as we can.

"Thus far I have reported only our action on the what I think of the temper of the parties and of the subject of your suggestion. I proceed now to tell you public here.

"South Carolina has already taken her attitude of defiance. Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisi ana are pushed on towards the same attitude. I think that they could not be arrested even if we should offer all you suggest and with it the restoration of the Missouri Compromise line. But persons acting for those States intimate that they might be so arrested because they think that the Republicans are not going to concede the restoration of that line.

"The action of the border States is uncertain. Sym

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ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS.

(FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY BRADY.)

pathy there is strong with the cotton-States, while prudence and patriotism dictate adhesion to the Union. Nothing could certainly restrain them but the adoption of Mr. Crittenden's compromise, and I do not see the slightest indication of its adoption on the Republican side of Congress. The members stand nearly or quite as firm against it as the country is. Under these circum

stances, time and accident, it seems to me, must determine the course of the border States.

connected with your assumption of the government." And he suggests that Mr. Lincoln should prepare to come to Washington a week earlier than is usual on such occasions; prefacing the advice, however, with the statement, "I do not entertain these apprehensions myself." But by the day following he becomes convinced of the danger.

"At length I have gotten a position," writes he, December 29th, "in which I can see what is going on in the councils of the President. It pains me to learn that things there are even worse than is understood. The President is debating day and night on the question whether he shall not recall Major Anderson and surrender Fort Sumter and go on arming the South. A plot is forming to seize the capital on or before the 4th of March, and this too has its accomplices in the public councils. I could tell you more particularly than I dare write, but you must not imagine that I am giving you suspicions and rumors. Believe me that I know what I write. In point of fact, the responsibilities of your administration must begin before the time arrives."t

Mr. Seward then advises that the President should arrive earlier, that he appoint his Secretaries of War, Navy, and Treasury, and that they come to Washington as soon as possible. The events of a day or two, however, dissipated the apparent magnitude of the crisis. Buchanan's council broke up, Floyd retired in disgrace, the Cabinet was reorganized; Holt was made Secretary of War, and the immediate plots of the conspirators were exposed and for a season baffled.

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"Probably all the debate and conferences we have hitherto had will sink out of the public mind within STEPHENS'S SPEECH AND CORRESPONDENCE a week or two, when the Republican members shall have refused to surrender at discretion to the State of South Carolina. New and exciting subjects will enter into the agitation and control results.

"Thus I have said all that I am able to say of the temper of parties and of the public. I add, very respectfully, my own opinion on the probable future.

"The United States of America, their Constitution, their capital, their organization in all its departments, and with all its military and naval forces, will stand and pass without resistance into your hands. There will be several, perhaps all, of the slave-States standing in a contumacious attitude on the 4th of March. Sedition will be growing weaker and loyalty stronger every day from the acts of secession as they occur.

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But now the crisis in the affairs of the Government was approaching. It is already foreshadowed in Mr. Seward's letter of December 28th. "There is a feverish excitement here," writes he, "which awakens all kinds of apprehensions of popular disturbance and disorders *Seward to Lincoln, Dec. 26, 1860. Unpublished

MS.

Seward to Lincoln, Dec. 29, 1860. Unpublished MS.

WITH LINCOLN.

FOLLOWING the lead of South Carolina, the governor of Georgia began the secession movement in that State almost immediately after the presidential election, by such public declarations and acts as fell within the scope of his personal influence and official authority. Georgia had, however, given a heavy vote for Douglas, and her people were imbued with a strong feeling of conditional unionism. An opposition to hasty secession at once developed itself of so formidable a character that all the influence and cunning of the secessionists were needed to push their movement to success. The ablest men in the State hurried to Milledgeville and met in a sort of battle-royal of speech-making and wire-pulling. The Legislature was the target, and its action or non-action upon military appropriations and a convention bill the result to be affected. Senator Toombs and others made speeches to promote

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