MASON-SLIDELL-WIG FALL.

45

public opinion in their favor, alarm the government into submission, and render the final act of separation more imposing and formal. Specious arguments, heartless propositions, and threats were used by turns. Mason from Virginia, Slidell, and Benjamin from Louisiana, and Wigfall from Texas, were the leading spirits in the Senate. The former was haughty, malignant, and cautious. Slidell, artful and hypocritical, and Wigfall open, specious, and daring. The arguments used were various, and calculated to influence different classes, north and south. To day it was an appeal to the north to let the south go peaceably and without resistance. They said "you hate us and we hate you-our social systems are entirely opposite,-and can never harmonize. You declare that slavery is repugnant to free institutions, and a disgrace to the Republic-now as you cannot get rid of it, let us go by ourselves, and bear the obloquy alone. If we cannot live together peaceably, let us separate amicably, and form treaties of friendship like foreign nations. Why insist on a union that is only so in name?" etc. To-morrow, it was a long recapitulation of the wrongs heaped on the south by the north. "They had been assailed in every form, and the north was determined to deprive them of their share of the territory which had been won by common valor, or been paid for from the common fund. The rights guaranteed by a common Constitution, such as the return of fugitive slaves had been struck down, and a compact broken in any particular was abrogated all together. It was the height of injustice," they claimed, "to rob them of the protection guaranteed by that instrument, and yet demand of them continued allegiance to it." There was a semblance of truth in some of these allegations, and though laughed at and ridiculed in the excitement of a political campaign, now that the Union was confronted with serious danger, various plans for an adjustment of the difficulties, and to guarantee rights

46

SCENES IN CONGRESS.

in the future, were freely offered. At length, a committee of forty members of Congress, with Corwin of Ohio at its head, was appointed to report some basis of settlement. But a spirit of acrimony and hostility governed the majority of both parties, and it was soon apparent to a calm lookeron, that nothing would come of it. Besides, it was plain that the leading conspirators wished for no adjustment. Their complaints and harangues were designed solely to strengthen the opposition party at the north, and to draw the reluctant border states into their schemes. A convention of the states which was called to meet at Washington at this time, to take into consideration the causes of disagreement, proved equally powerless to effect any good.

Among the many propositions offered in Congress and out of it, which those making them hoped would prevent a collision of the states, there was one by Mr. Crittenden restoring the Missouri Compromise; another by Mr. Adams of Massachusetts-which placed in effect the vexed question of sla very out of the reach of the federal government. Mr. Seward, in the Senate, made a third, which was not very definite. These two latter gentlemen showed themselves to be not only patriots but statesmen; and could they have carried their party with them a very different result would have been reached. They might not have prevented the rebellion, but they would have arrested its headway and discomfited its leaders. But the statesmanship of both availed nothing against party clamor, and their lofty patriotism could not stem the tide of fierce indignation that had been aroused by the haughty, defiant tone of the south.

One other course only remained: to submit the whole question, in some form, to the people. Ours is a government of the people-on them fall the burdens and horrors of war, and on them directly should rest the sole responsibility of inaugurating it, especially if it be a civil one.

FALLACY OF SOUTHERN ARGUMENTS.

47

All efforts, however, proved abortive; and the ship of state, reeling on the turbulent waves of passion, drifted steadily towards the vortex of disunion.

The chief defense made by the south, was the right to secede from the confederation, which the several states reserved to themselves when they entered it, if at any time they thought fit to do so. A great deal of able yet useless argument was wasted on this question. It was denied on the part of the north, for they asserted that such a right made the Union a rope of sand, and the government guilty of providing for its own destruction. Besides, said they, Louisiana cost us $15,000,000, Florida $5,000,000, to say nothing of $40,000,000 expended in driving the Indians from her swamps, and Texas directly and indirectly more than $200,000,000, and to suppose that these states, as soon as they had pocketed the money of the government, could withdraw, and set up for themselves, was the climax of absurdity. More than this, to whom did the Mississippi river belong if it did not to the whole Union? The whole discussion, however, was a waste of breath, for the doctrine of secession as explained by the south was never acted upon by them. They advocated it to justify rebellion. The right of rebellion under unbearable oppression, can never be vitiated by former compacts, however strong, nor by favors how great soever they may have been. If the right of secession be granted, it can take place only in the form, and by the legal process that characterized the formation of the compact. The state wishing to withdraw, must present herself before the confederation, and proceed with the same formality and respectfulness she did when she entered it, and be bound by the same decision of the parties concerned. If her claim is refused she must acquiesce, no matter how great the wrong done her, or then fall back on the right of secession. This the south never proposed to do, and to say

48

NO GROUND FOR SECESSION.

that any state, when she entered the confederacy, reserved to herself the right whenever she saw fit, to rush to arms, seize the forts and soldiers, and post-offices, and mints, and ships of the United States, is a falsehood on the face of it, too gross to need a reply. And yet this is just what the southern states did. It is, therefore, as before remarked, a waste of breath to argue a question on which no action was ever taken -to discuss a right it was never proposed to claim. The south rushed into rebellion, and unless their act can be justified on the ground that they were grievously oppressed, and had exhausted every peaceable means to obtain redress, as we did previous to our revolt against the mother country, even, as we asserted "prostrating ourselves at the foot of the throne" in vain appeals, they stand convicted of a crime too heinous to be expressed in language, and which will grow blacker with the lapse of time till "the memory of the wicked shall rot."

If the above succinct narrative of events be correct, it is easy to see that it will be vain for either the north or south to prove itself entirely guiltless before impartial history. The great moral difference between them is the former was contending against a giant wrong, and the latter defending it the former never contemplated lifting its hand against the government, while the latter deliberately precipitated us into all the horrors of civil war. The former were unwise in their action and reckless in the manner in which they carried out their political schemes-the latter were traitors in heart, conspirators while professing loyalty, and open rebels at last. This statement of course refers to the leaders. The majority of the southern people, were doubtless deceived, and believed they were in danger of subjugation, and all the horrors attending a sudden emancipation of the slaves.

To return to our summary of events, which brought us to the close of February, when a southern confederacy was formed, and the border states were vacillating between the

PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S JOURNEY.

49

north and south, we come to the arrival of President Lincoln in Washington, February 23, to be inaugurated President of the United States.

When he left Springfield, Ill., the place of his residence, a large crowd assembled to witness his departure, and express their sympathy with him in the perilous duties before him. In a short speech, he expressed his thanks, and desired their prayers, to which their hearty response was, "we will pray for you." The eyes of the Nation were turned towards him in his progress, and every word he uttered to the dif ferent assemblages on the way, was carefully noted down, and commented on. He spoke confidently and hopefully, saying all the disturbance visible was "only an artificial excitement." His utterances, though pleasing to many, gave rise to gloomy forebodings in the more thoughtful, who had been anxiously waiting for one to assume the reins of government, that had measured the length and breadth and depth and heighth of the gigantic rebellion, who would treat it as a terrible reality.

In the mean time rumors had been circulated that he would be assassinated on the way, or if he succeeded in reaching the Capital, an organized mob would prevent his inauguration and seize the city. General Scott, in command there, had been informed of the plans of the conspirators, and took measures to defeat them.

The President elect, however, had considered these rumors as exaggerations, and proceeded with his family without anticipating any trouble. But when he reached Philadelphia, he entered a different atmosphere, and began to awake as from a dream. His honest heart, incapable of guile, or even of conceiving such monstrous atrocity, was compelled at last to admit the terrible truth, that American citizens sought his life, for no other crime, than that of obeying the voice of the people, and assuming the office to which their