South Carolina has passed a secession
ordinance, and Federal laws are set at naught in the State. Overt acts
enough have been committed. Forts and arsenal taken, a revenue cutter seized,
and Major Anderson besieged in Fort Sumter. Other cotton States are about to
follow. Disunion and civil war are at hand; and yet I fear disunion and war
less than compromise. We can recover from them. The free States alone, if we
must go on alone, will make a glorious nation. Twenty millions in the temperate
zone, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, full of vigor, industry,
inventive genius, educated, and moral; increasing by immigration rapidly, and,
above all, free — all free — will form a confederacy of twenty States scarcely
inferior in real power to the unfortunate Union of thirty-three States which we
had on the first of November. I do not even feel gloomy when I look forward.
The reality is less frightful than the apprehension which we have all had these
many years. Let us be temperate, calm, and just, but firm and resolute.
Crittenden's compromise! *
Windham speaking of the rumor that Bonaparte was about to
invade England said: "The danger of invasion is by no means equal to that
of peace. A man may escape a pistol however near his head, but not a dose of
poison."
__________
*Hayes's disapproval of the Crittenden Compromise is
indicated by the exclamation point. The venerable John J. Crittenden, Senator
from Kentucky, sought by eloquent appeals to induce Congress to submit to the
States for approval an amendment to the Constitution
forbidding Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia so long as
it existed in Virginia or Maryland, or to abolish it in national territory
south of latitude 36° 30' — the southern line of Kansas. This was to be
irrepealable by any subsequent amendment, as were also certain existing
paragraphs in the Constitution relating to slavery. Further, Mr. Crittenden
wished Congress to strengthen the Fugitive Slave Law and to appeal to the
States and to the people for its thorough enforcement.
SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard
Hayes, Volume 2, p. 2-3
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