visions in the Crittenden resolutions which to my mind are wholly inadmissible, but let them pass. My objection is to any compromise. I will never consent to compromises . . . under threats of breaking up the Government." 1

If we attempt to measure the right or wrong of the Republican refusal we must recognize that the very existence of the Republican party was based upon its opposition to slavery extension or to giving it a firmer constitutional basis. It could not yield this principle without party stultification. Whether, had they yielded and the compromise been adopted, the situation of the country would have been alleviated, is a subject for limitless thought and argument, with futility as an end.

One of Lincoln's objections, the fear of extension of territory to the south, was, despite the southern attitude on the question, a groundless one. The North by this time was firmly set against such movement, and Cuba could only have been ours by a war in which the North, at that period, would certainly not have allowed the country to engage. The possibility of extension of slavery into the vast western region, despite the onflow of free migration and despite climate and physical conditions, has already been considered. We must, however, believe that had Mr. Lincoln and the other prominent Republican leaders been willing to yield so much, secession would not have gone beyond South Carolina. 1 Salter, Grimes, 134.

But South Carolina was already out of the Union. How, in such circumstances, should she be recalled? It is, of course, not unfair to suppose that, unsupported in her withdrawal by any of the southern states, she would not have resisted the reinforcement of Sumter and thereby engaged against her the North, with the South neutralized to a great extent at least. But the old friction would have remained, accentuated by what had already occurred; the situation of slavery would not have been bettered; the slaves themselves would have been aroused to greater efforts to freedom by the abolitionists, who would have redoubled their efforts through a reaction which must have followed the northern concessions. The whole country by this time was aroused to the subject, and the chief element in the bitterness of the South, the feeling of isolation, of standing apart, a mark for the world to point at, would have grown greater. The only hope of saving the institution, acceptation of its existing geographical limits, and a not too rigid claim of recovery of fugitives-in one word, quietude -was impossible in the state of the southern mind. It was a question of world psychology. Civilized mankind elsewhere had gradually come to that point of moral development which made the further existence of slavery impossible. To have made the compromise finally acceptable, the South had to look forward to yielding slavery by degrees, or the North to its permanent acceptance. The

latter, driven by the world impulse towards freedom, could not accede to this; the former was equally driven by the lash of its own conditions to stand firm.

Millson, a member of Congress from Virginia, expressed the only true view of the bone of contention when he said, January 21, 1861: "This territorial question has been settled. The battle has been fought and it has been won by both parties; it has been lost by both parties. . . . You cannot [by the interpretation of the Constitution by the supreme court]... prohibit slavery in a Territory . . . but... there is not the least probability that slavery will ever be carried into any one of them. Thus, in all that respects practical results, you have gained the battle, and we have lost it. You have lost the principle; we the substance. You have gained the substance; we the principle." Such views apparently had weight in the acts organizing the territories of Colorado, Dakota, and Nevada. These were passed by a Republican majority in both houses, with no reference to the prohibition of slavery, thus vindicating Webster, and practically stamping the fierce agitation of the previous twelve years as a stultification.1

1 Cong. Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., App., 77.

2 Cf. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, I., 270, 271.

CHAPTER XII

STATUS OF THE FORTS

(OCTOBER 29, 1860-DECEMBER 20, 1860)

ENERAL SCOTT, with his memories of 1832,

GENE

was one of those who appreciated the danger hanging over the country, and, October 29, 1860, he wrote from New York, where he had his headquarters, a letter of great length to the president, which in pompous phrases, conceding the right of secession, and embodying some absurd ideas, such as allowing "the fragments of the great republic to form themselves into new confederacies, probably four," as a smaller evil than war, gave it as his "solemn conviction" that there was, from his knowledge of the southern population, “some danger of an early act of rashness preliminary to secession, viz: the seizure of some or all of the following posts: Forts Jackson and St. Philip on the Mississippi; Morgan below Mobile, all without garrisons; Pickens, McKee at Pensacola, with an insufficient garrison for one; Pulaski, below Savannah, without a garrison; Moultrie and Sumter, Charleston harbor, the former with an insufficient garrison, the latter

without any; and Fort Monroe, Hampton Roads, with an insufficient garrison."

He gave it as his opinion that "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." He did not state the number of men needed, but in a supplementary paper the next day (October 30) said, "There is one (regular) company in Boston, one here (at the Narrows), one at Pittsburg, one at Baton Rouge— in all five companies only within reach." These five companies, about two hundred and fifty men, were of course absurdly inadequate to garrison nine such posts, but had there been a determination in the president's mind to prevent seizures, enough men could have been brought together to hold the more important points.

For Scott's statement as to the number available was grossly inaccurate, and but serves to show the parlous state of a war department in which the general-in-chief can either be so misinformed or allow himself to remain in ignorance of vital facts. There were but five points in the farther South of primal importance: the Mississippi, Mobile, Pensacola, Savannah, and Charleston; two hundred men at each would have been ample to hold the positions for the time being, and, being held, reinforcement in any degree would later have been easy.

1 Buchanan, Administration on Eve of Rebellion, chap. v.; National Intelligencer, January 18, 1861.