EXPRESSIONS OF THE CLERGY.

75

sorcerer's wand. In the contrast between Jackson and Buchanan, which that retrospect exhibited, they saw cause for gloomy forebodings.

Patriotic men wrote earnest letters to their representatives in Congress, asking them to be firm, yet conciliatory; and clergymen of every degree and religious denomination-Shepherds of the Church of Christ, the Prince of Peace-exhorted their flocks to be firm in faith, patient in hope, careful in conduct, and trustful in God. "This is no time for noisy disputants to lead us," wrote Bishop Lay, at Fort Smith, Arkansas. "We should ask counsel of the experienced, the sober, the God-fearing men among us. We may follow peace, and yet guard our country's rights; nor should we, in concern for our own, forget the rights and duties of others.""In our public congregations, in our family worship, in each heart's private prayers," wrote Bishop McIlvaine, of Ohio, "I solemnly feel that it is a time for all to beseech God to have mercy upon our country-not to deal with us according to our sinsnot to leave us to our own wisdom and might-to take the counsels of our senators and legislators, and all in authority, into His own guidance and government.”—“These evils are the punishment of sin," wrote Bishop McFarland, of Hartford, Connecticut, to the clergy of his diocese, "and are to be averted only by appeasing the anger of Heaven. You will, therefore, request your congregation to unite in fervent prayers for the preservation of the Union and the peace of the country. For this intention, we exhort them to say, each day, at least one 'Our Father' and one Hail Mary;' to observe with great strictness the Fast-days of this holy season; to prepare themselves for the worthy reception of the Sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist, at or before Christmas; to give alms generally to the poor, and to turn their whole hearts in all humility to God." More than forty leading clergymen of various denominations in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania united in sending forth a circular letter, in the January 1, form of an appeal to the churches, in which they said :-" We cannot doubt that a spirit of candor and forbearance, such as our religion prompts, and the exigencies of the times demand, would render the speedy adjustment of our difficulties possible, consistently with every constitutional right. Unswerving fealty to the Constitution justly interpreted, and a prompt return to its spirit and requirements wherever there may have beea divergence from either, would seem to be the first duty of citizens and legislators. It is our firm, and, we think, intelligent conviction, that only a very inconsiderable fraction of the people of the North will hesitate in the discharge of their constitutional obligations; and that whatever enactments are found to be in conflict therewith will be annulled." They urged the necessity of a more candid and temperate discussion, on the part of the press and the pulpit, of moral and political questions-a greater regard "for the rights and feelings of men."

1861.

1860.

So early as the close of October,' that venerable soldier, Lieu- October 30, tenant-General Winfield Scott, the General-in-chief of the armies

of the Republic, perceiving the gathering cloud betokening a storm, spoke

Pastoral Letter of Bishop Henry C. Lay, December 6, 1860.

7 Pastoral Letter to the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese of Ohio, December 7, 1860.

3 Pastoral Letter to the Roman Catholic Clergy of the Diocese of Hartfor 1, December 14, 1560.

76

GENERAL WOOL'S LETTER.

words of warning to the President and Secretary of War. He was evidently ignorant of the perplexities of the former and the wickedness of the latter, or he would never have wasted words, as he did, in saying: "From a knowledge of our Southern population, it is my solemn conviction that there is some danger of an early act of rashness preliminary to secession, namely, the seizure of some or all of the Southern forts," which he named. "In my opinion," he said, "all these works should be immediately so garrisoned as to make any attempt to take any one of them, by surprise or coup de main, ridiculous." . . . "It is the opinion that instructions should be given at once to the commanders of the Barancas [Pensacola], Forts Moultrie and Monroe, to be on their guard against surprises."

Another veteran warrior, who had been Scott's companion in arms for fifty years, full of patriotic zeal, and with a keen perception of danger, after reading the President's message wrote a letter remarkable for its good sense, foresight, and wisdom. That soldier was Major-General John Ellis Wool, then commander of the Eastern Department, which included the whole country eastward of the Mississippi River. He wrote to the venerable General Lewis Cass (also his companion-in-arms in the War of 1812), Buchanan's Secretary of State, on the 6th of December, saying:- "South Carolina says

she intends to leave the Union. Her representatives in Congress say she has already left the Union. It seems she is neither to be conciliated nor comforted. I command the Eastern Department, which includes South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. You know me well. I have ever been a firm, decided, faithful, and devoted friend of my country. If I can aid the President to preserve the Union, I hope he will command my services. It will never do for him or you to leave Washington without every star in this Union in its place. Therefore, no time should be lost in adopting measures to defeat those who are conspiring against the Union. Hesitation or delay may be no less fatal to the Union than to the President, or your own high standing as a statesman."

LEWIS CASS.

This patriotic soldier then urged upon the Government the absolute necessity of sending re-enforcements to the forts in Charleston harbor; and he spurned the excuse for not doing so, urged by some, that such a step would serve to increase the excitement among the people of South Carolina. "That is nonsense," he said, "when the people are as much excited as they can be, and the leaders are determined to execute their long-meditated purpose of separating the State from the Union. Do not leave the forts in the harbor in a condition to induce the attempt to take possession of them. It might easily be done at this time. If South Carolina should take them, it might, as she anticipates, induce other States to join her. The Union can be preserved, but it requires firm, decided, prompt, energetic action on the part of the President. He has only to exert the power conferred on him by the Consti

A FAST-DAY PROCLAIMED.

77

tution and laws of Congress, and all will be safe, and he will prevent a civil war, which never fails to call forth all the baser passions of the human heart. If a separation should take place, be assured, blood would flow in torrents." Let me conjure you to save the Union, and thereby avoid the desolating example of Mexico. . . . Think of these things, my dear General, and save the country, and save the prosperous South from pestilence, famine, and desolation. Peaceable secession is not to be thought of. Even if it should take place in three months, we would have a bloody war on our hands."

The patriotic Cass was powerless. Fully convinced by recent developments that the Cabinet was filled with traitors, bent upon the destruction of the Republic, and utterly unable, with his single hand and voice, to restrain or persuade them, he resigned the seals of his office on the 12th of December, and retired to private life. The President, too, conscious of his own impotence-conscious that the Government was in the hands of its enemies-and despairing of the salvation of the Union by human agency, issued a Proclamation on the 14th of December, recommending the observance of the 4th day of January following as a day for humiliation, fasting, and prayer, throughout the Republic. "The

Union of the States," he said, "is at the present moment threatened with alarming and immediate danger; panic and distress, of a fearful character, prevail throughout the land; our laboring population are without employment, and, consequently, deprived of the means of earning their bread; indeed, hope seems to have deserted the minds of men. All classes are in a state of confusion and dismay, and the wisest counsels of our best and purest men are wholly disregarded. In this, the hour of our calamity and peril, to whom shall we resort for relief but to the God of our Fathers? His omnipotent arm only can save us from the awful effects of our own crimes and follies-our own ingratitude and guilt. toward our Heavenly Father." He then recommended a union of the people in bowing in humility before God, and said, in words not only of faith, but of remarkable prophecy:-"An Omnipotent Providence may overrule existing evils for permanent good."

1 He was succeeded by Jeremiah S. Black, Buchanan's Attorney-General. Two days before, as we have observed on page 44, Howell Cobb left the office of Secretary of the Treasury, because his "duty to Georgia required it," and was succeeded by Philip F. Thomas, of Maryland. Cobb's letter of resignation was dated the 8th, but he did not leave office until the 10th.

The Proclamation, in sentiment and expression, was all that Christian men could ask, of its kind; but lovers of righteousness thought that a better formula might have been framed, considering the social condition of the nation, after pondering the following words in the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah, beginning at the third

verse:

"Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? Wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in.the day of your fast you find pleasure, and exact all your labors. Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your volee to be heard on high. Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord? Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness,

78

TREASONABLE SPEECH BY CLINGMAN.

In the mean time, the halls of Congress had become theaters wherein treason was openly and defiantly displayed, especially in the Senate Chamber, where, as we have observed, Senator Clingman, of North Carolina, who afterward became a brigadier-general in the Confederate army, had first sounded the trumpet-note of revolt. The occasion was the discussion of his

THOMAS L. CLINGMAN.

own motion to print the President's Message. Adopting the false assumption as true, that the people of the Free-labor States had resolved, because they formed a constitutional majority, to oppress and despoil of their rights the people of the Slave-labor States, and had elected a President "because he was known to be a dangerous man" to the latter section, he boldly announced the determination of the South-that is to say, the politicians, like himself, of the Slave-labor States-to submit no longer to the authority of the National Government. To his political opponents, on the other side of the House, he said: "I tell those gentlemen, in perfect frankness, that, in my judgment, not only will a number of States secede in the next sixty days, but some of the other States are holding on merely to see if proper guaranties can be obtained. We have in North Carolina only two considerable parties. The absolute submissionists are too small to be called a party." He falsely alleged that the great "mass of the people consist of those who are for immediate action," and then threatened, that unless ample guaranties should be given, by amendments of the Constitution, for the protection of the rights of the South in regard to Slavery, they would see "most of the Southern States in motion at an early day. I will not undertake to advise," he said; "but I say that, unless some comprehensive plan of some kind be adopted, which shall be perfectly satisfactory, in my judgment, the wisest thing this Congress can do would be to divide the public property fairly, and apportion the public debt. I say, Sir-and events in the course of a few months will determine whether I am right or not-in my judgment, unless decisive constitutional guaranties are obtained at an early day, it will be best for all sections that a peaceable division of the public property should take place."

After thus demanding "guaranties" or concessions, Mr. Clingman broad-. y intimated that no concessions would satisfy the South; and, after drawing a picture of the advantages to be derived from secession by the people of the Slave-labor States, he protested against waiting for an overt act of offense on the part of the President elect. He wanted no further parley with the peorle of the Free-labor States. "They wish," he said "to have an opportunity, by circulating things like Helper's book,' of arraying the non-slaveholders

to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? . . . Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am.""

1 In 1859, a volume was published, entitled The Impending Crisis of the South. by Hinton Rowan Helper, a North Carolinian. It was an appeal to the great mass of the people in the Slave-labor States, to break loose

CRITTENDEN'S REBUKE.-HALE'S REMARKS.

79

and poor men against the wealthy. I have no doubt that would be their leading policy, and they would be very quiet about it. They want to get up that sort of 'free debate' which has been put into practice in Texas, according to the Senator from New York [Mr. Seward], for he is reported to have said, in one of his speeches in the Northwest, alluding to recent disturbances, to burnings and poisonings there, that Texas was 'excited by free debate.' Well, Sir," continued Clingman, with peculiar emphasis, "a Senator from Texas' told me, the other day, that a good many of those debaters' were hanging up by the trees in that country!"

When Clingman ceased speaking, the venerable John Jay Crittenden, of Kentucky, tottering with physical infirmities and the burden of seventy-five years the Nestor of Congress-instantly arose and mildly rebuked the Senator, while his seditious words were yet ringing in the ears of his amazed peers. "I rise here," he said, "to express the hope, and that alone, that the bad example of the gentleman will not be followed." He spoke feelingly of costly sacrifices made for the establishment of the Union; of its blessings and promises; and hoped that "there was not a Senator present who was not willing to yield and compromise much for the sake of the Government and the Union."

Mr. Crittenden's mild rebuke, and earnest appeal to the patriotism of the Senate, was met by more scornful and violent harangues from other Senators, in which the speakers seemed to emulate each other in the utterance of seditious sentiments. Clingman, more courteous than most of his compeers, said, "I think one of the wisest remarks that Mr. Calhoun ever made was, that the Union could not be saved by eulogies upon it." Senators Alfred Iverson, of Georgia, Albert G. Brown, of Mississippi, and Louis T. Wigfall, of Texas, followed. They had been stirred with anger by stinging words from Senator Hale, of New Hampshire, who replied to some of Clingman's remarks:-" If the issue which is presented is, that the constitutional will of the public opinion of this country, expressed through the forms of the Constitution, will not be submitted to, and war is the alternative, let it come in any form or in any shape. The Union is dissolved, and it cannot be held together as a Union, if that is the alternative upon which we go into an election. If it is preannounced and determined that the voice of the majority, expressed through the regular and constitutional forms of the Constitution, will not be submitted to, then, Sir, this is not a Union of equals; it is a Union of a dictatorial oligarchy on the one side, and a herd of slaves and cowards on the other. That is it, Sir; nothing more; nothing less."

The conspirators were not accustomed to hear such defiant words from their opponents. They indicated a spirit of resistance to their demands. -powerful, resolute, and unyielding. They were astonished and enraged. They felt compelled to cast off all disguises and cease circumlocution. Hale had said, "The plain, true way, is, to look this thing in the face-see where we are." The conspirators now thought so too, and accepted the challenge. Senators Iverson and Wigfall, the most outspoken of the disloyalists present,

from their social and political vassalage to the large land and slave owners, and to aid in freeing the Republic of slavery.

The Senators from Texas were John Hemphill and Louis T. Wigfall.