John Tyler to Robert Tyler, January 18, 1861

SHERWOOD FOREST, January 18, 1861.

MY DEAR ROBERT: . . . . . . My paper did not come out in the Richmond papers on Tuesday as I expected. I suppose it reached Richmond on Monday too late for the press. I recommended a meeting of the Border States through commissioners. The course of the Pennsylvania and Ohio Legislatures, made known to me on yesterday, leaves but little hope of any adjustment.

The Legislature of Virginia have so trammelled their convention bill that I fear that we shall have a doubtful result. They talk hereabouts of sending me to the convention. Should the application be made formally, I shall find difficulty in refusing; and yet I in no way desire it. My hope is that they will select some other. Compromise seems to be more distant every day. The fate of Crittenden's project, I suppose, will nearly conclude matters. Keep me advised about movements in Pennsylvania.

I am better in the last two days, but still infirm.

Your father,

JOHN TYLER.

SOURCE: Lyon Gardiner Tyler, The Letters and Times of the Tylers, Volume 2, p. 578-9

Diary of George Mifflin Dallas, February 2, 1861

A slight solace to one's anxieties about home is found in the circumstances brought by successive steamers during the week. 1. The proposition of Mr. Crittenden, or "The Border States," seems growing into favour. 2. There was a large minority on the question of secession before next 4th of March in the Georgia Convention. 3. The Alabama members of Congress have been instructed not to quit, but to wait further advices. 4. The South Carolina Commissioner, Colonel Hayne, has suspended his demand for the evacuation of Fort Sumter. 5. Charleston is suffering greatly from want of supplies. 6. Major Anderson is universally applauded. 7. Virginia has adopted as satisfactory the compromise of Crittenden. 8. Financial affairs are improving; the United States stock rose one per cent.

There would seem to be a most extraordinary departure from the chivalric honour in public life which has heretofore characterized Southern gentlemen in the disloyal treachery with which Cobb, Floyd, Thomson, Thomas, and Trescott have pursued secession in the very penetralia of Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet. Nothing can relieve them from the charge of deceit and treachery but their having apprised the President, on entering his counsels, that, instead of recognizing as paramount their allegiance to the Union, they were governed by "a higher law" of duty to Georgia, Virginia, Mississippi, Maryland, and South Carolina respectively.

Persigny, recently appointed to the Ministry of the Interior in Paris, made a popularity-seeking plunge at his outset in relaxing restrictions on the Press. Suddenly he has turned a corner; giving, three days ago, an "avertissement" to the Courrier de Dimanche, and arbitrarily ordering the offensive writer, Ganeseo, out of the Kingdom! He says that Ganeseo is a foreigner, and cannot be allowed to criticise the principle of the Imperial Government.

SOURCE: George Mifflin Dallas, Diary of George Mifflin Dallas, While United States Minister to Russia 1837 to 1839, and to England 1856 to 1861, Volume 3, p. 432-3

Diary of George Mifflin Dallas, February 28, 1861

On Monday evening last went with Julia and Sophie to hear M. du Chaillu lecture at the Royal Geographical Society in Burlington House. The gathering, ladies as well as gentlemen, was very large. The walls were hung with portraits of scientific celebrities. Sir Roderick Murchison, in the absence of Lord Ashburton, presided. M. du Chaillu was successful in describing his various conflicts with gorillas, and in conveying a clear idea of the country over which these beasts are "Lords." He was highly complimented in a delightful address from Professor Owen, who eloquently portrayed the resemblances and differences of the human and gorilla skeletons.

On Tuesday, the 26th, took a family dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Bates. Professor Owen, who is temporarily staying there, and young Victor Van de Weyer, with us four, made a party of six guests. The only poor dinner I ever ate at Mr. Bates's.

On Wednesday evening went first to Lady Stanley of Alderley, and second to the Duke of Somerset's, at the Admiralty. Not more than twenty minutes at either.

No promising news from home until this morning.

By the arrival of the Anglo-Saxon at Londonderry, a telegram announces the fact that the Committee of the Peace Convention had reported a plan for adjustment, made up of Crittenden's, Guthrie's, and the Border States' proposal. If this be approved, the great body of the Union may be saved; with a reasonable prospect of reattracting the eight States which have seceded, and are now embodied as "The Confederated States of America." General Jefferson Davis and A. H. Stephens were inaugurated as President and Vice-President on the 18th instant. Query: Were they chosen by popular election, or by the Convention only at Montgomery? Perhaps they are provisional only, and for a limited time.

SOURCE: George Mifflin Dallas, Diary of George Mifflin Dallas, While United States Minister to Russia 1837 to 1839, and to England 1856 to 1861, Volume 3, p. 438-9

Jonathan Worth to his Brother,* March 16, 1861

ASHEBORO, March 16th, 1861.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

In your letter of the 8th inst., I was taken a little by surprise. But I now fear to begin to believe that revolution can't be stayed, and if I consulted the dictates of prudence, would, to some extent, yield to the current. I was surprised because the evidence has seemed to me abundant since the vote of La, and N. C. and the adjournment of Congress, the report of the peace convention, and the inaugural, that revolution was arrested. The votes of La. and N. C. raised a wall between the madness of the South and the uncertain turbulence of Va. which neither could pass. The plan of the peace Congress, when duly considered, will be approved by an increased majority both North and South. It is better for all sections and for the whole country than the Crittenden plan, that is, as to the main question—territory; no more territory would be likely to be acquired at all, and if acquired, the slavery question would be settled simultaneously. Congress having adjourned without passing the force bill and without supplying the executive with men or money to wage war, or even to reinforce Fort Sumter, the Prest., as commander-in-chief of the army, would be compelled in a military point of view, and not in a recognition of the right of Secession, to evacuate Ft. Sumter. Lincoln's inaugural breathes peace to any candid mind. Since the final act of Congress, the President's inaugural and the vote of N. C. against convention reached me, I have considered the Revolution arrested. Reaction must soon follow in the United States. I do not know whether the Prest. has ordered the evacuation of Ft. Sumter, but I presume he has because Congress did not furnish him the means of maintaining the occupation, in which I think Congress acted wisely. As to any other fort, still in the occupation of the national troops, which the Prest. can defend with the means at his command, he would make himself contemptible in the estimation of the world if he should voluntarily surrender them. IIe is bound by his oath to protect the public property and execute the laws so far as the legislative power will furnish him the means. I fear you caught a slight singe of gloom from our quondam friend Geo. Davis.¹ I know not how you regard him. You ought not to regard him any longer as a Whig. You have heard Vance's anecdote as to the pet lamb Billy. Say to Davis personally, “Billy.” He has gone over, whatever he may think or say, to Democracy and red Republicanism. Democracy has fought for months with the rope around its neck. Its votaries should now have their coffins made and say their prayers.

Twiggs ought not to be shot. He ought to be hanged and his name for all time to be written in connection and immediately after Benedict Arnold. I am garrulous and will quit.

_______________

* Probably B. G. Worth.

* George Davis, a prominent member of the Wilmington bar, had become a secessionist after the Peace Conference. As a member of the Whig party this change greatly incensed many of the party. He was later Confederate Senator and Attorney General in the Confederate Cabinet.

SOURCE: J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, Editor, The Correspondence of Jonathan Worth, Volume 1, p. 133-5

Diary of Gideon Welles: Wednesday, May 11, 1864

A craving, uneasy feeling pervaded the community through the day. No intelligence from any quarter received, yet a conviction pervades everywhere that much is being done. I was at the War Department at 9 P.M. The President and Stanton were anxiously waiting intelligence.

I met Blair as I came from the Department, who wished me to go to his house. A letter from Governor Morgan asking me to name the month to which I would postpone the Union National Convention, if I desired a postponement, was received and answered by me this evening. It was a singular document and surprised me. I spoke of it to Blair, who said he had seen the circular last week. This gave me even greater surprise, for Morgan has frequently consulted and interchanged views with me, both of us concurring against postponement. It was discussed by us at our last interview.

Blair, as well as myself, was puzzled, but we both were willing to believe that no mischief was intended. The course of Thurlow Weed and some New York politicians has been singular. Blair took from his pocket a letter from Barlow of New York, a Copperhead leader, with whom, he informs me, he has corresponded for some weeks past. Barlow is thick with General McClellan, and Blair, who has clung also to McC., not giving him up until his Woodward letter betrayed his weakness and his ambition, still thought he might have military service, provided he gave up his political aspirations. It was this feeling that had led to the correspondence.

I do not admire the idea of corresponding with such a man as Barlow, who is an intense partisan, and Blair himself would distrust almost any one who should be in political communication with him. Blair had written Barlow that he would try to get McC. an appointment to the army, giving up party politics. Barlow replied that no party can give up their principles, and quotes a letter which he says was written by a distinguished member of Mr. Lincoln’s Cabinet last September, urging the organization of a conservative party on the basis of the Crittenden compromise. This extract shocks Blair. He says it must have been written by Seward. I incline to the same opinion, though Usher crossed my mind, and I so remarked to Blair. Last September U.’s position was more equivocal than Seward’s, and he might have written such a letter without black perfidy. Seward could not.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 28-9

An Additional Resolution to The Crittenden Compromise, Offered by Senator John J. Crittenden, January 3, 1861

Whereas, The Union is in danger, and, owing to the unhappy divisions existing in Congress, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for that body to concur in both its branches by the requisite majority, so as to enable it either to adopt such measures of legislation, or to recommend to the states such amendments to the Constitution, as are deemed necessary and proper to avert that danger; and

Whereas, In so great an emergency, the opinion and judgment of the people ought to be heard, and would be the best and surest guide to their representatives; therefore,

Resolved, That provision ought to be made by law, without delay, for taking the sense of the people and submitting to their vote the following resolutions (above quoted as "V") as the basis for the final and permanent settlement of those disputes that now disturb the peace of the country and threaten the existence of the Union.

SOURCES: George Ticknor Curtis, Constitutional History of the United States from Their Declaration of Independence to the Close of Their Civil War, Volume 2 , p. 528

The Crittenden Compromise, December 18, 1860

[in United States Senate, December 18, I860.]

A joint resolution (§ 50) proposing certain amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

Whereas, Serious and alarming dissensions have arisen between the Northern and Southern States concerning the rights and security of the rights of the slaveholding states, and especially the rights in the common territory of the United States; and

Whereas, It is eminently desirable and proper that these dissensions, which now threaten the very existence of this Union, should be permanently quieted and settled by constitutional provisions which shall do equal justice to all sections, and thereby restore to the people that peace and good-will which ought to prevail between all citizens of the United States; therefore,

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two thirds of both houses concurring), That the following articles he and are hereby proposed and submitted as Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of said Constitution, when ratified by conventions of three fourths of the several states:

Article 1. In all the territory of the United States now held, or hereafter acquired, situate north of latitude 36° 30', slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, is prohibited while such territory shall remain under territorial government. In all the territory south of said line of latitude slavery of the African race is hereby recognized as existing and shall not be interfered with by Congress, but shall be protected as property by all the departments of the territorial government during its continuance. And when any territory north or south of said line, within such boundaries as Congress may prescribe, shall contain the population requisite for a member of Congress according to the then federal ratio of representation of the people of the United States, it shall, if its form of government be republican, be admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original states, with or without slavery, as the constitution of such new state may provide.

Article 2. Congress shall have no power to abolish slavery in places under its exclusive jurisdiction, and situate within the limits of states that permit the holding of slaves.

Article 3. Congress shall have no power to abolish slavery within the District of Columbia so long as it exists in the adjoining states of Virginia and Maryland, or either, nor without the consent of the inhabitants, nor without just compensation first made to such owners of slaves as do not consent to such abolishment. Nor shall Congress at any time prohibit officers of the Federal Government, or members of Congress, whose duties require them to be in said district, from bringing with them their slaves, and holding them as such during the time their duties may require them to remain there, and afterwards taking them from the district.

ARTICLE 4. Congress shall have no power to prohibit or hinder the transportation of slaves from one state to another, or to a territory in which slaves are by law permitted to he held, whether that transportation be by land, navigable rivers, or by the sea.

Article 5. That in addition to the provisions of the third paragraph of the second section of the fourth article of the Constitution of the United States, Congress shall have power to provide by law, and it shall he its duty so to provide, that the United States shall pay to the owner who shall apply for it the full value of his fugitive slave in all cases when the marshal or other officer whose duty it was to arrest said fugitive was prevented from so doing by violence or intimidation, or when, after arrest, said fugitive was rescued by force, and the owner thereby prevented and obstructed in the pursuit of his remedy for the recovery of his fugitive slave under the said clause of the Constitution, and the laws made in pursuance thereof. And in all such cases, when the United States shall pay for such fugitive, they shall have the right, in their own name, to sue the county in which said violence, intimidation, or rescue was committed, and to recover from it, with interest and damages, the amount paid by them for said fugitive slave. And the said county, after it has paid said amount to the United States, may, for its indemnity, sue and recover from the wrong-doers or rescuers by whom the owner was prevented from the recovery of his fugitive slave, in like manner ns the owner himself might have sued and recovered.

Article 6. No future amendment of the Constitution shall affect the five preceding articles; nor the third paragraph of the second section of the fourth article of said Constitution; and no amendment shall be made to the Constitution which shall authorize or give to Congress any power to abolish or interfere with slavery in any of the states by whose laws it is, or may be, allowed or permitted.

And Whereas, also, besides those causes of dissension embraced in the foregoing amendments proposed to the Constitution of the United States, there are others which come within the jurisdiction of Congress, and may be remedied by its legislative power; and

Whereas, It is the desire of Congress, as far as its power will extend, to remove all just cause for the popular discontent and agitation which now disturb the peace of the country and threaten the stability of its institutions; therefore,

1. Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the laws now in force for the recovery of fugitive slaves are in strict pursuance of the plain and mandatory provisions of the Constitution, and have been sanctioned as valid and constitutional by the judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States; that the slave-holding states are entitled to the faithful observance and execution of those laws, and that they ought not to be repealed or so modified or changed as to impair their efficiency; and that laws ought to be made for the punishment of those who attempt, by rescue of the slave or other illegal means, to hinder or defeat the due execution of said laws.

2. That all state laws which conflict with the fugitive-slave acts of Congress, or any other constitutional acts of Congress, or which, in their operation, impede, hinder, or delay the free course and due execution of any of said acts, are null and void by the plain provisions of the Constitution of the United States; yet those state laws, void as they are, have given color to practices, and led to consequences, which have obstructed the duo administration and execution of acts of Congress, and especially the acts for the delivery of fugitive slaves, and have thereby contributed much to the discord and commotion now prevailing. Congress, therefore, in the present perilous juncture, does not deem it improper respectfully and earnestly to recommend the repeal of those laws to the several states which have enacted them, or such legislative corrections or explanations of them as may prevent their being used or perverted to such mischievous purposes.

3. That the act of September 18, 1850, commonly called the Fugitive-slave Law, ought to be so amended as to make the fee of the commissioner, mentioned in the eighth section of the act, equal in amount in the cases decided by him, whether his decision be in favor of or against the claimant. And to avoid misconstruction, the last clause of the fifth section of said act, which authorizes the person holding a warrant for the arrest or detention of a fugitive slave to summon to his aid the posse comitatus, and which declares it to be the duty of all good citizens to assist him in its execution, ought to be so amended as to expressly limit the authority and duty to cases in which there shall be resistance, or danger of resistance, or rescue.

4. That the laws for the suppression of the African slave-trade, and especially those prohibiting the importation of slaves in the United States, ought to be made effectual, and ought to be thoroughly executed; and all further enactments necessary to those ends ought to be promptly made.

SOURCES: George Ticknor Curtis, Constitutional History of the United States from Their Declaration of Independence to the Close of Their Civil War, Volume 2 , p. 525-8 which sites as its source Congressional Globe, Part I., Second Session, Thirty-sixth Congress, p. 114, Dec. 18, 1860.

Charles Russell Lowell to John M. Forbes, February 11, 1861

Mt. Savage, February 11, 1861.

My Dear Mr. Forbes, — I was delighted to see your name among the Massachusetts Commissioners — and very glad to hear that you were going to take Mrs. Forbes and the young ladies with you.¹ If all the Representatives and Commissioners would show the same confidence in the good intentions of Maryland and Virginia towards the Capital, it might have a good effect — but perhaps it would be unsafe to trust too many ladies together at a Peace Conference even.

I see that in some of the Western Delegations, there are more “Generals” than “Judges.” I hope this does not indicate fight.

If Massachusetts stands where Charles Francis Adams has put her, it seems to me she will be right, and will look right in history. I did not know till now that Webster was so nearly correct in his 7th of March speech. I have always supposed he stretched the facts to suit his purposes.

We had a Union meeting in this county some three weeks ago which was more anti-slavery than Faneuil Hall dares to be — but this seems by no means the feeling throughout the State. I doubt if any compromise which did not virtually acknowledge the right of secession would be acceptable here: and yet with this right acknowledged, will not the credit of the General Government and of many of the States be badly damaged abroad — will not New York and Massachusetts be asked to endorse the Federal securities?

As to the extreme South — I suppose Benjamin & Co.,² after the raid on the New Orleans mint, will scarcely come back unless we all express through the Constitution our approbation and admiration of stealing. It seems likely now that we shall avoid a war with them; but will not the fighting mania they have encouraged force them into an attack on Cuba or Nicaragua — and thus bring about a war with some strong foreign power which will enable us to re-cement the Union on our terms? I sincerely hope that Lincoln will not consult too nicely what is acceptable even to the Border States, but will take his stand on the principles which the framers of the Constitution stood upon, and if there comes a collision, call upon the Border States alone to aid him — I believe they would at once rally to sustain him, even in a course which they would now pronounce totally unacceptable.

As my views are taken from the New York papers, they will probably be novel to you.

In fact, I write chiefly to express a faint hope that we may see you and the ladies at Mt. Savage. Mr. Graham tells me that he has invited you. In these dull times I cannot be expected to have acquired very much information about the manufacturing of Iron, but I should like very much to go over the ground with you. If the works are ever to go on, I am well satisfied with my change from Iowa — I think there are practical economies to be introduced in almost every department.

_______________

¹ “The war,” wrote Mr. Forbes, in his notes, “virtually began for me with what is called the ‘Peace Congress’ of February, 1861. In January, Virginia asked the other States to send delegates to a congress for the purpose of devising means to avert the civil war then threatening. This was pretty generally responded to at the North, and resulted in the meeting of what was called the Peace Congress at Washington, in the early part of February, 1861. It was unauthorized by law and entirely informal, and simply a conference of men of the different States. Each State was represented by as many delegates as it had members of Congress, our Massachusetts contingent being thirteen (I think), all nominated by Governor Andrew under authority from the legislature. Of my colleagues I recall the names of George S. Boutwell, J. Z. Goodrich, F. N. Crowninshield, T. P. Chandler, and B. F. Waters of Marblehead, as having been the most active. We started nearly all together, about February 10, with the political horizon everywhere darkly lowering. My wife and daughter accompanied me.  . . . I had secured an asylum for them with Baron Stoeckel, the Russian ambassador, to be availed of in case the rebels pushed into Washington, an event which seemed as probable as it really was easy of accomplishment, had the rebels been half as smart as we thought them. . . .

“We soon plunged into our work, our [the Massachusetts delegation's] advent having very much the effect of a bombshell explosion. Before our arrival, the talk had been chiefly of compromise, and some progress seemed to have been made in preparing the way for a surrender by the North, on the basis of the Crittenden Resolutions, so called from Senator Crittenden, who introduced them into the Senate. They practically surrendered the ground which the North and West had taken against the extension of Slavery, and gave up the advanced position for Freedom which had been gained after long years of conflict, and which was represented by the election of Lincoln.  . . . We who went to see what chance there was of any real peace, soon found that the Southerners in the convention were ready to receive any concessions from us ‘in the hope that it might do some good,’ but to commit themselves to nothing.

“When we asked the Border States, ‘Suppose the North concedes what you ask, will you join them in forcing the South to obey the laws?’ ‘No,’ was the reply, ‘but we should hope that such concessions would lead to a settlement, and we will do all we peaceably can to bring this about.’  . . . Our only policy then was to stand firm, and, as the Fourth of March was approaching, when the weak old Buchanan and his Cabinet would go out, to make all the time we could in the Peace Convention and avert, as long as possible, the onslaught of the better prepared South, which was plainly impending.  . . . So the Massachusetts delegates introduced a resolution calling upon the representatives of the Border States, who had asked us to meet them, for ‘a statement of the grievances which we were asked to redress.’

“This led to long debates, and some of us who had not the gift of speaking, and could read the reports of the convention in print, turned our thoughts naturally to some other modes of saving the Union.” (John Murray Forbes, Letters and Recollections, edited by his daughter, Sarah Forbes Hughes. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1899.)

Mr. Forbes wrote a draft for a report of the Peace Commission to Governor Andrew, in which he said: “We have no belief that any absolute settlement was practicable, short of an entire subversion of the constitutional rights of the majority of the people of the United States.”

² Judah P. Benjamin, a Jew, came to North Carolina in early youth, and became a prominent lawyer and politician in New Orleans. He was a leading secessionist and was Secretary of War, and, later, of State, to the Confederacy. After the war, he was a noted practitioner of law in England. He died in Paris.

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 193-6, 400-2

Senator James W. Grimes to Governor Samuel J. Kirkwood, January 28, 1861

Washington, January 28, 1861.

Your esteemed favor of the 17th inst. has reached me.

There appears to be a very great misunderstanding in the public mind, as to the present condition of affairs at the capital of the nation, and especially in relation to the demands of the disunionists upon the Union men of the North. I find that the impression prevails quite extensively that the “Crittenden proposition,” as it is called, is simply a reestablishment of the Missouri Compromise line. This is very far from the truth.

Mr. Crittenden proposes to extend the line of 36° 30' through to the Pacific Ocean, and to agree, by constitutional provision, to protect and defend slavery in all the territory of the United States south of that line. Nor is this all. He now proposes that this protection to slavery shall be extended to all territory that may hereafter be acquired south of that line. The sum and substance of the whole matter is, that we are asked, for the sake of peace, to surrender all our cherished ideas on the subject of slavery, and agree, in effect, to provide a slave code for the Territories south of 36° 30' and for the Mexican provinces, as soon as they shall be brought within our jurisdiction. It is demanded of us that we shall consent to change the Constitution into a genuine pro-slavery instrument, and to convert the Government into a great slave-breeding, slavery-extending empire.

Every man blessed with ordinary foresight must see what would be the inevitable and almost immediate consequence of the adoption of this provision as a part of the Constitution. It would disclose itself to be the very reverse of a measure of peace. Raids would at once begin upon the provinces of Mexico; war would ensue; the annexation of Sonora, Chihuahua, Cohahuila, Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, and other provinces, would follow; they would be converted, at the instant of their acquisition, from free into slave Territories, and ultimately be admitted into the Union as slave States. Much as I love peace and seek to pursue it, I am not prepared to pay this price for it. Let no man in Iowa imagine for a moment that the Crittenden proposition is for a mere restoration of the Compromise line of 1820. It is simply and truly the application of the Breckinridge platform to all territory now acquired, or hereafter to be acquired south of 36° 30', and would result, if adopted, in the acquisition and admission of new slave States for the ostensible purpose of restoring what is called the equilibrium of the sections. The restoration of the Missouri Compromise line has been offered to the disunionists and contemptuously rejected. Their maxim is “rule or ruin.”

I confess that I look with amazement upon the course of the Northern sympathizers with the disunionists. Six years ago they assisted to break down a compromise of thirty-four years' standing, and defended their action by what they claimed to be the right of the people to determine for themselves what should be the character of their own domestic institutions. There was much plausibility in their argument. They made a party creed of it. Now, after the lapse of six short years, they have become so pro-slavery in their opinions that they are willing to ignore the past, and recognize and protect slavery in the very country which they boasted that their own act had made free.

There are other provisions 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, or the imposition of terms upon me or the people I represent, under threats of breaking up the Government. I will not “give reasons under compulsion.” No surer or more effectual way could be devised for converting this into a revolutionary Government than the adoption of a compromise expedient at this time.

Eight months ago the four political parties of this country, in their several conventions, announced certain abstract propositions in their platforms which each believed to be true, and which, if acted upon, would in their opinion most conduce to the prosperity of the whole country. The issue upon these propositions was submitted to the people through the ballot-boxes. One party was successful, as either might have been, but for the lack of votes; and now one of the vanquished parties seeks to overthrow the Government, because they were not themselves the victors, and will only consent to stay their work of demolition upon the condition that we will agree to make their platform, which is abhorrent to us, a part of the Constitution of the country. After taking their chances for success, and being defeated in a fair and manly contest, they now seek to overthrow the Government under which they live, and to which they owe their allegiance. How rapidly are we following in the footsteps of the governments of Mexico and South America!

I do not believe that the public mind is now in a condition to calmly consider the great questions involved in the amendments proposed. But suppose the people were willing and anxious that such amendments to the Constitution should be submitted to them; suppose they were in a proper frame of mind to weigh them and decide upon their adoption; suppose their adoption was not attempted to be enforced by threats, can we have any assurance that this is the last demand to be made upon us? Can we be certain that success in this instance will not whet the appetite for new concessions and new demands, and that similar threats of secession and revolution will not succeed every future presidential election? Will the demand for new guarantees stop here? Shall we not be as liable to have our trade paralyzed, our finances deranged, our national flag insulted, the public property wrested from us and destroyed, and the Government itself overthrown, four years hence, if we amend the Constitution, as we should be if we now stand firmly by our principles and uphold the authority of the Government?

The question before the country, it seems to me, has assumed gigantic proportions. It has become something more than an issue on the slavery question growing out of the construction of the Constitution. The issue now before us is, whether we have a country, whether or not this is a nation. Is this a Government which Florida, with eighty thousand people, can destroy, by resolving herself out of the Union and seizing the forts and arsenals within her borders? That is the question presented us for our decision. Can a great and prosperous nation of thirty-three millions of people be destroyed by an act of secession of some of its members? Florida and her sister revolutionary States answer in the affirmative. We deny it. They undertake to act upon their professed belief, and secede, or, as I term it, rebel against the Government. While they are in this attitude of rebellion a compromise is presented to us for adoption, by which it is proposed, not to punish the rebellious States, but to entice them back into the Union. Who does not see that by adopting these compromise propositions we tacitly recognize the right of these States to secede? Their adoption at this time would completely demoralize the Government, and leave it in the power of any State to destroy. If Florida and South Carolina can secede because of the slavery question, what shall prevent Pennsylvania from seceding because the Government declines to adequately protect her iron and coal interests, or New England because her manufactures, or New York because her commerce is not sufficiently protected? I could agree to no compromise until the right to secede was fully renounced, because it would be a recognition of the right of one or more States to break up the Government at their will.

Iowa has a peculiar interest in this question. If this right of State revolution be conceded, her geographical position is such as to place her completely in the power of revolutionary States. Will she agree that one State can secede and take from her the mouth of the Mississippi River, that another can take from her the mouth of the Missouri, and that others shall be permitted to deprive her of the right of passage to the Atlantic Ocean? If she will not agree to this, it becomes her people to insist that the Constitution of the country shall be upheld, that the laws of the land shall be enforced, and that this pretended right of a State to destroy our national existence shall be sternly and emphatically rebuked. I know the people of Iowa well enough to believe that appeals to their magnanimity, if not successful, will be kindly received and considered, while appeals to their fears will pass by them as the idle wind, and that they will risk all things and endure all things in maintaining the honor of the national flag and in preserving the national Union.

One word more and I close this letter, already too long. At the commencement of the session, before revolution had assumed its present gigantic proportions, before any State had pretended to secede except South Carolina, before the forts and arsenals of the United States had been captured, the flag of the country fired upon, and the capital of the nation threatened, I assented, as a member of the Senatorial Committee of Thirteen, to three propositions, which were to the following effect, viz.:

1. That Congress should never be permitted to interfere with the domestic institutions of any State, or to abolish slavery therein.

2. That the several States should be advised to review their legislation in regard to persons of color, and repeal or modify all such laws as might conflict with the Constitution of the United States or with any of the laws of Congress made in pursuance thereof.

3. To admit Kansas into the Union under the Wyandotte constitution, and then to admit the remaining territory belonging to the United States as two States, one north and one south of the parallel of 36° 30' with the provision that these States might be subdivided and new ones erected therefrom whenever there should be sufficient population for one Representative in Congress upon sixty thousand square miles.

Those propositions, if adopted, would have quieted the apprehensions of the Southern people as to the intention of the people of the free States to interfere with slavery in the States, and would have finally disposed of all the territory belonging to the Government. They would have made two very inconvenient States, but they would have settled a very inconvenient question. They could have been adopted without any surrender of principle by anybody or any section, and therefore without any party and personal humiliation. But they were spurned by the disunionists. They preferred to plunge the country into revolution, and they have done it. It only remains for us now to obey and enforce the laws, and show to the world that this Government is strong enough to protect itself from rebellion within as well as from assault without.

The issue now made up for the decision of the people of this country is between law, order, the Union, and the Constitution, on the one hand, and revolution, anarchy, dissolution, and bloodshed, on the other. I do not doubt as to the side you and the people of Iowa will occupy in this contest.

SOURCE: William Salter, The Life of James W. Grimes, p. 133-8

Diary of Rutherford B. Hayes, January 4, 1861

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