Chapter XXVI: The Senate Committee of Thirteen

The President's message provoked immediate and heated controversy in Congress. In the Senate the battle was begun by the radical secessionists, who at once avowed their main plans and purposes. Mr. Clingman, of North Carolina, opening the debate, predicted that the same political organization which had elected Lincoln must soon control the entire Government, and being guided by a sentiment hostile to the Southern States would change the whole character of the Government without abolishing its forms. A number of States would secede within the next sixty days.

Mr. Brown, of Mississippi, said the accumulating wrongs of years had finally culminated in the triumph of principles to which they could not and would not submit. All they asked was to be allowed to depart in peace.

[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 5 1860, p. 11.

Mr. Iverson, of Georgia, invoking not only secession, but revolution and assassination, announced specifically the hopes of the conspirators. "I am satisfied that South Carolina will resolve herself into a separate sovereign and independent State before the Ides of January; that Florida and Mississippi, whose conventions are soon to meet, will follow the example of South Carolina, and that Alabama ... will go out of the Union on the 7th of January. Then the Georgia Convention follows on the 16th of that month; and if these other surrounding sisters shall take the step, Georgia will not be behind ... I speak what I believe on this floor, that before the 4th of March five of the Southern States at least will have declared their independence; and I am satisfied that three others of the Cotton States will follow as soon as the action of the people can be had. Arkansas, whose Legislature is now in session, will in all probability call a convention at an early day. Louisiana will follow. Her Legislature is to meet; and although there is a clog in the way of the lone star State of Texas, in the person of her Governor, ... if he does not yield to public sentiment, some Texan Brutus will arise to rid his country of the hoary-headed incubus that stands between the people and their sovereign will. We intend, Mr. President, to go out peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must."

[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 5, 1860, p. 14.

Senator Wigfall, of Texas, took a high revolutionary attitude. "We simply say that a man who is distasteful to us has been elected and we choose to consider that as a sufficient ground for leaving the Union." He said he should "introduce a resolution at an early moment to ascertain what are the orders that have gone from the War Department to the officers in command of those forts" at Charleston. If the people of South Carolina believed that this Government would hold those forts, and collect the revenues from them, after they had ceased to be one of the States of this Union, his judgment was that the moment they became satisfied of that fact they would take the forts, and blood would then begin to flow.

[Sidenote] Ibid., Dec. 10, 1860, p. 35.

Mr. Mason, of Virginia, said he looked upon the evil as a war of sentiment and opinion by one form of society against another form of society. The remedy rested in the political society and State councils of the several States and not in Congress. His State and a great many others of the slaveholding States were going into convention with a view to take up the subject for themselves, and as separate sovereign communities to determine what was best for their safety.

[Sidenote] Ibid., Dec. 5, 1860, p. 12.

Senator Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, was more reticent and politic, though no less positive and significant in his brief expressions. As a Senator of the United States he said he was there to perform his functions as such; that before a declaration of war was made against the State of which he was a citizen he expected to be out of the Chamber; that when that declaration was made his State would be found ready and quite willing to meet it.

[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 5, 1860, p. 9.

The Republican Senators maintained for the greater part a discreet silence. To exult in their triumph would be undignified; to hasten forward officiously with offers of pacification or submission, and barter away the substantial fruits of their victory, would not only make them appear pusillanimous in the eyes of their own party, but bring down upon them the increased contempt of their assailants. There remained therefore nothing but silence and the feeble hope that this first fury of the disunion onset might spend itself in angry words, and be followed by calmer counsels. Nevertheless, it was difficult to keep entirely still under the irritating provocation. On the third day of the session, Senator Hale, of New Hampshire, replied to both the President's message and Clingman's speech. Mr. Hale thought "this state of affairs looks to one of two things; it looks to absolute submission, not on the part of our Southern friends and the Southern States but of the North--to the abandonment of their position; it looks to a surrender of that popular sentiment which has been uttered through the constituted forms of the ballot-box; or it looks to open war. We need not shut our eyes to the fact. It means war, and it means nothing else; and the State which has put herself in the attitude of secession so looks upon it.... If it is preannounced and determined that the voice of the majority expressed through the regular and constituted forms of the Constitution will not be submitted to, then, sir, this is not a Union of equals; it is a Union of a dictatorial oligarchy on the one side, and a herd of slaves and cowards on the other. That is it, sir; nothing more, nothing less."

While the Southern Democratic party and the Republican party thus drifted into defiant attitudes the other two parties to the late Presidential contest naturally fell into the rôle of peacemakers. In this work they were somewhat embarrassed by their party record, for they had joined loudly in the current charge of "abolitionism" against the people of the North, and especially against the Republican party. Nevertheless, they not only came forward to tender the olive branch, and to deprecate and rebuke the threats and extreme measures of the disunionists, but even went so far as to deny and disapprove the staple complaints of the conspirators.

[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 4, 1860, p. 5.

It must be remembered to the lasting honor of Senator Crittenden that at the very outset of the discussion he repudiated the absurd theory of noncoercion. "I do not agree that there is no power in the President to preserve the Union; I will say that now. If we have a Union at all, and if, as the President thinks, there is no right to secede on the part of any State (and I agree with him in that), I think there is a right to employ our power to preserve the Union."

[Sidenote] Ibid., Dec. 11, 1860, pp. 51, 52.

Senator Pugh, of Ohio, saying that he lived on the border of the slave-holding and non-slave-holding States, contended that the fugitive-slave law was executed every day, or nearly every day. It was in constant operation. He would venture to say that the slave-States had not lost $100,000 worth of slave property since they had been in the Union, through negligence or refusal to execute it.

[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 11, 1860, p. 52.

Senator Douglas, of Illinois, said he supposed the fugitive-slave law was enforced with quite as much fidelity as that in regard to the African slave trade or the laws on many other subjects. "It so happens that there is the greatest excitement upon this question just in proportion as you recede from the line between the free and the slave-States.... If you go North, up into Vermont where they scarcely ever see a slave and would not know how he looked, they are disturbed by the wrongs of the poor slave just in proportion as they are ignorant of the South. When you get down South, into Georgia and Alabama, where they never lose any slaves, they are disturbed by the outrages and losses under the non-fulfillment of the fugitive-slave law just in proportion as they have no interest in it, and do not know what they are talking about."

[Sidenote] Ibid., Dec. 10, 1860, p. 24.

Meanwhile, Senator Powell, of Kentucky, having given notice on the 5th, had on the 6th of December introduced a resolution to raise a special committee (afterwards known as the Senate Committee of Thirteen) to concert measures of compromise or pacification, either through legislation or Constitutional amendments. He said, however, he did not believe any legislation would be a remedy. Unequivocal constitutional guarantees upon the points indicated in the resolution under consideration were in his judgment the only remedies that would reach and eradicate the disease, give permanent security, and restore fraternal feeling between the people, North and South, and save the Union from speedy dissolution. "Let us never despair of the republic, but go to work promptly and so amend the Constitution as to give certain and full guarantees to the rights of every citizen, in every State and Territory of the Union."

[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 10, 1860, p. 25.

[Sidenote] Ibid.

[Sidenote] Ibid., p. 28.

[Sidenote] Ibid., p. 34.

The Republicans on this resolution generally offered only verbal criticisms or expressed their full approbation of its provisions. Senator King, of New York, offering an amendment, explained that while we hear occasionally of a mob destroying property, we also hear occasionally of a mob which assails an individual. He thought the security of person as important as that of property, and would therefore extend the inquiry to all these objects, if made at all. Senator Collamer, of Vermont, suggested striking out all about the condition of the country and the rights of property, and simply referring that part of the message which relates to the state of the Union to a special committee. Senator Foster, of Connecticut, said if there was a disposition here to promote the peace and harmony of the country, the resolution was a most appropriate one under which to make the effort. Senator Hale, of New Hampshire, said he was willing to meet any and everybody and say that if there can be pointed out anything in which the State that he represented had come short of her whole constitutional duty in letter and in spirit, she will do what she never did in the face of an enemy, and that is take a backward step. She was ready to perform her whole constitutional duty, and to stand there.

[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 1860, pp. 25, 26.

Senator Green, of Missouri, while he joined in the general cry of Northern anti-slavery aggression and neglect of constitutional obligations, deemed it his duty to assist in making a united effort to save the Union. If he believed the present state of public sentiment of the North was to be enduring, he would say it is folly to talk about patching up the Union; but he looked forward to a reaction of public sentiment. Amendments to the Constitution, legal enactments, or repeal of personal liberty laws are not worth a straw unless the popular sentiment or the strong arm of the Government goes with them. He proposed to employ adequate physical force to maintain existing constitutional rights. He did not want any additional constitutional rights. He offered a resolution to inquire into the propriety of providing by law for establishing an armed police force, upon all necessary points along the line separating the slave-holding States from the non-slave-holding States, for the purpose of maintaining the general peace between those States; of preventing the invasion of one State by the citizens of another, and also for the efficient execution of the fugitive-slave law.

[Sidenote] Ibid., pp. 28-30.

Senator Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, denounced this proposition as a quack nostrum. He feared it was to rear a monster which would break the feeble chain provided, and destroy the rights it was intended to guard. Establishing military posts along the borders of States conferred a power upon this Federal Government, which it does not now possess, to coerce a State; it was providing, under the name of Union, to carry on war against States. From the history and nature of our government no power of coercion exists in it.

[Sidenote] Ibid., p. 33.

Senator Brown, also of Mississippi, was no less emphatic in his condemnation of the scheme. He said, that a Southern Senator representing a State as much exposed as Missouri should deliberately, in times like these, propose to arm the Federal Government for the purpose of protecting the frontier, to establish military posts all along the line, struck him with astonishment. He saw in this proposition the germ of a military despotism. He did not know what was to become of these armies, or what was to be done with these military posts. He feared in the hands of the enemy they might be turned against the South; they would hardly ever be turned against the North.

[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 10, 1860, pp. 30, 31.

Senator Green, in his reply, justly exposed the whole animus and thinly concealed import of these rough criticisms, by retorting that, to call that a military despotism amounts to just this: we are going out of the Union, right or wrong, and we will misrepresent every proposition made to save the Union. Who has fought the battles of the South for the last twenty-five years, and borne the brunt of the difficulty upon the border? Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, and Maryland, while Mississippi and Louisiana have been secure; and while you have lost but one boxed-up negro, sent on board a vessel, that I remember, we have lost thousands and thousands. He knew it was unpopular in some sections to say a word for the Union. He hoped that feeling would react. Means to enforce and carry out the Constitution ought not to be ridiculed by calling it a quack remedy.

It is more likely that we may find in the response of Senator Iverson, of Georgia, the true reason which actuated the Cotton-State leaders in driving their people into revolution, regardless of the remonstrances of the border States.

Sir, the border slave-States of this Union complain of the Cotton
States for the movement which is now in progress. They say that we
have no right to take them out of the Union against their will. I
want to know what right they have to keep us in the Union against
our will. If we want to go out let us go. If they want to stay let
them stay. They are sovereign and independent States, and have a
right to decide these questions for themselves. For one, I shall
not complain when, where, or how they go. I am satisfied, however,
that they will go, when the time comes for them to decide. But,
sir, they complain of us that we make so much noise and confusion
on the subject of fugitive slaves, when we are not affected by the
vitiated public sentiment of the Northern States. They say that we
do not lose fugitive slaves; but they suffer the burden. We heard
that yesterday. I know that we do not suffer in this respect; it
is not the want of good faith in the Northern people, so far as
the reclamation of fugitive slaves is concerned, that is causing
the Southern States around the Gulf of Mexico and the Southern
Atlantic coast to move in this great revolution now progressing.
Sir, we look infinitely beyond this petty loss of a few negroes.
We know what is coming in this Union. It is universal emancipation
and the turning loose upon society in the Southern States of the
mass of corruption which will be made by emancipation. We intend
to avoid it if we can. These border States can get along without
slavery. Their soil and climate are appropriate to white labor;
they can live and nourish without African slavery; but the Cotton
States cannot. We are obliged to have African slavery to cultivate
our cotton, our rice, and our sugar fields. African slavery is
essential not only to our prosperity, but to our existence as a
people....

[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 11, 1860, pp. 49-51.

I understand one of the motives which influence the tardy action
of these two States [Virginia and Maryland], They are a little
afraid of the opening of the African slave trade, and the
cheapening of negroes. Now, sir, while I state here that I am
opposed to the opening of the African slave-trade, because our
negroes will increase fast enough, God knows, for our interest and
protection and security; and while I believe that the great masses
of the Southern people are opposed to it, yet I will not stand
security that if the Cotton States alone form a confederacy they
will not open the African slave-trade; and then what will become
of the great monopoly of the negro market which Virginia and
Maryland and North Carolina now possess?

The disunion Senators, while indulging in the violent and uncompromising language already quoted, had nevertheless here and there interjected phrases indicating a willingness to come to an understanding and adjustment, but their object in this seemed to be twofold: for a few days longer it would serve as a partial screen to their more active conspiracy, and in the possible event (which they evidently did not expect) of a complete surrender and abdication of their political victory by the Republican party, it would leave them in the advantageous condition of accepting triumph as a fruit of compromise.

[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 4, 1860, p. 4.

[Sidenote] Ibid., Dec. 10, 1860, p. 29.

[Sidenote] Ibid., p. 34.

[Sidenote] Ibid., Dec. 12, 1860, p. 72.

Thus, Senator Clingman said, "If gentlemen on the other side have anything to propose of a decisive and satisfactory character, I have no doubt the section from which I come would be willing to hear it." Senator Davis said, "If we are mistaken as to your feelings and purposes, give a substantial proof, that here may begin that circle which hence may spread out and cover the whole land with proofs of fraternity, of a reaction in public sentiment, and the assurance of a future career in conformity with the principles and purposes of the Constitution." Senator Brown said he never intimated they would not listen to appeals; he never said this case could not be adjusted; but he said there was no disposition on the Republican side to do it. Senator Wigfall said, "What is the use of our discussing on this side of the Chamber what we would be satisfied with when nothing has been offered us!"

It requires a minute search to find these scattered words of moderation in the torrent of defiance which characterized the speeches of the extreme disunionists during the first ten days of the session of Congress, and indications were not lacking that even these were wholly insincere, and meant only to mislead their opponents and the public. Strong proof of this is found in the careful speech of Senator Jefferson Davis, in which he lays down the issue without reserve, at the same time dealing in such vague and intangible complaints as showed intention and desire to remain unanswered and unsatisfied.. He said he believed the danger to be that a sectional hostility had been substituted for the general fraternity, and thus the Government rendered powerless for the ends for which it was instituted.

The hearts of a portion of the people have been perverted by that
hostility, so that the powers delegated by the compact of union
are regarded not as means to secure the welfare of all, but as
instruments for the destruction of a part--the minority section.
How, then, have we to provide a remedy? By strengthening this
Government? By instituting physical force to overawe the States,
to coerce the people living under them as members of sovereign
communities to pass under the yoke of the Federal Government?...

[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 10, 1860, p. 29.

Then where is the remedy, the question may be asked. In the hearts
of the people is the ready reply; and therefore it is that I turn
to the other side of the Chamber, to the majority section, to the
section in which have been committed the acts that now threaten
the dissolution of the Union.... These are offenses such as no
people can bear; and the remedy for these is in the patriotism and
the affection of the people, if it exists; and if it does not
exist, it is far better, instead of attempting to preserve a
forced and therefore fruitless union, that we should peacefully
part, and each pursue his separate course.... States in their
sovereign capacity have now resolved to judge of the infractions
of the Federal compact and of the mode and measure of redress....
I would not give the parchment on which the bill would be written
which is to secure our constitutional rights within the limits of
a State where the people are all opposed to the execution of that
law. It is a truism in free governments that laws rest upon public
opinion, and fall powerless before its determined opposition.

To all that had so far been said, Senator Wade, of Ohio, made, on the 17th day of December, a frank and direct as well as strong and eloquent reply, which was at once generally accepted by the Republican party of the Senate and the country as their well-considered and unalterable position on the crisis. Said he:

I have already said that these gentlemen who make these complaints
have for a long series of years had this Government in their own
keeping. They belong to the dominant majority.... Therefore, if
there is anything in the legislation of the Federal Government
that is not right, you and not we are responsible for it.... You
have had the legislative power of the country, and you have had
the executive of the country, as I have said already. You own the
Cabinet, you own the Senate, and I may add, you own the President
of the United States, as much as you own the servant upon your own
plantation. I cannot see then very clearly why it is that Southern
men can rise here and complain of the action of this
Government.... Are we the setters forth of any new doctrines under
the Constitution of the United States? I tell you nay. There is no
principle held to-day by this great Republican party that has not
had the sanction of your Government in every department for more
than seventy years. You have changed your opinions. We stand where
we used to stand, That is the only difference.... Sir, we stand
where Washington stood, where Jefferson stood, where Madison
stood, where Monroe stood. We stand where Adams and Jackson and
even Polk stood. That revered statesman, Henry Clay, of blessed
memory, with his dying breath asserted the doctrine that we hold
to-day.... As to compromises, I had supposed that we were all
agreed that the day of compromises was at an end. The most solemn
compromises we have ever made have been violated without a
_whereas_. Since I have had a seat in this body, one of
considerable antiquity, that had stood for more than thirty years,
was swept away from your statute books.... We nominated our
candidates for President and Vice-President, and you did the same
for yourselves. The issue was made up and we went to the people
upon it; ... and we beat you upon the plainest and most palpable
issue that ever was presented to the American people, and one that
they understood the best. There is no mistaking it; and now when
we come to the capitol, I tell you that our President and our
Vice-President must be inaugurated and administer the government
as all their predecessors have done. Sir, it would be humiliating
and dishonorable to us if we were to listen to a compromise [only]
by which he who has the verdict of the people in his pocket should
make his way to the Presidential chair. When it comes to that you
have no government.... If a State secedes, although we will not
make war upon her, we cannot recognize her right to be out of the
Union, and she is not out until she gains the consent of the Union
itself; and the chief magistrate of the nation, be he who he may,
will find under the Constitution of the United States that it is
his sworn duty to execute the law in every part and parcel of this
Government; that he cannot be released from that obligation....
Therefore, it will be incumbent on the chief magistrate to proceed
to collect the revenue of ships entering their ports precisely in
the same way and to the same extent that he does now in every
other State of the Union. We cannot release him from that
obligation. The Constitution in thunder tones demands that he
shall do it alike in the ports of every State. What follows? Why,
sir, if he shuts up the ports of entry so that a ship cannot
discharge her cargo there, or get papers for another voyage, then
ships will cease to trade; or, if he undertakes to blockade her,
and thus collect it, she has not gained her independence by
secession. What must she do? If she is contented to live in this
equivocal state, all would be well perhaps; but she could not live
there. No people in the world could live in that condition. What
will they do? They must take the initiative and declare war upon
the United States; and the moment that they levy war, force must
be met by force; and they must, therefore, hew out their
independence by violence and war. There is no other way under the
Constitution, that I know of, whereby a chief magistrate of any
politics could be released from this duty. If this State, though
seceding, should declare war against the United States, I do not
suppose there is a lawyer in this body but what would say that the
act of levying war is treason against the United States. That is
where it results. We might just as well look the matter right in
the face....

[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 17, 1860, pp. 100-104.

I say, sir, I stand by the Union of these States. Washington and
his compatriots fought for that good old flag. It shall never be
hauled down, but shall be the glory of the Government to which I
belong, as long as my life shall continue.... It is my inheritance.
It was my protector in infancy, and the pride and glory of my riper
years; and although it may be assailed by traitors on every side,
by the grace of God, under its shadow I will die.

[Sidenote] Ibid., Dec. 20, 1860, p. 158.

The Senate Committee of Thirteen was duly appointed on December 20 as follows: Lazarus W. Powell and John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky; R.M.T. Hunter, of Virginia; Wm. H. Seward, of New York; Robert Toombs, of Georgia; Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois; Jacob Collamer, of Vermont; Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi; Benjamin F. Wade, of Ohio; William Bigler, of Pennsylvania; Henry M. Rice, of Minnesota; James E. Doolittle, of Wisconsin, and James W. Grimes, of Iowa.

It was a strong and representative committee, chosen from the four great political parties to the late Presidential election, and embracing recognized leaders in each, We shall see in a future chapter how this eminent committee failed to report a compromise, which was the object of its appointment. But compromise was impossible, because the conspiracy had resolved upon disunion, as already announced in the proclamation of a Southern Confederacy, signed and published a week before by Jefferson Davis and others.