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PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL

President Lincoln's first inaugural address may be safely reckoned among the most notable of American state papers, both for the purity of diction and the earnest patriotism which pervade it. With a spirit of fraternalism appealing and pathetic, he called upon his countrymen to turn from discord and separation to a new lease of brotherhood and a revival of devotion to the Republic consecrated by the sacrifices and labors of their fathers. The address gave assurance that the Federal Government would respect the rights of the states and individuals in regard to slavery, and that no interest or section would be disturbed in any constitutional right by the incoming administration. Upon the great point, however, as to the policy of the Federal Government in regard to coercing the states which had seceded, the address was held by many to be fairly susceptible of different constructions. Thus the President said:

"I, therefore, consider that in view of the constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability I shall take care, as the constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the states. Doing this I deem to be a simple duty on my part, and I shall perform it so far as practicable unless my rightful masters, the American People, shall withhold the requisite means, or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary."

It must be remembered that at the time these words were uttered the seven Cotton States had withdrawn from the Union; had organized the Southern Confederacy, and that in all the vast region from North Carolina to the Rio Grande, the Confederacy's authority was recognized, except at Fort Sumter and three or four like forts where the flag of the Union still waved. Mr. Lincoln's declaration, therefore, that these states were still in the Union and that he intended to enforce the execution of its laws within their borders was accepted in many quarters as avowing a purpose to coerce these states and their citizens into a recognition of its jurisdiction and authority. Against this construction should be placed other extracts from the address. Thus he said:

"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 using of force, against or among the people anywhere. Where hostility to the United States in any interior locality shall be so great and universal as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for that object. While the strict legal right may exist in the Government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating and so nearly impracticable withal that I deem it better to forego for the time the uses of such offices."

VIEWS OF MEMBERS OF CONVENTION

The declarations of President Lincoln were received with strongly contrasted feelings by the three elements which constituted the membership of the Virginia Convention. The Secessionists hailed his position as fore-shadowing Federal coercion which in turn would compel Virginia's withdrawal from the Union. The unconditional Union men accepted his views as the logical and necessary avowals of his constitutional duty. The conditional Union men, while denying in a measure the correctness of his position, both from a constitutional and ethical standpoint, were yet gratified by the pacific spirit of his address. They counselled moderation on the part of the Convention and clung tenaciously to the hope that some adjustment might be perfected between the authorities of the Union and those of the seceded states and thus the alternative of submitting to coercion or seceding from the Union might never be presented to the people of Virginia. This last element held the balance of power in the Convention. As illustrating their position, it may be well to insert extracts from the speeches of a few of their representative men.

James W. Sheffey, speaking five days before President Lincoln's inauguration, said:

"We love the Union, but we cannot see it maintained by force. They say the Union must be preserved—she can only be preserved through fraternal affection. We must take our place—we can't remain neutral. If it comes to this and they put the question of trying force on the states which have seceded, we must go out.... We are waiting to see what will be defined coercion. We wait to see what action the new President will take."^[370]

George Baylor, speaking three days before President Lincoln's inauguration, said: "Secession is not a constitutional measure; even if it were, we should delay before using it. Let us stay in the Union where we have always been. Yet, I am opposed to coercion."^[371]

Thomas Branch, speaking the day after President Lincoln's inaugural address, said:

"My heart has been saddened and every patriotic heart should be saddened, and every Christian voice raised to heaven in this time of our trial. After the reception of Mr. Lincoln's inaugural, I saw some gentlemen rejoicing in the hotels. Rejoicing for what, sir? For plunging ourselves and our families, our wives and children in civil war? I pray that I may never rejoice at such a state of things. I pray that I may never have to march to battle to front my enemies. But I came here to defend the rights of Virginia and I mean to do it at all hazards; and if we must go to meet our enemies, I wish to go with the same deliberation, with the same solemnity that I would bend the knee in prayer before Almighty God."^[372]

Jubal A. Early, speaking on the same day, said:

"I do not approve of the inaugural of Mr. Lincoln and I did not expect to be able to endorse his policy and I did not think there was a member of this Convention who expected to endorse it; but, sir, I ask the gentleman from Halifax and the gentleman from Prince Edward, if it were not for the fact that six or seven states of this Confederacy have seceded from this Union, if the declarations of President Lincoln that he would execute the laws in all the states would not have been hailed throughout the country as a guarantee that he would perform his duty, and that we should have peace and protection for our property and that the Fugitive Slave Law would be faithfully executed? I ask why is it that we are placed in this perilous condition? And if it is not solely from the action of these states that have seceded from the Union without having consulted our views?"^[373]

George W. Brent, speaking on the 8th of March, said:

"Abolitionism in the North, trained in the school of Garrison and Phillips, and affecting to regard the constitution as 'a league with Hell and a covenant with Death,' has with a steady and untiring hate sought a disruption of this Union, as the best and surest means for the accomplishment of the abolition of slavery in the Southern States.... South Carolina and those leading statesmen of the South who have been educated in the philosophy of free trade have likewise with unwearied and constant assiduity pursued their schemes of disunion. Conscious of their inability to effect their schemes within the Union they have sought a disruption of the states....

"In these two schools of political philosophy, Mr. President, I trace all the evils and disastrous troubles which now afflict and disturb our beloved and unhappy land.... Recognizing as I have always done, the right of a state to secede, to judge of the violation of its rights and to appeal to its own mode for redress, I could not uphold the Federal Government in any attempt to coerce the seceded states to bring them back in the Union."^[374]

VIEWS OF A UNION LEADER

The foregoing extracts give some fairly accurate idea of the position of those members of the Convention, who, though looked upon as Union men, yet, when the final test came after President Lincoln called for troops, voted for secession. How close in sympathy with this element were many of the Union men will appear from the following extract from a speech of George W. Summers, who upon the final ballot still voted against secession:

"Where would be the wisdom of passing an ordinance of secession in the face of the known sentiment of a Virginia constituency? The people do not mean to adopt such an ordinance until every available measure of adjustment has been exhausted. Come on then with your plans; and when all fail, the people of the commonwealth will be united from one end to the other.... No enlightened statesmanship can compare the secession of states by conventional authority with insurrectionary movements in former times. It is a new and unlooked for condition of things. I am in favor of letting the seceded states alone. The last news gives encouragement to the hope that the troops will soon be withdrawn from Fort Sumter, and time will bring back the states into the common family. It is the duty of Virginia to stand by the Union until the performance of that duty becomes impossible."^[375]

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[370]

See Richmond Enquirer, February 28th, 1861.

[371]

See Richmond Enquirer, March 2d, 1861.

[372]

See Richmond Enquirer, March 7th, 1861.

[373]

See Richmond Enquirer, March 7th, 1861.

[374]

See Richmond Enquirer, March 9th, 1861.

[375]

Richmond Dispatch, March 13th, 1861.

For nearly a month and a half after President Lincoln's inauguration, the struggle in the Virginia Convention between the advocates and opponents of secession continued—a contest in which the champions of opposing sides living beyond the state sought to make their influence effective. Mr. Rhodes says: "It is easy to understand why both Davis and Lincoln were so anxious for the adhesion of Virginia. Her worth was measured by the quality as well as the number of her men."^[376]

COERCION THE PIVOTAL FACT

Henry Wilson records in his Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America:

"There was no state concerning whose course there was greater doubt or more anxious solicitude than Virginia. Her size, position, traditional influence and past leadership, with the knowledge that in whichever side of the scale her great weight should be thrown, the fortunes of the threatened conflict would be seriously affected thereby, intensified the anxiety felt."^[377]

Commissioners from Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana appeared before the Convention on different occasions, and with impassioned eloquence, appealed to Virginia to stand with her sisters of the South.

Mr. Lincoln's efforts were directed through prominent Union members of the Convention. His great object was to secure an adjournment sine die of that body, without the adoption of an ordinance of secession, and without the assurance on his part that no attempt would be made to coerce the Cotton States. John B. Baldwin, a leading Union man in the Convention, was one of its members brought into conference with Mr. Lincoln. On the 6th of April, 1861, Mr. Baldwin went to the White House, where, in response to the President's inquiries, he presented the attitude of the dominant element of the Virginia Convention, and heard the President's appeals and reasonings why that body should immediately adjourn. Mr. Baldwin urged upon Mr. Lincoln the wisdom and necessity of proclaiming to the world that the Federal Government had no intention of coercing the Cotton States: "Only give this assurance," said Mr. Baldwin, "to the country in a proclamation of five lines, and we pledge ourselves that Virginia will stand by you as though you were our own Washington."^[378]

How pivotal was the position of the Federal Government with reference to coercion as determining Virginia's action may be gathered not only from the speeches of the members of her Convention, but from other utterances made at the time by her leading men.

Matthew F. Maury, under date of March 4th, 1861, wrote: "Virginia is not at all ready to go out of this Union; and she is not going out for anything that is likely to occur, short of coercion—such is my opinion."^[379]

George W. Summers, under date of March 19th, 1861, wrote from Richmond:

"The removal from Fort Sumter (alluding to the report that it would be evacuated) acted like a charm—it gave us great strength. A reaction is going on in this state. The outside pressure here has greatly subsided. We are masters of our position here, and can maintain it, if left alone."

The same day he wrote: "What delays the removal of Major Anderson (the officer in charge of Fort Sumter)? Is there any truth in the suggestion that the thing is not to be done after all? This would ruin us."^[380]

POSITION OF THE CONVENTION

A fairly accurate estimate of the position of the Virginia Convention may be gathered from the report of its Committee on Federal Relations, and the tentative action of that body with respect to the same. Soon after the organization of the Convention, this committee, consisting of twenty-one members, was appointed, and a rule adopted by which all memorials and proposals relating to the secession of the state, or any of the many questions involved in the pending controversies, should be referred to this committee without debate.

CONVENTION DEFEATS SECESSION

On the 16th of March, the report of the committee was taken up for consideration in the Committee of the Whole Convention. The majority report embodied the views of some two-thirds of the membership of the committee. There were several individual reports, but the views of the minority were expressed in the report signed by Messrs. Montague, Harvie and Williams, which simply recommended the immediate adoption of an ordinance providing for the secession of the state.

The report of the majority consisted of fourteen sections, and with it was submitted an amendment to the constitution of the United States, which the states of the Union were requested to endorse and make it a part of that instrument. The discussion with respect to this report and the amendment so proposed, continued from the 16th of March to the 15th of April, when before final and complete action by the Convention, the secession of the state was precipitated, under the conditions hereafter described.

The report of the majority is a lengthy document setting forth the attitude of Virginia with respect to the character of the Federal Government—the rights and powers of the latter in the territories, and over the forts, arsenals, etc.—in the states which had seceded, and all the many questions growing out of the contest over slavery.

The maintenance of peace was declared to be the foremost duty of the hour. "Above all things, at this time, they esteem it of indispensable necessity to maintain the peace of the country, and to avoid everything calculated or tending to produce collision and bloodshed," said the report.

The sixth section of the report deplored the present "distracted condition of the country," and expressed the earnest hope, "That an adjustment may be reached, by which the Union may be preserved in its integrity; and peace, prosperity and fraternal feeling be restored throughout the land."

To this section the report of the minority, providing for Virginia's immediate secession, was offered as a substitute; and on the 4th of April the latter was voted down by a recorded vote of forty-five "Yeas" to eighty-nine "Nays," and the section as reported by the majority adopted by a vote of one hundred and four "Yeas" to thirty-one "Nays."^[381]

The eighth section declared:

"The people of Virginia recognize the American principle, that government is founded in the consent of the governed ... and they will never consent that the Federal power, which is in part their power, shall be exerted for the purpose of subjugating the people of such states (the seceded states) to the Federal authority."

By the eleventh section appeal is made to the states to make response to the position assumed in the resolutions and the proposed amendment to the constitution of the United States, and the warning given that unless satisfactory assurances were forthcoming, Virginia would feel compelled to resume the powers granted by her under the constitution. Time and again the report declares that "any action of the Federal Government tending to produce collision of forces," or any such action on the part of the seceded or confederated states, would be deemed offensive to the state, and greatly to be deplored.

AMENDMENT PROPOSED TO CONSTITUTION

Accompanying this report, as above indicated, was an amendment to the constitution of the United States, the most important features of which dealt with the matter of slavery in the territories, and the institution in the states where it was established by law.

PURPORT OF PROPOSED AMENDMENT

With respect to the first, the amendment provided that in all the territories north of 36 degrees and 30 minutes, slavery should be forever prohibited, and in all the territory south of that line, slavery was to be permitted; any territory, however, south of that line to have the privilege to permit or deny slavery by its constitution adopted preliminary to its admission as a state into the Union.

The amendment also provided that no territory should thereafter be acquired by the United States except for naval and other like depots, without the concurrence of a majority of the Senators from the states which "allowed involuntary servitude and a majority of the Senators from the states which prohibited that relation."

The amendment further provided that Congress should never have the power to abolish slavery in the states where it existed, nor in the District of Columbia without the consent of Maryland and Virginia. The slave trade in the District of Columbia and the foreign slave trade were forever prohibited, as was also the custom of bringing slaves into the District of Columbia for the purpose of their sale or distribution to other parts of the country. Congress should provide for the payment to the owner for any fugitive slave whose return was prevented by mobs or intimidation, after his arrest; and the elective franchise and the right to hold office were not to be accorded persons of the African race.^[382]

While no final action had been taken upon this report, with the accompanying amendment, by the Convention at the time of Virginia's secession, yet the votes taken in the Committee of the Whole on the various paragraphs of the report indicated that had not Virginia's secession been precipitated, the report would have been adopted by the body in substantially the form in which it came from the Committee on Federal Relations.

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND COERCION

What would have been the attitude of the other states to the amendment to the constitution so proposed, must, of course, be a matter of conjecture, but the adoption by Congress, though controlled by the Republican Party, of the joint resolution providing for an amendment which should forever prohibit Congress from interfering with slavery in the states where it existed, and the enactment of the statute organizing the territories of Dakota, Colorado and Nevada without prohibition as to slavery, would seem to indicate that the principal provisions of the amendment proposed by Virginia would have met the approval of the requisite number of the states.

FORT SUMTER AND ITS OCCUPATION

As above indicated, the crucial point, with the group holding the balance of power in the Convention, was the position of the Federal Government upon the question of coercing the Cotton States. The employment of force to compel three millions of people to submit to a government not of their own choice, was at war with the Declaration of Independence and repugnant to thousands of the American people North as well as South. That the Federal Government would have been sustained in a bald invasion of the Southern States, may well be questioned. The situation, however, was not quite so embarrassing for the Government. Many of these states had formally ceded to the Union jurisdiction over parcels of land within their respective limits, upon which had been erected forts, post offices or custom houses. These constituted coigns of vantage, where the rights of the Federal Government were of a dignity higher, or at least more manifest, to the popular mind, than those rights which obtained over the whole area of the states or their citizens. Thus in the great drama of diplomacy and play for position which preceded the Civil War, the rights of the nation and of the states in these forts and buildings became matters of imminent moment. When South Carolina seceded, Fort Moultrie was occupied by Federal soldiers. She appointed commissioners to negotiate with the authorities at Washington for the withdrawal of the troops, and the settlement of all questions with respect to the fort and other like properties in the state. Later these troops were transferred by the Federal authorities to Fort Sumter. Upon the organization of the Southern Confederacy, commissioners from it were substituted for those appointed by South Carolina. President Lincoln refused to recognize the Southern Confederacy, or to treat with its representatives. Negotiations, however, semi-official in character, were instituted, and upon the reports which went out from these conferences men gauged the chances of peace or war. If Fort Sumter were evacuated, the prospects of peace would be enhanced. If the Federal Government should decide to hold the fort, and provision and strengthen its garrison, then war would be imminent. Upon these contingencies, stocks rose and fell, and the friends of peace took hope or lost heart.

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[376]

History of United States, Rhodes, Vol. III, p. 462.

[377]

The Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Wilson, Vol. III, p. 138.

[378]

Colonel Baldwin's Interview with Mr. Lincoln, Dabney. Southern Historical Papers, Vol. 1, p. 449.

[379]

Life of Matthew F. Maury, Corbin, p. 186.

[380]

History of United States, Rhodes, Vol. III, p. 345.

[381]

Journal of the Committee of the Whole, Virginia Convention, 1861, pp. 31-43.

[382]

See Report of the Committee on Federal Relations, with accompanying exhibits in the Appendix of the Journal of the Virginia Convention, 1861.