 13. John C. Calhoun, Part II In moral character, Calhoun was as reproachless as Washington. He neither drank to excess, nor gambled, nor violated the Seventh Commandment. He had no fellowship with either fools or maves. He believed that the Office of Senator was the highest to which Americans could ordinarily attain, and he gave dignity to it, and felt its responsibilities. He thought that only the best and most capable men should be elevated to that post. Nor would he seek it by unworthy ends. The Office sought him, not he, the Office. It was this pure and exalted character which gave him such an ascendancy at the South, as much as his marvellous logical powers and his devotion to southern interests. His constituents believed in him and followed him, perhaps blindly. Therefore, when we consider what are generally acknowledged as his mistakes, we should bear in mind the palliating circumstances. Calhoun was the incarnation of southern public opinion, bigoted, narrow, prejudiced, but intense in its delusions and loyal to its dogmas. Hence, he enslaved others as he was himself enslaved. He was alike the idol and the leader of his state, impossible to be dethroned, as Webster was with the people of Massachusetts, until he misrepresented their convictions. The consistency of his career was marvellous. Not that he did not change some of his opinions, for there is no intellectual progress to a man who does not. How can a young man, however gifted, be infallible? But whatever the changes through which his mind passed, they did not result from self-interest or ambition, but were the result of more enlightened views and enlarged experience. Political wisdom is not a natural instinct, but a progressive growth like that of Burke, the profoundest of all the intellects of his generation. Calhoun made several great speeches in the Senate of the United States, besides those in reference to a banking system connected with the government, which, whether wise or erroneous, contained some important truths. But the logical deduction of them all may be summed up in one idea, the supremacy of state rights in opposition to a central government. This, from the time when the diverging interests of the North and the South made him feel the dangers in the unchecked will of a majority of the whole, was the dogma of his life, from which he never swerved, and which he pursued to all its legitimate conclusions. Whatever measure tended to the consolidation of central power, whether in reference to the encroachments of the executive or the usurpations of Congress, he denounced with terrible earnestness and sometimes with great eloquence. This is the key to the significant portion of his political career. In his speech on the force bill in 1834, he says, If we now raise our eyes and direct them towards that once beautiful system, with all its various separate and independent parts blended into one harmonious whole, we must be struck with the mighty change. All have disappeared, gone, absorbed, concentrated, and consolidated in this government, which is left alone in the midst of the desolation of the system, the sole and unrestricted representative of an absolute and despotic majority. In the place of their admirably contrived system, the act proposed to be repealed has erected our great consolidated government. Can it be necessary for me to show what must be the inevitable consequences? It was clearly foreseen and foretold on the formation of the Constitution what these consequences would be. All the calamities we have experienced and those which are yet to come are the result of the consolidating tendency of this government, and unless this tendency be arrested all that has been foretold will certainly befall us, even to the pouring out of the last vial of raft military despotism. That was what Mr. Calhoun feared, that the consolidation of a central power would be fatal to the liberties of the country and the rights of the states, and would introduce a system of spoils and the reign of demagogues, all in subservancy to a mere military chieftain, utterly unfit to guide the nation in its complicated interests. But his gloomy predictions, fortunately, were not fulfilled in spite of all the misrule and obscenity of the man he intensely distrusted and disliked. The tendency has been to use serpations by Congress rather than by the executive. It is impossible not to admire the lofty tone free from personal animus, which is seen in all Calhoun's speeches. They may have been sophisticated, but they appealed purely to the intellect of those whom he addressed, without the rhetoric of his great antagonists. His speeches are compact arguments, such as one would address to the Supreme Court on his side of the question. Thus far his speeches in the Senate had been in reference to economic theories and legislation antagonistic to the interests of the South, and the use serpations of executive power, which threatened directly the rights of independent states, and indirectly the liberties of the people and the political degradation of the nation. But now new issues arose from the agitation of the slavery question, and his fame chiefly rests on his persistent efforts to suppress the agitation, as logically leading to the dissolution of the Union and the destruction of the institution with which its prosperity was supposed to be identified. The early abolitionists, as I remember them, were as a body of very little social or political influence. They were earnest, clear-headed, and uncompromising in denouncing slavery as a great moral evil, indeed as a sin, disgraceful to a free people, and hostile alike to morality and civilization. But in the general apathy as to an institution with which the Constitution did not meddle, and the general government could not interfere, except in districts and territories under its exclusive control, the abolitionists were generally regarded as fanatical and mischievous. They had but few friends and supporters among the upper classes, and none among politicians. The pulpit, the bar, the press, and the colleges were highly conservative and did not like the popular agitation much better than the Southerners themselves. But the leaders of the anti-slavery movement persevered in their denunciations of slaveholders, and of all who sympathized with them. They held public meetings everywhere, and gradually became fierce and irritating. It was the period of Lyceum lectures when all moral subjects were discussed before the people with fearlessness, and often with agrimony. Most of the popular lecturers were men of radical sympathies, and were inclined to view all evils on abstract principles as well as in their practical effects. Thus, the advocates of peace believed that war under all circumstances was wicked. The temperance reformers insisted that the use of alcoholic liquors in all cases was a sin. Learned professors in theological schools attempted to prove that the wines of Palestine were unfurmented and could not intoxicate. The radical abolitionists in like manner asserted that it was wicked to hold a man in bondage under any form of government, or under any guarantee of the Constitution. At first they were contented to point out the moral evils of slavery both on the master and the slave, but this did not provoke much opposition since the evils were open and confessed, even at the South. Only it was regarded as none of their business since the evils could not be remedied and had always been lamented. That slavery was simply an evil and generally acknowledged to be both North and South was taking rather tame ground, even as peace doctrines were unexciting when it was allowed that, if we must fight, we must. But there was some excitement in the questions whether it were allowable to fight at all, or drink wine at any time, or hold a slave under any circumstances. The lecturers must take stronger grounds if they wish to be heard or to excite so they next unhesitatingly assumed to the ground that war was a malum per se, and wine drinking also, and all slave holding, and a host of other things. Their discussions aroused the intellect as well as appealed to the moral sense. Even strong-minded women fearlessly went into fierce discussions and became intolerant. Gradually the whole North and West were aroused not merely to the moral evils of slavery which were admitted without discussion, but to the intolerable abomination of holding a slave under any conditions as against reason, against conscience, and against humanity. The Southerners themselves felt that the evil was a great one and made some attempt to remedy it by colonization societies. They would send free blacks to Liberia to Christianize and civilize the natives, sunk in the lowest abyss of misery and shame. Many were the Christian men and women at the South who pitied the hard condition under which their slaves were born and desired to do all they could to ameliorate it. But when the abolitionists announced that all slave holding was a sin, and when public opinion at the North was evidently drifting to this doctrine, then the planters grew indignant and enraged. Became unpleasant for a Northern merchant or traveler to visit a Southern city, and equally unpleasant for a Southern student to enter a Northern college or a planter to resort to a Northern watering place. The common sense of the planter was outraged when told that he was a sinner above all others. He was exasperated beyond measure when incendiary publications were transmitted through Southern males. He did not believe that he was necessarily immoral because he retained an institution bequeathed to him by his ancestors and recognized by the Constitution of the United States. Calhoun was the impersonation of Southern feelings as well as the representative of Southern interests. He intensely felt the indignity which the abolitionists cast upon his native state and upon his peculiar institution. And he was clearheaded enough to see that if public opinion settled down into the conviction that slavery was a sin as well as an inherited evil, the North and South could not live long together in harmony and peace. He saw that any institution would be endangered with the verdict of the civilized world against it. He knew that public opinion was an amazing power which might be defied but not successfully resisted. He saw no way to stop the continually increasing attacks of the anti-slavery agitators except by adopting an entirely new position, a position which should unite all the slaveholding states in the strongest ties of interest. Accordingly he declared as the leader of Southern opinions and interests that slavery was neither an evil nor a sin but a positive good and blessing supported even by the Bible as well as by the Constitution. In assuming these premises he may have argued logically but he lost the admiration he had gained by 20 years' services in the national legislature. His premises were wrong and his arguments would necessarily be sophisticated and fall to the ground. He stepped down from the lofty pedestal he had hitherto occupied to become not merely a partisan but an unscrupulous politician. He had a right to defend his beloved institutions as the leader of interests entrusted to him to guard. His fault was not in being a partisan, for most politicians are party men. It was in advancing a falsehood as the basis of his arguments. But if he had stultified his own magnificent intellect he could not impose on the convictions of mankind. From the time he assumed a ground utterly untenable whatever were his motives or real convictions his general influence waned. His arguments did not convince since they were deductions from wrong premises and premises which shocked and insulted the reason. Calhoun now became a man of one idea and that a false one. He was a gigantic crank and arch jesuit indifferent to means so long as he could bring about his end and he became not merely a causalist but a dictatorial and arrogant politician. He defied that patriotic burst of public opinion which had compelled him to change his ground that mighty wave of thought no more to be resisted than a storm upon the ocean and which he saw would gradually sweep away his cherished institution unless his constituents in the whole south should be made to feel that their cause was right and just. That slavery had not only materially enriched the southern states but had converted fetage idolaters to the true worship of God and widened the domain of civilization. The planters one in all responded to the syphistical and seductive plea and said to one another now we can defy the universe on moral grounds. We stand united what care we for the ravings of fanatics outside our borders so long as our institution is a blessing to us planted on the rock of Christianity and endorsed by the best men among us. The theologians took up the cause both north and south and made their pulpits ring with appeals to scripture. We're not they said the negro's descendants of ham and had not these descendants been cursed by the Almighty and given over to the control of the children of Shem and Japheth not indeed to be trodden down like beasts but to be elevated and softened by them and made useful in the toils which white men could not endure. Ultra Calvinists united with politicians in building up a public sentiment in favor of slavery as the best possible condition for the ignorant, sensuous and superstitious races who when put under the training and guardianship of a civilized and Christian people had escaped the harder lot which their fathers endured in the deserts and the swamps of Africa. The agitation at the north had been gradually but constantly increasing. In 1831 William Lloyd Garrison started the Liberator. In 1832 the New England Anti-Slavery Society was founded in Boston. In 1833 New York had a corresponding society and Joshua Levitt established the emancipator. Books, tracks and other publications began to be circulated by lectures, newspapers, meetings and all manner of means of propagandism was carried on. On the other hand the most violent opposition had been manifested throughout the north to these so-called fanatics. No language was too apobrious to apply to them. The churches and ministry were either dumb on the subject or defended slavery from the scriptures. Mobs broke up anti-slavery meetings and in some cases proceeded even to the extreme of attack and murder as in the case of Lovejoy of Illinois. The approach of the political campaign of 1836 when Van Buren was running as the successor of Jackson involved the Democratic Party as the ally of the South for political purposes and Harmony and Union were the offsets to the cry for emancipation. By 1835 the excitement was at its height and especially along the line of the moral and religious argumentation where the pro-slavery men met talk with talk. What could the abolitionists do now with their northern societies to show that slavery was a wrong and a sin? Their weapons fell harmless on the bucklers of warriors who supposed themselves fighting under the protection of almighty power in order to elevate and Christianize a doomed race. Victories seemed to be snatched from victors and in the moral contest the southern planters and their northern supporters swelled the air with triumphant shouts. They were impregnable in their new defenses since they claimed to be in the right. Both parties had now alike appealed to reason and scripture and where were the judges who could settle conflicting opinions. The abolitionists somewhat discouraged but undaunted then changed their mode of attack. They said, we will waive the moral question for we talk to men without conscience and we will instead make it a political one. We will appeal to majorities. We will attack the hostile forces in a citadel which they cannot hold. The District of Columbia belongs to Congress. Congress can abolish slavery if it chooses in its own territory. Having possession of this great fortress, we can extend our political warfare to the vast and indefinite west and at least prevent the further extension of slave power. We will trust to time in circumstance and truth to do the rest. We will petition Congress itself. And from 1835 onward petitions rolled into both houses from all parts of the north and west to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, which Congress could constitutionally do. The venerable and enlightened John Quincy Adams headed the group of petitioners in the House of Representatives. There were now 2,000 anti-slavery societies in the United States. In 1837, 300,000 persons petitioned for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. The legislatures of Massachusetts and Vermont had gone so far as to censure Congress for its inaction and indifference to the rights of humanity. But it was in January 1836 that John C. Calhoun arose in his wrath and denied the right of petition. The indignant north responded to such an assumption in flaming words. What, said the leaders of public opinion, cannot the lowest subjects of the Tsar or the Shah appeal to ultimate authority? Has there ever been an empire so despotic as to deny, so obvious, a right? Did not Caesar and Cyrus, Louis and Napoleon receive petitions? Shall an enlightened Congress reject the prayers of the most powerful of their constituents and to remove an evil which people generally regard as an outrage and all people as a misfortune? We will not allow the reception of petitions at all, said the Southern leaders, for they will lead to discussion on a forbidden subject. They are only an entrance wedge to disrupt the Union. The Constitution has gear and teed to us exclusively the preservation of an institution on which our welfare rests. You usurp a privilege which you call a right. Your demands are dangerous to the peace of the Union and are preposterous. You violate unwritten law. You seek to do with the founders of our republic never dreamed of. When two of the states ceded their own slave territory to the central government, it was with the understanding that slavery should remain as it was in the district we owned and controlled. You cannot lawfully even discuss the matter. It is none of your concern. It is an institution which was the basis of that great compromise without which there never could have been a united nation, only a league of sovereign states. We have the same right to exclude the discussion of this question from these halls as from the capitals of our respective states. The right of petition on such a subject is tan amount to consideration and discussion, which would be unlawful interference with our greatest institution, leading legitimately and logically to disunion and war. Is it right? Is it generous? Is it patriotic to drive us to such an alternative? We only ask to be let alone. You assail a sacred arc where dwell the seraphim and cherubim of our liberties, of our honor, of our interests, of our loyalty itself. To this we never will consent. Mr. Clay then came forward in Congress as an advocate for considering the question of petitions. He was for free argument on the subject. He admitted that the abolitionists were dangerous, but he could not shut his eyes to an indisputable right. So he went halfway, as was his custom, pleasing neither party and alienating friends, but at the same time with great tact laying out a middle ground where the opposing parties could still stand together without open conflict. I am no friend, said he, to slavery. The searcher of hearts knows that every pulsation of mine beats high and strong in the cause of civil liberty. Wherever it is practicable and safe I desire to see every portion of the human family in the enjoyment of it, but I prefer the liberty of my own country to that of other people. The liberty of the descendants of Africa in the United States is incompatible with the liberty and safety of the European descendants. Such were the sentiments of the leading classes of the North, not yet educated up to the doctrines which afterwards prevailed. But the sentiments declared by Clay lost him the presidency. His political sins, like those of Webster, were sins of omission rather than of commission. Neither of them saw that the little cloud in the horizon would soon cover the heavens and pour down a deluge to sweep away abominations worse than Ahab ever dreamed of. Clay did not go far enough to please the rising party. He did not see the power or sustain the rightful exercise of this new moral force. But he did argue on grounds of political expediency for the citizen's right of petition. A right conceded even to the subjects of unlimited despotism. And Asser Harris could throw petitions into the mire without reading, but it was customary to accept them. The result was a decision on the part of Congress to admit the petitions, but to pay no further attention to them. The abolitionists, however, had resorted to less scrupulous measures. They sent incendiary matter through the males, not with the object of inciting the slaves to rebellion. This was hopeless, but with the design of aiding their escape from bondage and perchance of influencing traitors in the southern camp. To this new attack Calhoun responded with dignity and with logic, and we cannot reasonably blame him for repelling it. The southern cities had as good a right to exclude inflammatory pamphlets as New York or Boston has to prevent the introduction of the cholera. It was the instinct of self-preservation. Whatever may be said of their favorite institution on ethical grounds, they had the legal right to protect it from incendiary matter. But what was incendiary matter? Who should determine that point? President Jackson in 1835 had recommended Congress to pass a law prohibiting under severe penalties the circulation in the southern states through the males of incendiary publications. But this did not satisfy the southern dictator. He denied the right of Congress to determine what publication should be or should not be excluded. He maintained that this was a matter for the states alone to decide. He would not trust postmasters for they were officers of the United States government. It was not for them to be inquisitors nor for the federal government to interfere, even for the protection of a state institution with its own judgment. He proposed instead a law for prohibiting federal postmasters to deliver publications prohibited by the laws of a state, territory, or district. In this, as in all other controversial questions, Calhoun found means to argue for the supremacy of the state and the subordination of the union. His bill did not pass, but the force of his argument went forth into the land. End of section 13. Section 14 of Beacon Lengths of History, Volume 12, American Leaders by John Lorde. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Kay Hand. John C. Calhoun, Part 3. How far anti-slavery documents had influence on the slaves themselves, it is difficult to say. They couldn't either read nor write, but it is remarkable that from this period a large number of slaves made their escape from the south and fled to the north, protected by philanthropists, abolitionists, and kind-hearted people generally. How they contrived to travel a thousand miles without money, without suitable clothing, pursued by bloodhounds and hellhounds, hiding in the daytime in swamps, more asses and forests, walking by night in darkness and gloom, until passed by friendly hands through underground railroads until they reached Canada is a mystery. But these efforts to escape from their hard and cruel masters further intensified the exasperation of the south. It was in 1836 that Michigan and Arkansas applied for admission as states into the union, one free and the other with slavery. Discussions on some technicalities concerning the conditions of Michigan's admission gave Mr. Calhoun a chance for more argumentation about the sovereignty of a state, which considering the fact that Michigan had not then been admitted but was awaiting the permission of Congress to be a state, showed the weakness of his logic in the falsity of his premise. Besides Arkansas, the slave power also gained access to a strip of free territory north of the compromise line of 36 degrees 30 minutes and the Missouri River. In 1837, John Quincy Adams, the old man eloquent of the House of Representatives, narrowly escaped censure for introducing a petition from slaves in the District of Columbia. In 1838, Calhoun introduced resolutions declaring that petitions relative to slavery in the District were a direct and dangerous attack on the institutions of all the slave-holding states. In 1839, Henry Clay offered a position for the repression of all agitation respecting slavery in the District. Calhoun saw and constantly denounced the danger. He knew the power of public opinion and saw the rising tide. Conservatism heeded the warning and the opposition to agitation intensified all over the south and the north but to no avail. New societies were formed, new papers were established, religious bodies began to take position for and against the agitation. The main legislature passed in the lower house and almost in the upper resolutions denouncing slavery in the District, while the abolitionists labored incessantly and vigorously to blow the trumpet, cry aloud, and spare not, show my people their sins as to slavery. In 1840 Van Buren and Harrison, the Democratic and Whig candidates for the presidency were both in the hands of the slave power, and Tyler, who as vice president succeeded to the executive chair on Harrison's death, was a Virginian slave holder. The ruling classes and politicians all over the land were violently opposed to the anti-slavery clause and every test of strength gave new securities and pledges to the southern elements and their northern sympathizers. Notwithstanding the frequent triumphs of the south aided by Whigs and Democrats from the north who played into the hands of southern politicians, Mr. Calhoun was not entirely at rest in his mind. He saw with alarm the increasing immigration into the western states which threatened to disturb the balance of power which the south had ever held, and with the aid of southern leaders he now devised a new and bold scheme which was to annex Texas to the United States and thus enlarge enormously the area of slavery. It was probably his design not so much to strengthen the slave holding interests of South Carolina as to increase the political power of the south. By the addition of new slave states he could hope for more favorable legislation in Congress. The arch conspirator, the haughty and defiant dictator, would not only exclude Congress from all legislation over its own territory in the national district, but he now would make Congress bolster up his cause. He would calculate on a solid south and also upon the aid of the leaders of the political parties at the north, northern men with southern principles, who were strangely indifferent to the extension of slavery. The abolitionists were indeed now a power but the anti-slavery sentiment had not reached its culmination although it had become politically organized. For the campaign of 1840, seeing the futility of petition and the folly of expecting action on issues foreign to those on which congressmen had been elected, the abolitionists boldly called a national convention in which six states were represented and nominated candidates for the presidency and vice presidency. It was a small and despised beginning but it was the germ of a mighty growth. From that time the Liberty Party began to hold state and national conventions and to vote directly on the question of representatives. They did not for years elect anybody but they defeated many an ultra pro slavery man and their influence began to be felt. In 1841 Joshua R. Giddings from Ohio and in 1843 John P. Hale from New Hampshire and Hannibal Hamlin from Maine brought in fresh northern air and confronted the slave power in Congress in alliance with grand old John Quincy Adams whose last years were his best years and have illumined his name. Most of the anti-slavery men were still denounced as fanatics meddling with what was none of their business. In 1843 they had not enrolled in their ranks the most influential men in the community. Ministers, professors, lawyers, and merchants generally still held aloof from the controversy and were either hostile or indifferent to it. So with the aid of the doe faces as they were stigmatized by the progressive party Calhoun was confident of success in the Texan scheme. At that time many adventurers had settled in Texas which was then a province of Mexico and carried with them their slaves. In 1820 Moses Austin a Connecticut man long resident in Missouri obtained large grants of land in Texas from the Mexican government and his son Stephen carried out after the father's death a scheme of colonization of some 300 families from Missouri and Louisiana. They were a rough and lawless population but self-reliant and enterprising. They increased rapidly until in 1833 being twenty thousand in number they tried to form a state government under Mexico and this being denied them declared their independence and made revolution. They were headed by Sam Houston who had fought under General Jackson and had been governor of Tennessee. In 1836 the independence of Texas was proclaimed. Soon after followed the battle of San Jacinto in which Santa Ana the president of the Mexican Republic and the commander of the Mexican forces was taken prisoner. Immediately after this battle Mr. Calhoun tried to have it announced as the policy of the government to recognize the independence of Texas. When Tyler became president by the death of Harrison although elected by wig votes he entered heart and soul into the schemes of Calhoun who to forward them left the Senate and became secretary of state as successor to Mr. Upsher. In 1843 it became apparent that Texas would be annexed to the United States. In that same year Iowa and Florida one free the other slave were admitted to the union. The Liberty Party beheld the proposed annexation of Texas with alarm and sturdily opposed it as far as they could through their friends in Congress predicting that it would be tantamount to a war with Mexico. The Mexican minister declared the same result but Texas or disunion became the rallying cry of the South. The election of Polk the annexationist Democrat in 1844 was seized upon as popular mandate for annexation although had not to the Liberty Party who liked the wigs were anti- annexationists divided the vote in New York state Clay would have been elected. The matter was hurried through Congress. The northern Democrats made no serious opposition since they saw in this annexation a vast accession of territory around the Gulf of Mexico of indefinite extent. Thus Texas on March 1st 1845 was offered annexation by a joint resolution of the Senate and House of Representatives in the face of protests from the wisest men of the country and in spite of certain hostilities with Mexico. On the following 4th of July Texas accepting annexation was admitted to the union as a slave state to the dismay of Channing of Garrison of Phillips of Sumner of Adams and of the whole anti-slavery party now aroused to the necessity of more united effort in view of this great victory to the south for it was provided that at any time by the consent of its own citizens Texas might be divided into four states whenever its population should be large enough. Its territory was four times as large as France. The Democratic President Polk took office in March 1845 the Mexican War beginning in May 1846 was fought to a successful close in a year and five months ending in September 1847. The fertile territory of Oregon purchased from Spain had been peaceably occupied by rapid immigration and by settlement of disputed boundaries with Great Britain. California, a Mexican province had been secured to the American settlers of its lovely hills and valleys by the prompt daring of Captain John C. Fremont and the result of the war was the formal session to the United States by Mexico of the territories of California and New Mexico and recognition of the annexation and statehood of Texas. Both the north and the south had thus gained large possibilities and at the north the spirit of enterprise and the clear perception of the economic value of free labor as against slave labor were working mightily to help men see the moral arguments of the anti-slavery people. The division of interest was becoming plain the forces of good sense and the principles of liberty were consolidating the north against farther extension of the slave power. The apparels foreseen by Calhoun which he had striven to avoid by repression of all political discussion of slavery were nigh and hand. The politicians of the north too sented the change and began to range themselves with their section and while there was a long struggle yet ahead before the issues would be made up to the eye of faith the end was already in sight and the free soilers now redoubled their efforts both in discussion and in political action. Thus far most of the political victories had been with the slave power and the south became correspondently arrogant and defiant. The war of ideas against southern interests now raged with ominous and increasing force in all the northern states. Public opinion became more and more inflamed. Passions became excited in cities and towns and villages which had been dormant since the constitution had been adopted. The decree of the north went forth that there should be no more accession of slave territory and more than this the population spread with unexampled rapidity toward the pacific ocean in consequence of the discovery of gold in california in 1848 and attracted by the fertile soil of Oregon. Immigrants from all nations came to seek their fortunes in territories north of 36 degrees thirty minutes. What Calhoun had anticipated in 1836 when he cast his eyes on Texas did not take place. Slave territory indeed was increased but free territory increased still more rapidly. The north was becoming richer and richer and the south scarcely held its own. The balance which he thought would be in favor of the south he now saw inclining to the north. Northern states became more numerous than southern ones and more populous, more wealthy, and more intelligent. The political power of the union when Mr. Polk closed his inglorious administration was perceptibly with the north and not political power only but moral power. The great west was the soil of free men. But the haughty and defiant spirit of Calhoun was not broken. He prophesied woes. He became sad and dejected but more and more uncompromising, more and more dictatorial. He would not yield. If we yield an inch said he we are lost. The slightest concession in his eyes would be fatal. When he declared his nullification doctrines it was because he thought that state rights were invaded by hostile tariffs. But after the Mexican War slavery was to him a matter of life and death. He made many excellent and powerful speeches which tasked the intellect of Webster to refute. But whatever the subject it was seen only through his southern spectacles and argued from partisan grounds and with partisan zeal. Everything he uttered was with a view of consolidating the south and preparing it for disunion and secession as the only way to preserve the beloved institution. In his eyes slavery and the union could not coexist. This he saw plainly but if either must perish it should be the union and this doctrine he so constantly reiterated that he won over to it nearly the entire south. But in consolidating the south he also consolidated the north. He forced on the issue believing that even yet the south united with northern allies was the stronger and that it could establish its independence on a slavery basis. The union was no union at all and its constitution was a worthless parchment. He proposed a convention of the southern states which should agree that until full justice was rendered to the south all the southern ports should be closed to the seagoing vessels of the north. He arrogantly would deprive the north even of its constitutional rights in reference to the exclusion of slavery from the territories. In no way should the north meddle with the slavery question on penalty of secession and the sooner this was understood the better. We are, said he, relatively stronger than we shall be here after politically and morally. The great fight arose in 1849. The people in the northwestern territories had been encouraged to form governments and had already tasted the delights of self-rule. President Polk had recommended the extension of the old Missouri compromise line of 36 degrees 30 inches westward to the pacific leaving the territory south of that open to slavery. This would divide California and was opposed by all parties. Calhoun now went so far as to claim the constitutional right to take slaves into any territory while Webster argued the power of Congress to rule the territories until they should become states. So excited was the discussion that a convention of southern states was held to frame a separate government for the United States south. The threat of secession was ever their most potent argument. The contest in Congress centered upon the admission of California as a state and the condition of slavery in the territories of Utah and New Mexico. A great crisis had now arrived. Clay, the great pacificator, once more stepped into the arena with a new compromise. To provide for concessions on either side, he proposed the admission of California whose new constitution prohibited slavery, the organization of Utah and New Mexico as territories without mention of slavery, leaving it to the people. The arrangement of the boundary of Texas, the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and the enactment of a more stringent fugitive slave law commanding the assistance of people in the free states to capture runaways when summoned by the authorities. The general excitement over the discussion of this bill will never be forgotten by those who witnessed it. The South raged and the North blazed with indignation, especially over the fugitive slave bill. Meanwhile, Calhoun was dying. His figure was bent, his voice was feeble, his face was haggard, but his superb intellect still retained its vigor to the last. Among the multitude of ringing appeals to the reason and moral sense of the North was a newspaper article from the Independent of New York by a young Congregational Minister, Henry Ward Beecher. It was entitled Shall We Compromise and made clear and plain the issue before the people. Slavery is right, slavery is wrong, slavery shall live, slavery shall die. Are these the conflicts to be settled by any mode of parceling out certain territories? This article was read to Calhoun upon his dying bed. Who wrote that? He asked. The name was given him. That man understands the thing. He has gone to the bottom of it. He will be heard from again. It was what the Great Southerner had foreseen and foretold from the first. The Compromise Bill at last became a law. It averted the final outbreak for ten years longer but contained elements that were to be potent factors in ensuring the final crisis. With the burden of the whole south upon his shoulders, Calhoun tottered to the grave a most unhappy man. For though he saw the irrepressible conflict as clearly as Seward had done, he also saw that the South, even if successful as he hoped, must go through a sea of tribulation. When he was no longer able to address the Senate in person, he still waged the battle. His last great speech was read to the Senate by Mr. Mason of Virginia on the 4th of March, 1850. It was not bitter nor acrimonious. It was a doleful lament that the Southern States could not long remain in the Union with any dignity now that the equilibrium was destroyed. He felt that he had failed, but also that he had done his duty, and this was his only consolation in view of approaching disasters. On the last day of March he died leaving behind him his principles so full of danger and sophistries, but at the same time an unsullied name in the memory of early republic services and of private virtues which had secured him the respect of all who knew him. In reviewing the career of Mr. Calhoun, it would seem that the great error and mistake of his life was his disloyalty to the Union. When he advocated state rights as paramount over those of general government, he merely took the ground which was discussed over and over again at the formation of the Constitution and which resulted in a compromise that, with control over matters of interest common to all states, the central government should have no power over the institution of slavery which was a domestic affair in the Southern States. Only these states it was settled had supreme control over their own peculiar institution. As a politician representing Southern interests, he cannot be severely condemned for his fear and anger over the discussion of the slavery question which, politically considered, was out of the range of congressional legislation or popular agitation. But when he advocated or threatened the secession of the Southern States from the Union unless the slavery question was let alone entirely both by Congress and the Northern States, he was unpatriotic, false in his allegiance and unconstitutional in his utterances. A state has a right to enter the Union or not, remaining of course in either case United States territory over which Congress has legislative power. But when once it has entered into the Union it must remain there as part of the whole. Otherwise the states would be a mere league as in the revolutionary times. Mr. Calhoun had a right to bring the whole pressure of the slave states on a congressional vote on any question. He could say, as the Irish members of Parliament say, unless you do this or that we will abstract the wheels of government and thus compel the consideration of our grievances so long as we hold the balance of power between contending parties. But it's quite another thing for the Irish legislators to say, unless you do this or that we will secede from the Union, which Ireland could not do without war and revolution. Mr. Calhoun, in his one-sidedness entirely overlooked the fact that the discontented states could not secede without a terrible war. For if there is one sentiment dear to the American people it is the preservation of the Union and for it they will make any sacrifice. And the same may be said in reference to Calhoun's nullification doctrines. He would, if he could, have taken his state out of the Union because he in the South did not like the tariff. He had the right as a Senator and Congress to bring all the influence he could command to compel Congress to modify the tariff or abolish it altogether. And with this he ought to have been contented. With a solid South and a divided North he could have compelled a favorable compromise or prevented any legislation at all. It is legitimate legislation for members of Congress to maintain their local and sectional interest at any cost short of disunion. Only it may be neither wise nor patriotic since men who are supposed to be statesmen would by so doing acknowledge themselves to be mere politicians bound hand and foot in subjection to selfish constituents and indifferent to the general good. Mr. Calhoun became blind to general interests in his zeal to perpetuate slavery or advance whatever would be desirable to the South indifferent to the rest of the country and thus he was a mere partisan narrow and local. What made him so powerful and popular at the South equally made him to be feared and distrusted at the North. He was a firebrand infinitely more dangerous and incendiary than any abolitionist whom he denounced. Calhoun's congressional career was the opposite of that of Henry Clay who was more patriotic and more of a statesman for he always professed allegiance to the whole union and did all he could to maintain it. His whole soul was devoted to tariffs and internal improvements but he would yield important points to produce harmony and ward off dangers. Calhoun with his state sovereignty doctrines his partisanship and his unscrupulous defiance of the Constitution forfeited his place among great statesmen and lost the esteem and confidence of a majority of his countrymen except so far as his abilities and his unsullied private life entitled him to admiration. Authorities I know of no abler and more kinder life of Calhoun than that of Von Holst. Although deficient in incidents it is no small contribution to American literature apparently drawn from a careful study of the speeches of the great nullifier. If the author had had more material to work upon he would probably have made a more popular work such as Carl Shirt has written of Henry Clay and Henry Cabot Lodge of Daniel Webster and Alexander Hamilton. In connection read the biographies of Clay, Webster, and Jackson see Wilson's history of the rise and fall of the slave power also Benton's thirty years of congressional history and Calhoun's speeches. End of section 14 Section 15 of Beacon Lengths of History Volume 12 American Leaders by John Lord This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Kay Hand Abraham Lincoln Part 1 1809 to 1865 Civil War Preservation of the Union In the year 1830 or thereabouts a traveler on the frontier settlements of Illinois if a traveler was ever known in those dreary regions might have seen a tall, gaunt, awkward, homely, sad-looking young man of 21 clothed in a suit of brown jean dyed with walnut bark hard at work near a log cabin on the banks of the river Sangamon a small stream emptying into the Illinois river. The man was splitting rails which he furnished to a poor woman in exchange for some home spun cloth to make a pair of trousers at the rate of 400 rails per yard. His father one of the most shift lists of the poor whites of Kentucky a carpenter by trade had migrated to Indiana and after a short residence had sought another home on a bluff near the Sangamon River where he had cleared with the assistance of his son about 15 acres of land. From this he gained a miserable and precarious living. The young rail splitter had also a knack of slaughtering hogs for which he received 30 cents a day. Physically he had extraordinary strength and no one could beat him in wrestling and other athletic exercises. Mentally he was bright inquiring and not wholly illiterate. He had learned during his various peregrinations to read right and cipher. He was reliable and honest and had in 1828 been employed when his father lived in Indiana by a Mr. Gentry to accompany his son to New Orleans with a flat boat of produce which he sold successfully. It is not my object to dwell on the early life of Abraham Lincoln that has been made familiar by every historian who has written about him in accordance with the natural curiosity to know the beginnings of illustrious men and the more humble the more interesting these are to most people. It is quite enough to say that no man in the United States ever reached eminence from a more obscure origin. Rail splitting did not achieve the results to which the ambition of young Lincoln aspired so he contrived to go into the grocery business. But in this he was unsuccessful owing to an inherent deficiency in business habits and aptitude. He was however gifted with shrewd sense a quick sense of humor with keen wit and a market steadiness of character which gained him both friends and popularity in the miserable little community where he lived. And in 1832 he was elected captain of a military company to fight Indians in the Blackhawk War. There is no evidence that he ever saw the enemy. He probably would have fought well had he been so fortunate as to encounter the foe for he was cool fearless strong agile and active without rashness. In 1833 he was made postmaster of a small village but the office paid nothing and his princely profit from it was the opportunity to read newspapers and some magazine trash. He was still very poor and was surrounded with rough people who lived chiefly on cornbread and salt pork who slept in cabins without windows and who drank whiskey to excess yet who were more intelligent than they seemed. Such was Abraham Lincoln at the age of 24 obscure unknown poverty stricken and without a calling. Suppose at that time some supernatural being had appeared to him in a dream and announced that he would someday be president of the United States and not merely this but that he would rule the nation in a great crisis and save it from dismemberment and anarchy by force of wisdom and character and leave behind him when he died a famed second only to that of Washington. Would he not have felt unawakening from his dream pretty much as did the aged patriarch whose name he bore when the angel of the Lord assured him that he would be the father of many nations that his seed would outnumber the sands of the sea that through him all humanity would be blessed from generation to generation. Would he not have felt as the stripling David among the sheep and the goats of his father's flocks when the prophet Samuel announced to him that he should be king over Israel and rule with such success and splendor that the greatness and prosperity of the Jewish nation would be forever dated from his matchless reign. The obscure postmaster without a dollar in his pocket and carrying the mail in his hat had indeed no intimation of his future elevation but his career was just as mysterious as that of David and an old-fashioned religious man would say that it was equally providential. For of all the leaning men of this great nation it would seem that he turned out to be the fittest for the work assigned to him. Chosen, not because he was learned or cultivated or experienced or famous or even interesting but because his steps were so ordered that he fell into the paths which naturally led to his great position although no genius could have foreseen the events which logically controlled the result. If Lincoln had not been gifted with innate greatness though unknown to himself and all the world to be developed as occasions should arise no fortunate circumstances could have produced so extraordinary a career. If Lincoln had not the germs of greatness in him certain qualities which were necessary for the guidance of a nation in an emergency to be developed subsequently as the need came then his career is utterly insoluble according to any known laws of human success and when history cannot solve the mysteries of human success in other words justify the ways of providence to man then it loses half its charm and more than half its moral force it ceases to be the great teacher which all nations claim it to be however obscure the birth of Lincoln and untoward as were all the circumstances which environed him he was doubtless born ambitious that is with a strong and unceasing desire to better his condition but at the age of 24 he ever dreamed of reaching an exalted position is improbable but when he saw the ascendancy that his wit and character had gained for him among rude and uncivilized settlers on the borders of civilization then being born a leader of men as Jackson was it was perfectly natural that he should aspire to be a politician politics have ever been the passion of western men with more than average ability and it required what little learning and culture under the sovereignty of squatters to become a member of the state legislature especially in the border states where population was sparse and the people mostly poor and ignorant hence smart young men in rude villages early learned to make speeches in social and political meetings every village had its favorite stump orator who knew all the affairs of the nation and a little more and who with windy declamation amused and delighted his rustic heroes Lincoln was one of these there was never a time even in his early career when he could not make a speech in which there was more width than knowledge although as he increased in knowledge he also grew in wisdom and his good sense with his habit of patient thinking gave him the power of clear and convincing statement moreover at 24 he was already tolerably intelligent and then devoured all the books he could lay his hand upon indeed it was to the reading of books that Lincoln like Henry Clay owed pretty much all his schooling beginning with Weems' life of Washington when a mere lad he perseveringly read through all his fortunes all manner of books not only during leisure hours by day when tending mill or store but for long months by the light of pine shavings from the Cooper's shop at night and in later times when traversing the country in his various callings and his persistent reading gave him new ideas and broader views with his growing thoughts his aspirations grew so like others he took the stump and as early as 1832 offered himself a candidate for the state legislature his maiden speech in an obscure village is thus reported fellow citizens I am humble Abraham Lincoln my politics are short in suite like the old woman stands I am in favor of a national bank of internal improvement and a high protective tariff these are my sentiments if elected I shall be thankful if not it will be all the same Lincoln was not elected although supported by the citizens of New Salem where he lived and to whom he had promised the improvement of the Sangamon river disappointed he went into the grocery business once again and again failed partly because he had no capital and partly because he had no business talents in that line although from his known integrity he was able to raise what money he needed he then said about the study of the law as a step to political success read books and the occasional newspapers told stories and kept his soul in patience which was easier to him than keeping his body in decent clothes it was necessary for him to do something for a living while he studied law since the grocery business had failed and hence he became an assistant to John Calhoun the county surveyor who was overburdened with work justice he had patiently worked through an English at grammar to enable him to speak correctly he took up a work on surveying and prepared himself for his new employment in six weeks he was soon enabled to live more decently and to make valuable acquaintances meanwhile diligently pursuing his law studies not only nerning his leisure but even as he traveled about the country to and from his work on foot or on horseback his companion was sure to be a law book in 1834 a new election of representatives for the state legislature took place and Lincoln became a candidate this time with more success owing to the assistance of influential friends he went to Vandalia the state capital as a wig and a great admirer of Henry Clay he was placed on the committee of public accounts and expenditures but made no mark yet that he gained respect was obvious from the fact that he was reelected by a very large vote he served a second term and made himself popular by advocating schemes to grid iron every county with railroads straighten out the courses of rivers dig canals and cut up the state into towns cities and house lots one might suppose that a man so cool and sensible as he afterwards proved himself to be must have seen the absurdity of these wild schemes and hence only fell in with them from policy as a rising member of the legislature to gain favor with his constituents yet he and his colleagues were all crude and inexperienced legislatures and it is no discredit to Lincoln that he was born along with the rest in an enthusiasm for developing the country the mania for speculation was nearly universal especially in the new western states Illinois alone projected 1,350 miles of railroad without money and without credit to carry out this bedlam legislation and in almost every village there were corner lots enough to be sold to make a great city aside from this participation in a bubble destined to burst and to be followed by disasters bankruptcies and universal distress Lincoln was credited with steadiness and gained great influence he was prominent in securing the passage of a bill which removed the seat of government to Springfield and was regarded as a good debater in this session too he and Daniel Stone the two representatives from Sangamon County introduced a resolution declaring that the institution of slavery was founded on both injustice and bad policy that the congress had no power to interview with slavery in the states that it had power in the District of Columbia but should not exercise it unless at the request of the people of the district there were no votes for these resolutions but it is interesting to see how early Lincoln took both moral and constitutional ground concerning national action on this vexed question in March 1837 Lincoln then 28 years old was admitted to the bar and made choice of Springfield the new capital as a residence then a thriving village of one or two thousand inhabitants with some pretension to culture and refinement it was certainly a political if not a social center the following year he was again elected to the legislature and came within a few votes of being made speaker of the house he carried on the practice of the law with his duties as a legislator indeed law and politics went hand in hand as a lawyer he gained influence in the House of Representatives and as a member of the legislature he increased his practice in the courts he had for a partner a major steward who in 1841 left him having been elected representative in Congress and was succeeded in the firm by Stephen T. Logan Lincoln's law practice was far from lucrative and he was compelled to live in the strictest economy litigation was very simple and it required but little legal learning to conduct cases the lawyer's fees were small among the people who were mostly poor considering however his defective education and other disadvantages Lincoln's success as a lawyer was certainly respectable if not great in his small sphere in 1843 years after his admission to the bar Lincoln was chosen as an elector in the Harrison presidential contest and he stumped the state frequently encountering Stephen A. Douglas in debate with great credit to himself for Douglas was the most prominent political orator of the day the heart of Lincoln from the start was in politics rather than the law for which he had no a special liking he was born to make speeches in political gatherings and not to argue complicated legal questions in the courts all his aspirations were political as early as 1843 he aspired to be a member of Congress but was defeated by Colonel Baker in 1846 however his political ambition was gratified by an election to the House of Representatives his record in Congress was a fair one but he was not distinguished although great questions were being discussed in connection with the Mexican War he made but three speeches during his term in the last of which he ridiculed general Cass's aspiration for the presidency with considerable humor and wit which was not lost on his constituents his career in Congress terminated in 1848 he not being re-elected in the meantime Lincoln married in 1842 Miss Mary Todd from Lexington, Kentucky a lady of good education and higher social position than his own whom he had known for two or three years as everybody knows this marriage did not prove a happy one and domestic troubles account in a measure for Lincoln's sad and melancholy countenance biographers have devoted more space than is wise to this marriage since the sorrows of a great man claim but small attention compared with his public services had Lincoln not been an honorable man it is probable that the marriage would never have taken place in view of incompatibilities of temper which no one saw more clearly than he himself and which disenchanted him the engagement was broken and renewed for as the matter stood the lady being determined and the lover uncertain the only course consistent with Lincoln's honor was to take the risk of marriage and devote himself with renewed order to his profession to bury his domestic troubles at work and persistently avoid all quarrels and this is all the world need know of this sad affair which though a matter of gossip never was a scandal it is unfortunate for the fame of many great men that we know too much of their private lives Mr. Frauda in his desire for historical impartiality did no good to the memory of his friend Carlisle had the hero's peculiarities been vices like those of Byron the biographer might have cited them as warnings to abate the ardor of popular idolatry of genius if we knew no more of the private failings of Webster than we do of those of Calhoun or Jefferson Davis he might never have been dethroned from the lofty position he occupied which as a public benefactor he did not deserve to lose after his marriage Lincoln was more devoted to his profession and gradually became a good lawyer but I doubt if he was ever a great one like his friend Judge Davis his law partner and biographer William H. Herndon who became associated with him in 1845 is not particularly eulogistic as to his legal abilities although he concedes that he had many of the qualities of great lawyer such as the ability to see important points lucidity of statement and extraordinary logical power he did not like to undertake the management of a case which had not justice and right on its side he had no method in his business and detested mechanical drudgery he rarely studied law books unless in reference to a case in which he was employed he was not learned in the decision of the higher courts he was a poor defender of a wrong cause but was unappalled by the difficulties of an intricate case was patient and painstaking and not imposed upon by sophistries Lincoln's love of truth for truth's sake even in such a technical matter as the law was remarkable no important error ever went undetected by him his intellectual vision was clear since he was rarely swayed by his feelings as an advocate he was lucid, cold and logical rather than rhetorical or passionate he had no taste for platitudes and glittering generalities there was nothing mercenary in his practice and with rare conscientiousness he measured his charges by the services rendered contented if the fees were small he carried the strictest honesty into his calling which greatly added to his influence if there was ever an honest lawyer he was doubtless one even in arguing a case he never misrepresented the evidence of a witness and was always candid and fair he would frequently against his own interest persuade a litigant of the injustice of his case and induce him to throw it up if not the undisputed leader of his circuit he was the most beloved sometimes he disturbed the court by his droll and humorous illustrations which called out irrepressible laughter but generally he was grave and earnest in matters of importance he was always at home in the courtroom quiet collected and dignified awkward as was his figure and his gesticulation but it was not as a lawyer that Lincoln was famous nor as a public speaker would he compare with Douglas in eloquence or renown as a member of congress it is not probable that he would have ever taken a commanding rank like Clay or Webster or Calhoun or even like Seward his great fame rests on his moral character his identification with a great cause his marvelous stability as a conservative defender of radical principles and is no less wonderful tact as a leader of men the cause for which he stands was the anti-slavery movement as it grew into a political necessity rather than as a protest against moral evil although from his youth an anti-slavery man Lincoln was not an abolitionist in the early days of the slavery agitation he rather kept aloof from the discussion although such writers as Theodore Parker Dr. Channing and Horace Greeley had great charm for him he was a politician and therefore discreet in the avowal of opinions his turn of mind was conservative and moderate and therefore he thought all political actions should be along the lines established by law under the constitution but when the southern leaders not content with the non-interference by congress with their favorite institution in their own states sought to compel congress to allow the extension of slavery in the territories it controlled then the indignation of Lincoln burst the bounds and he became the leader in his state in opposition to any movement to establish in national territory that institution founded on both injustice and bad policy although he was in congress in 1847 to 48 his political career really began about the year 1854 four years after the death of Calhoun end of section 15 section 16 of Beacon Lights of History volume 12 American leaders by John Lord this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Kay Hand Abraham Lincoln part two as has been shown in previous chapters the great slavery agitation of 1850 when the whole country was convulsed by discussions and ominous threats of disunion was laid at rest for a while by the celebrated compromise bill which Henry Clay succeeded in passing through congress by the terms of this compromise California was admitted to the union as a free state the territories of New Mexico and Utah were organized to come in as states with or without slavery as their people might determine when the time should arrive the domestic slave trade in the District of Columbia was abolished a more stringent fugitive slave law was passed and for the adjustment of state boundaries which reduced the positive slave area in Texas and threw it into the debatable territory of New Mexico Texas received 10 millions of dollars although this adjustment was not entirely satisfactory to either the north or the south the nation settled itself for a period of quiet to repair the waste and utilize the conquests of the Mexican war it became absorbed in the expansion of its commerce the development of its manufacturers and the growth of its immigration all quickened by the richness of its marvelous new gold fields until unexpectedly and suddenly it found itself once again plunged into political controversy more distracting and more ominous than the worst it had yet experienced for a while calmly accepting the diverse political arrangements made for distant states and territories the men of the north who had fumed and argued against the passage of the fugitive slave law when its enforcement was attempted in their very presence were altogether outraged when the man hunters chased and caught Negroes in their village marketplaces and city streets when free men were summoned to obey that law by helping to seize trembling fugitives and send them back to worse than death then they burst forth in a fierce storm of rage that could not be quieted the agitation rose and spread lecturers thundered newspapers denounced great meetings were held politicians trembled and even yet the conservatism of the north was not wholly inflamed for political partisanship is in itself a kind of slavery and while the northern democrats stood squarely with the south the northern wigs fearing division and defeat made strenuous efforts to stand on both sides and admitting slavery to be an evil to uphold the fugitive slave law because it was a part of the great compromise in congress and out in national conventions and with all the power of the party press this view was strenuously advocated but in 1852 the democrats elected franklin pierce as president while the compromising wigs were cast out webster the leader of the compromisers had not even secured a nomination but general scott was the wig candidate while william h seward at the head of the anti-slavery wigs had at least the satisfaction of seeing that amid the dissolving elements of the wick party the anti-slavery sentiment was gaining strength day by day the old issues of tariffs and internal improvements were losing their vitality while freedom and slavery were the new polls about which new crystallizations were beginning to form but the compromise of 1850 had loosed from its pandora's box another fomenter of trouble in the idea of leaving to the people of the territories the settlement of whether their incoming states should be slave or free the doctrine of popular sovereignty as it was called the nation had accepted that theory as a makeshift for the emergency of that day but slave cultivation had already exhausted much of the southern land and not content with Utah and New Mexico for their propagandism the slaveholders cast envious eyes upon the great territory of the northwest stretching out from the Missouri border although it was north of the prohibited line of 36 degrees 30 minutes and so it came about that within four short years after the compromise of 1850 the unrest of the north under the fugitive slave law followed by the efforts of the south to break down the earlier compromise of 1821 awoke again with renewed fierceness to the slavery agitation in discussing the bill for the organization of the territories of Kansas and Nebraska an immense area extending from the borders of Missouri, Iowa and Minnesota west to the Rocky Mountains and from the line of 36 degrees 30 minutes north to British America the mover of the Kansas Nebraska bill Stephen A. Douglas senator from Illinois a democrat and a man of remarkable abilities now came into prominent notice he wanted to be president of the united states and his popularity his legal attainments his congressional services his attractive eloquence and skill in debate marked him out as the rising man of his party he was a vermonter by birth and like Lincoln had arisen from nothing a self-made man so talented that the people called him the little giant but nevertheless inferior to the giants who had led the senate for 20 years while equaled to them in ambition and superior as a wire pulling politician he was among those who at first supposed that the Missouri compromise of 1821 was a final settlement and was hostile to the further agitation of the slavery question he was a great believer in American destiny and the absorption of all North America in one grand confederation in certain portions of which slavery should be tolerated as chairman of the senate committee on territories he had great influence in opening new routes of travel and favored the extension of white settlements even in territory which had been given to the Indians to further his ambitious aspirations Douglas began now to court the favor of southern leaders and introduced his famous Kansas Nebraska bill which was virtually the repeal of the Missouri compromise in as much as it opened the vast territories to the north of 36 degrees 30 minutes to the introduction of slavery if their people should so elect this the South needed to secure what they called the balance of power but what was really the preponderance of the slave states or at least the curtailment of the political power of the free states in 1854 during the administration of Franklin Pierce and under the domination of the democratic party which played into the hands of the southern leaders the compromise which clay had affected in 1821 was repealed under the influence of his compromise of 1850 and the slavery question was thus reopened for political discussion in every state of the union showing how dangerous it is to compromise principle in shaping a policy popular indignation at the north knew no bounds at this new retrograde movement the wigs under protests while the free soil party just coming into notice composed mainly of moderate anti-slavery men from both the old parties were loud in their denunciations of the encroachments of the south even some leading democrats opened to their eyes and joined the rising party the newspapers the pulpits and the platforms set forth a united cry of wrath the wigs and the abolitionists were plainly approaching each other the year 1854 saw a continuous and solid political campaign to repress the further spread of slavery the territories being then thrown open there now began an intense emulation to people them on the one hand with advocates of slavery on the other with free soilers emigration societies were founded to assist bona fide settlers and a great tide of families poured into Kansas from the northern states while the southern states and chiefly Missouri also sent large numbers of men at the south the repeal of the Missouri compromise was universally welcomed and the southern leaders felt encouragement and exultation the south had gained a great victory aided by northern democrats and boldly denounced chase hail summoner seward and giddings in the congress as incendiaries plotting to destroy precious rights a memorable contest took place in the house of representatives to prevent the election of banks of massachusetts as speaker but the tide was beginning to turn and banks by a vote of 113 to 104 obtained the speakership then followed border ruffianism in Kansas when armed invaders from Missouri casting thousands of illegal votes elected by fraud and violence a legislature favorable to slavery accompanied with civil war in which the most disgraceful outrages were perpetrated the central government at washington being blind and deaf and dumb to it all the bona fide settlers in Kansas who were opposed to slavery then assembled at tepica refused to recognize the bogus laws and framed a constitution which president Pierce a northern man with southern principles gentlemanly and cultivated but not strong pronounced to be revolutionary nor was ruffianism confined to Kansas in 1856 Charles Sumner of massachusetts one of the most eloquent and forceful denunciators of all the pro-slavery lawlessness was attacked at his desk in the senate chamber after an adjournment and unmercifully beaten with a heavy cane by Preston Brooks a member of the house of representatives and nephew of senator Butler of South Carolina it took years for Sumner to recover while the aristocratic ruffian was unmolested and went unpunished for those centered by the house and compelled to resign his seat he was immediately re-elected by his constituents but this was not all in that same year the supreme court came to the aid of the south already supported by the executive and the senate six judges out of nine headed by chief justice Taney pronounced judgment that slaves whether fugitive or taken by their masters into the free states should be returned to their owners this celebrated case arose in Missouri where a negro named dred Scott who had been taken by his master to states where slavery was prohibited by law who had with his master's consent married and had children in the free states and been brought back to Missouri sued for his freedom the local court granted it the highest court of the state reversed the decision and on appeal to the supreme court of the united states the case was twice argued there and excited a wide and deep interest the court might have simply sent it back as a matter belonging to the state court to decide but it permitted itself to argue the question throughout and pronounced on the national inferiority of the negro and his legal condition as property the competence of the state courts to decide his freedom or slavery and the right of slaveholders under the constitution to control their property in the free states or territories any legislation by congress or local legislatures to the contrary notwithstanding this was the climax of slavery triumphs the north and west at last aroused declaring conventions and legislative halls that slavery should advance no further the conflict now indeed became irrepressible at this crisis abraham lincoln stepped upon the political stage and his great career began as a local lawyer even as a local politician his work was practically done he came forth as an avowed antagonist of douglas who was the strongest man in illinois and the leader of the democratic party in congress he came forth as the champion of the anti-slavery cause in his native state and soon attracted the eyes of the whole nation his memorable controversy with douglas was the turning point of his life he became a statesman as well as a patriot broad lofty and indignant at wrongs there to four he had been a conservative wig a devoted follower of clay but as soon as the Missouri compromise was repealed he put forth his noblest energies in behalf of justice of right and of humanity as he was driving one day from a little town in which court had been held a brother lawyer said to him lincoln the time is coming when we shall be either abolitionists or democrats to which he replied musingly when that time comes my mind is made up for i believe the slavery question can never be successfully compromised and when his mind was made up after earnest deliberation he rarely changed it and became as firm as a rock his convictions were exceedingly strong and few influences could shake them that quiet conversation in his buggy in a retired road with a brother lawyer was a political baptism he had taken his stand on one side of a great question which would rend entwain the whole country and to make a mighty conflagration out of whose fires the truth should come victorious the wake party was now politically dead and the republican party arose composed of conscientious and independent-minded men from all the old organizations not afraid to put principle before party conservative and law abiding yet deeply aroused on the great issue of the day and united against the further extension of slavery organizing with great enthusiasm for a first presidential campaign in 1856 under fraymont the pathfinder as their candidate they were defeated in james bucanon the democratic candidate became president but accepting defeat as a lesson toward victory they grew stronger and stronger every day until at last they swept the country and secured the principle non-extension of slavery complete representation in the national government lincoln who was in 1857 the republican candidate for united state senator from illinois while douglas sought the votes of the democracy first entered the lists against his rival at springfield in a speech attacking that wily politician's position as to the dredscott decision he tried to force douglas to a declaration of the logical consequence of his position namely that while he upheld the decision as a wise interpretation of the rights of the slave owners to hold slaves in the territories yet the people of a territory under the great principle of popular sovereignty which was douglas's chief stock in trade could exclude slavery from its limits even before it had formed a state constitution if we succeed in bringing him to this point he wrote a friend he will say that slavery cannot actually exist in the territories unless the people desire it which will offend the south if douglas did not answer lincoln's question he would jeopardize his election as senator if he did answer he would offend the south for his doctrine of squatter sovereignty conflicted not only with the interest of slavery but with his defense of the dredscott decision a fact which lincoln was not slow to point out douglas did answer and the result was as lincoln predicted the position taken by lincoln himself in the debate was bold and clear said he a house divided against itself cannot stand i believe this government cannot endure half slave and half free either the opponents of slavery will avert the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction words advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the states old as well as new north as well as south when his friends objected that this kind of talk would defeat him for senatorship he replied but it is true i would rather be defeated with these expressions in my speech held up and discussed before the people than be victorious without it he was defeated but the debates made his fame national and resulted in his being president while the politic douglas gained the senatorship and lost the greater prize in these famous debates between the leaders lincoln proved himself quite the equal of his antagonist who was already famous as a trained and prompt debater lincoln canvassed the state he made in one campaign as many as 50 speeches it is impossible within my narrow limits to go into the details of those great debates in them lincoln rose above all technicalities and sophistries and not only planted himself on eternal right but showed marvelous political wisdom the keynote of all his utterances was that a house divided against itself could not stand yet he did not pass beyond the constitutional limit in his argument he admitted on the right of the south to a fugitive slave law and the right of a territory to enact slavery for itself on becoming a state he favored abolition of slavery in the district of columbia only on the request of its inhabitants and would forward the colonization of the negroes in liberia if they wished it and their masters consented he was a pronounced anti-slavery man but not an abolitionist and took with the great mass of the northerners a firm stand against the extension of slavery it was this intuitive perception of the common sense of the situation that made him and kept in the remarkable representative of the northern people that he was to the very end lincoln gained so much fame from his contest with douglas that he was during the spring of the following year invited to speak in the eastern states and in the great hall of the cooper institute in new york in february 1860 he addressed a magnificent audience presided over by bryant the poet he had made elaborate preparation for this speech which was a careful review of the slavery question from the foundation of the republic to that time and a masterly analysis of the relative positions of political parties to it the address made a deep impression the speaker was simply introduced as a distinguished politician from the west the speech was a surprise to those who were familiar with western oratory there was no attempt at rhetoric but the address was pure logic from beginning to end like an argument before the supreme court and exceedingly forcible the chief point made was the political necessity of excluding slavery from the territories the orator did not dwell on slavery as a crime but as a wrong which had been gradually forced upon the nation the remedy for which was not in violent denunciations he did not abuse the south he simply pleaded for harmony in the republican ranks and avoid giving offense to extreme partisans on any side contending that if slavery could be excluded from the territories it would gradually become extinct as both unprofitable and unjust he would tolerate slavery within its presence limits and even return fugitive slaves to their owners according to the laws but would not extend the evil where it did not at present exist as it was a wrong it must not be perpetuated the moderation of this speech coming from an Illinois politician did much to draw attention to him as a possible future candidate for the presidency to which by this time he undoubtedly aspired and why not he was the leader of his party in Illinois a great speech maker who had defeated Douglas himself in debate a shrewd, cool, far-sighted man looking to the future rather than the present and political friends had already gathered about him as a strong political factor Mr. Lincoln after his great speech in New York returned to his home he had a few years before given some political speeches in Boston and the adjacent towns which were well received but made no deep impression from no fault of his but simply because he had not the right material to work upon where culture was more in demand than figure of intellect indeed one result of the election of Lincoln and of the war which followed was to open the eyes of Eastern people to the intellect and intelligence of the West Western lawyers and politicians might not have the culture of Sumner the polished elocution of Everett the urbanity of Van Buren and the courtly manners of Winthrop but they had brain power a faculty for speechmaking and a great political sagacity and they were generally more in sympathy with the people having mostly sprung from their ranks their hard and rugged intellects told on the floor of Congress where everyone is soon judged according to his merits and not according to his clothes and the East saw that thereafter political power would center in the West and dominate the whole country against which it was useless to complain or rebel since according to all political axioms the majority will rule and ought to rule and the more the East saw of the leading men of the West the more it respected their force of mind their broad and comprehensive views and their fitness for high place under the government End of Section 16 Section 17 of Reakin Length of History Volume 12 American Leaders by John Lord This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Kay Hand Abraham Lincoln Part 3 It was not the people of the United States who called for the nomination of Lincoln as in the case of General Jackson It was not much known outside of Illinois except as a skillful debater and stump orator He had filled no high office to bring him before the eyes of the nation who was not a general covered with military laurels nor a senator in Congress nor governor of a large state nor a cabinet officer No man had thus far been nominated for president unless he was a military success or was in the line of party promotion Though a party leader in Illinois Lincoln was simply a private citizen with no antecedents which marked him out for such exalted position But he was available a man who could be trusted moderate in his views a wig and yet committed to anti-slavery views of great logical powers and well informed on all the political issues of the day He was not likely to be rash or impulsive or hasty or to stand in the way of political aspirants He was eminently a safe man in an approaching crisis with a judicial intellect and above all a man without enemies whom few envied and some laughed at for his grotesque humor and awkward manner He was also modest and unpretending and had the tact to veil his ambition In his own state he was exceedingly popular It was not strange, therefore, that the Illinois Republican State Convention nominated him as their presidential candidate to be supported in the larger national convention about to assemble In May 1860 the memorable National Republican Convention meant in Chicago in an immense building called the Wigwam to select a candidate for the presidency Among the prominent Republican leaders were Seward, Chase, Cameron, Dayton, and Bates The Eastern people supposed that Seward would receive the nomination from his conceited ability his political experience his prominence as an anti-slavery wig and the prestige of office But he had enemies and an unconciliatory disposition It soon became evident that he could not carry all the states The contest was between Seward, Chase, and Lincoln and when, on the third ballot, Lincoln received within a vote and a half of the majority Ohio gave him four votes from Chase and then delegation after delegation changed its vote for the victor and amid great enthusiasm the nomination became unanimous The election followed and Lincoln, the Republican, received 180 electoral votes Breckenridge, the Southern Democrat, 72 Bell of the Union ticket the last fragment of the Old Wigw party, 39 and Douglas of the Northern Democracy but 12 The rail splitter became President of the United States and Senator Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, Vice President It was a victory of ideas It was the triumph of the North over the South of the aroused conscience and intelligence of the people against bigotry, arrogance, and wrong Men and measures in that great contest paled before the grandeur of everlasting principles It was not for Lincoln that bonfires were kindled and cannons roared and bells were rung and hazzas ascended to the heaven but for the great check given to the slave power which, since the formation of the constitution had dominated the nation The Republicans did not gain a majority of the popular vote as the combined opposing tickets cast 930,170 votes more than they but their vote was much larger than that for any other ticket and gave him a handsome majority in the electoral college Between the election in November 1860 and the following March when Lincoln took the reins of government several of the southern states had already seceded from the union and had organized a government at Montgomery Making the excuse of the election of a sectional and minority president they had put into effect the action for which their leaders during several months had been secretly preparing They had seized nearly all the federal forts, arsenals, dockyards, custom houses, and post offices within their limits while a large number of the officers of the United States Army and Navy had resigned and entered into their service on the principle that the authority of the states was paramount to the federal power Amid all these preparations for war on the part of the seceding states and the seizure of federal property Buchanan was irresolute and perplexed He was doubtless patriotic and honest but he did not know what to do The state of things was much more serious than when South Carolina threatened to secede in the time of General Jackson The want of firmness and decision on the part of the president has been severely criticized but it seems to me to have been not without excuse in the perplexing conditions of the time while it was certainly fortunate that he did not precipitate the crisis by sending troops to reinforce Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor which was invested and threatened by South Carolina troops The contest was inevitable anyway and the management of the war was better in the hands of Lincoln than it could have been in those of Buchanan with traitors in his cabinet or even after they had left and a new and loyal cabinet was summoned but with an undecided man at the head There was needed a new and stronger government when hostilities should actually break out On the 4th of March, 1861 the inauguration of Lincoln took place and well do I remember the ceremony The day was warm and beautiful and nature smiled in mockery of the bloody tragedy which was soon to follow I mingled with the crowd at the eastern portico of the capital and was so fortunate as to hear and see all that took place The high officials who surrounded the president his own sad and pensive face his awkward but not undignified person arrayed in a faultless suit of black the long address he made the oath of office administered by Chief Justice Taney and the dispersion of the civil and military functionaries to their homes It was not a great pageant but was an impressive gathering Society in which the southern element predominated sneered at the tall ruler who had learned so few of its graces and insincerities and took but little note of the thunderclouds in the political atmosphere The distant rumblings which heralded the approaching storm so soon to break with satanic force The inaugural address was not only an earnest appeal for peace but a calm and steadfast announcement of the law abiding policy of the government and a pudding of the responsibility for any bloodshed upon those who should resist the law Two brief paragraphs contain the whole The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government and to collect the duties and imposts but beyond what may be necessary for these objects there will be no invasion no use of force among the people anywhere In your hands my dissatisfied fellow countrymen and not in mine is the momentous issue of civil war The government will not assail you You have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors This was the original chart of the course which the president followed and his final justification when by use of the power confided to him he had accomplished the complete restoration of the authority of the federal union over all the vast territory which the seceded states had seized and so desperately tried to control Lincoln was judicious and fortunate in his cabinet Seward, the ableist and most experienced statesman of the day accepted the office of secretary of state Salmon P. Chase who had been governor of Ohio and United States Senator was main secretary of the treasury Gideon Wells of great executive ability and untiring energy became secretary of the Navy Simon Cameron an influential politician of Pennsylvania held the post of secretary of war for a time when he was succeeded by Edwin M. Stanton a man of immense capacity for work Montgomery Blair a noted anti-slavery leader was made post master general Caleb B. Smith became secretary of the interior and Edward Bates of Missouri Attorney General Every one of these cabinet ministers was a strong man and was found to be greater than he had seen Jefferson Davis of Mississippi an old-time Democrat was elected president of the Southern Confederacy and Alexander H. Stevens a prominent wig of Georgia vice president Davis was born in Kentucky in 1808 and was a graduate of West Point he was a congressman on the outbreak of the Mexican War resigned his seat entered the army and distinguished himself rising to the rank of colonel he was secretary of war and president to Pierce's cabinet and senator from Mississippi on the ascension of president of Buchanan a possession which he held until the secession of his state he thus had had considerable military and political experience he was a man of great ability but was proud reserved and cold a Democrat by party name an autocrat in feeling and sentiment a type of the highest Southern culture and exclusive Southern caste to his friends and they were many in spite of his reserve there was a peculiar charm in his social intercourse he was beloved in his family and his private life was irreproachable he selected an able cabinet among whom were Walker of Alabama tombs of Georgia and Benjamin of Louisiana the provisional Congress authorized a regular army of 10,000 men 100,000 volunteers and a loan of 15 millions of dollars but actual hostilities had not as yet commenced the Confederates during the close of Buchanan's administration were not without hopes of a peaceful settlement and recognition of secession and several conferences had taken place one overture being made even to the new administration but of course in vain the spark which kindled the conflagration but little more than a month after Lincoln's inauguration April 12th, 1861 was the firing on Fort Sumter and its surrender to the South Carolinians this aroused both the indignation and the military enthusiasm of the North which in a single day was as by a lightning flash fused in a white heat of patriotism and a desire to avenge the dishonored flag for the time all party lines disappeared and the whole population were united and solid in defense of the union both sides now prepared to fight in good earnest the sword was drawn the scabbard thrown away both sides were confident of victory the southern leaders were under the delusion that the Yankees would not fight and that they cared more for dollars than for their country moreover the southern states had long been training their young men in the military schools and had for months been collecting materials of war as cotton was an acknowledged king planters calculated on the support of England which could not do without their bales lastly they knew that the North had been divided against itself and that the democratic politicians sympathized with them in reference to slavery the federal leaders on the other hand relied on the force of numbers of wealth and national prestige very few supposed that the contest would be protracted Seward thought that it would not last over three months nor did the South think of conquering the North but supposed it could secure its own independence it certainly was resolved on making a desperate fight to defend its peculiar institution as it was generally thought in England that this attempt would succeed as England had no special love for the union and as the union and not opposition to slavery was the rallying cry of the North England gave to the South its moral support Lincoln assumed his burden with great modesty but with a steady firmness and determination and surprised his cabinet by his force of will Nicolay and Hay relate an anecdote of great significance Seward who occupied the first place in the cabinet which he deserved on account of his experience and abilities was not altogether pleased with the slow progress of things and wrote to Lincoln an extraordinary letter in less than a month after his inauguration suggesting more active operations with specific memoranda of a proposed policy whatever policy we adopt said he there must be an energetic prosecution of it for this purpose it must be somebody's business to pursue and direct it incessantly either the president must do it himself or devolve it on some member of his cabinet it is not my special province but I neither seek to evade nor assume responsibility in brief it was an intimation if you feel not equal to the emergency perhaps you can find a man not a thousand miles away who is equal to it Lincoln in his reply showed transcendent tact although an inexperienced local politician suddenly placed at the head of the great nation in a tremendous crisis and surrounded in his own cabinet and in congress by men of acknowledged expert ability in statecraft he had his own ideas but he needed the counsel and help of these men as well he could not afford to part with the services of a man like Seward nor would he offend him by any assumption of dignity or resentment at his unasked advice he good-naturedly replied in substance the policy laid down in my inaugural met your distinct approval and it has thus far been exactly followed as to attending to its prosecution if this must be done I must do it and I wish and suppose I am entitled to have the advice of all the cabinet after this no member of the cabinet dared to attempt to usurp any authority which belonged to the elected commander and chief of the army and navy unless it were chase at a later time as the head of the government in whom supreme federal power was invested in time of war Lincoln was willing and eager to consult his cabinet but reserved his decisions and assumed all responsibilities he probably made mistakes but who could have done better on the whole the choice of the nation was justified by results it is not my object in this paper to attempt to compress the political and military history of the United States during the memorable administration of Mr. Lincoln if one wishes to know the details he must go to the 10 octavo biographical volumes of Lincoln's private secretaries to the huge and voluminous reports of the government to the multifarious books on the war and its actors I could only glance at salient points and even here I must combine myself to those movements which are intimately connected with the agency and influence of Lincoln himself it is his life and not a history of the war that it is my business to present nor has the time come for an impartial and luminous account of the greatest event of modern times the jealousy and dissensions of generals the prejudices of the people both north and south the uncertainty and inconsistency of much of the material published and the conceit of politicians alike prevent a history which will be satisfactory no matter how gifted and learned may be the historian when all the actors of that famous tragedy both great and small have passed away new light will appear and poetry will add her charms to what is now too hideous a reality glorious as were the achievements of heroes and statesmen after the battle of Bull Run July 21st, 1861 won by the Confederate General Beauregard over General McDowell against all expectation to the dismay and indignation of the whole north the result of overconfidence on the part of union troops and a wretchedly mismanaged affair the attention of the federal government was mainly directed to the defense of Washington which might have fallen into the hands of the enemy had the victors been confident and quick enough to pursue the advantage they had gained for nothing could exceed the panic at the Capitol after the disastrous defeat of McDowell the demoralization of the union forces was awful happily the condition of the Confederate troops was not much better but the country rallied after the crisis had passed Lincoln issued his proclamation for 500,000 additional men Congress authorized as large alone as was needed the governors of the various states raised regiment after regiment and sent them to Washington as the way through Maryland at first obstructed by local secessionists was now clear General Butler having entrenched himself at Baltimore most fortunately the governor of Maryland was a union man and with the aid of the northern forces had repressed the rebellious tendency in Maryland which state afterward remained permanently in the union and offered no further resistance to the passage of federal troops Arlington Heights in Virginia opposite Washington had already been fortified by General Scott but additional defenses were made and the Capitol was out of danger with the rapid concentration of troops at Washington the government again assumed the offensive General George B. McClellan having distinguished himself in West Virginia was called to Washington at the recommendation of the best military authorities and entrusted with the command of the army of the Potomac and soon after on the retirement of General Scott now agent and infirm and unable to mount a horse McClellan took his place as commander of all the forces in the United States at the beginning of the rebellion McClellan was simply a captain but was regarded as one of the most able and accomplished officers of the army his promotion was rapid beyond precedent but his head was turned by his elevation and he became arrogant and opinionated and before long even insulted the president and assumed the heirs of a national liberator on whose shoulders was laid the burden of the war he consequently estranged Congress offended Scott became disgusted by the president and provoked the jealousies of the other generals but he was popular with the army and his subordinates and if he offended his superiors his soldiers were devoted to him and looked upon him as a second to Napoleon the best thing that can be said of this general is that he was a great organizer and admirably disciplined for their future encounters the raw troops which were placed under his command and he was too prudent to risk the lives of his men until his preparations were made although constantly urged to attempt if not possibilities at least what was exceedingly hazardous it was expected by the president the secretary of war and Congress that he would hasten his preparations and advance upon the enemy as he had over 100,000 men and he made grand promises and gave assurances that he would march speedily upon Richmond but he did not march delay succeeded delay under various pretenses to the disappointment of the country and the indignation of the responsible government it was not till April 1862 after five months of inaction that he was ready to move upon Richmond and then not according to pre-arranged plans but by a longer route by the way of Fortress Monroe up the peninsula between the York and James rivers and not directly across Virginia by Manassas Junction which had been evacuated in view of his superior forces the largest army there to foreseen on this continent it is not for me an early ignorant of military matters to make any criticism of the plan of operations in which the president and McClellan were at issue were to censure the general in command for the long delay against the expostulations of the executive and of Congress he maintained that his army was not sufficiently drilled or large enough for an immediate advance that the Confederate forces were greater than his own and were posted in impregnable positions he was always calling for reinforcements until his army comprised over 200,000 men and when at last imperatively commanded to move some wither at any rate to move he left Washington not sufficiently defended which necessitated the withdrawal of McDowell's core from him to skew the safety of the capital without enumerating or describing the terrible battles on the peninsula and the change of base which practically was a retreat and virtually the confession of failure it may be said in defense or palliation of McClellan that it afterwards took grant with still greater forces and when the Confederates were weakened and demoralized a year to do what McClellan was expected to do in three months the war had now been going on for more than a year without any decisive results so far as the army of the Potomac was concerned but on the contrary with great disasters and bitter humiliations the most prodigious efforts had been made by the Union troops without success and thus far the Confederates had the best of it and were filled with triumph as yet no Union generals could be compared with Lee or Johnston or Longstreet or Stonewall Jackson while the men under their command were quite equal to the northern soldiers in bravery and discipline End of section 17