Page images
PDF
EPUB

Seeing that General M'Clellan would be occupied, I walked out with my friend, who asked me when I got into the street why I stood up when that tall fellow came into the room. "Because it was the President." "The President of what?" "Of the United States." "Oh! come, now you're humbugging me. Let me have another look at him." He came back more incredulous than ever, but when I assured him I was quite serious, he exclaimed, "I give up the United States after this." But for all that, there have been many more courtly presidents who, in a similar crisis, would have displayed less capacity, honesty, and plain dealing than Abraham Lincoln.

William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South (London, 1863), I, 54-65 passim; II, 371–373.

97. The Secretary and the Master (1861)

BY SECRETARY WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD AND

PRESIDENT

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

For Seward, see No. 22 above. - For Lincoln, see No. 44 above. Bibliography of foreign relations: J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States, III-IV, passim; Frederic Bancroft, Life of Seward, II passim.

A. SEWARD'S MEMORANDUM

SOME Thoughts for the President's Consideration, April 1, 1861.

First. We are at the end of a month's administration, and yet without a policy either domestic or foreign.

Second. This, however, is not culpable, and it has even been unavoidable. The presence of the Senate, with the need to meet applications for patronage, have prevented attention to other and more grave matters.

Third. But further delay to adopt and prosecute our policies for both domestic and foreign affairs would not only bring scandal on the administration, but danger upon the country.

Fourth. To do this we must dismiss the applicants for office. But how? I suggest that we make the local appointments forthwith, leaving foreign or general ones for ulterior and occasional action.

Fifth. The policy at home. I am aware that my views are singular, and perhaps not sufficiently explained. My system is built upon this idea as a ruling one, namely, that we must

CHANGE THE QUESTION BEFORE THE PUBLIC FROM ONE UPON SLAVERY, OR ABOUT SLAVERY, for a question upon UNION OR DISUNION:

In other words, from what would be regarded as a party question, to one of patriotism or union.

The occupation or evacuation of Fort Sumter, although not in fact a slavery or a party question, is so regarded. Witness the temper manifested by the Republicans in the free States, and even by the Union men in the South.

I would therefore terminate it as a safe means for changing the issue. I deem it fortunate that the last administration created the necessity.

For the rest, I would simultaneously defend and reinforce all the ports in the gulf, and have the navy recalled from foreign stations to be prepared for a blockade. Put the island of Key West under martial law. This will raise distinctly the question of union or disunion. I would maintain every fort and possession in the South.

FOR FOREIGN NATIONS.

I would demand explanations from Spain and France, categorically,

at once.

I would seek explanations from Great Britain and Russia, and send agents into Canada, Mexico, and Central America to rouse a vigorous continental spirit of independence on this continent against European intervention.

And, if satisfactory explanations are not received from Spain and France, Would convene Congress and declare war against them.

But whatever policy we adopt, there must be an energetic prosecution of it.

For this purpose it must be somebody's business to pursue and direct it incessantly.

Either the President must do it himself, and be all the while active in it,or Devolve it on some member of his cabinet. Once adopted, debates on it must end, and all agree and abide.

It is not in my especial province;

But I neither seek to evade nor assume responsibility.

B. LINCOLN'S REPLY

HON. W. H. SEWARD.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, April 1, 1861.

My dear Sir: Since parting with you I have been considering your

paper dated this day, and entitled "Some Thoughts for the

President's Consideration." The first proposition in it is, " First, We are at the end of a month's administration, and yet without a policy either domestic or foreign."

At the beginning of that month, in the inaugural, I 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." This had your distinct approval at the time; and, taken in connection with the order I immediately gave General Scott, directing him to employ every means in his power to strengthen and hold the forts, comprises the exact domestic policy you now urge, with the single exception that it does not propose to abandon Fort Sumter.

Again, I do not perceive how the reinforcement of Fort Sumter would be done on a slavery or a party issue, while that of Fort Pickens would be on a more national and patriotic one.

The news received yesterday in regard to St. Domingo certainly brings a new item within the range of our foreign policy; but up to that time we have been preparing circulars and instructions to ministers and the like, all in perfect harmony, without even a suggestion that we had no foreign policy.

Upon your closing propositions — that "whatever policy we adopt, there must be an energetic prosecution of it.

"For this purpose it must be somebody's business to pursue and direct it incessantly.

"Either the President must do it himself, and be all the while active in it, or

"Devolve it on some member of his cabinet. Once adopted, debates on it must end, and all agree and abide” — I remark that if this must be done, I must do it. When a general line of policy is adopted, I apprehend there is no danger of its being changed without good reason, or continuing to be a subject of unnecessary debate; still, upon points arising in its progress I wish, and suppose I am entitled to have, the advice of all the cabinet.

[blocks in formation]

Abraham Lincoln, Complete Works (edited by John G. Nicolay and John Hay, New York, 1894), II, 29-30.

98. A Friend in Need (1861)

BY JOHN BRIGHT, M.P.

Bright was a Quaker and one of the leaders of the Liberal party in the British Parliament, and from the first placed himself unreservedly on the Union side, voicing the sympathy of the great nonconformist body. This extract is from a speech delivered at a public dinner during the Trent excitement. - Bibliography as in No. 97 above.

TH

HE question is a very different and a far more grave question. It is a question of slavery,- (Cheers,) — and for thirty years it has constantly been coming to the surface, disturbing social life, and overthrowing almost all political harmony in the working of the United States. (Cheers.) In the North there is no secession; there is no collision. These disturbances and this insurrection are found wholly in the South and in the Slave States; and therefore I think that the man who says otherwise, who contends that it is the tariff, or anything whatsoever else than slavery, is either himself deceived or endeavors to deceive others. (Cheers.) The object of the South is this, to escape from the majority who wish to limit the area of slavery. (Hear! Hear!) They wish to found a Slave State freed from the influence and the opinions of freedom. The Free States in the North now stand before the world the advocates and defenders of freedom and civilization. The Slave States offer themselves for the recognition of a Christian nation, based upon the foundation, the unchangeable foundation in their eyes, of slavery and barbarism.

. . . I say that slavery has sought to break up the most free government in the world, and to found a new state, in the nineteenth century, whose corner-stone is the perpetual bondage of millions of men.

[ocr errors]

...

. . . It has been said, "How much better it would be ". - not for the United States, but "for us, that these States should be divided." . . . There cannot be a meaner motive than this I am speaking of, in forming a judgment on this question, — that it is "better for us - for whom? the people of England, or the government of England? — that the United States should be severed, and that that continent should be as the continent of Europe is, in many states, and subject to all the contentions and disasters which have accompanied the history of the states of Europe. (Applause.) I should say that, if a man had a great heart within him, he would rather look forward to the day when, from that point of land which is habitable nearest to the Pole, to the shores

of the great Gulf, the whole of that vast continent might become one great confederation of States, without a great army, and without a great navy, not mixing itself up with the entanglements of European politics, without a custom-house inside, through the whole length and breadth of its territory, and with freedom everywhere, equality everywhere, law everywhere, peace everywhere, - such a confederation would afford at least some hope that man is not forsaken of Heaven, and that the future of our race might be better than the past. . . .

. . . what is this people, about which so many men in England at this moment are writing, and speaking, and thinking, with harshness, I think with injustice, if not with great bitterness? Two centuries ago, multitudes of the people of this country found a refuge on the North American continent, escaping from the tyranny of the Stuarts, and from the bigotry of Laud. Many noble spirits from our country made great experiments in favor of human freedom on that continent. Bancroft, the great historian of his own country, has said, in his own graphic and emphatic language, "The history of the colonization of America is the history of the crimes of Europe."

At this very moment . . . there are millions in the United States who personally, or whose immediate parents, have at one time been citizens of this country, and perhaps known to some of the oldest of those whom I have now the honor of addressing. They found a home in the Far West; they subdued the wilderness; they met with plenty there, which was not afforded them in their native country; and they became a great people. There may be persons in England who are jealous of those States. There may be men who dislike democracy, and who hate a republic; there may be even those whose sympathies warm towards the slave oligarchy of the South. But of this I am certain, that only misrepresentation the most gross or calumny the most wicked can sever the tie which unites the great mass of the people of this country with their friends and brethren beyond the Atlantic. (Loud cheers.)

[ocr errors]

Now, whether the Union will be restored or not, or the South achieve an unhonored independence or not, I know not, and I predict not. But this I think I know, that in a few years, a very few years, the twenty millions of freemen in the North will be thirty millions, or even fifty millions, — a population equal to or exceeding that of this kingdom. (Hear! Hear!) When that time comes, I pray that it may not be said amongst them, that, in the darkest hour of their country's trials, England, the land of their fathers, looked on with icy coldness and saw

« PreviousContinue »