Mr. Hunter therefore naturally opposed the new tariff, and under his lead all action upon it was defeated for the session. This conclusion was undoubtedly brought about by considerations outside of the legitimate scope of the real question at issue. The struggle for the Presidency was in progress, and any concession by the slave States on the tariff question would weaken the Democratic party in the section where its chief strength lay, and would correspondingly increase the prestige of Lincoln's supporters in the North and of Mr. Fillmore's followers in the South. Mr. Hunter had himself just received a strong support in the Charleston convention for the Presidency, securing a vote almost equal to that given to Douglas. This was an additional tie binding him to the South, and he responded to the wishes of that section by preventing all action on the tariff bill of the House pending the Presidential struggle of 1860.

SENATE VOTES ON THE MORRILL TARIFF.

But the whole aspect of the question was changed when at the ensuing session of Congress the senators and representatives from the Cotton States withdrew, and betook themselves to the business of establishing a Southern Confederacy. Mr. Hunter's opposition was not relaxed, but his supporters were gone. Opposition was thus rendered powerless, and the first important step towards changing the tariff system from low duties to high duties, from free-trade to protection, was taken by the passage of the Morrill Bill on the second day of March, 1861. Mr. Buchanan was within forty-eight hours of the close of his term and he promptly and cheerfully signed the bill. He had by this time become not only emancipated from Southern thraldom but in some degree embittered against Southern men, and could therefore readily disregard objections from that source. His early instincts and declarations in favor of a protective policy doubtless aided him in a conclusion which a year before he could not have reached without a conflict in his Cabinet that would probably have ended in its disruption.

The passage of the Morrill Tariff was an event which would almost have marked an era in the history of the government if public attention had not been at once absorbed in struggles which were far more engrossing than those of legislative halls. It was however the beginning of a series of enactments which deeply affected the interests of the country, and which exerted no small influence upon the financial ability of the government to endure the heavy expenditure entailed by the war which immediately followed. Theories were put aside in the presence of a great necessity, and the belief became general that in the impending strain on the resources of the country, protection to home industry would be a constant and increasing strength to the government.

On the passage of the bill in the Senate, on the 20th of February, the yeas were 25 and the nays 14. No Democratic senator voted in the affirmative and no Republican senator in the negative. It was not only a sharp division on the party line but almost equally so on the sectional line. Mr. Douglas, Mr. Rice of Minnesota, Mr. Latham of California, and Mr. Lane of Oregon were the only Northern senators who united with the compact South against the bill. Senators from Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas were still taking part in the proceedings. Mr. Crittenden of Kentucky and Mr. Kennedy of Maryland were favorable to the policy of protection, but on this bill they withheld their votes. They had not abandoned all hope of an adjustment of the Disunion troubles, and deemed the pending measure too radical a change of policy to be adopted in the absence of the senators and representatives from seven States so deeply interested. Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, sympathizing warmly with the Republicans on all questions relating to the preservation of the Union, was too firmly wedded to the theory of free-trade to appreciate the influence which this measure would exert in aid of the national finances.

The test vote in the House was taken on the 27th of February, on a motion made by Mr. Branch of North Carolina to lay the bill on the table. Only 43 votes were given in favor, while 102 were recorded against this summary destruction of the measure. The sectional line was not so rigidly maintained as it was in the House. Of the hostile vote 28 were from the South and 15 from the North. The Virginia delegation, following Mr. Hunter's example, voted solidly in opposition. The Southern men who voted for the bill were in nearly every instance distinguished for their hostility to secession. John A. Gilmer of North Carolina, Thomas A. R. Nelson, and William B. Stokes of Tennessee, William C. Anderson, Francis M. Bristow, Green Adams, and Laban T. Moore of Kentucky, separated from their section, and in their support of a protective tariff openly affiliated with the North.

The Morrill Tariff, as it has since been popularly known, was part of a bill whose title indicates a wider scope than the fixing of duties on imports. It provided also for the payment of outstanding Treasury notes and authorized a loan. These additional features did little to commend it to those who were looking to an alliance with the Secessionists, nor did the obvious necessity of money for the national Treasury induce the ultra disciples of free-trade in the North to waive their opposition to a measure which distinctly looked to the establishment of protection. It was a singular combination of circumstances which on the eve of the Southern revolt led to the inauguration of a policy that gave such industrial and financial strength to the Union in its hour of dire necessity, in the very crisis of its fate.

CHAPTER XIII.

Mr. Lincoln's Journey from Springfield to Washington.—Speeches on the Way.—Reaches Washington.—His Secret Journey.—Afterwards regretted.—Precautions for his Safety.—President Buchanan.— Secretary Holt.—Troops for the Protection of Washington.—Inauguration of Mr. Lincoln.—Relief to the Public Anxiety.—Inaugural Address. —Hopefulness and Security in the North.—Mr. Lincoln's Appeal to the South.—Fails to appease Southern Wrath.—Dilemma of the South. —The New Cabinet.—The "Easy Accession" of Former Times.—Seward Secretary of State.—Chase at the Head of the Treasury.—Radical Republicans dissatisfied.—Influence of the Blairs.—Comment of Thaddeus Stevens.—The National Flag in the Confederacy.—Flying at only Three Points.—Defenseless Condition of the Government.— Confidence of Disunion Leaders.—Extra Session of the Senate.— Douglas and Breckinridge.—Their Notable Debate.—Douglas's Reply to Wigfall.—His Answer to Mason.—Condition of the Territories.— Slavery not excluded by Law.—Public Opinion in Maine, 1861.—Mr. Lincoln's Difficult Task.—His Wise Policy.—His Careful Preparation. —Statesmanship of his Administration.

When Southern confidence was at its height, and Northern courage at its lowest point, Mr. Lincoln began his journey from Springfield to Washington to assume the government of a divided and disorganized Republic. His speeches on the way were noticeable for the absence of all declaration of policy or purpose touching the impending troubles. This peculiarity gave rise to unfavorable comments in the public press of the North, and to unfounded apprehensions in the popular mind. There was fear that he was either indifferent to the peril, or that he failed to comprehend it. The people did not understand Mr. Lincoln. The failure to comprehend was on their part, not on his. Had he on that journey gratified the aggressive friends of the Union who had supported him for the Presidency, he would have added immeasurably to the serious troubles which already confronted him. He had the practical faculty of discerning the chief point to be reached, and then bending every energy to reach it. He saw that the one thing needful was his regular, constitutional inauguration as President of the United States. Policies both general and in detail would come after that. He could not afford by imprudent forwardness of speech or premature declaration of measures to increase the embarrassment which already surrounded him. "Let us do one thing at a time and the big things first" was his homely but expressive way of indicating the wisdom of his course.

A man of ordinary courage would have been overwhelmed by the task before him. But Mr. Lincoln possessed a certain calmness, firmness, and faith that enabled him to meet any responsibility, and to stand unappalled in any peril. He reached Washington by a night journey, taken secretly much against his own will and to his subsequent chagrin and mortification, but urged upon him by the advice of those in whose judgment and wisdom he was forced to confide. It is the only instance in Mr. Lincoln's public career in which he did not patiently face danger, and to the end of his life he regretted that he had not, according to his own desire, gone through Baltimore in open day, trusting to the hospitality of the city, to the loyalty of its people, to the rightfulness of his cause and the righteousness of his aims and ends. He came as one appointed to a great duty, not with rashness, not with weakness, not with bravado, not with shrinking, but in the perfect confidence of a just cause and with the stainless conscience of a good man. Threats that he never should be inaugurated had been numerous and serious, and it must be credited to the administration of Mr. Buchanan, that ample provision had been made for the protection of the rightful ruler of the nation.

PATRIOTIC CONDUCT OF JOSEPH HOLT.

The active and practical loyalty of Joseph Holt in this crisis deserves honorable mention. When, at the close of December, 1860, he succeeded Mr. Floyd as Secretary of War, no troops were stationed in Washington or its neighborhood. After consultation with General Scott, then in command of the army, and with the full approval of President Buchanan, Secretary Holt thought it wise to make precautions for the safety of the National Capital. Seven companies of artillery and one company of sappers and miners were accordingly brought to Washington. This movement gave offense to the Southern men who still remained in Congress, and Mr. Branch of North Carolina offered a resolution declaring that "the quartering of troops around the capital was impolitic and offensive," and that, "if permitted, it would be destructive of civil liberty, and therefore the troops should be forthwith removed." The House laid the resolution on the table by a vote of 125 to 35. Ex-President Tyler had formally complained to the President from the Peace Congress, that United- States troops were to march in the procession which was to celebrate the 22d of February. When so many of the Southern people were engaged in seizing the forts and other property of the government, it was curious to witness their uneasiness at the least display of power on the part of the National Government.

The tone of Secretary Holt's report to the President in regard to the marshaling of troops in the National Capital was a manifestation of courage in refreshing contrast with the surrounding timidity. He stated in very plain language that "a revolution had been in progress for the preceding three months in several of the Southern States;" that its history was one of "surprise, treacheries, and ruthless spoliations;" that forts of the United States had been captured and garrisoned, and "hostile flags unfurled from the ramparts;" that arsenals had been seized, and the arms which they contained appropriated to the use of the captors; that more than half a million of dollars, found in the mint of New Orleans, had been unscrupulously applied to replenish the treasury of Louisiana; that a conspiracy had been entered into for the armed occupation of Washington as part of the revolutionary programme; and that he could not fail to remember that, if the early admonitions in regard to the designs of lawless men in Charleston Harbor had been acted on, and "adequate re-enforcements sent there before the revolution began, the disastrous political complications which ensued might not have occurred."

The inauguration of Mr. Lincoln was an immense relief to the country. There had been an undefined dread throughout the Northern States, colored and heightened by imagination, that Mr. Lincoln would in some way, by some act of violence or of treachery, be deprived of the Presidency, and the government thrown into anarchy. Mr. Breckinridge was the Vice-President, and there had been a vague fear that the count of the electoral votes, over which he presided, would in some way be obstructed or tampered with, and that the regularity of the succession might be interrupted, and its legitimacy stained. But Mr. Breckinridge had performed his official duty with scrupulous fidelity, and Mr. Lincoln had been declared by him, in the presence of the two Houses of Congress, to be lawfully and constitutionally elected President of the United States. Anarchy and disorder in the North would at that time have proved so advantageous to the leaders of Secession, that the apprehension was firmly fixed in the Northern mind that some attempt would be made to bring it about. The very fact, therefore, that Mr. Lincoln was in possession of the office, that he was quietly living in the Executive mansion, that the Senate of the United States was in session, with a quorum present, ready to act upon his nominations, imported a new confidence and opened a new prospect to the friends of the Union.

The Inaugural address added to the feeling of hopefulness and security in the North. It effectually removed every trace of unfavorable impression which had been created by Mr. Lincoln's speeches, and gave at once a new view and an exalted estimate of the man. He argued to the South, with persuasive power, that the institution of Slavery in the States was not in danger by his election. He admitted the full obligation under the Constitution for the return of fugitive slaves. He neither affirmed nor denied any position touching Slavery in the Territories. He was fully aware that many worthy, patriotic citizens desired that the National Constitution should be amended; and, while he declined to make any recommendation, he recognized the full authority of the people over the subject, and said he should favor rather than oppose a fair opportunity for them to act upon it. He expressed a preference, if the Constitution was to be amended, for a general convention rather than for action through State Legislatures. He so far departed from his purpose not to speak of particular amendments as to allude to the one submitted by the late Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States; and he said that, holding such a provision to be now implied in the Constitution, he had no objection to its being made express and irrevocable. He pleaded earnestly, even tenderly, with those who would break up the Union. "In your hands," said he, "my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without yourselves being the aggressors. You can have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect, and defend it. I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection."

While the effect produced by the Inaugural in the North was so auspicious, no corresponding impression was made in the South. Mr. Lincoln's concise and candid statement of his opinions and purposes in regard to Slavery, his majestic and unanswerable argument against Secession, and his pathetic appeal to the people and States of the South, all alike failed to win back the disaffected communities. The leaders of the Secession movement were only the more enraged by witnessing the favor with which Mr. Lincoln's position was received in the North. The declaration of the President that he should execute the laws in all parts of the country, as required by his oath, and that the jurisdiction of the nation under the Constitution would be asserted everywhere and constantly, inspired the doubting with confidence, and gave to the people of the North a common hope and a common purpose in the approaching struggle. The address left to the seceding States only the choice of retiring from the position they had taken, or of assuming the responsibilities of war. It was clear that the assertion of jurisdiction by two separate governments over the same territory and people must end in bloodshed. In this dilemma was the South placed by the Inaugural address of President Lincoln. Mr. Buchanan had admitted the right of Secession, while denying the wisdom of its exercise; but the right when exercised carried jurisdiction with it. Hence it was impossible for Mr. Buchanan to assert jurisdiction and attempt its exercise over the territory and people of the seceding States. But Mr. Lincoln, by his Inaugural address, set himself free from all logical entanglements. His emphatic words were these: "I therefore consider that, in view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken; and to the extent of my ability, I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. . . . I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as a declared purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend and maintain itself."

THE CABINET OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

Mr. Lincoln constituted his Cabinet in a manner at least unusual if not unprecedented. It had been the general practice of Presidents, from the first organization of the government, to tender the post of Secretary of State to the man considered to be next in prominence to himself in the party to which both belonged. In the earlier history of the country, the expected successor in the Executive office was selected. This was indeed for a long period so uniform that the appointment to the State Department came to be regarded as a designation to the Presidency. In political phrase, this mode of reaching the coveted place was known as the "easy accession." By its operation Madison succeeded Jefferson, Monroe succeeded Madison, John Quincy Adams succeeded Monroe. After successful application for a quarter of a century the custom fell into disfavor and, by bitter agitation, into disuse. The cause of its overthrow was the appointment of Henry Clay to the State Department, and the baseless scandal of a "bargain and sale" was invented to deprive Mr. Clay of the "easy accession." After a few years, when National Conventions were introduced, it became the habit of the President to tender the State Department to a leading or prominent competitor for the Presidential nomination. Thus General Harrison offered the post to Mr. Clay, who declined; and then to Mr. Webster, who accepted. President Polk appointed Mr. Buchanan. President Pierce appointed Mr. Marcy. President Buchanan appointed General Cass.

Following in the same line, Mr. Lincoln now invited his chief rival, Mr. Seward, to the State Department. But his courtesy did not stop there. He was generous beyond all example to his rivals. He called Salmon P. Chase to the Treasury, appointed Simon Cameron to the War Department, and made Edward Bates of Missouri Attorney-General. These were the three who, next to Mr. Seward, received the largest votes of the minority in the convention which nominated Mr. Lincoln. The Cabinet was completed by the appointment of Gideon Welles of Connecticut Secretary of the Navy, Caleb B. Smith of Indiana Secretary of the Interior, and Montgomery Blair of Maryland Postmaster- General.

The announcement of these names gave fair satisfaction to the party, though the most advanced and radical element of the Republicans regarded its composition with distrust. There had been strong hope on the part of the conservative friends of the Union that some prominent man from the Cotton States would be included in the Cabinet, and overtures were undoubtedly made to that effect directly after the election in November. But the rapidly developing revolt against the Union made such an appointment undesirable if not altogether impracticable. By the time of the inauguration it was found that such an olive-branch from the President would exert no influence over the wild passions which had been aroused in the South. The name most frequently suggested was that of Mr. John A. Gilmer of North Carolina, who was a sincere friend of the Union, and did all in his power to avert a conflict; but his appointment to the Cabinet would have destroyed him at home, without bringing strength at that crisis to the National cause.

The opinions and characteristics of each member of the Cabinet were very closely scanned and criticised. Mr. Seward was known to be fully committed to the policy of conciliation towards the South, and to the adoption of every measure consistent with the honor of the country to avert war and induce the return of the seceding States. Mr. Chase was understood to favor a moderate policy, but did not go so far as Mr. Seward. Mr. Cameron sympathized with Mr. Seward more than with Mr. Chase. Mr. Bates was extremely conservative, but a zealous friend of the Union, and a lifelong disciple of Mr. Clay. Mr. Welles was of Democratic antecedents, a follower of Van Buren and Wright, an associate of John M. Niles, anti-slavery in principle, a strict constructionist, instinctively opposed to Mr. Seward, readily co-operating with Mr. Chase. His appointment was a surprise to New-England Republicans who expected a much more prominent member of the party to be called to the Cabinet. It was understood that the selection was due to the counsel of Vice- President Hamlin, who soon after had such serious differences with Mr. Welles that a state of absolute non-intercourse existed between them during the whole period of his incumbency of the Navy Department. Mr. Caleb B. Smith had been prominent in the House of Representatives when Mr. Lincoln was a member, had been popular as a public speaker in the West, but had no aptitude for so serious a task as the administration of a great department, and did not long retain his position.

THE CABINET OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

Mr. Blair was appointed as a citizen of Maryland. This gave serious offense to many of Mr. Lincoln's most valued supporters, and was especially distasteful to the Union men of Maryland, with Henry Winter Davis at their head. They regarded Mr. Blair as a non- resident, as not in any sense identified with them, and as disposed from the outset to foment disturbance where harmony was especially demanded. Mr. Bates had been appointed from Missouri largely by the influence of Francis P. Blair, Jr.; and the border-State Republicans were dissatisfied that the only two members of the Cabinet from the slave States had been appointed apparently without any general consultation among those who were best fitted to give the President advice on so important a matter. The extreme men in the Republican party, of the type of Benjamin F. Wade and Owen Lovejoy, believed that the Cabinet was so constituted as to insure what they termed "a disgraceful surrender to the South." It was a common saying at the time in Washington, among the radical Republicans, that Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet did not contain three as absolute and strong defenders of the Union as Dix, Holt, and Stanton, who had just retired with Mr. Buchanan. Thaddeus Stevens, with his accustomed sharpness of speech, said the Cabinet was composed of an assortment of rivals whom the President appointed from courtesy, one stump-speaker from Indiana, and two representatives of the Blair family.

In the seven States which constituted the original Southern Confederacy, the flag of the United States was flying at only three points on the day of Mr. Lincoln's inauguration. The army of the United States still held Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston; Fort Pickens, opposite the Pensacola Navy Yard; and Key West, the extreme southern point of Florida. Every other fort, arsenal, dock- yard, mint, custom-house, and court-house had been seized by the Confederacy, and turned to hostile use. Fort Moultrie, Castle Pinckney, and the United-States arsenal at Charleston had been seized by the troops of South Carolina; Forts Jackson and Pulaski, and the United-States arsenal at Augusta, by the troops of Georgia; the Chattahoochee and St. Augustine arsenals and the Florida forts, by the troops of that State; the arsenal at Baton Rouge, and Forts Jackson and St. Philip, together with the New-Orleans mint and custom-house, by the troops of Louisiana; the Little-Rock arsenal by the troops of Arkansas; Forts Johnson and Caswell by the troops of North Carolina; and General Twiggs had traitorously surrendered to the State of Texas all the military stores in his command, amounting in value to a million and a half of dollars. By these means the seceding States had come into possession of all the artillery, small arms, ammunition, and supplies of war needed for immediate use, and were well prepared for the opening of the campaign. On the part of the government there was no such preparation. Indeed the government did not at that moment have twelve thousand available troops against the most formidable rebellion in history. Its whole navy could not make one large squadron, and its most effective ships were at points remote from the scene of conflict. The revenues of the country were not then yielding more than thirty millions per annum, and the credit was so low that one per cent. a month had been paid by the retiring administration for the funds necessary to close its unfortunate career.

In view of all these facts, it cannot be matter of wonder that the Disunion leaders in the South laughed to scorn any efforts on the part of the Government of the United States to arrest their progress, much less to subdue them, and enforce their return to the Union. North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas had not yet seceded. The Union sentiment was strong in each one of these States, and the design of Mr. Lincoln was to pursue a policy so mild and conciliatory as to win them to the side of the government. Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri were excited by strong minorities who desired to aid the South, while no strong element in their population was ready to take decisive measures for the Union. Palliation, conciliation, concession, compromise, were the only words heard, and the almost universal opinion in the South, shared largely by the North, was that to precipitate war would be to abandon the last hope for restoration of the Union.

EXTRA SESSION OF THE SENATE.

The extra session of the Senate, called by Mr. Buchanan for the convenience of the new administration, assembled on the 4th of March. All the Southern States were represented in full except those which had members in the Confederate Congress at Montgomery, and from one of these—the State of Texas—both senators, John Hemphill and Louis T. Wigfall, were present. Texas was indeed represented in the Congress of the Confederate States at Montgomery and in the Congress of the United States at Washington at the same time. Some excuse was given for the continuance of the senators by an alleged lack of completeness in the secession proceedings of their State; but to the apprehension of the ordinary mind, a secession that was complete enough to demand representation at Montgomery was complete enough to end it at Washington. The Texas senators, therefore, did not escape the imputation of seizing a mere pretext for remaining at Washington somewhat in the character of spies upon the new administration. John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky and Thomas L. Clingman of North Carolina took the usual oath to support the Constitution—Clingman for his second term, Breckinridge for his first. Salmon P. Chase was sworn in as senator from Ohio, and retired the next day to the Treasury Department. John Sherman was his successor. Among the new senators who entered, and who afterwards became conspicuous, were Howe of Wisconsin and Baker of Oregon. The session was only for Executive purposes, and of course possessed no legislative power; but the debates were of interest and of value to the country.

Mr. Douglas, with the characteristic boldness of a leader and with a patriotism which did him honor, defended the Inaugural address of Mr. Lincoln against the assault of opposition senators. In reply to Wigfall of Texas, who wished to know Douglas's views upon certain points of policy, he said, "I do not choose to proclaim what my policy would be, in view of the fact that the senator does not regard himself as the guardian of the honor and the interests of my country, but is looking to the interests of another which he thinks is in hostility. It would hardly be good policy or wisdom for me to reveal what I think ought to be our policy to one who may so soon be in the councils of the enemy and in the command of his armies." Being pressed by Wigfall to know what he would advise the President to do in the critical condition of Fort Sumter, Douglas sarcastically answered that he "should have no hesitancy in replying to the senator from Texas if that senator held himself bound by his oath to support the Constitution of the United States, and to protect and aid the honor of the country instead of communicating it to the enemy to be used against us." It was a vast gain to the Union that Douglas spoke so boldly in defense of Mr. Lincoln; and it was significant that Wigfall received imputations upon his honor without threats of a duel, and without even using the language of resentment.

Mr. Mason of Virginia came to the aid of Wigfall in the debate, but fared badly at the hands of Douglas. He asked Douglas to define what should be done in this crisis in regard to Fort Sumter. "If the senator from Virginia," said Douglas, "had voted right in the last Presidential election, I should have been, perhaps, in a position to-day to tell him authoritatively what ought to be done. Not occupying that position, I must refer the senator from Virginia to those who have been intrusted by the American people, according to the Constitution, with the decision of that question." The speech of Wigfall had given great offense, and the castigation administered by Douglas was heartily responded to throughout the North. Wigfall had boasted that he owed no allegiance to the government; that he was a foreigner and owed allegiance to another government. On the next day, reciting these words as a preamble, Mr. Foster of Connecticut moved "that Louis T. Wigfall be and hereby is expelled from the Senate." Mr. Clingman of North Carolina moved as a substitute a declaration that "Texas having seceded from the Union, and being no longer one of the United States, is not entitled to be represented in this body." After a brief debate, the resolutions were referred to the Judiciary by the votes of Republican senators, who, not wishing to precipitate any issue prematurely, and persuaded that Wigfall's presence was helping rather than harming the Union cause, concluded to let the matter rest.

BRECKINRIDGE AND DOUGLAS.

A notable debate took place between Breckinridge and Douglas, in which the issues that had led to the disruption of the Democracy in the late Presidential election were, in a certain sense, fought over again. Mr. Breckinridge's speech was carefully prepared, and presented the Southern side in a tone of dignity and confidence; but the reply of Douglas exhibited his superiority as a debater. Breckinridge had declared that whatever settlement be made of other questions, there must be a concession to the South of the right to emigrate into all the Territories, or at least an equitable partition of the National Domain. In reply, Douglas reminded him that the South had, by the action of a Republican Congress, the full right to emigrate into all the territory of the United States; and that, with the consent of the Republican Congress, every inch of the territory of the United States south of the thirty-seventh degree of latitude was at that hour open to slavery. "So far," said he, "as the doctrine of popular sovereignty and non-intervention is concerned, the Colorado Bill and the Nevada Bill and the Dakota Bill are identically the same with the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and in its precise language." The answer was at once a complete destruction of the argument of Breckinridge, and a severe indictment of the Republican party. Never before in the existence of the Federal Government had its territory been so open, by Congressional enactment and by judicial decision, to the slave-holder as on the day that Abraham Lincoln assumed the office of President of the United States. It is a singular fact that, on the eve of the utter destruction of the institution of Slavery, its legal status was stronger than ever before in the history of the government, and the area over which it might lawfully spread was far larger than at any previous period. Douglas showed in this debate how absolutely groundless was the excuse of slave-holders for basing secession or revolution upon the failure to acquire their rights in the Territories, when never before had their rights in the Territories been so absolutely complete.

Public opinion in March, 1861, was so unsettled, the popular mind so impressible, that a spirit of discontent soon began to spread over the loyal States on the part of those who had hoped for what they termed a vigorous administration. For a few weeks the conduct of the government fell under the animadversion of all classes in the North. To those who wanted an instant settlement, and the return of the seceding States upon their own terms, the administration seemed too radical. To those who demanded that the flag be maintained, and Fort Sumter promptly re-enforced, who would be satisfied with nothing less than the recovery of every piece of public property of which the Confederates had possessed themselves, the administration appeared altogether too conservative. The overwhelming public desire after all was for peace, and the overwhelming public opinion was against the extremists who would, by any possibility, precipitate war. The administration thus began its career with no firm footing beneath it, with an aggressive and defiant enemy in front of it, with a public opinion divided, distrustful, and compromising, behind it.

No more difficult task has ever been presented to any government than that which Mr. Lincoln and his Cabinet assumed in the month of March, 1861. To judge it now by any appearance of irresolution, or by any seeming deficiency of courage, would be trying it by a standard totally inapplicable and unfair. Before and beyond all things, Mr. Lincoln desired to prevent war, and he felt that every day of peace gave fresh hope that bloodshed might be avoided. In his Inaugural address he had taken the strongest ground for the preservation of the Union, and had carefully refrained from every act and every expression which would justify, even in the public opinion of the South, an outbreak of violence on the part of the Confederates. He believed that the Southern revolt had attained its great proportions in consequence of Mr. Buchanan's assertion that he had not power to coerce a seceding State. Mr. Lincoln had announced a different creed, and every week that the South continued peaceful, his hope of amicable adjustment grew stronger. He believed that with the continuance of peace, the Secessionists could be brought to see that Union was better than war for all interests, and that in an especial degree the institution of Slavery would be imperiled by a resort to arms. He had faith in the sober second- thought. If the South would deliberate, the Union would be saved. He feared that the Southern mind was in the condition in which a single untoward circumstance might precipitate a conflict, and he determined that the blood of his brethren should not be on his hands.

STATESMANSHIP OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

Mr. Lincoln saw, moreover, that war between a divided North and a united South would be a remediless calamity. If, after all efforts at peace, war should be found unavoidable, the Administration had determined so to shape its policy, so to conduct its affairs, that when the shock came it should leave the South entirely in the wrong, and the government of the Union entirely in the right. Consolidated as might be the front which the Rebellion would present, the administration was resolved that it should not be more solid, more immovable, more courageous, than that with which the supporters of the government would meet it. Statesmanship cannot be judged upon theories. It must be decided by results. When that conclusive test is brought to bear, Mr. Lincoln's administration of the government in the weeks immediately following his inauguration deserves the highest praise; and all the more because it was compelled to disregard the clamor and disappoint the expectations of many who had been conspicuously influential in bringing it into power, and who therefore thought themselves entitled to give counsel.

CHAPTER XIV.

President Lincoln and the Confederate Commissioners.—Misleading Assurance given by Judge Campbell.—Mr. Seward's Answer to Messrs. Forsythe and Crawford.—An Interview with the President is desired by the Commissioners.—Rage in the South.—Condition of the Montgomery Government.—Roger A. Pryor's Speech.—President determines to send Provisions to Fort Sumter.—Advises Governor Pickens.—Conflict precipitated.—The Fort surrenders.—Effect of the Conflict on the North.—President's Proclamation and Call for Troops.—Responses of Loyal States.—Popular Uprising.—Democratic Party.—Patriotism of Senator Douglas.—His Relations with Mr. Lincoln.—His Death.— Public Service and Character.—Effect of the President's Call on Southern States.—North Carolina.—Tennessee.—Virginia.—Senator Mason's Letter.—Responses of Southern Governors to the President's Call for Troops.—All decline to comply.—Some of them with Insolent Defiance.—Governors of the Free States.—John A. Andrew, E. D. Morgan, Andrew G. Curtin, Oliver P. Morton.—Energetic and Patriotic Action of all Northern Governors.—Exceptional Preparation in Pennsylvania for the Conflict.—Governors of Free States all Republicans except in California and Oregon.—Critical Situation on Pacific Coast.—Loyalty of its People.—President's Reasons for postponing Session of Congress.—Election in Kentucky.—Union Victory.—John J. Crittenden and Garrett Davis.—John Bell.— Disappoints Expectation of Union Men.—Responsibility of Southern Whigs.—Their Power to arrest the Madness.—Audacity overcomes Numbers.—Whig Party of the South.—Its Brilliant Array of Leaders. —Its Destruction.

The negotiation which the seceding State of South Carolina had unsuccessfully attempted with President Buchanan, for the surrender of Fort Sumter, was now formally renewed by the Confederate Government with the administration of Mr. Lincoln. The week following the inauguration, John Forsythe of Alabama and Martin J. Crawford of Georgia appeared in Washington in the character of Commissioners from the Confederate States, "with a view," as they defined it, "to a speedy adjustment of all questions growing out of the political separation, upon such terms of amity and good will as the respective interests, geographical contiguity, and future welfare of the two nations, may render necessary." They addressed their communication to the Secretary of State as a matter pertaining to the Foreign Department of the government, and waited with confidence for an answer that would practically recognize the nationality which they assumed to represent. Judge Campbell of the Supreme Court, a citizen of Alabama, had held some conferences with Mr. Seward, the result of which was his personal assurance to the Commissioners that Fort Sumter would be evacuated before the 25th of March; and he urged them not to insist upon too prompt an answer to their demand. At his instance, the reply of Mr. Seward was withheld from official delivery, and, though dated the 15th of March, was really not read by the Commissioners until the 7th or 8th of April.

THE CONFEDERATE COMMISSIONERS.

Mr. Seward's answer threw the Commissioners and the entire South into a rage. He declined to comply with the request of Messrs. Forsythe and Crawford. He saw in them, "not a rightful and accomplished revolution, not an independent nation with an established government, but only the perversion of a temporary and partisan excitement, and an inconsiderate purpose of unjustifiable and unconstitutional aggression upon the rights and the authority vested in the Federal Government." Mr. Seward further advised them that he "looked for the cure of evils which should result from proceedings so unnecessary, so unwise, so unusual, so unnatural, not to irregular negotiations having in view untried relations, but to regular, considerate action of the people of those States through the Congress of the United States, and through such extraordinary conventions, if there be need thereof, as the Federal Constitution contemplates and authorizes to be assembled." Under these circumstances, Mr. Seward informed the Commissioners that his official duties were confined to the conduct of the foreign relations of his country, and did not at all embrace domestic questions, or questions arising between the several States and the Federal Government.

The Secretary of State was unable, therefore, to comply with the request of Messrs. Forsythe and Crawford, and declined to appoint a day on which they might submit the objects of their visit to the President of the United States. He refused to recognize them as diplomatic agents, and would not hold correspondence or further communication with them. Lest the Commissioners might console themselves with the reflection that Mr. Seward was speaking only for himself, and that the President might deal with them less curtly, he informed them that he had cheerfully submitted his answer to Mr. Lincoln, who coincided in the views it expressed, and sanctioned the Secretary's decision declining official intercourse with Messrs. Forsythe and Crawford. The rejoinder of the Confederate Commissioners to Mr. Seward was in a threatening tone, upbraiding him with bad faith, and advising him that "Fort Sumter cannot be provisioned without the effusion of blood;" reminding him also that they had not come to Washington to ask the Government of the United States to recognize the independence of the Confederacy, but for an "adjustment of new relations springing from a manifest and accomplished revolution."

Up to this time there had not been the slightest collision between the forces of the Confederacy and the forces of the Union. The places which had been seized, belonging to the Federal Government, had been taken without resistance; and the authorities of Montgomery appeared to a great many Southern people to be going through blank motions, and to be aping power rather than exercising it. Their defiant attitude had been demoralizing to the public sentiment in the North, but their failure to accomplish any thing in the way of concession from the National Government, and their apparent timidity in refraining from a shock of arms, was weakening the Disunion sentiment in the States which composed the Confederacy. Jefferson Davis had been inaugurated with great pomp and pretension in February, and now April had been reached with practically nothing done but the issuing of manifestoes, and the maintenance of a mere shadow of government, without its substance. The Confederates had as yet no revenue system and no money. They had no armed force except some military companies in the larger cities, organized long before secession was contemplated. They had not the pretense of a navy, or any power apparently to create one. While the administration of Mr. Lincoln, therefore, was disappointing great numbers in the North by its failure to do something decisive towards re-establishing the National authority in the rebellious States, the inhabitants of those States were becoming daily dissatisfied with the fact that the administration of Mr. Davis was doing nothing to consolidate and protect the Confederacy.

DISSATISFACTION WITH THE CONFEDERACY.

Ever since the inauguration of Jefferson Davis, the flag of the United States had been flying over the strongest fortress in the Confederacy, and no forcible effort had been made to displace it. The first flush of joy and congratulation was over, and re-action had begun throughout the revolting States. The Confederate Government was reminded by many of the leading newspapers of the South that unless some decisive step were taken to assert its authority and establish its prestige, it would quietly crumble to pieces. The apparent non-resistance of Mr. Lincoln's administration had, in many minds, the effect of casting contempt upon the whole Southern movement, and the refusal to recognize or receive commissioners of Mr. Davis's appointment was regarded as a direct insult to their government, which, unless met by some decisive step, would subject the leaders to the derision of public opinion throughout the new Confederacy. Mr. Buchanan had been willing to receive commissioners from seceding States, so far as to confer with them, even when he declared that he had no power to take any action in the premises. Mr. Lincoln had advanced beyond the position of Mr. Buchanan when he refused even to give audience to representatives bearing the commission of the Confederate States.

The situation therefore had become strained. The point had been reached where it was necessary to go forward or go backward; where the Confederacy must assert itself, or the experiment of secession be abandoned. From all quarters of the seven States came the demand upon the Montgomery government to do something decisive. A prominent member of the Alabama Legislature told Jefferson Davis that "unless he sprinkled blood in the face of the Southern people they would be back in the old Union in less than ten days." Public meetings were held to urge the government to action. At Charleston, in answer to a large crowd who came to pay him honor, Roger A. Pryor (whose attractive eloquence has since been used to better ends) told the people that only one thing was necessary to force Virginia into the Southern Confederacy: "to strike a blow." That done, he promised them that "Virginia would secede in less than an hour by Shrewsbury clock."

The indifference of Mr. Lincoln's administration to the program of the Southern Confederacy was apparent and not real. In his Inaugural he had declared that the power confided to him would be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts, but, beyond what was necessary for those objects, there would be no invasion, no use of force against or among the people anywhere. Influential persons connected with Mr. Lincoln's administration may have wavered in regard to the expediency of re-enforcing Major Anderson and holding possession of Fort Sumter, but the President himself wisely concluded that to retreat from that point would be an almost fatal step. There was not a citizen in the North who had not become interested in the fate of Major Anderson and the brave soldiers under his command. Though many patriotic men of conservative or timid nature advised a quiet withdrawal from Fort Sumter rather than an open conflict for its possession, there was an instinctive undertone in the masses of the people in the Northern States against a concession so humiliating. If prestige were needed for the government at Montgomery, Mr. Lincoln felt that it was needed for the government at Washington, and if he withdrew from Sumter he could not see any point where he could make a stand.

The President determined, therefore, to send supplies to Major Anderson. He wisely saw that if he failed to do this he would be receding from the temperate and conservative position taken in the Inaugural, and that it would give to the Confederates a degree of courage, and to the North a degree of despondency, which would vastly increase the difficulty of restoring the Union. In Mr. Lincoln's own language: "the abandonment of Sumter would be utterly ruinous, under the circumstances." . . . "At home it would discourage the friends of the Union, embolden its adversaries, and go far to insure to the latter a recognition abroad. In fact, it would be our national destruction consummated." Having taken this determination, he communicated it to Governor Pickens of South Carolina just at the time that Mr. Seward delivered to the commissioners of Jefferson Davis the government's refusal to receive them. The answer to the commissioners, and the determination not to permit Anderson to be starved out of Fort Sumter with the hostile guns of the Confederacy pointed at him, brought on the conflict. As soon as the two events were made public, the Confederate Secretary of War instructed General Beauregard that if the information conveyed to Governor Pickens was authentic, he should proceed to reduce the fort. The conflict came on the 12th of April, and after a furious cannonade of thirty-four hours, Major Anderson, being out of provisions, was compelled to surrender. The fleet that was bringing him relief arrived too late, and the flag of the United States was lowered to the Confederacy. Those who had urged Mr. Davis to strike a blow and to sprinkle blood in the faces of the people as a means of consolidating Southern opinion, were undoubtedly successful. Throughout the States of the Confederacy the inhabitants were crazed with success. They had taken from the National Government its strongest fortress on the South-Atlantic coast. They felt suddenly awakened to a sense of power, and became wild with confidence in their ability to defy the authority of the United States.

EFFECT OF FORT SUMTER'S FALL.

The Confederate Government, however, had not anticipated the effect of an actual conflict on the people of the North. Until the hour of the assault on Sumter they had every reason for believing that Mr. Lincoln's administration was weak; that it had not a sustaining force of public opinion behind it in the free States; that, in short, Northern people were divided very much on the line of previous party organizations, and that his opponents had been steadily gaining, his supporters as steadily losing, since the day of the Presidential election in November. The Confederates naturally counted much on this condition of Northern sentiment, and took to themselves the comforting assurance that vigorous war could never be made by a divided people. They had treasured all the extreme sayings of Northern Democrats about resisting the march of a Black Republican army towards the South, and offering their dead bodies as obstructions to its progress. They believed, and had good reason for believing, that half the population of the North was opposed to the policy of subjugation, and they accepted the creed of Mr. Buchanan that there was no power in the Constitution to coerce a sovereign State.

Never was popular delusion so suddenly and so completely dispelled. The effect of the assault on Sumter and the lowering of the National flag to the forces of the Confederacy acted upon the North as an inspiration, consolidating public sentiment, dissipating all differences, bringing the whole people to an instant and unanimous determination to avenge the insult and re-establish the authority of the Union. Yesterday there had been doubt and despondency; to- day had come assurance and confidence. Yesterday there had been division; to-day there was unity. The same issue of the morning paper that gave intelligence of the fall of Sumter, brought also a call from the President of the United States for seventy-five thousand men to aid him "in suppressing combinations against the law, too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings." He notified the people that "the first service assigned to the force hereby called forth will probably be to repossess the forts, places, and property which have been seized from the Union;" and he concluded by convening an extra session of Congress to assemble on the fourth day of the ensuing July. The President stated, in his Proclamation, that the laws of the United States had been "for some time past opposed, and their execution obstructed, in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial procedure, or by the powers vested in the marshals by law." He had therefore "called forth the militia to suppress such combinations, and to cause the laws to be duly executed." He appealed to all loyal citizens "to aid in maintaining the honor, the integrity, and the existence of the National Union, and the perpetuity of popular government." The Proclamation was general. The Call for troops was issued specifically to every State except the seven already in revolt.

The Proclamation was responded to in the loyal States with an unparalleled outburst of enthusiasm. On the day of its issue hundreds of public meetings were held, from the eastern border of Maine to the extreme western frontier. Work was suspended on farm and in factory, and the whole people were roused to patriotic ardor, and to a determination to subdue the Rebellion and restore the Union, whatever might be the expenditure of treasure or the sacrifice of life. Telegrams of congratulation and sympathy fell upon the White House like snow-flakes in a storm; and the President was made to feel, after all the months of gloom and darkness through which he had passed since his election, that light had broken, that day had dawned, and that the open struggle for the Union, however severe and however sanguinary it might prove, was preferable to the slough of despond in which the nation had been cast, and the valley of humiliation through which the government had been groping.

In the history of popular uprisings and of manifestations of National enthusiasm, there is perhaps no equal to that which was seen in the free States of the Union in the weeks immediately following the rash attack on Fort Sumter. While the feeling was too deep to brook resistance, or quietly to endure a word of opposition, it was happily so tempered with discretion as to prevent personal outrages upon the few who did not join in the general chorus for the Union. Suspected men were waited upon and requested to speak for the loyal cause, and newspapers, which before the firing of Sumter had been offensive in tone, were compelled to hoist the National flag over their offices, and openly support the government. But these cases were few and exceptional; and it is due to the Democracy of the North to say, that however strongly they had opposed the election of Mr. Lincoln, and however hostile they had been to the principles which he represented, the mass of the party responded with noble enthusiasm and with patriotic fidelity to the Union. Their great leader, Senator Douglas, set a worthy example by promptly waiting on the President, and expressing his deepest sympathy and his most earnest co-operation in the struggle for the life of the nation.

PATRIOTIC COURSE OF MR. DOUGLAS.

The patriotic course of Mr. Douglas had been of invaluable service to the government from the hour of Mr. Lincoln's inauguration. The old friendship between the illustrious rivals from Illinois, which had begun when each was in his youth, was now strongly revived. Differing always on political issues, they were at once in accord when the fate of the government was at stake. The position of Douglas during the extra session of the Senate had given marked satisfaction to Mr. Lincoln, and when the deliberations came to a close, on the 28th of March, the President said that a great gain had been made to the cause of the Union, by the direction which the speeches of Douglas would give to the sympathy and action of the Northern Democracy. From the hour of actual danger, Mr. Douglas had spoken no partisan word, had known no partisan division, had labored only for the government of the nation, had looked only to its safety and its honor. He had a larger following than any other party leader of his day. Nearly a million and a half of men believed in his principles, were devoted to him personally, trusted him implicitly. The value of his active loyalty to the Union may be measured by the disaster which would have been caused by hesitation on his part. When he returned to his State, after the firing on Sumter, the Republican Legislature of Illinois received him with a display of feeling as profound as that with which they would have welcomed Mr. Lincoln. His address on that memorable occasion was worthy of the loftiest patriot, and was of inestimable value to the cause of the Union. Perhaps no words spoken carried confidence to more hearts, or gave greater strength to the National cause.

Mr. Douglas did not live to return to the Senate. The extra session of March closed his public service. He died in Chicago on the third day of June, 1861, at the early age of forty-eight. His last days were his best days. The hour of his death was the hour of his greatest fame. In his political career he had experienced the extremes of popular odium and of popular approval. His name had at different periods been attended with as great obloquy as ever beset a public man. It was his happy fate to have changed this before his death, and to have secured the enthusiastic approbation of every lover of the Union. His career had been stormy, his partisanship aggressive, his course often violent, his political methods sometimes ruthless. He had sought favor at the South too long to regain mastery of the North, and he had been defeated in the Presidential struggle of 1860,—a struggle in which the ambition of his life had been centred. But with danger to the Union his early affections and the associations of his young life had come back. He remembered that he was a native of New England, that he had been reared in New York, that he had been crowned with honors by the generous and confiding people of Illinois. He believed in the Union of the States, and he stood by his country with a fervor and energy of patriotism which enshrined his name in the history and in the hearts of the American people. His death created the profoundest impression in the country, and the Administration felt that one of the mighty props of the Union had been torn away.

The rank of Mr. Douglas as a statesman is not equal to his rank as a parliamentary leader. As a statesman, he was full of resources, fertile in expedients. But he lacked the truest form of conservatism, and more than once in his career carried partisan contests beyond the point of safety. His participation in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise is an illustration, all the more pertinent and impressive because his own judgment was against the measure, and he allowed himself to be controlled by the fear that another might usurp the place in Southern regard so long held by himself. In parliamentary discussion it is not easy to overstate the power of Mr. Douglas. Indeed, it would be difficult to name his superior. He did not attain the dignity of Webster's stately style. He was not gifted with the fire that burned through Clay's impulsive speech. But as a ready, comprehensive speaker, armed at all points and using his weapons with deadliest effect, he was the equal of either. In the rapidity with which he marshaled the facts favorable to his position, in the consummate skill with which he presented his argument, in the dashing and daring manner by which he overcame an opponent more strongly intrenched than himself, Mr. Douglas is entitled to rank with the most eminent of parliamentary debaters.

ADDITIONS TO THE CONFEDERACY.

The effect of Major Anderson's surrender of Sumter and of the President's call for troops proved prejudicial to the Union sentiment in the slave States which had not yet seceded. It would be more correct, perhaps, to say that Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation was a test of loyalty which revealed the actual character of public sentiment in those States, till then not known in the North. Mr. Lincoln had done every thing in his power to conciliate them, and to hold them fast in their loyalty to the Union. But the sympathy with the South, engendered by the common danger to the institution of Slavery, was too powerful to be resisted. North Carolina, which had always been moderate, conservative, and Union-loving, threw her fortunes with the Confederacy. Tennessee, distracted by the unforeseen defection of such staunch Union men as John Bell and Baillie Peyton,* went Southward with the general current. Virginia could not be restrained, although she was warned and ought to have seen, that if she joined the Rebellion she would inevitably become the battle-ground, and would consign her territory to devastation and her property to destruction. The Virginia convention which was in session before the firing on Fort Sumter, and which was animated by a strong friendship for the Union, was carried in to the vortex of secession by the surrounding excitement. By a vote of 88 to 55 the State determined to join the Confederacy. The wonder is that in the prevailing excitement and arrogant dictation, there could have been found fifty-five men to resist so powerful a tide of public opinion. The minority was strong enough, however, to command the submission of the ordinance to a vote of the people, —a submission which was in form and not in substance, for in reality no freedom of opinion was conceded.

The ordinance which was passed on the 17th of April, three days after the fall of Sumter, declared that "it should take effect when ratified by a majority of the votes of the people of the State, cast at a poll to be taken thereon on the fourth Thursday in May." The Convention did not submit its work to popular review and decision in a fair and honorable way. Eight days after the act of submission, the Convention passed another ordinance, by which Virginia agreed "to adopt and ratify the Constitution of the Provisional Government of the Confederate States." They provided that this second ordinance should have no effect if the first should be rejected by the people. It is not difficult to see that the action was taken in order to render the rejection of the first ordinance impossible. Under the second ordinance, the Convention at once entered into a formal alliance, offensive and defensive, with the Confederate States. Their Vice-President, Alexander H. Stephens, appeared in Richmond as commissioner of his government, and the Convention appointed Ex- President John Tyler, William Ballard Preston, James P. Holcombe, and other leading citizens, as commissioners for Virginia. These joint commissioners made a formal compact between Virginia and the Confederate States on the 25th of April, the day after the Convention had adopted the Confederate Constitution. By this compact, Virginia, "looking to a speedy union with the Confederate States," placed "the whole military force of the Commonwealth under the control and direction of the Confederate States, upon the same basis and footing as if said Commonwealth were now a member of said Confederacy."

Without waiting for the decision of the people on the question of secession, the national flag was removed from the public buildings, and the Confederate flag was raised. All the property of the General Government was seized and, by an article in the agreement with the Confederate commissioner, was in due time to be turned over to the Montgomery government. In short, the State Government of Virginia proceeded in its mad career of hostility to the Union, without the slightest regard to the future decision of the people on the important issue which in form had been submitted to them. They evidently intended to make a rejection of the Disunion ordinance impossible. For their own honor, the man who contrived and guided these proceedings would better have adopted the bold precedent of those States which refused altogether to submit the ordinance to popular vote.

It ought not to escape notice that General Robert E. Lee is not entitled to the defense so often made for him, that in joining the Disunion movement he followed the voice of his State. General Lee resigned his commission in the army of the Union and assumed command of Confederate troops, long before Virginia had voted upon the ordinance of secession. He gave the influence of his eminent name to the schemes of those who, by every agency, fas aut nefas, were determined to hurl Virginia into secession. The very fact that General Lee had assumed command of the troops in Virginia was a powerful incentive with many to vote against the Union. Jefferson Davis had anticipated and measured the full force of the effect which would be produced upon Virginians by General Lee's identification with the Confederate cause. Whether or not there be ground for making General Lee the subject of exceptional censure, there is surely none for excusing him as one who reluctantly obeyed the voice of his State. If he had remained in the national army until the people of Virginia voted on the ordinance of secession, the strength of the Union cause in his State would have been greater. If he had chosen, as a citizen of Virginia, to stand by the Union until his State decided against him, secession might have been defeated. It is fair that his action should be clearly understood, and that his name should bear the just responsibility.

THE SECESSION OF VIRGINIA.

All pretense of a fair submission of the question to popular vote was finally abandoned, and the abandonment practically proclaimed in a letter of Senator James M. Mason, which was published on the 16th of May, some ten days in advance of the election. "If it be asked," wrote Mr. Mason, "what those shall do who cannot in conscience vote to separate Virginia from the United States, the answer is simple and plain. Honor and duty alike require that they should not vote on the question, and if they retain such opinions they must leave the State." Mr. Mason thus accurately defined what the South understood by the submission of secession ordinances to popular vote. It meant that a man might vote for an ordinance but not against it; if he desired to vote against it, and persisted in the desire, he should leave the State. It is rather a matter of surprise that of 161,000 votes cast in Virginia on the question, 32,000 were registered against secession. These friends of the Government were, it is true, in large part from the western section of the State where slaves were few and the loyal sentiment was strong. It is an interesting fact that along the mountain range through Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and even as far South as Georgia, the inhabitants generally sympathized with the Union. Though often forced to aid the Rebellion, they were at heart loyal to the government of their fathers, and on many important occasions rendered the most valuable service to the National cause. The devotion of large numbers in East Tennessee to the Federal Government seriously embarrassed the new Confederacy. The remaining slave States, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, gave trouble to the administration, but did not succeed in separating themselves from the Union. Large numbers of their people joined the Southern army, but the political power of those States was wielded in favor of the loyal cause. They desired to enact the part of neutrals; but the National Government, from the first, took strong ground against a policy so dishonorable in the States, so injurious to the Union.

The responses made by the Southern governors to the President's call for troops are so characteristic, and afford so true a picture of the times, as to merit notice. Nearly every one returned a scornful and defiant message. Governor Magoffin replied that Kentucky "would furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister States of the South." Governor Letcher declared that "the militia of Virginia would not be furnished to the powers at Washington for any such use or purpose as they had in view, which was the subjugation of the Southern States," and that "the civil war which the powers at Washington had chosen to inaugurate would be met by the South in a spirit as determined." Governor Jackson considered "the call to be illegal, unconstitutional, and revolutionary; its objects to be inhuman and diabolical," and it "would not be complied with by Missouri." Governor Harris said that Tennessee "would not furnish a single man for coercion, but would raise fifty thousand men for the defense of her rights, and those of her Southern brethren." Governor Ellis of North Carolina answered that he "could be no party to the wicked violation of the laws of the country and to the war upon the liberties of a free people." Governor Rector declared that the President's call for troops was only "adding insult to injury, and that the people of Arkansas would defend, to the last extremity, their honor and their property against Northern mendacity and usurpation." Governor Hicks for prudential reasons excused Maryland at the time from responding to the President's call, and when a month afterwards he notified the War Department of his readiness to comply with the request of the Government, he was informed that three-months' men were not needed, and that arrangements had been made for accepting three-years' volunteers from Maryland. Governor Burton of Delaware replied that "there was no organized militia in the State, and no law authorizing such organization." Indisposition to respond to the President was therefore in different degrees manifest in every part of the Union where Slavery had wrought its demoralizing influence. Mr. Lincoln was disappointed at this proof of the sectional character of the contest, and he realized that if American nationality was to be preserved, it must look for help to the abounding resources and the patriotic loyalty of the free States.

THE GOVERNORS OF LOYAL STATES.

It fortunately happened that the governors of the free States were devoted to the Union in as great degree as the Southern governors were devoted to the Confederacy. It may well be doubted whether at any time in history of the government there had been so large a number of able men occupying the gubernatorial chairs of the Northern States. They were not only eminent in an intellectual point of view, but they had a special fitness for the arduous and patriotic duties so unexpectedly devolved upon them. They became popularly known as the "War Governors," and they exercised a beneficent and decisive influence upon the fortunes of the Union.

The Governor of Massachusetts, John A. Andrew, added fervor to the patriotism of the whole people, and nobly led his State in her generous outpouring of aid and comfort to the loyal cause. The vigor which Massachusetts had imparted to the Revolution against the Crown was surpassed by the ardor with which she now threw herself into the contest for the Union. She had been often reproached for urging forward the anti-slavery agitation, which was the excuse of the South for rebelling against the National authority. A somewhat similar accusation had been lodged against her by the Royal Governors and by the Tories a century before. But the men who found this fault with Massachusetts—a fault wholly on virtue's side—will not deny that when the hour of trial came, when convictions of conscience were to be maintained by the strength of the right arm, and faith in principle was to be attested by a costly sacrifice of blood, her sons added imperishable honor to their ancestral record of heroism in the cause of human Liberty and Constitutional Government.

The other New-England States were not less ardent than Massachusetts. Israel Washburn, the Governor of Maine, impulsive, energetic, devoted to the cause of the Union, was sustained by the people of the State without regard to party and with the noblest enthusiasm. William A. Buckingham of Connecticut, of mature years and stainless life, was a young man once more when his country demanded his best energies. The young Governor of Rhode Island, William Sprague, laid aside the civilian's dress for the uniform of a soldier, and led the troops of his State to the National Capital. Ichabod Goodwin of New Hampshire and Erastus Fairbanks of Vermont, two of their most honored and useful men, filled out the list of New England's worthy Executives. Throughout the six States there was but one anxiety, one resolve,—anxiety for the safety of the government, resolve to subdue the revolt against it.

New England is not mentioned first except in a geographical sense. More important even than her patriotic action was the course of the great Central and Western States. New York and Pennsylvania of themselves constituted no mean power, with a population of seven millions, with their boundless wealth, and their ability to produce the material of war. Edwin D. Morgan was the Executive of New York. He was a successful merchant of high character, of the sturdiest common sense and soundest judgment. A man of wealth himself, he possessed the entire confidence of the bankers and capitalists of the metropolis. His influence in aid of the finances of the government in its early period of depression was given without stint and was of incalculable value. In the neighboring State of New Jersey, Governor Charles Olden was ready for hearty co-operation, and seconded with patriotic zeal every movement in aid of the loyal cause.

Of a different type from Governor Morgan, but equally valuable and more enthusiastic, was the Governor of Pennsylvania, Andrew G. Curtin. Circumstances had thrown him into close and cordial relations with Mr. Lincoln,—relations which had their origin at the time of the Chicago Convention, and which had grown more intimate after Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated. Before the firing on Sumter, but when the States of the Confederacy were evidently preparing for war, Mr. Lincoln earnestly desired a counter signal of readiness on the part of the North. Such a movement in New England would have been regarded in the South merely as a fresh ebullition of radicalism. In New York the tone was too conservative and Governor Morgan too cautious to permit the demonstration to be made there. Governor Curtin undertook to do it in Pennsylvania at the President's special request. On the eleventh day of April, one day before the South precipitated the conflict, the Legislature of Pennsylvania passed an Act for the better organization of the militia, and appropriated five hundred thousand dollars to carry out the details of the measure. The manifest reference to the impending trouble was in the words prescribing the duty of the Adjutant-General of the State in case the President should call out the militia. It was the first official step in the loyal States to defend the Union, and the generous appropriation, made in advance of any blow struck by the Confederacy, enabled Governor Curtin to rally the forces of the great Commonwealth to the defense of the Union with marvelous promptness. His administration was vigorous, and his support of the Union cause was in the highest degree efficient, patriotic, and successful. He attained an exceptional popularity with the soldiers, and against the most bitter attacks never lost his hold on the confidence and personal regard of Mr. Lincoln.

GOVERNORS OF LOYAL STATES.

In the West the commanding figure among a number of distinguished Executives was Oliver P. Morton of Indiana. He was of stalwart frame, full health, and the highest physical vigor. His energy was untiring, his will unconquerable. In the closely balanced condition of parties in his State, he had been trained to the most aggressive and exacting form of leadership, so that he entered upon his gubernatorial duties with a certain experience in the control of men which was of marked value. He possessed a mind of extraordinary strength; and in frequent contests at the bar and upon the stump, he had thoroughly disciplined his faculties. In debate he was formidable. It cannot be said that he exhibited striking originality of thought, or that he possessed in large degree the creative power. But in the art of presenting with force and clearness a subject which he had studied, of analyzing it and simplifying it to the comprehension of the common mind, of clothing it in language as plain and forcible as the diction of John Bunyan, he has had few equals among the public men of America.

The Governor of Iowa was Samuel J. Kirkwood, a man of truth, courage, and devoted love of country. Distinguished for comprehensive intelligence, for clear foresight, for persuasive speech, for spotless integrity, for thorough acquaintance with the people, he was a model of executive efficiency. Alexander Ramsey, the first governor of the Territory of Minnesota, was now governor of that State. As strong in character as he was in popularity, as able as he was patriotic, he broadened by his executive career a personal fame already enviable. Austin Blair of Michigan was a worthy compeer of these eminent officials, and administered his high trust with honor to himself and with advantage to his country. Richard Yates of Illinois had been chosen governor the day Mr. Lincoln was elected President, and enjoyed an exceptional popularity with the people of his State. William Dennison had succeeded Salmon P. Chase in the gubernatorial chair of Ohio, and was unremitting in his labor for the Union. Alexander W. Randall of Wisconsin had contributed in no small degree by public and attractive speech to the triumph of Mr. Lincoln, and was now intrusted with an important duty, to which he gave himself with genuine zeal.

In these sixteen States—all the non-slaveholding Commonwealths east of the Rocky Mountains—the governors were members of the Republican party. They were in political accord, and in complete personal sympathy with the administration. This was regarded by Mr. Lincoln as not in all respects a fortunate circumstance. It was his belief, as it was the belief of many others, that if loyal Democrats had been in the executive chairs of some of the largest States, the effect would have been more impressive. It would have suggested a more absolute unity of the Northern people in support of the government. It would in some degree have relieved the struggle for national life from the opprobrium contained in the reproach which subsequently became too common, that after all it was "a Republican war," waged merely for the abolition of slavery.

The two States on the Pacific coast had Democratic governors, and, by reason of the strong influence which the Southern Democrats had exercised in both under the influence of William M. Gwin and Joseph Lane, there was deep solicitude as to the course of event in that important outpost of the Union. The loyal adherence of those States to the National Government was a profound disappointment to the Confederacy. Jefferson Davis had expected, with a confidence amounting to certainty, and based, it is believed, on personal pledges, that the Pacific Coast, if it did not actually join the South, would be disloyal to the Union, and would, from its remoteness and its superlative importance, require a large contingent of the national forces to hold it in subjection. It was expected by the South that California and Oregon would give at least as much trouble as Kentucky and Missouri, and would thus indirectly but powerfully aid the Southern cause. The enthusiastic devotion which these distant States showed to the Union was therefore a surprise to the South and a most welcome relief to the National Government. The loyalty of the Pacific Coast was in the hearts of its people, but it was made more promptly manifest and effective by the patriotic conduct of Governor Downey and Governor Whittaker, and by the fervid and persuasive eloquence of Thomas Starr King.

The war wrought a great change in the relative position of parties in California. In the autumn of 1861 the Republican candidate, Leland Stanford, was chosen Governor of the State. He received 56,036 votes, while John Conness, a war Democrat, received 30,944, and McConnell who was the representative of the Gwin Democracy, which had so long controlled the State, received 32,750. The men who supported Conness, if driven to the choice, would have supported Stanford as against McConnell, thus showing the overwhelming sentiment of California in favor of the Union. Two years before, in the election of 1859, Mr. Stanford, as the Republican candidate, received but 10,110 votes, while Milton S. Latham, representing the Buchanan administration, received 62,255, and Curry, the Douglas candidate, 31,298. The majority of the Douglas men, if forced to choose, would have voted for Latham as against Stanford. In the Presidential election of 1860 California gave Mr. Lincoln 38,734 votes, Mr. Douglas 38,120, Mr. Breckinridge 33,975, Mr. Bell 9,136. The vote which Governor Stanford received in September, 1861, shows how rapid, radical, and complete was the political revolution caused in California by the Southern Rebellion.

THE ELECTION IN KENTUCKY.

In the eager desire of the loyal people to hasten all measures of preparation for the defense of the Union, fault was found with Mr. Lincoln for so long postponing the session of Congress. Between the date of his proclamation and the date of the assembling of Congress, eighty days were to elapse. Zealous and impatient supporters of the loyal cause feared that the Confederacy would be enabled to consolidate its power, and to gather its forces for a more serious conflict than they could make if more promptly confronted with the power of the Union. But Mr. Lincoln judged wisely that time was needed for the growth and consolidation of Northern opinion, and that senators and representatives, after the full development of patriotic feeling in the free States, would meet in a frame of mind better suited to the discharge of the weighty duties devolving upon them. An additional and conclusive reason with the President was, that Kentucky had not yet elected her representatives to the Thirty-seventh Congress, and would not do so, under the constitution and laws, until the ensuing August. Mr. Lincoln desired to give ample time for canvassing Kentucky for the special election, which was immediately ordered by the governor of the State for the twentieth of June. From the first, Mr. Lincoln had peculiar interest in the course and conduct of Kentucky. It was his native State, and Mr. Clay had been his political exemplar and ideal. He believed also that in the action of her people would be found the best index and the best test of the popular opinion of the Border slave States. He did every thing therefore that he could properly do, to aid Kentucky in reaching a conclusion favorable to the Union. He was rewarded with a great victory. Of the ten representatives chosen, nine were decided friends of the Union, with the venerable Crittenden at their head, ably seconded by Robert Mallory and William H. Wadsworth. Only one member, Henry C. Burnett, was disloyal to the government, and he, after a few months' tarry in the Union councils, went South and joined the Rebellion. The popular vote showed 92,365 for the Union candidates, and 36,995 for the Secession candidates, giving a Union majority of more than 55,000. Mr. Lincoln regarded the result in Kentucky as in the highest degree auspicious, and as amply vindicating the wisdom of delaying the extra session of Congress. The effect was to stimulate a rapidly developing loyalty in the western part of Virginia, to discourage rebellious movements in Missouri, and to arrest Disunion tendencies in Maryland.

Under the protection of the administration, and inspired by the confidence of its support, the Union men of Kentucky had done for that State what her Union men might have done for Tennessee if John Bell and his Whig associates had been as bold and as true to their old principles and John J. Crittenden and Garrett Davis had proved in Kentucky. The conduct of Mr. Bell was a sad surprise to his Northern friends, and a keen mortification to those Southern Whigs who had remained firm in their attachment to the Union. The vote which he had received in the South at the Presidential election was very nearly as large as that given to Breckinridge. The vote of Bell and Douglas united, exceeded that given to Breckinridge in the slave States by more than a hundred thousand. The popular judgment in the North had been that the Disunion element in the South was massed in support of Breckinridge, and that all who preferred the candidacy of Bell or Douglas might be relied upon in the supreme crisis as friends of the Union. Two Southern States, Kentucky and Tennessee, had given popular majorities for Mr. Bell, and there was no reason for supposing that the Union sentiment of Tennessee was any less pronounced than that of Kentucky. Indeed, Tennessee had the advantage of Mr. Bell's citizenship and long identification with her public service, while Kentucky encountered the personal influence and wide-spread popularity of Mr. Breckinridge, who took part against the Union.

If Mr. Bell had taken firm ground for the Union, the Secession movement would have been to a very great extent paralyzed in the South. Mr. Badger of North Carolina, of identically similar principles with Crittenden, could have given direction to the old Whig sentiment of his State, and could have held it steadily as Kentucky was held to the Union. The Bell and Everett campaign had been conducted upon the single and simple platform of the Union and the Constitution,—devotion to the Union, obedience to the Constitution. Mr. Everett, whose public life of grace, eloquence, and purity had not been especially distinguished for courage, pronounced with zeal and determination in favor of Mr. Lincoln's administration, and lent his efforts on the stump to the cause of the Union with wonderful effect through the Northern States. The eagerness of Virginia Democrats never could have swept their State into the whirlpool of Secession if the supporters of Mr. Bell in Tennessee and North Carolina had thrown themselves between the Old Dominion and the Confederacy. With that aid, the former Whigs of Virginia, led by Stuart and Botts and Wickham and Baldwin, and united with the loyal Democrats of the mountain and the valley, could have held the State firmly to the support of the Union, and could have effectively nullified the secret understanding between Mr. Mason and the Montgomery government, that Virginia should secede as soon as her open co-operation was needed for the success of the Southern revolt.

THE WHIGS OF THE SOUTH.

A large share of the responsibility for the dangerous development of the Rebellion must therefore be attributed to John Bell and his half million Southern supporters, who were all of the old Whig party. At the critical moment they signally failed to vindicate the principles upon which they had appealed in the preceding canvass for popular support. They are not justly chargeable with original Disunion proclivities. Sentiments of that kind had been consolidated in the Breckinridge party. But they are responsible for permitting a party whose rank and file did not outnumber their own to lead captive the public opinion of the South, and for permitting themselves to be pressed into a disavowal of their political principles, and to the adoption of the extreme views against which they had always warred. The precipitate manner in which the Southern men of the ancient Whig faith yielded their position as friends of the Union was an instructive illustration of the power which a compact and desperate minority can wield in a popular struggle. In a secret ballot, where every man could have voted according to his own convictions and desires, the Secession scheme would have been defeated in Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Arkansas. But the men who led the Disunion movement, understood the practical lesson taught by the French revolutionist, that "audacity" can overcome numbers. In such a contest conservatism always goes down, and radicalism always triumphs. The conservative wishes to temporize and to debate. The radical wishes to act, and is ready to shoot. By reckless daring a minority of Southern men raised a storm of sectional passion to which the friends of the Union bowed their heads and surrendered.

It would be incorrect to speak of a Whig party in the South at the outbreak of the civil war. There were many Whigs, but their organization was gone. It was the destruction of that party which had prepared the way for a triumph of the Democratic Disunionists. In the day of their strength the Whigs could not have been overborne in the South by the Secessionists, nor would the experiment have been tried. No party in the United States ever presented a more brilliant array of talent than the Whigs. In the South, though always resting under the imputation of not being so devoted to the support of Slavery as their opponents, they yet maintained themselves, by the power of intellect and by the prestige of chivalric leadership, in some extraordinary political battles. Many of their eminent men have a permanent place in our history. Others, with less national renown, were recognized at home as possessing equal power. In their training, in their habits of mind, in their pride and independence, in their lack of discipline and submission, they were perhaps specially fitted for opposition, and not so well adapted as men of less power, to the responsibility and detail of administration. But an impartial history of American statesmanship will give some of the most brilliant chapters to the Whig party from 1830 to 1850. If their work cannot be traced in the National statute-books as prominently as that of their opponents, they will be credited by the discriminating reader of our political annals as the English of to-day credit Charles James Fox and his Whig associates—for the many evils which they prevented.

[* Baillie Peyton is erroneously described as uniting with the South. He remained true to the Union throughout the contest.]

CHAPTER XV.

Thirty-Seventh Congress assembles.—Military Situation.—List of Senators: Fessenden, Sumner, Collamer, Wade, Chandler, Hale, Trumbull, Breckinridge, Baker of Oregon.—List of Members of the House of Representatives: Thaddeus Stevens, Crittenden, Lovejoy, Washburne, Bingham, Conkling, Shellabarger.—Mr. Grow elected Speaker.—Message of President Lincoln.—Its Leading Recommendations. —His Account of the Outbreak of the Rebellion.—Effect of the Message on the Northern People.—Battle of Bull Run.—Its Effect on Congress and the Country.—The Crittenden Resolution adopted.— Its Significance.—Interesting Debate upon it in the Senate.—First Action by Congress Adverse to Slavery.—Confiscation of Certain Slaves.—Large Amount of Business dispatched by Congress.—Striking and Important Debate between Baker and Breckinridge.—Expulsion of Mr. Breckinridge from the Senate.—His Character.—Credit due to Union Men of Kentucky.—Effect produced in the South of Confederate Success at Bull Run.—Rigorous Policy adopted by the Confederate Government.—Law respecting "Alien Enemies."—Law sequestrating their Estates.—Rigidly enforced by Attorney-General Benjamin.—An Injudicious Policy.

The Thirty-seventh Congress assembled according to the President's proclamation, on the fourth day of July, 1861. There had been no ebb in the tide of patriotic enthusiasm which overspread the loyal States after the fall of Sumter. Mr. Lincoln's sagacity in fixing the session so late had apparently been well approved. The temper of the senators and representatives as they came together could not have been better for the great work before them. Startling events, following each other thick and fast, had kept the country in a state of absorbing excitement, and Congress saw around it on every side the indications of a sanguinary struggle to come. Even after the firing on Sumter, anxious and thoughtful men had not given up all hope of an adjustment. The very shock of arms in the harbor of Charleston, it was believed by many, might upon sober second thought induce Southern men to pause and consider and negotiate before taking the fatal plunge. Such expectations were vain. The South felt that their victory was pre-ordained. Jefferson Davis answered Mr. Lincoln's call for seventy-five thousand men by a proclamation ordering the enlistment of one hundred thousand. The Confederacy was growing in strength daily. State after State was joining it, and energy and confidence prevailed throughout all its borders. The situation grew every day more embarrassing and more critical. Without waiting for the action of Congress, Mr. Lincoln had called for forty-two thousand additional volunteers, and added eleven new regiments, numbering some twenty-two thousand men, to the regular army. A blockade of the Southern ports had been ordered on the 19th of April, and eighteen thousand men had been added to the navy.

No battle of magnitude or decisive character had been fought when Congress assembled; but there had been activity on the skirmish line of the gathering and advances forces and, at many points, blood collision. In Baltimore, on the historic 19th of April, the mob had endeavored to stop the march of Massachusetts troops hurrying to the protection of the National Capital. In Missouri General Nathaniel Lyon had put to flight the disloyal governor, and established the supremacy of National authority. In Western Virginia General McClellan had met with success in some minor engagements, and on the upper Potomac the forces under General Robert Patterson had gained some advantages. A reverse of no very serious character had been experienced at Big Bethel, near Hampton Roads, by the troops under General Benjamin F. Butler. General Robert C. Schenck, in command of a small force, had met with a repulse a few miles from Washington, near Vienna in the State of Virginia. These incidents were not in themselves of special importance, but they indicated an aggressive energy on the part of the Confederates, and foreshadowed the desperate character which the contest was destined to assume. Congress found itself legislating in a fortified city, with patrols of soldiers on the streets and with a military administration which had practically superseded the civil police in the duty of maintaining order and protecting life. The situation was startling and serious, and for the first time people began to realize that we were to have a war with bloody fighting and much suffering, with limitless destruction of property, with costly sacrifice of life.

UNITED-STATES SENATORS.

The spirit in both branches of Congress was a fair reflection of that which prevailed in the North. Andrew Johnson of Tennessee was the only senator who appeared from the eleven seceding States. John C. Breckinridge was present from Kentucky, somewhat mortified by the decisive rebuke which he had received in the vote of his State. The first important act of the Senate was the seating of James H. Lane and Samuel C. Pomeroy as senators from the new State of Kansas, which had been admitted at the last session of Congress as a free State,—in a bill which, with historic justice, Mr. Buchanan was called upon to approve, after he had announced in Congress, during the first year of his administration, that Kansas was as much a slave State as South Carolina. The first question of moment growing out of the Rebellion was the presentation of credentials by Messrs. Willey and Carlile, who claimed seats as senators from Virginia, the right to which was certified by the seal of the State with the signature of Francis H. Pierpont as governor. The credentials indicated that Mr. Willey was to take the seat vacated by Mr. Mason, and Mr. Carlile that vacated by Mr. Hunter. The loyal men of Virginia, especially from the western counties, finding that the regularly organized government of the State had joined the Rebellion, extemporized a government composed of the Union men of the Legislature which had been in session the preceding winter in Richmond. This body had met in Wheeling, and elected two men as senators who had stood firmly for the Union in the convention which had forced Virginia into secession. Their admission to the Senate was resisted by Mr. James A. Bayard, then senator from Delaware, and by the few other Democratic senators who still held seats. But after discussion, Mr. Willey and Mr. Carlile were sworn in, and thus the first step was taken which led soon after to the partition of the Old Dominion and the creation of the new State of West Virginia. The free States had a unanimous representation of Republican senators, with the exception of John R. Thompson from New Jersey, Jesse D. Bright from Indiana, James W. Nesmith from Oregon, and the two senators from California, Milton S. Latham and James A. McDougall, the latter of whom was sworn in as the successor of William M. Gwin.