Diary of George Templeton Strong, November 8, 1860

. . . News from the South comes only in brief, but is all one way. Wrath and fiery hatred and malice, privy conspiracy and rebellion, treason and secession, seem the popular doctrine and sentiment in all the Cotton States, and even in North Carolina and Virginia. Colonel Scott (the General's son-in-law), who is a quiet, thoughtful, judicious man, tells me he expects serious trouble in South Carolina and Alabama at once, but he is not sure it will involve the neighboring states.¹⁸ Per contra, men like old Stevens, John C. Green, Bidwell, and others, see not the slightest ground for apprehension.¹⁹

_______________

¹⁸ Henry Lee Scott, who married Winfield Scott’s daughter Cornelia, was a North Carolinian. He had just been retired as Inspector-General in command of the forces in the city of New York.

¹⁹ John A. Stevens was president of the Bank of Commerce; John C. Green was also a banker, and a merchant in the China trade; he is best remembered as a benefactor of the New York Society Library and New York University, and as the philanthropist who endowed the John C. Green School of Science at Princeton.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 60-1

Diary of George Templeton Strong, November 9, 1860

Much gasconading from the sunny South, condensed in telegraphic reports fortunately. “Palmetto Flag’’ raised, great speeches, fuss and fury, messages from governors, conventions called. Collector of Charleston resigning, “secession inevitable,’’ and so on. It’s a critical time, but things are not so bad as I expected they would be three days after Lincoln’s election.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 61

Diary of George Templeton Strong, November 10, 1860

Trinity Church Committee on St. George’s chapel this afternoon. Gouvemeur Ogden tells me Betts wants his salary raised to $1,000 as clerk of Columbia College on the strength of our benefaction to the treasurer (Gouvemeur Ogden). They are equal in meanness and rapacity. Trustees of a religious or charitable organization should be prohibited from receiving pay for services in any capacity. They should be men who can and will give their time and labor for the public good without reward. If the College needs a financial agent who will make the management of its property his chief business, it should select him from among business men outside the board. If Betts is to have $ 1,000 for keeping our minutes, each of his colleagues is entitled to $500 per annum, at least, for attending meetings and serving on committees. . . .

News from the South continues to be menacing and uncomfortable. I think the storm will blow over and die away without uprooting anything, but it is a critical time. A trifle may fatally complicate the situation. . . .

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 61

Diary of George Templeton Strong, Sunday, November 11, 1860

Miss Puss at tea tonight; afterwards Charley, D’Oremieulx, Dr. Carroll, Jem Dwight, Hoffman, Jem Ruggles, and George Anthon. Political crisis thoroughly discussed. General disposition to concede the right of secession and to regard it with indifference and contempt. I hold secession unlawful and most calamitous, but the South is likely to do this wrong and folly and mischief if it find the North acquiescent and good-natured. I’m sorry, however, to find so many Northerners holding the Union so cheap.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 61-2

Diary of George Templeton Strong, November 12, 1860

No material change in .the complexion of Southern news. Unless writers of telegraph items lie loudly, secession is inevitable. There is uneasiness here, but mainly as to the possibility of a tight money market from the financial crisis Southern folly is bringing upon the South, which must inevitably react on us more or less. People generally treat the political peril with what seems to me unaccountable indifference. This financial crisis is already beginning in Charleston and Mobile. Suspension of specie payments seems close at hand. They have overtraded, and their crops are short, and they would have been hard up had Lincoln been defeated, and obliged to do their uttermost to get the hogs and housing they need to carry them through the winter. But now that Lincoln is elected and their terrorists are roving about confiscating Northern property and repudiating Northern debts, their credit is paralyzed and they are in danger of a general smash. It would injure us, of course; it may bring them to their senses, or it may make them desperate and reckless.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 62

Diary of George Templeton Strong, November 13, 1860

Stocks have fallen heavily today, and I think they will fall much lower before this game is played out.²⁰ One can buy in yet more profitably a fortnight hence. Southern securities are waste paper in Wall Street. Not a dollar can be raised on them. Who wants to buy paper that must be collected by suit in the courts of South Carolina and Georgia?

_______________

²⁰ Many business men thought the panic worse than in 1857; and numerous firms failed as their Southern paper became worthless.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 62

Diary of George Templeton Strong, November 15, 1860

Tonight I heard Lieber’s lecture at the Law School. Matter good and well arranged; manner bad—dreamy, dozy, and maundering. . . .

No material progress in the political crisis. Stocks have rallied a little here. Perhaps the febrile symptoms and cerebral disturbance of the South seem a shade easier. But the reign of terror in South Carolina continues unmitigated. Mrs. Sally Hampton, now in New York, wants to go home to Columbia, S. C., or thereabouts, and requires an escort, of course. Her husband can’t come North without exposing himself to a conviction of “incivisme,” and Mr. George Baxter, her papa, cannot go South without danger of being tarred and feathered as a Northerner and a possible Abolitionist. So Mrs. Sally Hampton and her three pretty babies still abide in Second Avenue. Willie Alston and Pringle meant to spend another month here, but their neighbors write them that they must come home. Their loyalty to the South will be suspected if they keep away. So they return, reluctantly. . . .

We are generally reconciling ourselves to the prospect of secession by South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, little Florida, and perhaps Mississippi, too. We shall be well rid of them. Perhaps the prevalence of this feeling— the cordial consent of the North—will keep them from seceding. I think these porcine communities incline to run out of the Union merely because they think we want to keep them in. One should never pull a pig in the direction one wants it to travel. They have long governed us and controlled our votes by the threat of secession. They naturally think secession will be a crushing calamity to the North and the severest punishment they can inflict on us for electing Lincoln.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 62-3

Diary of George Templeton Strong, November 17, 1860

Things in general look bluish-gray. Prophesyings of panic and crisis, and of still worse calamity, are heard in our streets. But people try to amuse themselves; for example, Henry Fearing has just been giving a sumptuous dinner to a dozen men at the New York Club, and Giraud Foster is to give another at the Union. Charles E. Strong, Jem Strong, and H. H. Ward as umpires are to decide which dinner was the more brilliant success, and the giver of the second best pays for both. A very pleasant transaction, no doubt, but just at this time it impresses me disagreeably. It seems like some gorgeous Heliogabalic Convivium of the days when the Empire was in decadence. . . .

Memoranda of the crisis. Stocks fell heavily today. The Trust Company declines receiving deposits payable on demand, or for less than six months. A Charleston savings bank has decided to act on a by-law or a provision of its charter authorizing it to insist on ninety days’ notice of every draft. Doubt and distrust reign in Wall Street. The best paper is negotiated with difficulty. William and Edmund Schermerhorn, Edward Bancker, and other croakers think we are drawing near to the worst period of crisis and depression this city has ever known. Mr. Samuel B. Buggies confidently expects another suspension of specie payment before next spring, perhaps before January. Per contra, John A. Stevens is sure this flurry will be over, and everything in its normal stride again within thirty days. Everyone admits that our financial condition was never sounder than at this time. But a vague apprehension of some undefined change and revolution has destroyed confidence in securities and property of every kind.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 63

Diary of George Templeton Strong, Sunday, November 19, 1860

A most gloomy day in Wall Street. Everything at a deadlock. First-class paper not negotiable; demand for money greater than in October, 1857. Stocks falling. It's said the banks resolved today to buy three millions of exchange on London. This may probably see the machine going again, for the time at least, and enable the West and South to begin moving their grain and cotton. . . .

Very few now deny the probability of secession by the Cotton States, and South Carolina is given up as hopeless. Our national mottoes must be changed to “e pluribus duo” (at least) and “United we stand, divided we stand easier.” It is generally conceded, moreover, that if federal coercion be applied to a single seceding state, the whole South will range itself against the government.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 63-4

Diary of George Templeton Strong, November 20, 1860

Wall Street was a shade less disconsolate this morning. Stocks rallied at the First Board but began to waver and fall again at the Second. The banks cannot bring about a decisive reaction; the disease is too deep-seated.

The revolutionary movement in South Carolina and the Gulf States seems, on the whole, to be gaining strength and consistency. No signs yet of any “sober second thought.” Conservatism and common-sense (if any be left in the Cotton States), are still intimidated and silent. Probably the Border States, led by Virginia, will try to mediate and pacify. Dissolution of the Union and re-opening of the slave trade would be disastrous to them, so they naturally desire to make peace. But their mediation will probably be upon the basis of recognition by the North of the extremest Southern exactions (slave trade excepted). The North must consent that slavery be introduced into the territories; Massachusetts, Vermont, Wisconsin, and other states must repeal their “personal liberty” laws that interfere with the Fugitive Slave Law. That plan will not work. Those state laws ought to be repealed, but the South has no right to demand their repeal and make their enactment an excuse for treason, because they are utterly unconstitutional and mere nullities, and no one doubts the United States Supreme Court would so adjudge them.

If these traitors succeed in dismembering the country, they will have a front place in the Historical Gallery of Celebrated Criminals. No political crime was ever committed as disastrous to mankind and with so little to provoke or excuse the wrong as that which these infamous disunionists are conspiring to perpetrate. . . .

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 64

Diary of George Templeton Strong, November 22, 1860

Wall Street has breathed more freely these two days. News this afternoon that all the banks from Charleston to Philadelphia have suspended. I don't know that we need suffer in consequence.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 64

Diary of George Templeton Strong, November 23, 1860

Mrs. Carson of South Carolina (daughter of Petigru of Charleston) dined here; conversable, agreeable, and handsome in a mature style. Also Mr. and Mrs. D. C. Murray, Wickham Holfman, George F. Allen, and Mr. Ruggles. We had much pleasant talk, though the one engrossing subject of the time was excluded, for the sake of our South Carolinian convive. Mr. Ruggles and Allen remained after the rest had gone.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 64-5

Diary of George Templeton Strong, November 24, 1860

Stocks all up today and Wall Street very jolly. But they will go lower yet, and Wall Street will look more blue than it has looked these thirty years before a.d. 1860 is ended.

 Dr. Peters, and George Anthon, and Charley Peters dined here. After dinner with Ellie and George Anthon to Academy of Music on Robert Cutting’s invitation to the rehearsal of La Juive Stigelli, Fabbri, Anna Bishop, Formes, and others. A pleasant and sunny evening. Opera in dishabille, and a splendid revelation of Bohemia.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 65

Diary of George Templeton Strong, November 25, 1860

The Supreme Court in this district has at last reluctantly concluded that it won’t do to nullify the decision of the Court of Appeals, reversing their order in the Law School case; so Mr. H. W. Cooper will be sworn in whenever he pleases.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 65

Diary of George Templeton Strong, November 26, 1860

Today’s newspapers indicate no new symptom in our sore national sickness. The tide is still rising, I think, in all the Cotton States. Reaction and ebb are sure to follow, but they may come too late. This growing excitement may do irreparable mischief before it dies out and reaction sets in. The country may be overwhelmed by a flood of disaster and disgrace before the tide begins to fall.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 65 

Diary of George Templeton Strong, November 27, 1860

Nothing new in Wall Street, except that stocks are all down again. Secession certainly gains favor at the South, and grows more threatening every day. But there are symptoms of backing down at the North. There are demonstrations toward repeal of the obnoxious "personal liberty bills’’ of certain Northern states. It seems likely that Republican leaders and wire-pullers have concluded on a policy of concession and conciliation. I hope it may be in time to prevent terrible mischief.

These "personal liberty laws’’ are unconstitutional and void. They are mere nullities, and do no harm to the South. What one nigger has South Carolina lost by the legislation of Vermont or Wisconsin? The clamor about them is a palpable humbug. Still they ought to be repealed, being wrong in spirit and interest.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 65

Diary of George Templeton Strong, November 28, 1860

No political news of importance. The progress of events has startled and staggered some of our notables, who were laughing secession to scorn a fortnight ago. John C. Green, for one, "never dreamed these Southerners would go so far." I think, from all indications, that the Republican leaders are frightened and ready to concede everything, to restore the Missouri Compromise line and satisfy the fugitive slave remedies of the South. A movement that way has certainly begun. But it may be too soon for the North and too late for the South. Suppose it prevail. How will it be received in Massachusetts and Western New York.? Will Republicans feel that they have been sold by their leaders, and recalcitrate into more intense anti-Southem feeling? I think they will and that many Republicans will enroll themselves as Abolitionists. But if this crisis pass over without disruption and ruin, if our national life endure another year, I think a strong Union party will come into being and control extremists. South and North both.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 65-6

Diary of George Templeton Strong, November 29, 1860

Thanksgiving Day. No political news today. Congress meets Monday. Mr. Ruggles’s friend. Senator Dixon,²¹ is in town on his way to Washington. Horribly frightened. Connecticut expects him to do something in the Senate, and he is anxiously enquiring, "What shall I do to be saved from the humiliation of admitting that I’m unequal to my high place?"

Tom Corwin was in town Tuesday night with the draft of some "Bill of Rights” which he means to propose, affirming the rights which the South pretends to believe endangered.

There’s a bad prospect for both sections of the country. Southern ruffianism and brutality are very bad, but the selfishness, baseness, and corruption of the North are not good at all. Universal suffrage has been acquiesced in for many years. It is no longer debated. But it’s at the root of our troubles. What we want is a strong government, instead of a "government of opinion.” If there be disunion, a strong government will be demanded and will come into being somehow, both North and South. Democracy and equality and various other phantasms will be dispersed and dissipated and will disappear forever when two hostile families of states stand side by side, and a great civil war becomes inevitable. To which party will God give a great general, when that crisis is upon us?

_______________

²¹ James Dixon (18l4-1873). Republican Senator from Connecticut.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 66

Diary of George Templeton Strong, July 5, 1860

. . . Visited the Great Eastern this afternoon. Visitors seem few. She is an enormity. But the bulk of the ship impresses me less than that of the titanic engines. I dived into their depths by the help of certain slippery cobweb iron ladders. The huge cylinders and piston rods are awful to behold, even in repose. This big ship, with all her apparatus of engines, telegraphs, corrected compasses, and what not, is the incarnation (or inferration) of a good deal of thought, study, and experiment by quite a number of generations. Such a result is not developed out of the coracle of our barelegged, woad-stained ancestors, tempore Julius Caesar, by a single step. . . .

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 37-8

Diary of George Templeton Strong, July 10, 1860

Evening at Dr. Gilman’s in Thirteenth Street for a second consultation with our new allies of the College of Physicians and Surgeons about the projected Scientific School—the last hope of our “Columbia College Scientific Post-graduate Course.” Dr. Torrey, Mr. Ruggles, William Betts, and myself represented Columbia; Gilman and Delafield, Parker, St. John, and others of the Medical College faculty propounded their scheme. It promises well and may be nursed into vigorous life. The proposed course includes zoology, geology, and physiology. A year hence, we may add applied chemistry and engineering. We were all of one mind. William Betts takes hold very cordially. A special meeting of our board is to be called for the 19th instant. We signed a requisition to Governor Fish at Newport to summon it for that day. Ogden will oppose, of course, virtute officii, as treasurer and advocatus diaboli, but I think we shall put it through.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 38