第140章

FROM BOSTON TO WASHINGTON.

From Boston, on the 27th of November, my wife returned to England, leaving me to prosecute my journey southward to Washington by myself. I shall never forget the political feeling which prevailed in Boston at that time, or the discussions on the subject of Slidell and Mason, in which I felt myself bound to take a part. Up to that period I confess that my sympathies had been strongly with the Northern side in the general question; and so they were still, as far as I could divest the matter of its English bearings. Ihave always thought, and do think, that a war for the suppression of the Southern rebellion could not have been avoided by the North without an absolute loss of its political prestige. Mr. Lincoln was elected President of the United States in the autumn of 1860, and any steps taken by him or his party toward a peaceable solution of the difficulties which broke out immediately on his election must have been taken before he entered upon his office. South Carolina threatened secession as soon as Mr. Lincoln's election was known, while yet there were four months left of Mr. Buchanan's government. That Mr. Buchanan might, during those four months, have prevented secession, few men, I think, will doubt when the history of the time shall be written. But instead of doing so he consummated secession. Mr. Buchanan is a Northern man, a Pennsylvanian; but he was opposed to the party which had brought in Mr. Lincoln, having thriven as a politician by his adherence to Southern principles. Now, when the struggle came, he could not forget his party in his duty as President. General Jackson's position was much the same when Mr. Calhoun, on the question of the tariff, endeavored to produce secession in South Carolina thirty years ago, in 1832--excepting in this, that Jackson was himself a Southern man. But Jackson had a strong conception of the position which he held as President of the United States. He put his foot on secession and crushed it, forcing Mr. Calhoun, as Senator from South Carolina, to vote for that compromise as to the tariff which the government of the day proposed. South Carolina was as eager in 1832 for secession as she was in 1859-60; but the government was in the hands of a strong man and an honest one. Mr. Calhoun would have been hung had he carried out his threats. But Mr. Buchanan had neither the power nor the honesty of General Jackson, and thus secession was in fact consummated during his Presidency.

But Mr. Lincoln's party, it is said--and I believe truly said--might have prevented secession by making overtures to the South, or accepting overtures from the South, before Mr. Lincoln himself had been inaugurated. That is to say, if Mr. Lincoln and the band of politicians who with him had pushed their way to the top of their party, and were about to fill the offices of State, chose to throw overboard the political convictions which had bound them together and insured their success--if they could bring themselves to adopt on the subject of slavery the ideas of their opponents--then the war might have been avoided, and secession also avoided. I do believe that had Mr. Lincoln at that time submitted himself to a compromise in favor of the Democrats, promising the support of the government to certain acts which would in fact have been in favor of slavery, South Carolina would again have been foiled for the time. For it must be understood, that though South Carolina and the Gulf States might have accepted certain compromises, they would not have been satisfied in so accepting them. The desired secession, and nothing short of secession, would in truth have been acceptable to them. But in doing so Mr. Lincoln would have been the most dishonest politician even in America. The North would have been in arms against him; and any true spirit of agreement between the cotton-growing slave States and the manufacturing States of the North, or the agricultural States of the West, would have been as far off and as improbable as it is now. Mr.

Crittenden, who proffered his compromise to the Senate in December, 1860, was at that time one of the two Senators from Kentucky, a slave State. He now sits in the Lower House of Congress as a member from the same State. Kentucky is one of those border States which has found it impossible to secede, and almost equally impossible to remain in the Union. It is one of the States into which it was most probable that the war would be carried--Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri being the three States which have suffered the most in this way. Of Mr. Crittenden's own family, some have gone with secession and some with the Union. His name had been honorably connected with American politics for nearly forty years, and it is not surprising that he should have desired a compromise.

His terms were in fact these--a return to the Missouri compromise, under which the Union pledged itself that no slavery should exist north of 36.30 degrees N. lat., unless where it had so existed prior to the date of that compromise; a pledge that Congress would not interfere with slavery in the individual States--which under the Constitution it cannot do; and a pledge that the Fugitive Slave Law should be carried out by the Northern States. Such a compromise might seem to make very small demand on the forbearance of the Republican party, which was now dominant. The repeal of the Missouri compromise had been to them a loss, and it might be said that its re-enactment would be a gain. But since that compromise had been repealed, vast territories south of the line in question had been added to the union, and the re-enactment of that compromise would hand those vast regions over to absolute slavery, as had been done with Texas. This might be all very well for Mr.