Mr. Lincoln, the prayers of many hearts were with you before you started this journey, they accompanied you all the way here, and they will follow you as you enter in on this administration.
—William Dodge
On Wednesday, February 20, the Peace Conference convened for its thirteenth day. Prayers were offered by Rev. Dr. George Sampson of First Baptist Church.
That day a Washington newspaper editorialized that the Peace Conference would facilitate the “eventual peaceable settlement of the troubles,” despite the unfortunate “presence among them of a few delegations selected palpably to the end of defeating any action,” having been “sent hither in bad faith.” Yet the only hope of retaining the border states in the Union was the Peace Conference’s assuring them that their interests, “so far as slavery is concerned,” had not been “practically remitted into the keeping of the radical wing of the Republican Party.” The editorial opined, they saw “clearly that all the Republican members of the convention are not so blinded by anti-slavery partisanship as to render them utterly incapable of reasoning sensibly” and “in the end they will discard extreme party councils” and pursue Unionism, as “the party presenting the highest claim to it will surely be overwhelmingly ascendant.”1
With such expectations upon the delegates, and with dwindling time left at the convention, debate that morning began almost immediately. Connecticut’s sixty-three-year-old retired jurist, legislator, and diplomat Charles McCurdy protested the Resolutions Committee’s proposal to constitutionally recognize slavery under common law. The North “will never consent to it,” he insisted, speaking as the descendant of old New England patriots whose family home once housed General Lafayette during the Revolution.2 He was a man of quiet faith, as his obituary noted, “his religious training and tendencies found expression in his familiarity with the Scriptures, and in his never-failing practical efforts for the support of public worship,” who was “reticent in regard to his religious experiences and feelings, but his habit of daily prayer and his firm faith in the doctrines of Christ are well known.”3
McCurdy’s obituary would recall that he was at the Peace Conference “one of the first to discover the irreconcilability of the opposing views of the north and south; but after the civil war commenced, and even during its darkest days, he never doubted the final success of the union cause.” In Willard Hall, he told his delegate colleagues: “She [the North] understands all the consequences as well as you. No doubt it would be a great point gained for you, to have the Constitution recognize the institution of slavery as part of the common law. For then slavery goes wherever the common law goes.”4
Ohio’s Thomas Ewing responded that the proposal didn’t pertain to all US territory but only where already existing “in that little worthless territory we own below the proposed line” of territory south of latitude 36°30´. “Will we agree that it shall remain there just as it is now, so long as the territorial condition continues? That is all. There is no mystery or question of construction about it.”5
New York’s fifty-six-year-old David Field proposed a constitutional amendment against secession, which “would render the majority report much more acceptable to the northern people,” while still asserting his own reservations about the majority report or any constitutional amendments. Field, the son of a Congregationalist minister, was a former Free Soil Democrat turned Republican who had chaired the 1860 Cooper Union meeting in New York where Lincoln delivered his famous speech on slavery and the Constitution.6 He was “one of the first to break” from the Democratic Party over the extension of slavery, which “he fought in conventions, when he stood almost alone.”7 Field warned of the momentous decisions before them: “To found an empire, or to make a constitution for a people, on which so much of their happiness depends, requires the sublimest effort of the human intellect, the greatest impartiality in weighing opposing interests, the utmost calmness in judgment, the highest prudence in decision.”8
Field also charged: “You have called us here to prevent future discussion of the subject of slavery. It is that you fear—it is that you would avoid—discussion in Congress—in the State Legislatures—in the news-papers—in popular assemblies.” He warned that compelling Northern states to pay for unreturned fugitive slaves would toss a “lighted firebrand not only into Congress, but into every state legislature, into every county, city, and village in the land,” creating a “consuming fire.”9
“Stop discussion of the great questions affecting the policy, strength, and prosperity of the Government!” Field exclaimed. “You cannot do it! You ought not to attempt to do it!” Striking a brief conciliatory pose, he professed, “I am still for peace . . . [but] I object to the propositions, sir, because they would put into the Constitution new expressions relating to slavery, which were sedulously kept out of it by the framers of that instrument; left out of it, not accidentally, but because, as Madison said, they did not wish posterity to know from the Constitution that the institution existed . . . because the propositions contain guarantees for slavery which our fathers did not and would not give.”10
When challenged, Field denied that saving the Union meant protecting slavery. “I would let slavery slide, and save the Union,” he explained. “Greater things than this have been done. This year has seen slavery abolished in all the Russias.” He “would sacrifice all I have; lay down my life for the Union . . . but I will not give these guarantees to slavery. If the Union cannot be preserved without them, it cannot long be preserved with them.” He pointed out that his Southern colleagues could not promise that seceded states would return, even if guarantees for slavery were constitutionalized. In fact, they were prepared to join them if the compromise failed. “Even if these propositions of amendment are received and submitted to the people, I see nothing but war in the future, unless those States are quickly brought back to their allegiance,” he surmised. Citing the absence of states like California and Oregon, he urged a state convention “because I believe it is the best way to avoid civil war.”11
“We must have either the arbitrament of reason or the arbitrament of the sword,” Field warned. “Only last night I dreamed of marching armies and news from the seat of war.” Responding to derisive laughter from the Kentucky and Virginia benches, he remarked, “The gentlemen laugh. I thought they, too, had fears of war. I thought their threats and prophecies were sincere. God grant that I may not hereafter have to say, ‘I had a dream that was not all a dream.’ ” He concluded by quoting Longfellow’s poem “O Ship of State:”12
Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O UNION, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
’Tis of the wave and not the rock;
’Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest’s roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o’er our fears,
Are all with thee,—are all with thee.13
Pennsylvania’s Thomas White, apparently unmoved, replied that “all the speeches that have been made, and all the declamation that has been uttered on this floor, have not made a single convert.” He explained that Pennsylvania was present because as a “border state” amid “civil, unnatural war,” she would be “devastated,” with “fields laid waste and trampled down.” Citing Virginia’s currently meeting convention, he warned against further delays, preferring “speedy action . . . to have some plan laid before the country at once—something fair to all sections—and then, with, the alternatives before them, let the people decide. She wishes to pour oil on the troubled waters.” He also reasoned that restoring the Missouri Compromise line, which Dred Scott had inflamed the North by overthrowing, could only be a positive.14
New Hampshire’s Amos Tuck then spoke, averring, “gentlemen greatly err in assuming that we of the North are acting under some wizard influence, and, out of pure malignity, are plotting the overthrow of slavery,” when “there is no plot or general concert in the action of the North on this subject,” and “no disposition at the North to interfere with it.” Sounding biblical, he pledged, “We will live with you in the Union, under a Constitution that requires us to help you keep the peace. Where you dwell, we will dwell. Your people shall be our people, and where you die, we will die.” But he wondered why Southerners would wish to leave, when slavery was protected, and when national governments and the courts had long been partial to their interests.15
“You are going out of the Union because you say we propose to immolate you—to turn you over to the mercies of a Government of slaves set free,” Tuck deduced. “How unfounded is such a belief!” noting how partiality to the South was dominant even at the Peace Conference. “You turn your backs upon the Government of the Father of his Country, whose portrait is before us, and join your fortunes to a mere southern nationality,” he observed, warning about political stability in “southern latitudes” like South America versus the “permanence and power of Russia, France, and England.” He rejected “maintaining the Union by force of arms” as “not in accordance with the theory of our Government.” Trying to conclude hopefully, he declared, “The end of the Union has not come—it is not coming. The Union will yet outlive us and our posterity.”16
New Jersey’s Frederick Frelinghuysen proclaimed, “it is of little use to make patriotic speeches here,” after himself giving a lengthy one about his state’s commitment to the Union and the Constitution, including fugitive slave laws. “The South demands guarantees and I feel under obligations to respond to that demand,” he said. “I am ready to do it now; and my obligations to do right will not be changed by the 4th of March rolling over my head,” citing Lincoln’s inauguration. “If civil war is to come, if this land is to be deluged with fraternal blood, when that time comes there will not be a northern State represented here that would not give untold millions to be placed upon that record by the side of New Jersey.”17
But Frelinghuysen disclaimed against protecting future territory for slavery as “you have no rights in territory which we never owned, and I hope never may.” He hoped for a closure to the slavery issue, complaining it had
separated families and neighborhoods; it has broken up and scattered Christian churches; it has severed every benevolent society of the land; it has destroyed parties; it broke up the good old Whig party, and more recently sapped the strength and vigor from the Herculean Democracy. It now threatens the dissolution of the Union. Let us crush the head of the monster forever. Let us do it by restricting and defining its limits in existing territory.18
And Frelinghuysen urged Republicans to abandon their stance on slavery, asking, “Is the Chicago platform a law to us?” He suggested too much had changed since the election, and “in fifty days, fifty years of history have transpired. This is enough to release us from the obligation, if any existed.” He professed that, “I can go home to the Republicans of New Jersey with a clear conscience and say to them, that by our action here we have not carried slavery one inch farther than it was before.” And he added, “Now we have an opportunity, at once and forever, by constitutional enactment, to prohibit slavery from going into three-fourths of the territory, by simply agreeing that as to the other one-fourth, while it remains a territory, the status of slavery shall not be changed.”19
Extolling the Union as a providential instrument, Frelinghuysen declared, “There is no one here who, as he has witnessed the freedom, the comfort, the prosperity, and the pure religion disseminated among the people, has not hoped this nation was to accomplish great social and moral good for our whole race. Yes, in fond conception we have seen her the Liberator and Equalizer of the world—walking like an angel of light in the dark portions of the earth.”20
Kentucky’s Charles Wickliffe interjected that he would motion to terminate debate the next day to facilitate a vote on February 22, “that we may see whether the same day that gave a Washington to our Fathers, may not give Peace to their posterity.” But long speeches resumed, starting with New York’s William Dodge, who spoke as a “plain merchant, out of place, I very well know, in such a Conference as this.”21
Dodge, a founding member of the Young Men’s Christian Association and a temperance advocate, came to Washington bearing petitions endorsing the “Border State Resolutions,” meeting with seventy Republican members of the Senate and House of Representatives in a “most satisfactory and delightful interview.” He had been “laboring with all the ability, strength, and power with which God has blessed me, to secure the adoption of some plan here, that would settle our difficulties and avert from our beloved country the evils with which she is now threatened.”22
“My days are anxious and excited—my nights are wakeful and sleep-less,” Dodge disclosed. “In all the weary watches of last night, I could not close my eyes in slumber,” seeing the “certain and inevitable ruin that is threatening the business, commercial interests of this country, and which is sure to fall with crushing force upon those interests, unless we come to some arrangement here.” He explained that “had not Divine Providence poured out its blessings upon the great West in an abundant harvest, and at the same time opened a new market for that harvest in foreign lands, bringing it through New York in its transit, our city would now present the silence and the quiet of the Sabbath day.”23
Dodge asked: “What is it that has thus stopped the wheels of manufactures and arrested the ordinary movements of commerce,” producing “this unusual and uncommon stagnation of business?” He blamed “anxiety, distrust, and apprehension,” between and over the North and South. And he faulted delegates from New England as the “most obstinate and uncompromising.” But their constituents “will not sit quietly by and see their property sacrificed or reduced in value,” readily preferring these conciliatory propositions to further turmoil, after which “you will hear no more said about slavery or platforms.”24
New York’s James Smith made what a New York newspaper called a “strong speech against compromise” that “several members” called “one of the best speeches yet made.” He declared he had
nothing to say respecting the morals of slavery. If there is virtue in the institution, you have the credit of it; if there is sin, you must answer for it. And here let me say that you discuss the moral aspect of slavery much more than we do. We hold it to be strictly a state institution. So long as it is kept there, we have nothing to do with it. It is only when it thrusts itself outside of state limits, and seeks to acquire power and strength by spreading itself over new ground, that we insist upon our objections.25
But Smith insisted “no opinion ever took a firmer hold of the Northern mind—ever struck more deeply into it—ever became more pervading, or was ever adopted after maturer consideration” than conversion of free territory into slave territory, to which the North would consent “Never! never!”26
“You must not forget that the people of the North believe slavery is both a moral and a political evil,” Smith remarked. “They recognize the right of the States to have it, to regulate it as they please, without interference, direct or indirect; but when it is proposed to extend it into territory where it did not before exist, it becomes a political question, in which they are interested, in which they have a right to interfere, and in which they will interfere.”27
Slavery and free labor couldn’t coexist, Smith explained, which was why the North opposed slavery’s expansion into new territory. “We want our children to go there, and live on the labor of their own free hands,” he said. “They are excluded if slavery goes there before us.” So “this contest is between the owners of slaves on the one side, and all the free men of this great nation on the other.”28
THE FOURTEENTH DAY
After Smith’s peroration, the Peace Conference adjourned until 10:00 A.M. the next morning, Thursday, February 21. That morning Rev. Dr. Thomas Stockton of the Methodist Protestant Church invoked them, after which debate resumed. An Ohio newspaper reported that day that Virginia, North Carolina, and Missouri stood ready to vote against the majority report, with Maryland, Kentucky, and Tennessee supporting it. Virginia’s Tyler, Seddon, and Brockenbrough would urge Virginia’s secession convention to reject it, the newspaper predicted, while Rives and Summers of Virginia would advocate the opposite. But Virginia’s delegates in Richmond were “somewhat disappointed overall” by the Peace Conference, which “cannot continue more than three or four days longer.” Reportedly “Mrs. Tyler left for home this afternoon, and Mr. Tyler expects soon to follow.”29
That morning, reflecting either frustration or his policy of delay, Ohio’s Salmon Chase unsuccessfully offered what a West Virginia newspaper called a “startling proposition” from his state legislature urging the Peace Conference to adjourn, reconvening on April 4. After this Kentucky’s Charles Wickliffe motioned for ending debate the next morning. Missouri’s Waldo Johnson backed him, explaining, “We Missourians love the Union, but we have fully arrived at the conclusion that the time has come when something must be done to prevent our entire separation.”30
Chase opposed the Peace Conference holding night sessions since their day sessions were “protracted and very laborious” and night sessions were “dangerous.” But Kentucky’s Charles Morehead disagreed, having “observed the demeanor of all the gentlemen in the conference, and know that they are as well fitted for business at five o’clock in the afternoon as at ten o’clock in the morning.” Thirteen states voted in agreement with Morehead.31
Kentucky’s James Clay objected to New York’s Smith for offering a mixed narrative of his father, the great Henry Clay, whom Smith portrayed as ardent Unionist while also criticizing his Compromise of 1850. Smith credited the elder Clay for believing that compromise is “beneficial to the country,” but “experience has shown that he was mistaken.” And Smith appealed to the “venerable and able men around me, who bear historic names—who have been themselves long connected with the Union and its Government, to join us in our struggle to save the Constitution.”32
Connecticut’s Chauncey Cleveland was his state’s former governor who had become a Republican and was a presidential elector for Lincoln. He insisted, “We are all friends—friends of the Union and of each other,” and “nobody wants to give up the Union, or hurt Mr. Lincoln.” “The South . . . thinks the Republicans, since they have got the power, are going to trample upon her rights.” What’s wrong with reassuring her, he wondered. “If we could go to work at this thing like sensible men, we could settle the whole matter in two hours,” instead of “long speeches” persisting until “doomsday.”33
Missouri’s John Coalter asked if Massachusetts “abhors slavery, how long will it be before she will abhor slaveholders?” He asserted the “people of the North know little of the condition of the negro in a state of slavery,” but the South knows that the “four millions of blacks in the South are better off in all respects than any similar number of laborers anywhere.”34
John Goodrich of Massachusetts, the fifty-six-year-old Republican lieutenant governor of his state, offered a lengthy lecture on the Founders’ stances toward slavery. This prompted Charles Wickliffe to snap impatiently, “No one from Kentucky or Virginia wishes to alter the ordinance of 1787. For God’s sake spare us the argument.” The conference adjourned at 4:00 P.M. and reconvened at 7:00 P.M. for its first evening session on that Thursday, February 21.35
Lucius Chittenden of Vermont took a break from his copious journaling to take the floor. “Now, it is useless to tell the people of the free States, that such is the present condition of the South, such is the apprehension and distrust prevailing there, that we must give them these guarantees at once, without any longer delay or discussion—that if we do not they will secede,” he observed. “This is not the way in which good constitutions are made, for one of the several parties to present its ultimatum, and then insist upon its adoption, under the threat that if it is not adopted they will go no farther.” After all, “a Constitution adopted in that way would be good for nothing.”36
Chittenden noted that the people of the slave states believe slavery is a “desirable,” and even a “missionary institution, and that the North, in attempting to overthrow it, interposes between the slaveholder and his Maker, thereby preventing him from performing a duty toward the African race which his ownership imposes upon his conscience.” Probably sounding a bit sarcastic, he told Southerners “that is a question between yourselves and your consciences.” The North would not interfere in the South but would firmly reject expansion, which would make the North “responsible for the existence, expansion, growth, extension, or anything else relating to slavery.” Any compromise must recognize of this Northern view that “sneering at it will do no good; abuse will only make it stronger. You cannot legislate it out of existence. From this time forward, as long as the nation has an existence, you must expect the determined opposition of the North to the extension of slavery into free territory.” Chittenden admitted at this point he had no expectation that “much good would come from our deliberations.”37
Stephen Logan of Illinois, a political associate of Lincoln, warned against the “evil day that brings civil war upon our happy and prosperous country, and to prevent the devastation of that country.” Addressing “my brother Republicans,” he stressed that the only way for a “united country to rule” was by a “settlement of our troubles,” and adopting the committee report. Having won the election, “you can afford to be liberal,” he told Republicans. “Liberality is a noble trait in any character, whether it be that of an individual or political party.” If the Union is dissolved, “that party will be responsible; responsible, as that party has now the power to prevent it.” He implored that they “induce Congress to submit our propositions at once to the people,” since “in no other way, in my judgment, can we avoid the disunion that threatens us.”38
Indiana’s Godlove Orth made clear he would never “consent, by word, thought, or deed, to do anything to strengthen the institution of slavery,” which he saw as an “evil which all good men should desire to see totally eradicated; and I hope for the day to dawn speedily when, throughout the length and breadth of the land, freedom shall be enjoyed by every human being, without reference to caste, color, or nationality.” While “willing to tolerate its existence where it now is, I am unwilling to extend its boundaries a single inch, and will not give it any guarantee, protection, or encouragement, save what it can exact by the strict letter of the fundamental law.” He told the South that “you must strike the first blow, cross the Rubicon, commit the foul and damning crime of treason, and bring upon your people ruin, devastation, and destruction, and call down upon your guilty heads the curses of your children and the disapprobation of the civilized world!”39
Exasperated by the meandering debate, New York’s seventy-one-year-old jurist Greene Bronson likened the “set speeches” to the “circumlocution office in one of Dickens’ novels, showing ‘how not to do it.’ ” He dryly suggested: “All this circumlocution might have better been done at home.” Disclaiming partisan interests, he claimed if he were a “mere politician, I do not know but I should be in favor of breaking up the Conference, and of doing nothing; but being only a Democrat, I desire to transmit to posterity the blessings of a good Constitution and a good Government.”40
Bronson thought it “strange to see gentlemen so cool and apathetic under such circumstances,” asking, “Is no one alarmed for the safety of the old flag about which so much is said?” He declared, “My only wish is to spend my few remaining days in the United States, and to transmit the blessings of our Government to my children.” He commended Republicans who subordinated “their platform to their country. I commend them for it; these are noble sentiments. Men should abandon platforms when they tend to destroy the country.” Dismissing British opposition to slavery, he recalled that “she has millions in India worse off than slaves . . . has been the greatest land robber on the earth . . . and has forced the Chinese at the point of the bayonet to eat opium. Do you forget that she ruined the capitol in this city, and blew it up, in 1814? I do not deny her virtues, but I do not care to follow her example.” As to slavery’s expansion, Bronson thought it a “blessing to the slave if he may be permitted to go with his master into these new territories,” away from “old slave States,” where “he is compelled to work in gangs under the whip of a driver, with no one to look after his health or comfort.” Urging adoption of the resolutions, he declared “in their adoption there is safety; there is great danger in their rejection.”41
THE FIFTEENTH DAY
The weary delegates adjourned at midnight until 10:00 A.M. the next morning, Friday, February 22, for its fifteenth day, on George Washington’s birthday. The day began with prayer from Rev. Dr. Byron Sunderland of First Presbyterian Church. There commenced yet another debate on limiting the length of speeches. Exasperated, Kentucky’s James Guthrie suggested: “Perhaps some of us had better take the benefit of the prayers of the church on Sunday. Some of us wish to get our propositions to Congress at an early hour. Those who oppose us—those determined to defeat action, can speak on until the fourth of March. I hope such is not their intention.”42
Pennsylvania’s fifty-year-old former “Great Christian Governor” James Pollock was an old Whig and a devout Christian who served in Congress and shared the same boarding house with Lincoln. He appealed to his colleagues’ faith: “Christian men! Remember that our great Savior was a Prince of Peace—that he came to conquer with peace, not with the sword. ‘The Lord God omnipotent reigneth.’ ”43 Under Lincoln he became head of the US mint and played a role in putting “In God We Trust” on currency.44 At Willard Hall, he recalled:
I labored for the election of Mr. Lincoln, but I never understood that hostility to slavery was the leading idea in the platform of his party. Pennsylvania had other interests—other reasons very powerful, for supporting him. There was the repeal of the Missouri Compromise—ruinous discriminations in the Tariff—the corruption of the Government—the villainous conduct of its high officers; these and other considerations gave Mr. Lincoln more strength in Pennsylvania than the slavery question.
And he asked pleadingly: “How can we do greater honor to this glorious day, which gave the immortal Washington to his country and to the world, than by marking it on the calendar as the day that secured the safety and perpetuity of the American Union?”45
Virginia’s fifty-four-year-old John Brockenbrough was a moderate Unionist from the Shenandoah Valley who approached the Peace Conference with a “catholic spirit,” saying “never despair of the republic.” But he also believed in secession and that the “honor and interest” of Virginia “bind Virginia to the cotton states,” and that if the North did not conciliate at the Peace Conference, Virginia “should secede at once.”46 In Willard Hall, he observed:
It seems that we can agree upon everything but this question of slavery in the Territories. So far as that subject is concerned, Virginia has declared that she will accept the Crittenden resolutions. She and her southern sisters will stand upon and abide by them. If gentlemen will come up to this basis of adjustment with manly firmness, the electric wires will flash a thrill of joy to the hearts of the people this very hour. Why not come up to it like men?47
Complaining that “sentiments have been uttered here that grate harshly on the minds of Southern gentlemen,” Brockenbrough recognized a “war of ideas” and an “irrepressible conflict.” If the North insists that slavery is a sin, “the sum of all villanies, then we may as well separate. We cannot live together longer.”48
Pennsylvania’s congressman, forty-seven-year-old David Wilmot, had admitted to delegates that he was a lightning rod of controversy thanks to his long advocacy of the “Wilmot Proviso” banning slavery in former Mexican lands. He declared his “first allegiance is to the principles of truth and justice. Convince me that your propositions are right, that they are just and true, and I will accept them. I will sustain them to the end. If they are wrong—and I now believe them to be—I will never sustain them, and I will show my faith in God by leaving the consequences with Him.” But he could not vote for the majority report as he did “not think it is right thus to bind posterity” and to “entrench slavery behind the Constitution.”49
Virginia’s James Seddon, always ready to pounce in defense of Southern slavery, responded with alacrity: “Slavery is with us a democratic and a social interest, a political institution, the grandest item of our prosperity. Can we in safety or justice sit quietly by and allow the North thus to array all the powers of the Government against us?”50
North Carolina’s Daniel Barringer echoed Seddon: “We claim that every Southern man has the right to go into the Territories with his property, wherever these Territories may be. The Territories belong to both; to the South as well as to the North. We want equality. We have no wish to propagate slavery, but every man at the South does wish to insist upon his right to enter the Territories upon terms of perfect equality with the North, if he chooses to do so. He may not exercise the right, but he will not give it up.”51
Anxious to seek consensus, Kentucky’s Charles Morehead warned against piling amendments into the majority report, as Seddon wanted to further define slavery protections in the territories. “I know as certainly as that God rules in heaven, that unless we come to some satisfactory adjustment in this Conference, a convulsion will ensue such as the world has never seen,” he quivered. “I think we can yet save the seceded States. But at least let us save Texas and Arkansas. As it is, black ruin sits nursing the earthquake which threatens to level this government to its foundations. Can you not feel it, while there is yet time to prepare for the shock? If this giant frenzy of disunion raises its crested head—if red battle stamps his foot, the North will feel the shock as severely as the South.”52
THE SIXTEENTH DAY
After strongly rejecting a motion to add language on slavery protection, the delegates adjourned, reconvening on Saturday, February 23. The sixteenth day started with prayer from Rev. Dr. Clement Butler of Trinity Episcopal Church. A motion urging all states to “faithfully abide in the Union” was tabled by eleven to nine, with Rhode Island, Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania voting with the slave states.53
In the wake of that vote, Ohio’s fifty-four-year-old jurist and railroad executive Reuben Hitchcock observed:
Our differences exist, and I do not think they were occasioned by the success of the Republican Party in the last presidential election. The plotters against the Union have seized upon the occasion to accomplish their designs. By no fault of their own, several of the border states are placed in a very unfortunate position. They wish to remain in the Union, but their people insist that certain of their rights shall be previously secured; in other words, guaranteed. It is my firm belief that if the inauguration of President Lincoln was over, if his administration had been for a few months in operation, we should all be at peace. Now, we must act upon the facts as they are presented to us.54
In a more conciliatory vein, Tennessee’s Robert Carruthers urged acceptance of the majority report’s current language, citing the Bible.
We read in sacred history that the Israelites were once so conscientious that they would not fight on Sunday. They were attacked and overthrown. They finally agreed to compromise the question of conscience so far as to fight in self-defense on Sunday. They were attacked then, and the enemy was overthrown. The report is not such as we could wish it might be, but, such as it is, we will accept it and stand by it. We will adopt it, and we ask the North to adopt it, in the true spirit of compromise.55
In likewise urging acceptance, Stephen Logan of Illinois explained, “There is a contest between the North and the remaining Southern States, and the latter have no better chance in that contest alone, than Turkey had in the grasp of the rugged Russian Bear. The gentlemen from these states do not threaten. All they say is, ‘If we cannot agree longer together, let us go in peace. We will fight only in self-defense.’ ”56
North Carolina’s Morehead rejoiced to hear such sympathetic Northern voices, having been jeered at in his state legislature, where Secessionists were the majority. He had told them “repeatedly that if we could once get the ear of the North, the North would do us justice.” In response, they cited much of the North’s perceived celebration of John Brown’s raid. Goodrich of Massachusetts replied by correcting the charge that his governor had honored Brown, whom he had in fact called “crazy,” but for whose family he afterward attended a fund-raiser.57
Maryland’s fifty-five-year-old Augustus Bradford was a Democrat Unionist who would serve as his state’s wartime governor. He pledged: “Give us the report as it came from the committee, without substantial alteration, and there is no power on earth that can draw the State of Maryland out of the Union! Maryland has been called the heart of the Union. The day she leaves the Union, that heart is broken! I am now inclined to set my face against all amendments. I think that is the better course.”58
Bradford said in the “populous section of the State where I reside, the universal cry is, ‘For God’s sake, settle these questions!’ Why can we not settle them? The committee informs us that the members of which it is composed, were nearly unanimous upon all points except the territorial question. Will reasonable men not yield a little to each other in order to settle that?”59
Similarly, Ohio’s Ewing pleaded conciliation: “Let a man be firm as a rock in battle, but conciliatory in council; especially in such a council as this, where the lives of millions may be concerned. There is a firmness which is but another name for imprudence—for rashness.” He offered, “We may be right—the North may be right; but we should not hazard the existence of the Union by a determination to exercise that right at all events, when, by some slight concessions, we could save the Union.”60
But Crowninshield of Massachusetts urged the South not to push too hard. “I am not insensible to the condition of the country,” he said. “Neither are my colleagues, nor the constituents they represent. But you must not expect us here, in the worst emergency you can imagine, to forget or throw away the rights of our people. If we consent to support this amendment, it is as far as we can go. You ought not to ask us to go farther.”61
Kentucky’s James Clay, who owned many slaves and lived on the estate of his famous late father, was succinct: “Mr. President, in behalf of the South, I think I know what to say. If our differences are to be settled at all, we must have our property in our slaves in the Territories recognized; and when that property is constitutionally recognized, it must be constitutionally protected. Such, I know, are the sentiments of the people of Kentucky.”62
Speaking for the North, Charles Allen of Massachusetts was just as emphatic: “We of the North stand where our fathers did, who resisted the Stamp Act; who threw overboard the tea in Boston harbor. We have been taught to resist the smallest beginnings of evil; that this is the true policy.” He observed the “debates of this Conference, and those of the Convention of 1787, will stand in a strange contrast to each other.”63
Typically a political realist, Salmon Chase warned his fellow delegates of the limits in their influence on the nation.
A majority of the people have adopted the opinion that under the Constitution slavery has not a legal existence in the Territories. The triumph of this opinion is not the result of any sudden impulse. A President has been elected, and a Government will soon be organized, whose duty it will be to respect and observe the opinions of the people. You are now seeking, by the adoption of a single section, to change these opinions and this policy. Do not deceive yourselves, gentlemen. You will never accomplish this result so easily. You are presenting such a subject for debate and excitement as the country never had before.64
Virginia’s Seddon proposed an amendment requiring that presidential appointments in the territories receive a majority of US senators from slave states. For the first time, John Tyler extraordinarily set aside his presidential role in the Peace Conference to address the issue himself directly from the floor. He seemingly had reserved his political capital, carefully conserved in Willard Hall, until now.
Tyler admitted the proposal was “extraordinary,” but explained “that policy is the best, which reduces within the narrowest limits the patronage to be exercised by the executive authority.” He had “heard with pleasure the feelings expressed, the references made, to the Cotton States. I have scarcely heard an unkind word said against them. We have come here to cement the Union—to make that Union, of which gentlemen have so eloquently spoken, permanent, noble, and glorious in the future as it has been in the past—not to be content with it as a maimed and crippled Republic.”65
Now with “eight flourishing States . . . practically lost to us,” Tyler urged exerting “every power we possess to bring them all back to the fold,” based on “every motive of interest or patriotism.” He observed the powers of Europe would eagerly give much “for this favored section.” And yet “we stand here higgling over these little differences which alone have caused our separation. Is it not better that we should rise to the level of the occasion, and meet the requisition of the times, instead of expending precious hours in the discussion of these miserable abstractions?”66
Seddon’s proposal would preserve the “equilibrium, the balance of power, between the sections,” Tyler asserted. “It enables each section to appoint its own officers, to protect its own interests, to regulate its own concerns. It is fair and equal in its operations. With it, no section can have any excuse for dissatisfaction. I pledge the united support of the South to the Union, if it is adopted.” But despite Tyler’s personal intervention, the proposal overwhelmingly failed by eleven to four, with only Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri supporting it. Perhaps it was at this hour that Tyler began, at least inwardly, to despair of the Peace Conference.67
Very early on that Saturday morning of February 23, unknown to most Peace Conference delegates except perhaps a few Republicans in the know, Abraham Lincoln had strode through the swinging doors of Willard’s Hotel, where Senator Seward was awaiting him. New York Peace Delegate William Dodge vacated his room to make way for Lincoln, telling him: “Mr. Lincoln, the prayers of many hearts were with you before you started this journey, they accompanied you all the way here, and they will follow you as you enter in on this administration.”68
Reports widely circulated that Lincoln had hurried to Washington ahead of schedule because “important measures before the Peace Conference made it expedient, if not necessary, to consult him about them before action should be taken,” as one newspaper recounted, while admitting there were “many rumors in regard to this proceeding that we shall not place much reliance in.” In fact, there’s no evidence that Lincoln adjusted his schedule for the Peace Conference, and he had in fact hurried through Baltimore due to security concerns. But his arrival predictably caused a sensation at Willard’s, where emotions were already charged.69
Later that morning, shortly after the session was called to order, James Seddon was approached by his slave. Lucius Chittenden described the slave as a “man scarcely darker than himself, his equal in deportment, his superior in figure and carriage,” who “had made himself a favorite by his civil and respectful manner, and by general consent was the only person, not a member or officer, who had the entree to the sessions of the Conference.” The servant handed Seddon a “scrap of paper, apparently torn from an envelope,” at which Seddon glanced and then passed to Missouri’s Waldo Johnson. The note announced: “Lincoln is in this hotel!” As news spread through Willard Hall, commissioners “gathered in groups to discuss it, and were too much absorbed to hear the repeated calls of the chairman to order,” no event yet at the conference having “produced so much excitement.”70
This excitement prevented exclusive focus on debate, as “members were not in a condition of mind to make speeches or to listen to them,” as Chittenden later recalled. After a “hurried consultation” among Republicans, Logan of Illinois then announced that “Mr. Lincoln, the President-elect, has arrived in this city. I feel certain that the Conference would desire to treat him with the same measure of respect which it has extended to the present incumbent of that high office.” He moved that the “President of this Convention be requested to call upon the President-elect of the United States, and inform him that its members would be pleased to wait upon him in a body at such time as will suit his convenience, and that this Convention be advised of the result.”71
“This motion was fiercely opposed,” Chittenden later remembered, never failing to notice such slights, although he did not record this opposition in his journal that day. He recalled cries of “No! No! Vote it down!” and “Lay it on the table!” amid barely whispered insults of “Rail-splitter!” “Ignoramus!” and “Vulgar clown!” Ever decorous, President Tyler ruled that “the proposal was eminently proper; that the office, and not the individual, was to be considered; that he hoped that no Southern member would decline to treat the incoming President with the same respect and attention already extended to the present incumbent of that honorable and exalted office.” The convention apparently mollified by Tyler’s summons to propriety, Logan’s motion then was unanimously adopted, at least officially, with delegates agreeing to adjourn and reconvene at 7:30 P.M.72
Lincoln’s early morning, largely unexpected arrival in Washington had not lacked for drama. Rumors of assassination plots had plagued Washington. Chittenden, often at the center of intrigue, later told of having been summoned to Baltimore surreptitiously on Sunday, February 17. There local Republicans unveiled to him complex anti-Lincoln conspiracies. He returned to Washington and informed a Lincoln associate, who assured him that the president-elect’s security had been safeguarded.73 Under the protection of Pinkerton detectives, Lincoln slipped through Baltimore in the very late hours, unannounced, in a secluded sleeping car, changing trains under cover of darkness while clad in a shawl and knit cap. Critics mocked the subterfuge as unmanly. Chittenden, who was always alert to perceived conspiracy, later asserted that Waldo Johnson exclaimed, “How the devil did he get through Baltimore?” upon hearing from James Seddon of Lincoln’s arrival. Seddon irritably replied, seemingly for the benefit of any eavesdroppers like Chittenden who sat nearby, “What would prevent his passing through Baltimore?”74
Perhaps also surprised by Lincoln’s arrival, or at least its timing, Tyler declined to “call upon” Lincoln, as the motion stipulated, instead writing him a note, receiving word that Lincoln would be “pleased to receive the members of this body at nine o’clock this evening, or at any other time which may suit their convenience.” As Chittenden later noted, Republican members of the Conference were “not pleased with the manner in which the chairman performed his duty,” but raised no objection over a “mere matter of form.”75
The intrepid Chittenden, as he later recorded, thought “it might prove of advantage to Mr. Lincoln to have some information in advance of the men who would meet him that evening,” so he went to visit him ahead of the others, to advise “who would visit him out of respect, and who would come out of curiosity, or only to jeer and ridicule.” In Lincoln’s apartment upstairs he found a “tall, stooping figure, upon which his clothing hung loosely and ungracefully.” His “kindly eyes looked out from under a cavernous, projecting brow, with a curiously mingled expression of sadness and humor.” Lincoln’s limbs were “long, and at first sight ungainly” but overshadowed by the “cordial grasp of his large hands, the cheery tones of his pleasant voice, the heartiness of his welcome, in the air and presence of the great-hearted man.” Lincoln dominated the conversation, leaving Chittenden saying nothing he had planned, as Lincoln hoped for “opportunity of meeting so many representative men from different sections of the Union; the more unjust they were in their opinions of himself, the more he desired to make their acquaintance,” to dissuade them that he was “an evil spirit, a goblin, the implacable enemy of Southern men and women.” He especially hoped all the slave state delegates would be present, specifically mentioning William Rives of Virginia and Judge Thomas Ruffin of North Carolina as particularly influential, plus several whom he had known in Congress years before.76
Chittenden remembered the earlier peace delegates’ visit to President Buchanan, when they had processed behind President Tyler. With their visit to Lincoln, they were arranged more as “straggling groups” meandering to the meeting space, as a “most unfriendly audience,” many of whom “entertained for him sentiments of positive hatred.” They discussed Lincoln as a “curiosity” as they would have “spoken of a clown with whose ignorant vulgarity they were to be amused.” Lincoln received the delegates with no signs of having “made the slightest preparation,” standing alone in one of Willard’s public drawing rooms. Finding no organized protocol, Chittenden recalled he stood by Lincoln to introduce each delegate by name. Evidently few if any boycotted, curiosity getting the best of them, as the crowd was as large as it had been for Buchanan. Lincoln showed little evidence of exhaustion from his early morning arrival, or from his tense transit through Baltimore, preceded by ten days of cross-country travel and greeting crowds.77
According to a Washington newspaper, Lincoln had just returned from dinner at Senator Seward’s house, after spending much of the day at Willard’s receiving guests like General Winfield Scott and Senator Stephen Douglas. At 9:00 P.M. he met the Peace Conference delegates, who had “formed in procession in the hall where they meet and proceeded to the reception parlor,” with President Tyler and Salmon Chase having “led the van.” Chase introduced Tyler to Lincoln, who “received him with all the respect due his position.” Chase then “presented” each delegate to Lincoln, according to the newspaper.78
Delegates lined up around him in a circle after each was introduced, with Lincoln trying to give each a unique and sometimes playful greeting. To Kentucky’s James Clay, he said, “Your name is all the endorsement you require,” adding, “From my boyhood the name of Henry Clay has been an inspiration to me.” To western Virginia’s George Summers, he enthused: “You cannot be a Disunionist, unless your nature has changed since we met in Congress!” He asked of a Tennessean, “Does liberty still thrive in the mountains of Tennessee?”79
The urbane William Rives was a former US senator, minister to France, and a renowned statesman whom Lincoln had quoted in a speech twenty-two years before. Lincoln now fulsomely exclaimed: “You are a smaller man than I supposed—I mean in person: everyone is acquainted with the greatness of your intellect. It is, indeed, pleasant to meet one who has so honorably represented his country in Congress and abroad.” Rives, as he recalled, replied, “I feel a small man in your presence,” later saying of the encounter, “This piece of Western free and easy compliment passed off among his admirers for first rate Parisian cleverness and tact.”80
Rives archly told Lincoln that “the clouds that hang over [the nation] are very dark. I have no longer the courage of my younger days. I can do little—you can do much. Everything now depends upon you.” Lincoln replied, “I cannot agree to that,” saying his course was “as plain as a turnpike road. It is marked out by the Constitution. I am in no doubt which way to go. Suppose now we all stop discussing and try the experiment of obedience to the Constitution and the laws. Don’t you think it would work?”81
Virginia’s George Summers replied to Lincoln, “Yes, it will work. If the Constitution is your light, I will follow it with you, and the people of the South will go with us.” Then a more confrontational James Seddon interjected: “It is not of your professions we complain. It is of your sins of omission—of your failure to enforce the laws—to suppress your John Browns and your Garrisons, who preach insurrection and make war upon our property!”82
Lincoln tartly responded to Seddon: “I believe John Brown was hung and Mr. Garrison imprisoned. You cannot justly charge the North with disobedience to statutes or with failing to enforce them. You have made some which were very offensive, but they have been enforced, notwith-standing.” Seddon retorted: “You do not enforce the laws. You refuse to execute the statute for the return of fugitive slaves. Your leading men openly declare that they will not assist the marshals to capture or return slaves.”83
Not backing down, Lincoln told Seddon: “You are wrong in your facts again. Your slaves have been returned, yes, from the shadow of Faneuil Hall in the heart of Boston. Our people do not like the work, I know. They will do what the law commands, but they will not volunteer to act as tip-staves or bum-bailiffs. The instinct is natural to the race. Is it not true of the South? Would you join in the pursuit of a fugitive slave if you could avoid it? Is such the work of gentlemen?”84
Seddon leveled more charges at Lincoln: “Your press is incendiary! It advocates servile insurrection, and advises our slaves to cut their masters’ throats. You do not suppress your newspapers. You encourage their violence.”85
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Seddon,” replied Mr. Lincoln. “I intend no offense, but I will not suffer such a statement to pass unchallenged, because it is not true. No Northern newspaper, not the most ultra, has advocated a slave insurrection or advised the slaves to cut their masters’ throats. A gentleman of your intelligence should not make such assertions. We do maintain the freedom of the press—we deem it necessary to a free government. Are we peculiar in that respect? Is not the same doctrine held in the South?”86
In a loud voice, New York’s William Dodge, recently and willingly dislodged from his Willard’s room by Lincoln, now declared to the president: “It is for you, sir, to say whether the whole nation shall be plunged into bankruptcy; whether the grass shall grow in the streets of our commercial cities.” Lincoln good-naturedly replied, “Then I say it shall not. If it depends upon me, the grass will not grow anywhere except in the fields and the meadows.”87
Dodge then concluded: “Then you will yield to the just demands of the South. You will leave her to control her own institutions. You will admit slave states into the Union on the same conditions as free states. You will not go to war on account of slavery!”88
Lincoln somberly replied:
I do not know that I understand your meaning, Mr. Dodge, nor do I know what my acts or my opinions may be in the future, beyond this. If I shall ever come to the great office of President of the United States, I shall take an oath. I shall swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, of all the United States, and that I will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. This is a great and solemn duty. With the support of the people and the assistance of the Almighty I shall undertake to perform it. I have full faith that I shall perform it. It is not the Constitution as I would like to have it, but as it is, that is to be defended. The Constitution will not be preserved and defended until it is enforced and obeyed in every part of every one of the United States. It must be so respected, obeyed, enforced, and defended, let the grass grow where it may.89
Crittenden recalled that Lincoln’s words about his constitutional duties stilled the crowd, with Republicans pleased, while “some of the more ardent southerners silently left the room,” exasperated not to find the “entertainment to which they were invited,” while some more conservative Southerners were intrigued and remained. In response to one question, Lincoln was pointed: “In a choice of evils, war may not always be the worst. Still I would do all in my power to avert it, except to neglect a Constitutional duty. As to slavery, it must be content with what it has. The voice of the civilized world is against it; it is opposed to its growth or extension. Freedom is the natural condition of the human race, in which the Almighty intended men to live. Those who fight the purposes of the Almighty will not succeed. They always have been, they always will be, beaten.”90
Lincoln was evasive with questions from other Southerners. According to Chittenden, Rives of Virginia afterward commented:
He has been both misjudged and misunderstood by the Southern people. . . . They have looked upon him as an ignorant, self-willed man, incapable of independent judgment, full of prejudices, willing to be used as a tool by more able men. This is all wrong. He will be the head of his administration, and he will do his own thinking. He seems to have studied the Constitution, to have adopted it as his guide. I do not see that much fault can be found with the views he has expressed this evening. He is probably not so great a statesman as Mr. Madison, he may not have the will-power of General Jackson. He may combine the qualities of both. His will not be a weak administration.91
The next day, Rives wrote of Lincoln: “He seemed to be good-natured and well-intentioned, but utterly unimpressed with the gravity of the crisis and the magnitude of his duties. . . . He seems to think of nothing but jokes and stories. I fear, therefore, we are to expect but little from his influence with the convention.”92
Undeterred by exhaustion, and possibly fueled by adrenaline, after the peace commissioners left him Lincoln received prominent citizens. Then he was told the hotel lobby was “filed with ladies, who desired to pay their respects,” to which he “very readily consented.” The ladies then “passed in review, each being introduced by the gentleman who accompanied her,” with Lincoln undergoing the “new ordeal with much good humor.” The evening not yet over, President Buchanan’s cabinet paid their respects at 10:00 P.M.
The next morning, a Sunday, Seward met Lincoln at Willard’s and they together departed from its Fourteenth Street entrance at 10:30 A.M. and walked the half mile to St. John’s Episcopal Church, entering “unobtrusively” and sitting together in Seward’s pew. Lincoln went largely unnoticed, even by Reverend Dr. Pyne, until the very end of the service. His sermon quoted 1 Corinthians 7:31, saying, “And they that use this world, as not abusing it: for the fashion of this world passeth away. KJV” And Dr. Pyne made “several allusions to the present state of the country, and to the change in the Administration which was about to take place.” It was noticed Lincoln had “black whiskers and hair well-trimmed, and was pronounced by such as recognized him as a different man entirely from the hard-looking pictorial representations of him,” with “some of the ladies” saying “in fact he is almost good-looking.”93
Lincoln’s arrival at Willard’s and his encounters with the peace delegates left a formidable impression upon friends and adversaries, certainly adding urgency to their final proceedings. But Lincoln had made no openly direct comment on their deliberations nor did he offer any specific commitments. Seemingly like the rest of the nation, he would wait to see what happened.