The case of Amos Dresser, a young Southerner, may not improperly be mentioned here. He had gone to a Northern school, and had become a convert to Abolitionism. He went to Nashville, Tennessee, to canvass for a book called the Cottage Bible which would not ordinarily be supposed to be dangerous to well regulated public institutions. While peaceably attending to his business he was accused of Anti-Slaveryism. He did not deny the charge and was arrested, his trunk being broken open and its contents searched and scattered. He was taken before a vigilance committee and by it was condemned to receive twenty lashes on his bare back, "well laid on," and then to be driven out of town. The sentence was carried out, we are told, in the presence of thousands of people of both sexes.

Of the many somewhat similar instances that might here be referred to the writer will make room for only one more.

A seafaring man of the name of Jonathan Walker undertook to convey in a sloop of which he was the owner seven colored fugitives to the Bahama Islands, where they would be free. Owing to an accident to his boat, he and his companions were captured. He was sentenced, among other things, to have his hand branded with the letters S.S., signifying "Slave Stealer."

The incident just referred to inspired one of the finest productions of Whittier's pen. Singing of that "bold plowman of the wave" he proceeds:

"Why, that hand is highest honor, Than its traces never yet Upon old memorial hatchments was A prouder blazon set; And the unborn generations, as they Tread our rocky strand, Shall tell with pride the story of Their father's branded hand."



CHAPTER XVI

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

The prescribed penalties for assisting in the escape of fugitive slaves were severe. By the terms of the Fugitive Slave Act, as it was called, any one convicted of that offense, besides a liability for one thousand dollars damages recoverable in a civil action, was subject to a five-hundred-dollars fine and imprisonment in a penitentiary for one year. As the writer has not "done time" for participation in certain transactions dating back to his earlier days, in which the legal rights of slave-owners were indifferently respected, he thinks it advisable to be somewhat reserved in his recital of personal experiences when taking the public into his confidence. The Fugitive Slave Law—and for that fact we should give "most hearty thanks"—is about as dead as any statute can be, but as in the case of a snake that has been killed, it may be the wiser course not to trifle with its fangs. Therefore, instead of telling my own story in the first person singular, I offer as a substitute the confession of one John Smith, whose existence no one will presume to dispute. Here is his statement:

"There was an old barn on my father's farm. It was almost a ruin. One end of the roof had fallen in, pretty much all the windows were gone, and there was a general air of dilapidation about the place. A dwelling-house, to which it was an appendage, had been burned and not rebuilt, and the barn had been left to fight a battle with the elements and other foes in pretty much its own way.

"Not that it was wholly abandoned. There was one mow that was kept pretty well supplied with grass, and there were two or three horse stalls that were in tolerable order, although but rarely used. There were a number of excellent hiding-places about the old rookery. In the basement all sorts of rubbish, including unused vehicles and machinery, had been stored away, and so wedged and packed was it that it would have taken hours to uncover man or beast seeking concealment there.

"One of the curious features of the situation was that the building was in sight of none of the roads in the neighborhood, while less than a hundred feet from it was a strip of woods in which the removal of the larger trees had stimulated a sturdy and densely matted undergrowth that was penetrable only by means of paths that had been made by the cattle. It was what was called a 'woods pasture.' With this cover for his movements any one could approach or leave the old barn with little danger of discovery.

"Naturally enough, such a ramshackle was in ill-repute. There were tales about it in the neighborhood. Some children had gone there to play on one occasion, and had been badly frightened by a big—as big as a half-bushel, they asserted—black face that was seen to be watching them. They fled from the premises in great alarm, and for a time there was talk of an investigation by their friends. The incident, however, was soon forgotten.

"That old barn was a regular station on one of the underground railroads that extended from the Ohio River to Canada. To but few persons was its true character known, and they were very close-mouthed about it. I was one of the few that were in the secret. Being the youngest member of the family, it fell to my lot to drive the horses and cows to and from the pasture in which the old barrack was located, and while there it was an easy matter to visit that establishment and ascertain if it sheltered any fresh arrivals.

"One day I had to report that two fugitives were in the barn, being a mother and child. Then came the question—which in that instance was a difficult one to answer—as to who should convey them to the next station on the line, twenty miles away. A brother, between five and six years older than I was, and who was something of a dare-devil, did the most of the work of transportation, but he was in bed with typhoid fever. A hired man, who was employed partly because he was in hearty accord with the humanitarian views of the household, and who on several occasions had taken my brother's place, was absent. There was nobody but myself who was ready to undertake the job, and I was only eleven years old. There was no help for it, however. The slaves had to be moved on, and I was greatly rejoiced in the prospect of adventure that was opened up to me. The journey had to be made at night, but for that I cared nothing, as I had repeatedly gone over the route by daylight, and thought I knew the road perfectly.

"Midnight found me on the highway, and on the driver's seat of one of our farm wagons, to which was attached a span of horses moving in the direction of the north star. That luminary was not on this occasion visible. The sky was heavily overcast and the night was very dark. A light rain was falling. With all the confidence I had in my own ability, more than once would I have lost the way, but for the sagacity of the horses, which had gone over that route a number of times under similar circumstances. They acted as if altogether familiar with it. Those horses proved themselves to be excellent Abolitionists.

"The inclemency of the night was in one respect a great advantage. It kept at home those who might incline to be too inquisitive. The few travelers we met passed on with a word of greeting, while I whistled unconcernedly.

"Over the bottom of the wagon was scattered some hay that might be used either as feed for the horses or as a bed for weary travelers. There was also an old-fashioned buffalo-robe, somewhat dilapidated, that could serve for concealment or as shelter from the elements. Two or three empty baskets suggested a return from the market. There was another article that one would hardly have looked for. This was a smoke-cured ham loosely wrapped in some old sacking. It had gone over that route a number of times. Its odor neutralized the smell by which the presence, immediate or recent, of negroes might be detected.

"My fellow-travelers, as my passengers might be called, were interesting companions. Both, in one sense, were children, the mother certainly not being over seventeen years old. She was a comely half-breed mulatto. Her baby—a pretty boy of two years—was one degree nearer white.

"The girl was inclined to be confidential and talkative. She said she was 'old mas'r's' daughter. Her mother had been one of 'old mas'r's' people. She had grown up with the other slave children on the place, being in no way favored because of her relationship to her owner. The baby's father was 'young mas'r'—old master's son, as it appeared—and who, consequently, was a half-brother of the youthful mother. Slavery sometimes created singular relationships.

"As the story ran, all the people, including the narrator and her baby, when 'ole mas'r' died were 'leveled' on by the Sheriff's man. She did not quite understand the meaning of it all, but it was doubtless a case of bankruptcy.

"'Young mas'r,' she said, 'tole' her she had to run away, taking the baby of course. 'Oh, yes," she said very emphatically, 'I never would have left Kentuck without Thomas Jefferson'—meaning her little boy. 'Young mas'r,' according to her account, arranged the whole proceeding, telling her what course to take by night, where to stop and conceal herself by day, and what signal to give when she reached the 'big river.'

"When the Ohio had been crossed her young master met her, evidently to the great delight of the poor creature. He gave her some money, and told her that when she reached her destination he would send her some 'mo.' After putting her in charge of some kind people, evidently representatives of the underground line, they had parted, according to her description of the incident, in an affecting way. 'He kissed me and I cried,' was her simple statement. Notwithstanding the boasted superiority of one race over another, human nature seems to be very much the same, whether we read it in a white face or in a black one.

"The little girlish mother was very much alarmed for the safety of her boy and herself when we began our journey, wanting to get out and conceal herself whenever we heard any one on the road. After several detentions from that cause, the weary creature stretched herself upon the hay beside her sleeping infant and almost immediately fell into a heavy slumber. She could stand the strain no longer. I drew the buffalo-robe over the two sleepers, and there they rested in blissful unconsciousness until the journey was ended.

"Half-way between the termini of my route was a village in which lived a constable who was suspected of being in the employ of the slave-owners. It was thought advisable that I should avoid that village by taking a roundabout road. That I did, although it added an extra half to my trip. The result was that the sun was just peeping over the eastern hills, as I reached a set of bars showing an entrance into a pasture lot on one side of the highway. Removing the bars, I drove into the field, and passing over a ridge that hid it from the road, I stopped in front of a log cabin that had every appearance of being an abandoned and neglected homestead. That was the station I was looking for. Arousing my sleeping passengers, I saw them enter the old domicile, where I bade them good-by, and received the tearful and repeated thanks of the youthful slave mother, speaking for herself and her offspring. I never saw them again, but in due time the news came back, over what was jocularly called the 'grape-vine telegraph,' that they had safely reached their destination.

"At the home of the station agent I was enthusiastically received. That a boy of eleven should accomplish what I had done was thought to be quite wonderful. I was given an excellent breakfast, and then shown to a room with a bed, where I had a good sleep. On my awakening I set out on the return journey, this time taking the most direct route, as I had then no fear of that hireling constable.

"Subsequently I passed through several experiences of a similar kind, some of them involving greater risks and more exciting incidents, but the recollection of none of them brings me greater satisfaction than the memory of my first conductorship on the Underground.

"All of which is respectfully submitted by

"JOHN SMITH."



CHAPTER XVII

COLONIZATION

I have had a good deal to say about Anti-Slavery societies. There was another society which was called into existence by the slavery situation. Whether it was pro-slavery or anti-slavery was a question that long puzzled a good many people. It was the Colonization Society. A good many Anti-Slavery people believed in it for a time and gave it their support. "I am opposed to slavery, but I am not an Abolitionist: I am a Colonizationist," was a declaration that, when I was a boy, I heard many and many times, and from the lips of well-intending people.

It did not take the sharp-sighted leaders of the Abolition movement very long to discover that one of the uses its managers expected to make of the Colonization Society was as a shield for slavery. It kept a number of excellent people from joining in an aggressive movement against it, took their money, and made them believe that they were at work for the freedom of the negro.

Strangely as it might appear, the negroes, who were assumed to be the beneficiaries of the colonization scheme, were opposed to it. Quicker than the white people generally did, they saw through its false pretense, and, besides, they could not understand why they should be taken from the land of their nativity, and sent to the country from which their progenitors had come, any more than the descendants of Scotch, English, and German immigrants should be deported to the lands of their ancestors.

Equally strange was it that the Colonization Society, if really friendly to the negro, should find its most zealous supporters among slaveholders. Its first president, who was a nephew of George Washington, upon learning that his slaves had got the idea that they were to be set at liberty, sent over fifty of them to be sold from the auction block at New Orleans. That was intended as a warning to the rest. One of its presidents was said to be the owner of a thousand slaves and had never manumitted one of them. The principal service that the colonization movement was expected to do for the slave-owners was to relieve them of the presence of free negroes. These were always regarded as a menace by slave-masters. They disseminated ideas of freedom and manhood among their unfortunate brethren. They were object-lessons to those in bondage. The slave-owners were only too glad to have them sent away. They looked to Liberia as a safety-valve. It did not take long for intelligent people who were really well-wishers of the black man to perceive these facts.

The severest blow that the Colonization Society received in America was from the pen of William Lloyd Garrison, who, under the title of Thoughts on African Colonisation, published a pamphlet that had wide distribution. It completely unmasked the pretended friendship of the Colonizationists for the negroes, free or slave. From that time they lost all support from real Anti-Slavery people. There was, however, to be a battle fought, in which the Colonization Society figured as a party, that furnished one of the most interesting episodes of the slavery conflict.

England, at the time of which we are speaking, was full of Anti-Slavery sentiment. Slavery, at the end of a long and bitter contest, had been abolished in all her colonies. Her philanthropists were rejoicing in their victory. The managers of the Colonization Society resolved, if possible, to capture that sentiment, and with it the pecuniary aid the British Abolitionists might render. It was always a tremendous beggar. They, accordingly, selected a fluent-tongued agent and sent him to England to advocate their cause. He did not hesitate to represent that the Colonization Society was the especial friend of the negro, working for his deliverance from bondage, and, in addition, that it had the support of "the wealth, the respectability, and the piety of the American people."

When these facts came to the knowledge of the members of the newly formed New England Anti-Slavery Society, they were naturally excited, and resolved to meet the enemy in this new field of operations. This they decided to do by sending a representative to England, who would be able to meet the colonization agent in discussion, and otherwise proclaim and champion their particular views. For this service the man selected was William Lloyd Garrison, who was then but twenty-eight years old.

Remarkable it was that one who was not only so young, but imperfectly educated, being a poor mechanic, daily toiling as a compositor at his printer's case, should be chosen to meet the most polished people in the British Empire, and hold himself ready to debate the most serious question of the time. That such a person should be willing to enter upon such an undertaking was almost as remarkable. But Garrison showed no hesitation in accepting the task for which he was selected.

On his arrival in England, Garrison sent a challenge to the colonization agent for a public debate. This the Colonizationist refused to receive. Two more challenges were sent and were treated in the same way. Then Garrison, at a cost of thirty dollars, which he could ill afford to pay, published the challenge in the London Times, with a statement of the manner in which it had been so far treated. Of course, public interest was aroused, and when Garrison appeared upon the public platform, as he at once proceeded to do, he was greeted with the attendance of multitudes of interested hearers. Exeter Hall in London was crowded. The most distinguished men in England sat upon the stage when he spoke, and applauded his addresses. Daniel O'Connell, the great Irish orator, paid them a most florid compliment. They were, unquestionably, most remarkable samples of effective eloquence—plain in statement, simple in style, but exceedingly logical and forcible. They were widely published throughout England at the time of their delivery.

One of the results was that the leading emancipationists of Great Britain signed and published a warning against the colonization scheme, denouncing it as having its roots in "a cruel prejudice," and declaring that it was calculated to "increase the spirit of caste so unhappily predominant," and that it "exposed the colored people to great practical persecution in order to force them to emigrate."

As for the poor agent of the Colonizationists, seeing how the battle was tending, he left England in a hurry, and was nevermore heard of in that part of the world.

Garrison's personal triumph was very striking, and it was splendidly earned. He was made the recipient of many compliments and testimonials. A curious incident resulted from this great popularity. He was invited to breakfast by Sir Thomas Buxton, the noted English philanthropist, with a view to making the acquaintance of a number of distinguished persons who were to be present. When Mr. Garrison presented himself, his entertainer, who had not before met or seen him, looked at him in great astonishment.

"Are you William Lloyd Garrison?" he inquired.

"That is who I am," replied Mr. Garrison, "and I am here on your invitation."

"But you are a white man," said Buxton, "and from your zeal and labors in behalf of the colored people, I assumed that you were one of them."

Garrison left England in what, metaphorically, might be described as "a blaze of glory." Hundreds attended him when he went to embark on his homeward voyage, and he was followed by their cheers and benedictions. Wonderfully different was the treatment he received on his arrival in his own country. Not long afterwards he was dragged through Boston streets by a hempen rope about his body, and was assigned to a prison cell, as affording the most available protection from the mob.

Nevertheless, we have had some excellent people—not slave-owners—who, out of compassion for the black man, or from prejudice against his color, and, perhaps, from a little of both, have favored a policy of colonization in this country. Mr. Lincoln was one of them. "If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do with the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free the slaves and send them to Liberia." So said Mr. Lincoln in one of his debates with Douglas.

"I cannot make it better known than it already is," said Mr. Lincoln in a message to Congress, dated December 1, 1862, "that I strongly favor colonization."

At Lincoln's instance Congress appropriated several large sums of money—then much needed in warlike operations—for colonizing experiments. One of these has a curious and somewhat pathetic history. A sharper by the name of Koch, having worked himself into the confidence of the President and some other good people, got them to buy from him an island in the West Indies, called Ile a'Vache, which he represented to be a veritable earthly paradise. Strangely enough, it was wholly uninhabited, and therefore ready for the uses of a colony. Several hundred people—colored, of course—were collected, put aboard a ship, and dumped upon this unknown land. It will surprise no one to learn that pretty soon these people, poisoned by malaria, stung by venomous insects and reptiles, and having scarcely anything to eat, were dying like cattle with the murrain. In the end a ship was sent to bring back the survivors.

Nevertheless, the kind-hearted President did not give up the idea. At his request a delegation of Washington negroes called upon him. He made them quite a long speech, telling them that Congress had given him money with which to found a colony of colored people, and that he had found what seemed to be a suitable location in Central America. He appealed to them to supply the colonists. The negroes, not anxious for exile, diplomatically said they would think the matter over. In the end it was discovered that Central America did not want the negroes, and that the negroes did not want Central America.

A story that is curiously illustrative of Mr. Lincoln's attachment to the policy of removing the colored people is told by L.E. Chittenden in his Recollections of President Lincoln. Mr. Chittenden was a citizen of Vermont and Register of the Treasury under Lincoln, with whom he was in intimate and confidential relations:

"During one of his welcome visits to my office," says Mr. Chittenden, "the President seemed to be buried in thought over some subject of great interest. After long reflection he abruptly exclaimed that he wanted to ask me a question.

"'Do you know any energetic contractor?' he inquired; 'one who would be willing to take a large contract attended with some risk?'

"'I know New England contractors," I replied, 'who would not be frightened by the magnitude or risk of any contract. The element of prospective profit is the only one that would interest them. If there was a fair prospect of profit, they would not hesitate to contract to suppress the Rebellion in ninety days."

"'There will be profit and reputation in the contract I may propose,' said the President. 'It is to remove the whole colored race of the slave States into Texas. If you have any acquaintance who would take that contract, I would like to see him.'

"'I know a man who would take that contract and perform it,' I replied. 'I would be willing to put you into communication with him, so that you might form your own opinion about him.'

"By the President's direction I requested John Bradley, a well-known Vermonter, to come to Washington. He was at my office the morning after I sent the telegram to him. I declined to give him any hint of the purpose of my invitation, but took him directly to the President. When I presented him I said: 'Here, Mr. President, is the contractor whom I named to you yesterday.'

"I left them together. Two hours later Mr. Bradley returned to my office overflowing with admiration for the President and enthusiasm for his proposed work. 'The proposition is,' he said, 'to remove the whole colored race into Texas, there to establish a republic of their own. The subject has political bearings of which I am no judge, and upon which the President has not yet made up his mind. But I have shown him that it is practicable. I will undertake to remove them all within a year.'"

It is unnecessary to state that the Black Republic of Texas was a dream that never materialized.



CHAPTER XVIII

LINCOLN AND EMANCIPATION

Messrs. Nicolay and Hay, who were Mr. Lincoln's private secretaries during the time he was President, and afterwards the authors of his most elaborate biography, say: "The blessings of an enfranchised race must forever hail him as their liberator."

Says Francis Curtis in his History of the Republican Party, in speaking of the President's Emancipation Proclamation: "On the 1st day of January, 1863, the final proclamation of freedom was issued, and every negro slave within the confines of the United States was at last made free."

Other writers of what is claimed to be history, almost without number, speak of the President's pronouncement as if it caused the bulwarks of slavery to fall down very much as the walls of Jericho are said to have done, at one blast, overwhelming the whole institution and setting every bondman free. Indeed, there are multitudes of fairly intelligent people who believe that slaveholding in this country ceased the very day and hour the proclamation appeared. In a recent magazine article, so intelligent a man as Booker Washington speaks of a Kentucky slave family as being emancipated by Mr. Lincoln's proclamation, when, in fact, the proclamation never applied to Kentucky at all.

The emancipationists of Missouri were working hard to free their State from slavery, and they would have been only too glad to have Mr. Lincoln do the work for them. They appealed to him to extend his edict to their State, but got no satisfaction. The emancipationists of Maryland had much the same experience. Both Missouri and Maryland were left out of the proclamation, as were Tennessee and Kentucky and Delaware, and parts of Virginia and Louisiana and the Carolinas. (See Appendix.) The explanation is that the proclamation was not intended to cover all slaveholding territory. All of it that belonged to States that had not been in rebellion, or had been subdued, was excluded. The President's idea was to reach only such sections as were then in revolt. If the proclamation had been immediately operative, and had liberated every bondman in the jurisdiction to which it applied, it would have left over a million slaves in actual thraldom. Indeed, Earl Russell, the British premier, was quite correct when, in speaking of the proclamation, he said: "It does not more than profess to emancipate slaves where the United States authorities cannot make emancipation a reality, and emancipates no one where the decree can be carried into effect."

For the failure of the proclamation to cover all slaveholding territory there was a plausible reason. Freedom under it was not decreed as a boon, but as a penalty. It was not, in theory at least, intended to help the slave, but to chastise the master. It was to be in punishment of treason, and, of course, could not consistently be made to apply to loyal communities, or to such as were under government control. The proclamation, it will be recollected, was issued in two parts separated by one hundred days. The first part gave the Rebels warning that the second would follow if, in the meanwhile, they did not give up their rebellion. All they had to do to save slavery was to cease from their treasonable practices. Had the Rebels been shrewd enough, within the hundred days, to take the President at his word, he would have stood pledged to maintain their institution, and his proclamation, instead of being a charter of freedom, would have been a license for slaveholding.

The proclamation did not, in fact, whatever it may have otherwise accomplished at the time it was issued, liberate a single slave. What is more, slavery as an institution was altogether too securely rooted in our system to be abolished by proclamation. The talk of such a thing greatly belittles the magnitude of the task that was performed. Its removal required a long preliminary work, involving, as is made to appear in previous chapters of this work, almost incalculable toil and sacrifice, to be followed by an enormous expenditure of blood and treasure. Its practical extinguishment was the work of the army, while its legal extirpation was accomplished by Congress and the Legislatures of the States in adopting the Thirteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, which forbids all slaveholding. That amendment was a production of Congress and not of the Executive, whose official approval was not even required to make it legally effective.

The story of the proclamation, with not a few variations, has often been told; but the writer fancies that the altogether correct account has not always been given. It may be presumptuous on his part, but he will submit his version.

To understand the motive underlying the proclamation we must take into account its author's feeling toward slavery. Notwithstanding various unfriendly references of an academic sort to that institution, he was not at the time the proclamation appeared, and never had been, an Abolitionist.

Not very long before the time referred to the writer heard Mr. Lincoln, in his debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Alton, Illinois, declare—laying unusual emphasis on his words: "I have on all occasions declared as strongly as Judge Douglas against the disposition to interfere with the existing institution of slavery."

Judge Douglas was what was then called a "dough-face" by the Abolitionists—being a Northern man with Southern principles, or "proclivities," as he called them.

Only a little earlier, and several years after Mr. Lincoln had claimed to be a Republican, and a leader of the Republicans, he had, in a speech at Bloomington, Illinois, asserted that, "the conclusion of it all is that we must restore the Missouri Compromise."

Now the adoption of the Missouri Compromise was the hardest blow ever inflicted on the cause of free soil in America. It did more to encourage the supporters of slavery and to discourage its opponents than anything else that ever happened. Its restoration would undoubtedly have produced a similar effect. Although he is not to be credited with any philanthropic motive, Stephen A. Douglas did an effective work for freedom when he helped to overthrow that measure. Leading Abolitionists have accorded him that meed of praise.

But there was that proposition which Mr. Lincoln was so fond of repeating, that the nation could not remain half free and half slave—"a divided house"—but the remedy he had to propose was not manumission at any proximate or certain time, but the adoption of a policy that, to use his own words, would cause "the public mind to rest in the belief that it [slavery] was in the course of ultimate extinction." Practically that meant very little or nothing. What the public mind then needed was not "rest," but properly directed activity.

But the declarations above quoted were all before Mr. Lincoln had become President or had probably thought of such a thing. Did the change of position lead to a change of opinion on his part? We are not left in uncertainty on this point. His official views were declared in what might be called a State paper. Soon after his inauguration, his Secretary of State sent Minister Dayton, at Paris, a dispatch that he might use with foreign officials, in which, in speaking of the Rebellion, he said: "The condition of slavery in the several States will remain just the same whether it succeeds or fails.... It is hardly necessary to add to this incontrovertible statement the further fact that the new President has always repudiated all designs, whenever and wherever imputed to him, of disturbing the system of slavery as it has existed under the Constitution and laws."

About the same time Mr. Lincoln stated to a party of Southern Congressmen, who called upon him, that he "recognized the rights of property that had grown out of it [slavery] and would respect those rights as fully as he would similar rights in any other property."

No steps were taken by Mr. Lincoln to recall or repudiate the foregoing announcements. On the contrary, he confirmed them in his official action. He annulled the freedom proclamations of Fremont and Hunter. He did not interfere when some of his military officers were so busy returning fugitive slaves that they had no time to fight the masters. He approved Hallock's order Number Three excluding fugitives from the lines. He even permitted the poor old Hutchinsons to be sent away from the army very much as if they had been colored people, when trying to rouse "the boys" with their freedom songs. In many ways Mr. Lincoln showed that in the beginning and throughout the earlier part of his Administration he hoped to re-establish the Union without disturbing slavery. In effect he so declared in his introduction to his freedom proclamation. He gave the rebel slaveholders one hundred days in which to abandon their rebellion and save their institution. In view of such things it is no wonder that Henry Wilson, so long a leading Republican Senator from Massachusetts, in his Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, in speaking of emancipation, said "it was a policy, indeed, which he [the President] did not personally favor except in connection with his favorite idea of colonization."

It is needless to say that the President's attitude was a great surprise and a sore disappointment to the more radical Anti-Slavery people of the country, who had supported him with much enthusiasm and high hopes. They felt that they had been deceived. They said so very plainly, for the Abolitionists were not the sort of people to keep quiet under provocation. Horace Greeley published his signed attack (see Appendix) entitled, The Prayer of Twenty Millions, which is, without doubt, the most scathing denunciation in the English language. Henry Ward Beecher "pounded" Mr. Lincoln, as he expressed it. Wendell Phillips fairly thundered his denunciations. There was a general under-swell of indignation.

Now, Mr. Lincoln was not a man who was incapable of reading the signs of the times. He saw that he was drifting towards an irreparable breach with an element that had previously furnished his staunchest supporters. As a politician of great native shrewdness, as well as the head of the Government, he could not afford to let the quarrel go on and widen. There was need of conciliation. Something had to be done. We know what he did. He issued his Emancipation Proclamation.

As far as freeing any slaves was concerned, he knew it amounted to very little, if anything. He said so. Less than two weeks before the preliminary section of the proclamation appeared, Mr. Lincoln was waited on by a delegation of over one hundred Chicago clergymen, who urged him to issue a proclamation of freedom for the slaves. "What good would a proclamation from me do, especially as we are now situated?" asked Mr. Lincoln by way of reply. "I do not want to issue a document that the whole world would see must necessarily be inoperative, like the Pope's bull against the comet. Would my word free the slaves, when I cannot even enforce the Constitution in the rebel States?"

In contemplating a proclamation applicable to the rebel States, it is hardly to be supposed that Mr. Lincoln did not understand the situation two weeks earlier quite as well as when the document appeared.

If Mr. Lincoln had been told, when he entered on the Presidency, that before his term of office would expire he would be hailed as "The Great Emancipator," he would have treated the statement as equal to one of his own best jokes. Slavery was a thing he did not then want to have disturbed. He discountenanced all radical agitators of the subject, and especially in the border slave States, where he was able to hold them pretty well in check, except in Missouri. There they stood up and fought him, and in the end beat him. One of the rather curious results of this condition of things was that, when the States came to action on the Thirteenth Constitutional Amendment, the one absolutely abolishing slavery, the three border slave States of Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware, over which the President's influence was practically supreme, gave an adverse vote of four to one, while Missouri, with whose radical emancipationists he had continuously been at loggerheads, ratified the amendment by a legislative vote of one hundred and eleven ayes to forty nays.

Nevertheless, notwithstanding the President, at the beginning of his official term, opposed Anti-Slavery agitation and Anti-Slavery action with all his might, he promptly faced about as soon as he discovered that the subject was one that would not "down." No one ever worked harder to find a solution of a difficult problem than he did of the slavery question. He began to formulate plans to that end, the most distinguishing feature, however, being the spirit of compromise by which they were pervaded. All of them stopped before an ultimatum was reached. Besides his proclamation, which, as we have seen, applied to only a part of the slaves, he devised a measure that would have been applicable to all of them. In his special message of December, 1863, he proposed to Congress the submission of a constitutional amendment that would work universal liberation. There were conditions, however. One was that the slaves should be paid for by the Government; another that the masters might retain their uncompensated services until January 1, 1900; that is, for a period of thirty-seven years, unless they were sooner emancipated by the grave, as the most of them would be. (See Appendix.)

The President's somewhat fantastic proposition was not claimed by him to be for the bondman's benefit. He urged it as a measure of public economy, holding that, as slavery was the admitted cause of the Rebellion, the quickest and surest way to remove that cause would be by purchase of all the slaves, which, he insisted, "would shorten the war, and thus lessen the expenditure of money and blood."

The public did not take to the President's plan at all, especially the Abolitionists did not. They no more favored the buying of men by the Government than by anybody else. They held that if the master had no right to the person of his bondman, he had no right to payment for him. And as for an arrangement that might prolong slaveholding for thirty-seven years, they saw in it not only a measure of injustice to the men, women, and children then in servitude, the most of whom would be doomed to bondage for the rest of their natural lives, but a possible plan for side-tracking a genuine freedom movement.

In the proposition just considered we have not only the core of the President's policy during much of his official tenure, but an explanation of his mental operations. He was sentimentally opposed to slavery, but he was afraid of freedom. He dreaded its effect on both races. He was opposed to slavery more because it was a public nuisance than because of its injustice to the oppressed black man, whose condition, he did not believe, would be greatly, if at all, benefited by freedom. Hence he wanted manumission put off as long as possible. It was "ultimate extinction" he wanted, to be attended with payment to the master for his lost property. Another thing he favored—and which he seems to have thought entirely practicable—as a condition to liberation, was the black man's removal to a place or places out of contact with our white population.

But in entire fairness to Mr. Lincoln, it should be said that, although his proclamation was inoperative for the immediate release of any slaves, it was by no means wholly ineffectual. Its moral influence was considerable. It helped to hasten a movement that had, however, by that time become practically irresistible. Its political results were far more marked and important. If it did not fully restore cordiality between the President and the Abolition leaders, it prevented an open rupture. It served as a bridge between them. Although they never took Mr. Lincoln fully into their confidence again, the Abolitionists interpreted his proclamation as a concession and an abandonment of his previous policy, which it was much more in appearance than actually. At all events, it was splendid politics. The somewhat theatrical manner in which it was worked up and promulgated in installments, thus arousing in advance a widespread interest and curiosity, showed no little strategic ability. No more skillful move is recorded in the history of our parties and partisans than this act of Mr. Lincoln, by which he disarmed his Anti-Slavery critics without giving them any material advantage or changing the actual situation. I am not now speaking of the motive underlying the proclamation of the President, but of its effect. Without it he could not have been renominated and re-elected.

Another observation, in order to be entirely just to Mr. Lincoln, after what has been stated, would at this point seem to be called for. There is no doubt that from the first he was at heart an Anti-Slavery man, which is saying a good deal for one born in Kentucky, raised in southern Indiana and southern Illinois, and who was naturally of a conservative turn of mind. Nevertheless, he was never an Abolitionist. He was opposed to immediate—what he called "sudden"—emancipation. He recognized the "right"—his own word—of the slave-owner to his pound of flesh, either in the person of his bondman or a cash equivalent. He was strongly prejudiced against the negro. Of that fact we have the evidence in his colonization ideas. He favored the banishment of our American-born black people from their native land. It was a cruel proposition. True, the President did move from his first position, which, as we have seen, was far from that occupied by the Abolitionists, but from first to last he was more of a follower than leader in the procession.

And here the author wishes to add, in justice to himself, that if, by reason of anything he has said in this chapter, or elsewhere in this work, in criticism of Mr. Lincoln's dealings with the slavery issue, he should be accused of unfriendliness toward the great martyr President, he enters a full and strong denial. He holds that, in view of all the difficulties besetting him, Mr. Lincoln did well, although he might have done better. Much allowance, must be made to one situated as he was. He undoubtedly deserves the most of the encomiums that have been lavished upon him. At the same time, the conclusion is inevitable that his fame as a statesman will ultimately depend less upon his treatment of the slavery issue than upon any other part of his public administration. The fact will always appear that it was the policy of Salmon P. Chase, Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens, Horace Greeley, Henry Ward Beecher, and other advocates of the radical cure, with whom the President was in constant opposition, that prevailed in the end, and with a decisiveness that proves it to have been feasible and sound from the beginning. Mr. Lincoln's most ultra prescription—his Emancipation Proclamation—was ineffective. If it was intended to eradicate slavery altogether, it was too narrow; if to free the slaves of Rebels only, it was too broad. So with his other propositions. His thirty-seven-year-liberation scheme, his "tinkering off" policy (as he called it) for Missouri, his reconstruction proposals, and his colonization projects, all failed. Indeed, if we take his official action from first to last, it is a question whether the President, owing to his extreme conservatism, was not more of an obstructionist than a promoter of the Anti-Slavery cause.

Not that any change of opinion on the point just stated will materially affect the general estimate in which Mr. Lincoln is held. Although his popularity, due, in part at least, to the extravagance of over-zealous admirers, has without much doubt already passed its perihelion, it can never disappear or greatly diminish. His untiring and exhaustive labors for the Union, the many lovable traits of his unique personality, his unquestionable honesty, his courage, his patriotism, and, above all, his tragic taking off, have unalterably determined his place in the regard of his countrymen. Indeed, so strong is the admiration in which he is held, that it would be vain to attempt to disabuse many, by any amount of proof and argument, of the opinion that African slavery in this country was actually and exclusively killed by a presidential edict. So firmly fixed in the popular belief is that historical myth that it will undoubtedly live for many years, if not generations, although history in the end will right it like all other misunderstandings.

Mr. Lincoln had his weaknesses and limitations, like other men. All must admit that his treatment of the slavery question was not without its mistakes. It has always seemed to the writer that his most ardent admirers seriously blunder in claiming superlativeness for him in that regard, and more especially in giving him credit for results that were due to the efforts of other men. His fame is secure without such misappropriation. He would not ask it if living, and it will in due time be condemned by history.



CHAPTER XIX

THE END OF ABOLITIONISM

The original and distinctive Abolition movement that was directed against slavery in all parts of the land without regard to State or territorial lines, and because it was assumed to be wrong in principle and practice, may be said, as far as the country at large was concerned, to have culminated at the advent of the Republican party. To a considerable extent it disappeared, but its disappearance was that of one stream flowing into or uniting with another. The union of the two currents extended, but did not intensify, the Anti-Slavery sentiment of the country. It diluted it and really weakened it. It brought about a crisis of great peril to the cause of Anti-Slaveryism—in some respects the most critical through which it was called upon to pass. Many of those attaching themselves to the Republican party, as the new political organization was called, were not in sympathy with Abolitionism. They were utterly opposed to immediate emancipation; or, for that matter, to emancipation of any kind. They wanted slavery to remain where it was, and were perfectly willing that it should be undisturbed. They disliked the blacks, and did not want to have them freed, fearing that if set at liberty they would overrun what was then free soil.

The writer recollects hearing a prominent man in the new party, who about that time was making a public speech, declare with great emphasis that, "as for the niggers, they are where they ought to be." The speaker on that occasion was one of many who belonged to the debris of the broken-up Whig party, and who drifted into Republicanism because there was no other more attractive harbor to go to. One of these men was Abraham Lincoln, whom I heard declare in his debate with Douglas at Alton, Illinois: "I was with the old-line Whigs from the origin to the end of their party." The Whigs were never an Anti-Slavery party. The recruits to Republicanism from that quarter were generally very tender on "the nigger question," and the most they were prepared to admit was that they were opposed to slavery's extension. These men largely dominated the new party. They generally dictated its platforms, which, compared with earlier Abolition utterances, were extremely timid, and they had much to do with making party nominations. Their favorite candidates were not those whose opinions on the slavery question were positive and well understood, but those whose views were unsettled if not altogether unknown. When General Fremont was nominated for the Presidency, not one in ten of those supporting him knew what his opinions on that subject were, and a good many of them did not care. Mr. Lincoln was accepted in much the same way.

It is true that, from certain expressions about the danger to our national house from being "half free" and "half slave," and other generalizations of a more or less academic sort, it was known that Mr. Lincoln was antagonistic to slavery; but as to whether he favored that institution's immediate or speedy extinguishment, and, if so, by what measures, was altogether unknown. We now know, from what has been set forth in another chapter, that at the time of his first nomination and election, he had very few things in common with the Abolitionists. He then evidently had no thought of being hailed as the "liberator of a race." He preferred, for the time at least, that the race in question should remain where it was, and as it was, unless it could be bodily transported to some other country and be put under the protection of some other flag.

He did not break with the Abolitionists, although he kept on the edge of a quarrel with them, and especially with what he called the "Greeley faction," a good part of the time. He never liked them, but he was a shrewd man—a born politician—and was too sagacious to discard the principal round in the ladder by which he had climbed to eminence. He managed to keep in touch with the Anti-Slavery movement through all its steady advancement, but, as elsewhere stated, it was as a follower rather than as a leader.

While a resident of the slave State of Missouri, I twice voted for Mr. Lincoln, which was some evidence of my personal feeling toward him. Both times I did it somewhat reluctantly. On the first occasion there were four candidates. Breckenridge and Bell were Southern men—both by residence and principle—and had no claim on Anti-Slavery support. But with Douglas the case was different. He had quarreled with the pro-slavery leaders, although of his own party. He had defied President Buchanan in denouncing border-ruffianism in Kansas. He had refused to give up his "popular sovereignty" dogma, although it clearly meant ultimate free soil. The slave-masters hated him far more than they did Lincoln. I heard them freely discuss the matter. They were more afraid of the vindictiveness of the fiery Douglas than of the opposition of good-hearted, conservative Lincoln. In my opinion there was good reason for that feeling. Douglas, as President, would undoubtedly have pushed the war for the Union with superior energy, and slavery would have suffered rougher treatment from his hands than it did from Mr. Lincoln's. There was another reason why the slaveholders preferred the election of Lincoln to that of Douglas. Lincoln's election would furnish the better pretext for the rebellion on which they were bent, and which they had already largely planned. They were resolved to defeat Douglas at all hazards, and they succeeded.

Douglas had been very distasteful to the Abolitionists. They called him a "dough-face." Nevertheless, quite a number of them where I lived in Missouri voted for him. Missouri was the only State he carried, and there he had less than five hundred majority. He got more than that many free-soil votes. I was strongly tempted to give him mine. Chiefly on account of political associations, I voted for Lincoln.

When it came to the second election, I again voted for Mr. Lincoln with reluctance. The principal reason for my hesitancy was his treatment of the Anti-Slavery people of the border slave States, and especially of Missouri. The grounds for my objection on that score will appear in the next chapter, which deals with the Missouri embroglio, as it was called.

From what has just been stated, it will be seen that the cause of Anti-Slaveryism had, at the formation of the Republican party, reached a most perilous crisis. It was in danger of being submerged and suffocated by unsympathetic, if not positively unfriendly, associations. It ran the risk, after so many years of toil and conflict, of being undone by those in whose support it was forced to confide. Such would undoubtedly have been its fate if, owing to circumstances over which no political party or other organization of men had control, the current of Anti-Slavery sentiment had not risen to a flood that swept all before it.

It is rather a curious circumstance that, at the crisis just alluded to, the nearest approach to original Abolitionism that was to be found, was in a slave State. In Missouri there was an organized opposition to slavery that had been maintained for several years, and which was never abandoned. The vitality displayed by this movement was undoubtedly due in large measure to the inspiration of the man who was its originator, if not its leader. That man was Thomas H. Benton. Whether Benton was ever an Abolitionist or not, has been a much-disputed question, but one thing is certain, and that is that the men who sat at his feet, who were his closest disciples and imbibed the most of his spirit—such as B. Gratz Brown, John How, the Blairs, the Filleys, and other influential Missourians,—were Abolitionists. Some of them weakened under the influence of the national administration, but not a few of them maintained their integrity. Even in the first days of the Civil War, when all was chaos there, an organization was maintained, although at one time its only working and visible representatives consisted of the members of a committee of four men—a fifth having withdrawn—who were B. Gratz Brown, afterwards a United States Senator; Thomas C. Fletcher, afterwards Governor of the State; Hon. Benjamin R. Bonner, of St. Louis, and the writer of this narrative. They issued an appeal that was distributed all over the State, asking those in sympathy with their views to hold fast to their principles, and to keep up the contest for unconditional freedom. To that appeal there was an encouraging number of favorable responses.

And thus it was that when Abolitionism may be said to have been lost by merger elsewhere, it remained in its independence and integrity in slaveholding Missouri, where it kept up a struggle for free soil, and in four years so far made itself master of the situation that a constitutional State convention, chosen by popular vote, adopted an ordinance under which an emancipationist Governor issued his proclamation, declaring that "hence and forever no person within the jurisdiction of the State shall be subject to any abridgment of liberty, except such as the law shall prescribe for the common good, or know any master but God."

The writer entered on this work with no purpose of relating or discussing the story of the Republican party, in whole or in any part. His subject was Abolitionism, and his task would now be completed but for the movement in the State of Missouri, to which reference has just been made. That manifestation, he thinks, is deserving of recognition, both on its own account and as a continuation of the original movement, and he is the more inclined to contribute to its discussion because he was then a Missourian by residence, and had something to do with its successful prosecution.



CHAPTER XX

MISSOURI

In his interesting, though rather melodramatic, romance, The Crisis, Winston Churchill tells the imaginary story of a young lawyer who went from New England to St. Louis, and settled there shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War. Having an abundance of leisure, and being an Abolitionist, he devoted a portion of the time that was not absorbed by his profession to writing articles on slavery for the Missouri Democrat, which, notwithstanding its name, was the organ of the Missouri emancipationists, and lived in part on the money he received as compensation for that work. That in part describes the author's experience. He was at that time a young lawyer in St. Louis, to which place he had come from the North, and those who have read the earlier chapters of this work are aware that he was an Abolitionist. Having a good deal of time that was not taken up by his professional employments, he occupied a portion of it in writing Anti-Slavery contributions to the Democrat, and, so far as he knows, he was the only person who to any extent did so. A collection was made of a portion of his articles, and with money contributed by friends of the cause, they were published in pamphlet form under the title of Hints toward Emancipation in Missouri, and distributed throughout the State.

There the parallelism of the cases ceases. The writer got no pecuniary compensation for his labor. He asked for none and expected none. The Democrat was then in no condition to pay for volunteer services, having a hard struggle for existence. He was able to do it a service that, possibly, saved it from at least a temporary suspension. One of its chief difficulties was in getting printing paper, the manufacturer it had been patronizing declining to furnish it except for cash, while the Democrat needed partial credit. At that time Louis Snyder, of Hamilton, Ohio, a large paper-maker, visited St. Louis on business that called for legal assistance, and I was employed by him. When the work in hand was finished, I remarked that there was something else he might do in St. Louis that would pay him. I explained the situation of the Democrat, and assured him that, in my opinion, he would be perfectly safe in giving trust to its proprietors, who were honest men.

"Will you indorse their paper?" he asked.

Mr. Snyder was a crafty as well as a thrifty German.

I replied that, as I was not a wealthy man, the question did not seem to be pertinent.

"Will you indorse their paper for one thousand dollars?" was his next question.

Being by this time somewhat "spunked up," I replied that I would.

"Then I shall be pleased to meet your friends," said Mr. Snyder.

The result of the interview that followed was such that the Democrat was materially assisted in continuing its publication.

It is hardly necessary to state that I never heard anything more of the one-thousand-dollar indorsement, the sole purpose of which was, doubtless, to test my sincerity.

Soon afterwards I was offered the political editorship of the Democrat, which I accepted on the one condition that there was to be "no let-up on emancipation." I held the position until Missouri was a free State.

In a surprisingly short time after the question of Missouri's status in reference to the Union was decided, the issue between Pro-Slaveryism and Anti-Slaveryism came up. Political parties ranged themselves upon it. Those who favored slavery's immediate or speedy abolishment became known as Radicals, while those advocating its prolongation were called Conservatives. Those descriptives, however, were too mild for such a time, and they were quickly superseded by a more expressive local nomenclature. The Radicals, because of their alleged sympathy with the negro, were branded as "Charcoals," and their opponents, made up of Republicans, Democrats, and Semi-Unionists, because of the variegated complexion of the mixture, were set down as "Claybanks." Mulattoes are Claybanks.

The Claybanks, or Conservatives, at the outset enjoyed a decided advantage in having the State government on their side. This was not the regularly elected administration, which was driven out because of its open support of secession, but its provisional successor. In trying to take the State out of the Union with a show of legality, the lawful Governor and his official associates made provision for a State convention to be chosen by the people, which they expected to control, but which, having a Unionist majority, played the boomerang on them by sending them adrift and taking the affairs of the State into its own hands. In this it had opposition. The most progressive men of the State insisted that, after it had settled the question of Missouri's relations to the Union, with reference to which it was specially chosen, it was functus officio. They held that there should be a new and up-to-date convention, especially as the old one, owing to the desertion of many of its treasonably inclined members, including General Sterling Price, of the Confederate Army, who was its first president, had become "a rump," and so there were old-conventionists and new-conventionists. The old-convention men, however, were in the saddle. They had the governmental machinery, and were resolved to hold on to it. In that spirit the convention proceeded to fill the vacant offices. It was in sentiment strongly pro-slavery, as was shown by the fact that a proposal looking to the very gradual extinguishment of slavery was rejected by it in an almost unanimous vote, a circumstance that led the leading pro-slavery journal of the State to boast that the convention had killed emancipation "at the first pop." Very naturally such a body selected pro-slavery officials. Hamilton R. Gamble, whom it made Governor, was a bigoted supporter of "the institution." He had not long before been mixed up in the proceedings that compelled Elijah P. Lovejoy to leave Missouri for Alton, Illinois, where he was murdered by a pro-slavery mob. Gamble was an able and ambitious man.

The Conservatives, likewise, had the backing of the Federal Administration—a statement that to a good many people nowadays will be surprising. There were reasons why such should be the case. Judge Bates, of Missouri, who was Attorney-General in Lincoln's Cabinet, had long been Gamble's law partner and most intimate friend. He never was more than nominally a Republican. Another member of the Cabinet was Montgomery Blair, of Maryland, who had been a resident of Missouri, and was a brother of General Francis P. Blair, Jr., of St. Louis. General Blair had been the leader of the Missouri emancipationists, but had turned against them. For his face-about there were, at least, two intelligible reasons. One was that in the quarrel between him and Fremont the most of his former followers had sided with Fremont. That was enough to sour him against them. The other was a very natural desire to be solid with the administration at Washington, which, as elsewhere shown, was not then actively Anti-Slavery. It did not want the question of slavery agitated, especially in the border slave States.

The Blairs were a clan as well as a family. The quarrel of one was the quarrel of all, and the Missouri Radicals had no more effective antagonist than the old Washington editor and politician, Francis P. Blair, Sr., the family's head, who was so intimate with the President that it was understood he could at any time enter the White House by the kitchen door.

The writer was once a member of a delegation of Missouri "Charcoals" that went to Washington to see the President. An hour was set for the interview, and we were promptly at the door of the President's chamber, where we were kept waiting for a considerable time. At last the door opened, but before we could enter, out stepped a little old man who tripped away very lightly for one of his years. That little old man was Francis P. Blair, Sr., and we knew that we had been forestalled. The President received us politely and patiently listened to what we had to say, but our mission was fruitless.

The Radicals of Missouri sent deputation after deputation to the White House, and got nothing they wanted. The Conservatives never sent a deputation, and got all they wanted. They had advocates at the President's elbows all the time.

With both State and Federal administrations against them, the Missouri Charcoals may be regarded as foolhardy in persisting in the fight they made for the deliverance of their State from slavery. They did persist, however, and with such success in propagating their views that Governor Gamble and the other Conservative leaders decided that heroic measures to hold them in check were necessary. He undertook to cut the ground from under their feet. The old convention that had killed emancipation "at the first pop," or as much of it as was in existence, was called together by the Governor, who appealed to it to take such action as would quiet agitation on the slavery question. Accordingly, it proceeded to enact what was called an emancipation ordinance. The trouble with it was that it emancipated nobody. It provided for the liberation of part of the slaves at a distant future day, allowing the rest to remain as they were. The Radicals simply laughed at the measure. They pronounced it a snare and a fraud, and went right on with their work for unconditional freedom, and the slave-owners continued to hold their human property the same as before.

The Conservatives, however, had not exhausted their resources. They sought to secure the military as well as the civil control. On the assurance that he could maintain peace and order, Governor Gamble was given authority by the President to recruit an army of State troops, which, although equipped and paid out of the national treasury, he was to officer and direct. The organization was entrusted to General John M. Scofield, a resident of Missouri, and one of the Governor's friends.

The political advantage to the Conservatives of exercising military control at such a time is obvious enough. But at first there was an obstruction in the person of General Samuel R. Curtis, the Federal commander of the district, who was not a man to waive his superior prerogative at a time when martial law prevailed, and who was, besides, openly in sympathy with the Radicals. They got not only protection from him, but about all the patronage he had to give. Pretty soon it was discovered that active efforts for the removal of Curtis were in progress. Charges of irregularities—afterwards shown to be without any foundation—were circulated against him. Indignant because of such injustice to their friend, the Radicals were further incensed when they learned that the scheme was to make Scofield his successor.

Against General Scofield, as a gentleman and soldier, they had nothing to say; but his affiliation with their opponents made him obnoxious to them, and they sent a vigorous protest against his appointment to the President. The proposed change, however, was made, and the inevitable disagreement between the new commander and the Radicals quickly developed.

Scofield's administration was not successful. The principal cause of failure was the adoption of Governor Gamble's policy of trying to run the State without the help of Federal troops. They were pretty much all sent away, and an elaborate plan for substituting an "enrolled militia" was put in operation. Here was an opportunity of which the Rebels were quick to take advantage. They had a wholesome regard for United States soldiers, particularly under Curtis, who at Pea Ridge had given them the worst drubbing they ever received west of the Mississippi, but they cared little for "Gamble's militia," into which a good many of their friends were mustered, and when the pressure of Curtis's strong hand was removed they at once aroused to pernicious activity.

At this time it can be safely said that nowhere, outside of hell, was there such a horrible condition as prevailed in Missouri. Singly and in squads a good many of Price's men returned from the South, and with local sympathizers forming guerrilla bands under such leaders as "Bill" Anderson, Poindexter, Jackson, and Quantrell, soon had practical possession of the greater part of the State. The Radicals were the principal sufferers. Conservatives, except by the occasional loss of property, were rarely molested. Between them and the Rebels there was often an agreement for mutual protection—in fact, it was not always easy to draw the line between them,—but the Charcoals, especially if they were "Dutchmen," could look for no compassion. They were shot down in their fields. They were called to their doors at night and there dispatched. Their houses were burned and their stock stolen. Many families of comparative wealth and refinement, including women and children, because of the insecurity of their homes, slept in the woods for weeks and months. The Radicals were not always fortunate enough to escape bodily torture. Having captured one of the best known among them, an old man and a civilian, some of "Bill" Anderson's men set him up against the wall of his house as a target for pistol practice. Their play consisted in seeing how near they could put their shots without hitting, and this amusement they kept up while his wife was running about in an effort to raise the amount of money that was demanded for his ransom.

So successful were the Rebel bands at this time that Missouri was not large enough to hold them. One of them, led by Quantrell, crossed the Kansas line, captured the city of Lawrence, and butchered two hundred of its peaceable inhabitants, while the border towns and cities of Iowa and Illinois were greatly alarmed for their safety.

So intolerable did the situation become, that the Radicals from all parts of the State met in conference and decided to send a delegation to ask Mr. Lincoln to change the department commander, in the hope that it would bring a change of policy.

It is to be presumed that no President was ever confronted with such a motley crowd of visitors as the members of that delegation—between seventy and eighty in number—as they formed in line around three sides of the East Room in the White House. Their garments were a sight! Some of the men were in full military dress and some in civilian clothes, but the costumes of a majority were a mixture of both kinds, just as accident had arranged it, and pretty much all showed evidences of hard usage. One of the most forward of the delegates had neither cuffs nor collar, and his shirt had manifestly not been near a laundry for a long time. He apologized to the President for his appearance, saying that he had been sleeping in the woods where toilet accommodations were very indifferent. Two or three of the men bore marks of battle with the guerrillas, in patched-up faces, and one of them carried an arm that had been disabled by a gun shot in a red handkerchief sling. In speaking of these visitors, the President afterwards jocularly referred to them as "those crackerjacks from Missouri."

A formal address was presented, the principal point being that, as the Missouri Unionists had furnished many thousand recruits to the Federal Army, they had a right to look to the Government for soldiers to assist in protecting their families and their property. And here it will do no harm to state that, notwithstanding the heavy drain made by the Confederacy, Missouri, during the war, furnished 109,000 men to the national army.

After their formal address had been presented to the President, the members of the delegation tackled him, one after the other, as the spirit moved them, and it can truthfully be said that in some of the bouts that ensued he did not come out "first best." He admitted as much when, afterwards referring to this meeting, he spoke of the Missouri Radicals as "the unhandiest fellows in the world to deal with in a discussion."

The conclusion of the interview was attended with an unexpected incident. The recognized leading spokesman of the Missourians was the Hon. Charles D. Drake, of St. Louis, who was made Chief Justice of the Court of Claims at Washington by Grant, when he became President. He was a very forcible speaker. As Mr. Lincoln indicated by rising from his seat that the conference was at an end, Mr. Drake stepped forward and in well-chosen words thanked him for the lengthy and courteous hearing he had given his visitors, and in their names bade him good-by. Then he started for the door, but something seemed to arrest him. Turning sharply to Mr. Lincoln, he said: "Mr. President, we are about to return to our homes. Many of these men before you live where rebel sentiments prevail and where they are surrounded by deadly enemies. They return at the risk of their lives, and let me tell you that if any of their lives are sacrificed by reason of the military administration you maintain in Missouri, their blood will be upon your garments and not upon ours."

The President, evidently greatly surprised, made no oral reply. Instead of speaking he raised his handkerchief to his eyes. Seeing that he was weeping, the delegates quietly and quickly filed out, leaving Mr. Lincoln with his face still concealed.

The President denied the delegation's request, although his formal decision was not announced for several days, and its members returned to their homes, when fortunate enough to have them, sorely disappointed.

It is here well enough to state that two or three months later the President relieved Scofield from his Missouri command and sent him to the front in the South, much to the betterment of his military reputation, and doubtless to his own personal gratification. Rosecrans was made his successor. Among the earliest things he did was the bringing into the State of a considerable force of Federal troops under Generals Pleasanton and A.J. Smith. These were sent through the State. The effect was almost magical. Some of the guerrilla bands went South to join Price, but the most of them dissolved and disappeared. Their members, doubtless, went back to their former occupations, and that was the last of them. Missouri was pacified.

But were the Missouri Radicals so far disheartened by their rebuffs from the President that they gave up the fight? Not a bit of it. There was a tribunal in some respects higher than the President, and to that they resolved to go. The National Republican Convention to nominate a successor to Mr. Lincoln was approaching, and they decided to appeal to it in a way that would compel a decision between them and the President. They appointed a delegation to the convention, which they instructed for General Grant. The Claybanks also appointed a delegation, which they instructed for Mr. Lincoln, and thus the issue was made. The convention, although nominating Mr. Lincoln by a vote that, outside of Missouri's, was unanimous, admitted the Charcoals and excluded the Claybanks by the remarkable vote of four hundred and forty to four.

While of no special consequence, some rather humorous experiences in connection with the events just spoken of may not be lacking in interest or altogether out of place in a work like this.

Before leaving Missouri for the National Republican Convention, which was held in Baltimore, June 8, 1864, the Radical delegates, including the writer, decided to go by way of Washington and call upon the President, thinking that, as there was a contest ahead with his professed Missouri supporters, a better understanding with him might be of advantage. As they were pledged to vote for another man, such a proceeding on their part was certainly somewhat audacious; nevertheless, Mr. Lincoln received us graciously and listened patiently to what we had to say.

"Mr. President," said one of the delegates, "if you were to go out to Missouri you would find your best friends as well as practically all the good Republicans of the State on our side of the dividing line."

"Well," remarked the President very deliberately, "in speaking of dividing lines, the situation in Missouri recalls the story of the old man who had an unruly sow and pigs. One day, when they escaped from their enclosure and disappeared, he called his boys and started out to hunt the runaways. Up one side of the creek they went; but while they discovered plenty of tracks and rootings, they found no hogs. 'Now let us go over to the other side of the creek,' said the old gentleman; but the result was the same—many signs but no pigs. 'Confound those swine!' exclaimed the old man, 'they root and root on both sides, but it's mighty hard to find them on either.'"

We, of course, were left to make the application to ourselves, and that was all the satisfaction we got.

Being greatly elated over our victory in the convention, and thinking it settled some, if not all, disputed points, we decided to return by way of Washington and again call on the President. We wanted to come to some sort of understanding with him. As we had just voted against his nomination such a step may have been more audacious than our previous action. But, for all that, a pretty late hour on the night of the convention found us at the door of the President's room, seeking an interview that had been promised us in answer to a telegram.

Now, we had in our delegation a gentleman who was accustomed to imbibe somewhat freely on occasions like that. He had pushed himself to the front, and, when the door opened for us, in he rushed shouting: "Mr. President! Mr. President! Mr. President! we have found that old sow and pigs for you!"

The President, who was standing on the opposite side of the room, looked somewhat startled at first; but as he evidently recalled the illustration he had given to us, and which was being returned to him, a broad grin went over his face, although nothing further was said about the swine. But the incident was disastrous to our business. We were relying on a prominent St. Louis lawyer, who was with us, to present our case in a calm and impressive way; but he, taking offense at being so unceremoniously forestalled, kept his intended speech to himself. His dignity was hurt, and he had nothing to say. In fact, he walked away and left us. The result was that our claims were rather lamely presented, except by the first speaker, and we left the official presence not a little chagrined and with no favorable assurance having been obtained.

By all recognized party rules, when the nominating convention had given the Missouri Radicals the stamp of regularity, the President was bound to prefer them in the bestowal of patronage. He did nothing of the kind. At his death, practically all of the offices in Missouri that were under his control were held by Claybanks. These men became enthusiastic supporters of Andrew Johnson, and, at the end of his term, to a man went over to the Democratic party, of which their leader, General Blair, was soon made, on the ticket with Horatio Seymour, the Vice-Presidential candidate. At Lincoln's death, the Claybanks, as an organization, went out of business.

Very different was the treatment the Charcoals received at the hands of General Grant when he became President. He made the leader of the anti-Scofield delegation to Washington Chief Justice of the Court of Claims. He made two or three other leading Missouri Radicals foreign ministers and officially remembered many of the rest of them. He had been a Missourian, and it was well known that he was in sympathy with the Radicals in their fight with Lincoln.

Although the Missouri Radicals did not favor Mr. Lincoln's candidature, with the exception of a few supporters of Fremont, they gave him their loyal support at the polls, and through this a large majority in the State. They acted towards him much more cordially than he ever acted toward them.

That Mr. Lincoln, in antagonizing the Missouri Free Soilers, acted otherwise than from the most conscientious impulses the writer does not for a moment believe. He opposed them because he disapproved of their views and policy. He said so most distinctly on one occasion. Certain German societies of St. Louis, having adopted a set of resolutions, entrusted them to James Taussig, a leading lawyer of that city, to present to the President in person. Mr. Taussig's report of the results of a two hours' interview can be found in several of Mr. Lincoln's biographies. One passage from the report is here given because it clearly shows Mr. Lincoln's attitude toward the Missouri problem.

"The President," says Mr. Taussig, "said that the Union men in Missouri who are in favor of gradual emancipation, represented his views better than those who are in favor of immediate emancipation. In explanation of his views on this subject the President said that in his speeches he had frequently used as an illustration the case of a man who had an excrescence on the back of his neck, the removal of which in one operation would result in the death of the patient, while tinkering it off by degrees would preserve life."

"Although sorely tempted," continues Mr. Taussig, "I did not reply with the illustration of the dog whose tail was amputated by inches, but confined myself to arguments. The President announced clearly that, so far as he was at present advised, the Radicals in Missouri had no right to consider themselves the representatives of his views on the subject of emancipation in that State."

The foregoing interview, it is well enough to state, was long after the issuance of Mr. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.

In addition to carrying the State for Mr. Lincoln, the Missouri Radicals carried it for themselves. They elected a constitutional convention that promptly passed an unconditional freedom ordinance. And thus terminated what is certainly one of the most notable contests in our political history, bringing about, as it did, the triumph of a reform of unquestionable value to civilization and humanity, which was accomplished by men working without patronage or other outside help, with no pecuniary interest at stake, and no incentive beyond the principle involved.



CHAPTER XXI

MISSOURI—Continued

Here follows an extract from the published proceedings of the National Republican Convention of 1864, in which Mr. Lincoln was renominated.

"When that State [Missouri] was called, Mr. J.F. Hume addressed the convention as follows:

"'It is a matter of great regret that we differ from the majority of the convention that has been so kind to the Radicals of Missouri, but we came here instructed. We represent those who are behind us at home, and we recognize the right of instruction and intend to obey our instruction; but, in doing so, we declare emphatically that we are with the Union party of the nation, and we intend to fight the battle through to the end with it, and assist in carrying it to victory. We will support your nominees be they whom they may. I will read the resolution adopted by the convention that sent us here.'"

[Here resolution of instruction was read.]

"'Mr. President, in the spirit of that resolution I cast the twenty-two votes of Missouri for them an who stands at the head of the fighting Radicals of the nation—General U.S. Grant.'"

The contention between the Missouri Radical and Conservative delegations was thrashed out before the committee on delegates, at an evening session. Judge Samuel M. Breckenridge, of St. Louis, sustained the cause of the Conservatives in a very ingenious argument, while the writer spoke for the Radicals. The result was very satisfactory to the latter, being, with the exception of one vote for compromise, a unanimous decision in their favor. That decision was sustained by the convention in its next day's session by a vote of four hundred and forty to four.

Anticipating that the subject would be discussed on the floor of the convention,—which was not the case, however,—I asked a very eloquent St. Louis lawyer to take my place as chairman of the Radical delegation and conduct the debate on the Radical side. He declined. I then went to three or four Congressmen who were members of the Radical delegation and made the same appeal to each one of them. All declined. I suspected at the time that apprehension that a vote for anybody else would be hissed by Lincoln's friends, had something to do with their reticence. I had no such apprehension. I did not believe there was anybody in that convention who would dare to hiss the name of Grant. If Grant had been a candidate before the convention he would have been nominated.

When, as chairman of my delegation, I pronounced his name as Missouri's choice I remained on my feet for fully a minute while a dead silence prevailed. Meanwhile all eyes were turned upon me. Then came a clap from a single pair of hands, being the expression of a Missouri delegate. Others followed, both inside and outside of the delegation, increasing until there was quite a demonstration. When the clamor had subsided I made the next move according to the programme agreed upon, and the incident was closed.

And here it can do no harm to state that General Grant knew that he was to receive the vote of the Missouri Radicals if they were admitted to the convention—the newspapers having generally published the fact—and did not decline the intended compliment. Grant lived in Missouri for a considerable period, married there, and was on most friendly terms with the Radical leaders, many of whom he generously remembered when he got to be President. For their action in voting for Grant, the Missouri Radical delegates were sharply criticised at the time, on the alleged ground that they secured admission to the convention from Lincoln's supporters by concealing the fact—or at least not revealing it—that they intended to vote for somebody else. The fact, however, is that there was not a person in the convention who did not from the first understand where they stood, and exactly what they intended to do. Their Conservative contestants had distributed a leaflet, intended as an appeal to the Lincoln men, setting forth the instructions to both delegations. Instead of the openly avowed opposition of the Radicals to Mr. Lincoln's nomination being an impediment in their way, it strengthened them with the convention, which, notwithstanding its seeming harmony in his support, contained many delegates who would very much have preferred nominating somebody else; but who, for lack of organized opposition, were compelled to vote for him. A sufficient evidence of that fact was the presence in the convention of a large number of Congressmen whose antagonism to the President was notorious. An incident that strikingly illustrated Congressional sentiment toward the President at that time, is given in the Life of Lincoln, by Isaac N. Arnold, then a member of Congress from Illinois. A Pennsylvanian asked Thaddeus Stevens, the Republican Congressional leader, to introduce him to "a member of Congress who was friendly to Mr. Lincoln's renomination." Thereupon Stevens took him to Arnold, saying: "Here is a man who wants to find a Lincoln member of Congress, and as you are the only one I know of I bring him to you."