Coming Fury, Volume 1 Page 9

  He had pretty well expressed Chicago’s mood. An unvarnished Westerner was going to be the next President, and for tonight everybody would take a great deal of everything. Down the streets went disorganized processions, with much whooping and cavorting. From nowhere men appeared carrying fence rails—whether authentic relics of the nominee’s rail-splitting youth or run-of-the-mill rails split by someone else made no difference—and these were carried and displayed and brandished, hour after hour. Cannon on top of the Tremont Hotel fired a 100-gun salute, the offices of the Chicago Tribune were gaily illuminated, and unheard-of quantities of whisky were consumed. At the Briggs House, where the Cameron people had their headquarters, hundreds of Pennsylvanians presented “a scene of indescribable joy and excitement.” (As the group that had set the band wagon rolling, the Pennsylvania Republicans could count on abundant rewards when the new administration took office.) They would build rail pens, they declared, in every school yard in Pennsylvania, and they sent a telegram to Decatur, Illinois, where there was alleged to be a fence made of rails split by Lincoln in 1830. This fence the Pennsylvanians wanted to buy, en bloc. Other groups also wanted to buy those rails, and Decatur did a brisk business while the supply lasted.9

  The convention somehow finished its business that evening, while Chicago celebrated. For Vice-President it nominated Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine—another choice reflecting the professional politicians’ profound concern over making the proper appeal to all elements in this elated but fundamentally disharmonious party. There was powerful sentiment among the delegates for Cassius Clay, of Kentucky. He received more than 100 votes on the first ballot, and might easily have been nominated by acclamation—at one point half of the people in the Wigwam seemed to be chanting “Clay! Clay! Clay!” But the professionals got things in hand. Clay was an out-and-out radical on the slavery issue, he came from west of the Alleghenies, and, like Lincoln, he was a former Whig. Hamlin, a good friend of Seward, was a moderate, an Easterner, and a former Democrat—and, altogether, he would give the ticket better balance. Hamlin it was, on the second ballot. Then, after naming a committee to go to Springfield and formally tell Lincoln that he was the candidate, the convention adjourned.

  Cassius Clay was in Chicago at this time, and he was wholeheartedly glad that Lincoln had been nominated, but he did not want any illusions about what was probably going to come of this convention’s work. A Kansas Republican recalled afterward how he and some friends, on the night before the nominations were made, went to a meeting of border-state delegates and met Clay. Clay was impressive—huge, powerful, fearless, as became one who had preached emancipation for years in a slave state, defying his enemies to silence him. (He was a distinguished knife fighter, which probably helped him in that career.) At this meeting he warned the Kansans: “Gentlemen, we are on the brink of a great civil war.”

  They had probably heard that before, Clay continued, but as a Southerner he wanted them to know that if the North elected a candidate on the platform the Republicans had just adopted, the South would fight. He was not going to run away from that war, but it gave him a deep anxiety about the kind of man the party might nominate. “You must give us a leader at this time who will inspire our confidence and our courage. We must have such a leader or we are lost.” Then, impressively: “We want you to name Abraham Lincoln. He was born among us and we believe he understands us.”10 Like Clay and like Jefferson Davis, Lincoln had been born in Kentucky.

  But Clay’s somber warning was not on anybody’s mind tonight. A good part of the Northwest, apparently, was taking Lincoln’s nomination as a great victory, and as the night trains carried out-of-town visitors and delegates off to their homes, every track-side village put on its own celebration—people shouting, tar barrels ablaze, drums being beaten, firearms banging, and more fence rails in evidence. On the train that carried Halstead and other Ohioans toward Cincinnati, the Lincoln enthusiasts were simply too groggy to respond to these evidences of enthusiasm. Halstead wrote in amazement: “I never before saw a company of persons so prostrated by continued excitement.”11

  CHAPTER TWO

  Down a Steep Place

  1: Division at Baltimore

  Robert E. Lee, of Virginia, lieutenant colonel in the 2nd United States Cavalry, a colonel by brevet and acting commander of the Department of Texas, took a preoccupied look at political matters in this haunted summer of 1860 and wrote down his thoughts in a letter to his friend, Major Earl Van Dorn.

  “The papers,” he wrote, “will give you the news of the Baltimore convention. If Judge Douglas would now withdraw & join himself & party to aid in the election of Breckinridge, he might retrieve himself before the country & Lincoln be defeated. Politicians I fear are too selfish to become martyrs.”1

  It was not a summer for martyrs and the withdrawal would not take place, and whether it would have changed things very much is open to question anyway. Politics had lost its flexibility, and the loss reflected grass-roots sentiment. Too many leaders had dug in for a last-ditch stand—whether for high principle, for practical political profit, or for a blend of both—and although it was increasingly clear that the result was likely to be disastrous, everybody felt that the necessary concessions ought to be made by someone else; it was always the other side that was stiff-necked and obstinate.2 The politicians who were driving on toward a shattering climax were supported by plain citizens whose response seemed to be almost automatic. Lee’s attitude was a case in point. He had as little of the fire-eating extremist in him as any man in America, but he was a man of his time, of his class, and of his section—and the cotton-state extremists were somehow speaking for him. Instinctively he was aligning himself with them; oppressed by the obvious drift of things, he could say no more than that it was up to Douglas to master self-interest and to retire from the struggle.

  As Colonel Lee suspected, there were too many candidates for the presidency, but the problem was not so much their number as the sharp divisive forces that insisted on bringing them forward.

  The Republicans had named Mr. Lincoln, and the Constitutional Union party had named Mr. Bell. Now the one and indivisible Democracy had broken into halves. Its Northern wing, insisting that it was the National Democratic party, had nominated Senator Douglas, and its Southern wing, bearing the name of the Constitutional Democratic party, had nominated John C. Breckinridge, currently the Vice-President of the United States; and so now there were four tickets, each supported by men who felt that they were following the only possible path to salvation. A Republican victory was almost certain, and the Democrats, who had the most to lose from such a victory, were blindly and with a fated stubbornness doing everything they could to bring that victory to pass.

  Senator Douglas, as a matter of fact, had been prepared to withdraw. He had even written a message of withdrawal, confiding slightly different versions of it to two of his party’s leaders for issuance in case such a step would prevent a break in the party, but it had not been issued. Baltimore had simply put the seal on what had been begun at Charleston. Northern sectionalism, finding its voice in the unrestrained jubilation of the Republican ceremony at the Wigwam, had its counterpart in a Southern sectionalism which would hold to the letter of its own restrictive law though the heavens fell. The story of 1860 is the story of a great nation, marching to the wild music of bands, with flaring torches and with banners and with enthusiastic shouts, moving down a steep place into the sea.

  According to schedule the Democratic convention reconvened in Baltimore on June 18. Caleb Cushing, profoundly dignified in blue coat with brass buttons, bearing something of the air of a latter-day Daniel Webster, was again in the chair as delegates and spectators filed into the Front Street Theater, and the tension that had pervaded the air at Charleston seemed greater than ever. Right at the outset Mr. Cushing had a problem. After the adjournment at Charleston, conventions in certain Southern states had named new delegations, friendly to Douglas, to replace the ones that had walked out in April, and t
hese were present in Baltimore—along with the delegations they were supposed to replace. Which groups were legally entitled to seats? What the convention would finally do depended in large part on the decision that would be made on this point, and the chairman was under immense pressure. The men from the Northwest were confident, almost arrogant. They would nominate the Little Giant at any cost, and they would begin by making certain that the new Southern delegates were accepted, and they insisted on this so strenuously that the first day’s session was one long wrangle. Cushing ruled that all delegates who were on the roll when the Charleston convention adjourned were still delegates as far as he was concerned; the chairman, he held, had no power to rule on conflicting credentials. The matter was passed to a credentials committee for determination, and there was much uproar on the floor, with hissing and cat-calling from the crowded galleries.3

  It would take the credentials committee three days to wrestle with this problem, and until the wrestling ended, the convention could do nothing but wait, its collective temperature rising hour by hour. Douglas men paraded the streets with brass bands, pausing when the spirit moved them to listen to stump speeches; Southern die-hards, in turn, had a way of gathering in front of the Gilmore House, where Yancey was staying, for stump speeches of their own; and nothing that was said or done at any of these meetings served to promote harmony. At the Douglas meetings, held often enough on the steps of the home of the eminent Reverdy Johnson, former Senator, former Attorney General, and a leader of the “moderates” on the slavery question, orators shouted that devotion to Douglas was the only true test of Democratic fidelity. At the Gilmore House, in turn, the Douglas men were denounced as abolitionists in disguise, and Yancey cried that these Douglas leaders were selfish men who, ostrich-like, “buried their heads in the sands of squatter sovereignty” and thereby exposed their anti-slavery posteriors. On the fringes of these meetings there were often a number of fist fights.4

  The unyielding temper of the anti-Douglas group had been hardened by events in Richmond a week earlier. At Richmond the Southern delegates who had walked out at Charleston had reconvened, asserting their claim to represent the true Democratic faith and, after oratory, agreeing in effect to wait and see what happened at Baltimore; but the keynote speeches at Richmond left no doubt that this wing of the party was in for a fight to the finish. Lieutenant Governor F. R. Lubbock, of Texas, who called the Richmond meeting to order, spoke for all hands when he declared that they had met “to carry out our principles whatever may be the result,” and he drew loud applause when he asserted: “If we cannot succeed in sustaining those principles we must create—no, we will not ‘create’ a new Democratic party, but we will simply declare ourselves the true Democratic party, and we will unfurl our banner and go to the country upon true Democratic principles.” John Erwin, of Alabama, who succeeded him as permanent chairman of this impermanent convention, insisted that “we must yield nothing, whether we remain here or whether we go elsewhere.” Whatever happened, the South must insist on its rights, and “the serpent of squatter sovereignty must be strangled.”5

  On June 21, fourth day of the Baltimore convention, the credentials committee had finished its labor. The Front Street Theater was jammed when the delegates were called to order, and proceedings were delayed when a section of the floor gave way, sending delegates in a wild scramble for safety, a sudden panic which might have led to serious trouble but fortunately did not. After an hour’s recess, during which proper repairs were made, the session got under way and the committee offered two reports—a majority report, which held that new delegations from Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas should be seated, with a compromise by which the Georgia delegation would be equally divided between seceders and newcomers; and a minority report emphasizing states’ rights and demanding the seating of the original Charleston delegations. The majority report, of course, was strictly pro-Douglas. If the convention accepted it, Douglas’s nomination was certain; almost equally certain, by now, was the fact that such action would cause the Southern extremists to walk out of this convention just as they had walked out at Charleston. The convention would have to decide; but further adjournment became necessary when the big New York delegation asked for time in which to make up its mind—a step which discouraged the Douglas people, who believed the New Yorkers had already committed themselves to the Douglas cause.6

  So the business went over to the next day, Friday, June 22, and at seven o’clock that evening there came the showdown. The theater was packed, as before, and there was a strange silence as the roll was called. Everyone realized that by now the Democracy had crowded itself into a corner; no matter how this vote went, the party was going to divide, and the division would almost inevitably mean the election of Abraham Lincoln in November. But until the vote was recorded, something might happen; and just now, suddenly, a rumor went the rounds—a rumor that Senator Douglas had offered to withdraw his name in the interests of harmony.

  The rumor, as it happened, was perfectly true. Douglas had given one of those letters of withdrawal to his floor manager, Richardson, of Illinois, but Mr. Richardson was keeping the letter in his pocket and was saying nothing about it. Suspecting, perhaps, that this was what Richardson would do, Douglas had also written to Dean Richmond, one of the leaders of the New York Democracy, and this letter, dated June 22, read as follows:

  “The steadiness with which New York has sustained me will justify a word of counsel. The safety of the cause is the paramount duty of every Democrat. The unity of the party and the maintenance of its principles inviolate are more important than the election or defeat of any individual. If my enemies are determined to divide and destroy the Democratic party, and perhaps the country, rather than see me elected, and if the unity of the party can be preserved and its ascendancy perpetuated by dropping my name and uniting upon some other reliable non-intervention and Union-loving Democrat, I beseech you, in consultation with our friends, to pursue that course which will save the party and the country without regard to my individual interest. I mean all this letter implies. Consult freely and act boldly for the right.”

  This dispatch was not exactly an olive branch. With its firm insistence on non-intervention—that is, non-intervention by the Federal government in the matter of slavery in the territories—and on Union-loving Democrats, it by no means constituted a surrender to the Southern group. At most, it would simply remove one controversial figure from the party fight; the fight itself, if Douglas’s letter were taken at face value, would continue. But for whatever the letter might be worth, Dean Richmond had it. Like Richardson, he kept it securely pocketed.

  The convention proceeded to adopt the majority report, and defeated a series of parliamentary maneuvers looking toward a reconsideration. The Douglas men had won; their delegates were officially seated; now the Senator from Illinois could be nominated.

  He could not, however, be nominated by a united convention. Someone moved that the convention now ballot on candidates, but Chairman Cushing, refusing to recognize the motion, gave the floor to Delegate Charles W. Russell, of Virginia, who arose to make an announcement:

  “I understand that the action of this convention upon the various questions arising out of the reports from the committee on credentials has become final, complete and irrevocable. And it has become my duty now, by direction of a large majority of the delegation from Virginia, respectfully to inform this body that it is inconsistent with their convictions of duty to participate longer in its deliberations.”

  The Civil War came out of the words of many men, spoken under intense pressure and out of the depths of deep conviction and overpowering emotions. In part it came out of the quiet, mannered announcement of Delegate Russell. One more moment of decision had passed, not to be called back.…

  When Mr. Russell finished, there was a throbbing wave of confused sound—cheers, hisses, angry cries for “Order!”, a moving and a shifting of delegates and spectators. Caleb Cushing ordered the galleries cleared, m
ade no attempt to enforce the order, waited for the tumult to subside. (The galleries were applauding Mr. Russell: whatever the convention itself might do, most of the spectators this night seemed to be much against the Senator from Illinois.) Then, after some minutes of turmoil, most of the Virginia delegates got up and left the hall. They were followed by men from Carolina and from Tennessee. The delegation from Kentucky retired to caucus. A number of Maryland delegates withdrew, to be followed by scattered groups from a few Northern states and by a substantial bloc from the Pacific Coast, where the party was largely dominated by pro-Southerners. Essentially, the walkout meant that the deep South had formalized the decision made earlier at Charleston: it would not go along with Douglas under any circumstances.