William Henry Chase Has His Habeas Suspended

You may know that in the beginning months of the Civil War President Lincoln issued a series of directives suspending the writ of habeas corpus.  Most of the suspensions were geographically defined (e.g., "at any point on or in the vicinity of the [any] military line, which is now [or which shall be] used between the City of Philadelphia and the City of Washington, via Perryville, Annapolis City, and Annapolis Junction").

But did you know that one suspension was directed toward a single individual?  On June 20, 1861 Lincoln sent a letter to Gen. Winfield Scott authorizing the suspension of habeas as to one "Major Chase, lately of the Engineer Corps":

To Winfield Scott

State Department, June 20, 1861.

The Lieutenant-General Commanding the Armies of the United States: You or any officer you may designate will, in your discretion, suspend the writ of habeas corpus so far as may relate to Major Chase, lately of the Engineer Corps of the Army of the United States, now alleged to be guilty of treasonable practices against this government.  ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the President:

WILLIAM H. SEWARD

So who was "Major Chase"?  The Lincoln Log identifies him as  "Major William Henry Chase [, who] resigned from the U.S. Army, October 31, 1856.  In 1861 he was commissioned colonel and major general of Florida state troops in the Confederate Army."

Wikipedia has an entry on Chase, although, strangely, it does not mention his unique recognition by the president.  Born in 1798, Chase was 63 years of age at the beginning of 1861.  Wikipedia describes his activities in Florida at the time of that state's secession that presumably resulted in Lincoln's order:

As the outset of Civil War became inevitable in January 1861, Chase sided with the Confederate partisans in Pensacola and was commissioned a colonel in the Florida militia. On January 8, two days before Florida officially seceded from the Union, Florida Governor Madison S. Perry authorized Chase to seize all federal forts in Pensacola. He was active in securing the surrender of the Navy Yard on January 12. On January 15, he and a small party rowed out to Fort Pickens, where Union forces had relocated, to demand surrender from Lieutenant Adam Slemmer. As recounted by J. H. Gilman, Chase said the following to Slemmer:

 "… It is a most distressing duty to me. I have come to ask of you young officers, officers of the same army in which I have spent the best and happiest years of my life, the surrender of this fort. I would not ask it if I did not believe it right and necessary to save bloodshed; and fearing that I might not be able to say it as I ought, and in order, also, that you may have it in proper form, I have put it in writing and will read it." He then took the manuscript from his pocket and began to read, but, after reading a few lines, his voice shook, and his eyes filled with tears. He stamped his foot, as if ashamed of exhibiting such weakness, and said, "I can't read it. Here, Farrand, you read it."

After the demand for surrender was read, Slemmer and Chase discussed what chance of success the 800 Confederate troops would have in seizing Pickens by force. Chase insisted that a defense would be futile:

"I could carry it by storm. I know every inch of this fort and its condition. … If you have made the best possible preparations, as I suppose you have, and should defend it, as I presume you would, I might lose one-half of my men. … You must know very well that, with your small force, you are not expected to, and cannot, hold this fort. Florida cannot permit it, and the troops here are determined to have it; and if not surrendered peaceably, an attack and the inauguration of civil war cannot be prevented. If it is a question of numbers, and eight hundred is not enough, I can easily bring thousands more."

Slemmer refused to surrender and held the fort until reinforcements could arrive. Pickens remained under Union control throughout the war.

Chase was promoted to brigadier general and later major general of the Florida forces, but due to his age and health, he had little active role in the war.

He died at his home at the southwest corner of Palafox and Wright Streets (now the site of Episcopal Day School) on February 8, 1870.

 In Justice in Blue and Gray: A Legal History of the Civil War, Stephen C. Neff observes that Chase "thereby obtained whatever degree of immortality a footnote is capable of conferring."

Why Millard Blew It

In a post entitled Van Buren at Lawyers, Guns & Money, Erik Loomis refers to "a study that correctly notes the tendency of historians to give high rankings to presidents who kill a lot of Americans in wars during their tenure."

While Erik worries about more important things, such as whether this phenomenon creates an incentive for modern-day presidents to start wars, I of course am fixated on Millard Fillmore.

Millard, as you know, gets hammered as a cross between a nebbish and the anti-Christ for facilitating and signing the bills that are collectively known as the Compromise of 1850. If only he'd sabotaged the Compromise and started a war that killed as many as died starting eleven years later.  Then maybe he'd be as revered as the Railsplitter!

"Fillmore was the real thing"

I have, on more than one occasion, discussed Millard Fillmore's childhood and young manhood, which bear a striking resemblance to those of his Whig successor, Abraham Lincoln.  Born and raised in abject poverty, young Millard, like young Abe, pulled himself up by his bootstraps to become a respected member of his community by virtue of native intelligence, hard work and a little luck.

I am pleased to see that in his newly-published work on the Compromise of 1850, America's Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise That Preserved the Union, Fergus M. Bordewich recognizes this affinity and, indeed, concisely summarizes the hurdles that Millard navigated far more eloquently than I could:

In an era when many political careers . . . were based on exaggerated, if not faked, log cabin origins, Fillmore was the real thing.  Born in 1800 to a hard-luck sharecropper in western New York, he was bred from boyhood to backbreaking labor in a mostly losing struggled to keep his family's farm going.  He didn't learn to spell until the age of seven, and at nineteen still had never seen a map or an atlas.  Books, as they were for his equally disadvantaged contemporary Abraham Lincoln, were his escape hatch.  Once he became literate, Fillmore read with a frightening ferocity.  At the carding mill where he worked for a time, he propped a dictionary on his worktable, and looked up a word each time he passed by, and then fixed it in his memory while he changed rolls of wool.  When, a few years later, he talked a local judge into taking him on as a law clerk, he was so grateful he burst into tears.  Through superhuman perseverance, he eventually became one of the most sought after lawyers in Buffalo.

William Seward's April Fools Memo: The Prequel

As you may know, in his somewhat wacky April 1, 1861 "April Fools Memorandum", entitled Some Thoughts for the President's Consideration, Secretary of State William H. Seward recommended to President Abraham Lincoln, among other things, that the United States declare war on Spain and France:

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.

In her beautifully written book, A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War, Amanda Foreman provides evidence that Seward had been contemplating the possibility of war as a means of diverting secession for almost two months before he delivered his memorandum to Lincoln. On the morning of February 3, 1861, "Seward paid a surprise call on Lord Lyons," the British envoy to the United States in Washington. In a confidential memorandum to his government, Lord Lyons reported that, during the meeting, Seward indicated that a foreign war would not displease him. Lyons reported that

Seward also repeated to him a recent conversation with the minister from Bremen (one of the smaller states of the German Confederation), "no doubt for my instruction." The hapless diplomat had complained about the Republican Party's election promise to place tariffs on foreign imports, saying that such a move would turn Europe against America at the moment when she most needed friends. Seward claimed to have replied that nothing would give him more pleasure, since he would then have the perfect excuse for an international quarrel, "and South Carolina and the seceding states would soon join in."

The Hampton Roads Peace Conference

At the beginning of February 1865, President Abraham Lincoln met with old friend, former fellow Whig, and then Vice President of the Confederacy Alexander Stephens of Georgia at a “peace conference” on board the River Queen at Hampton Roads, near Fort Monroe, Virginia. (Other attendees were Secretary of State William H. Seward with Lincoln and former United States Supreme Court Associate Justice John A. Campbell of Alabama and former United States Representative and Senator and Confederate Secretary of State and Senator Robert M.T. Hunter of Virginia representing the Confederacy.) In America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation David Goldfield recounts the beginning of the Hampton Roads meeting:

The following morning, February 3, Stephens boarded the president’s steamer and greeted Lincoln warmly. Stephens seemed rather frailer than the last time the two former Whigs met, nearly seven years earlier. The Confederate vice president wore a thick gray overcoat that descended to his ankles and threatened to swallow him. He had always looked cadaverous, but the coat made his appearance even more ghostly. A Union soldier guarding the gathering exclaimed, “My God! He’s dead now, but he don’t know it.” Stephens doffed his overcoat, and Lincoln chuckled, “Never have I seen so small a nubbin come out of so much husk.” The atmosphere immediately relaxed, and the two men chatted amiably about the old days before settling down to business.

But that is amusing prelude. What I really wanted to focus on was Lincoln’s remarkable advice to Stephens concerning the Thirteenth Amendment, which had passed the House of Representatives just three days earlier, on January 31, 1865. Stephens’ home state of Georgia, Lincoln suggested, should ratify the amendment prospectively, “so as to take effect, say, in five years”.

During the conference, Seward told the southern representatives of the recent passage of the amendment, and “Lincoln saw that the announcement rattled the [southern] commissioners perhaps more than any other disclosure that day.” He therefore “offered some advice to Stephens”:

“If I were in Georgia, I would go home and get the governor of the state to call the legislature together . . . and ratify this constitutional amendment prospectively, so as to take effect, say, in five years. Such a ratification would be valid in my opinion.” That way, Lincoln explained, southerners “will avoid, as far as possible, the evils of immediate emancipation. Lincoln, according to Stephens, pledged “to remunerate the southern people for their slaves,” on the grounds that both North and South were responsible for slavery.

William C. Harris's article on the meeting, The Hampton Roads Peace Conference: A Final Test of Lincoln's Presidential Leadership, provides additional context:

Later, when the issue of emancipation was again raised, the president gave a lengthy explanation of his own antislavery history, beginning with his opposition to the extension of slavery into the territories and repeating his reasons for acting against the institution during the war. The president concluded his account, as Stephens later wrote, by maintaining that he had always favored emancipation but not immediate emancipation, even by the states, because of the "many evils attending" it. The Confederate vice president also wrote that Lincoln then declared that if he were Stephens, he would go home to Georgia, "get the Governor of the State to call the Legislature together, and get them to recall all the State troops from the war; elect Senators and Members to Congress, and ratify the Constitutional Amendment prospectively, so as to take effect—say in five years." "Such a ratification," the president allegedly said, "would be valid in my opinion." Lincoln went on to say, again according to Stephens, "that whatever may have been the views of your people before the war, they must be convinced now, that Slavery is doomed. It cannot last long in any event, and the best course, it seems to me, for your public men to pursue, would be to adopt such a policy as will avoid, as far as possible, the evils of immediate emancipation."

Harris expresses substantial doubt as to whether Lincoln in fact endorsed “prospective” ratification, both because the endorsement would have been inconsistent with other statements the president had made and because another participant, Campbell, did not mention the statement in his account of the meeting.

I am not so sure. Stephens published his account in 1868, only three years after the event. While it is possible that Stephens's memory was faulty, his recollection of the meeting and Lincoln's comments seems to have been quite distinct. The other statements that Stephens attributes to Lincoln (concerning his history of opposition to immediate emancipation and his belief that the north as well as the south was responsible for slavery and that southerners should be compensated for the loss of their slaves) are entirely consistent with Lincoln's known history. And there is no apparent motive for Stephens to have lied about this otherwise trivial detail of the conversation.

Moreover, as Harris himself admits in another context, Lincoln was clearly concerned at the meeting to convey the impression “that he did not seek a social revolution in the postwar South”:

One of the Confederate commissioners then mentioned "the evils of immediate emancipation," specifically, as Stephens later wrote, the hardships that many blacks "who were unable to support themselves" would face in freedom. The president "fully admitted" that the sudden end of slavery might produce severe dislocations, but, instead of elaborating on the point and describing his expectations for the former slaves, he illustrated his view with a rather crude anecdote. Drawing upon his reservoir of rural Midwestern stories, Lincoln told of an Illinois farmer who informed a neighbor that he had discovered a way to save time and labor in feeding his hogs. "What is it"? asked the neighbor. "Why, it is," said the farmer, "to plant plenty of potatoes, and when they are mature, without either digging or housing them, turn the hogs in the field and let them get their own food as they want it." "But," the neighbor inquired, "how will they do when the winter comes and the ground is hard frozen"? "Well," replied the farmer, "let 'em root."

This anecdote, which appears in both Stephens' and Campbell's accounts and which Lincoln later repeated to his portraitist, reveals a harsh side to Lincoln, perhaps caused by his desire to reassure the Confederates that he did not seek a social revolution in the postwar South. The story also belies Lincoln's earlier expressions of sympathy for black refugees from slavery and his approval, one month after the Hampton Roads Conference, of the Freedman's Bureau bill providing temporary aid for the former slaves (and white refugees) in their adjustment to freedom.

Indeed, earlier in the meeting, when Seward first mentioned the Thirteenth Amendment, Lincoln raised no objection to Seward's incredible suggestion that the confederate states should rejoin the Union in order to defeat the amendment:

At this point, Seward produced a copy of the proposed Thirteenth Amendment, which had not been seen by the commissioners. He declared that if the South abandoned the struggle, the amendment probably would fail to receive the necessary approval of three-fourths of the states for ratification. Seward inferred [sic, should be “implied”], according to Stephens's account of the conference, that if the Southern states quickly rejoined the Union, they could assist in voting down the amendment.

I find Lincoln's statement on prospective ratification, if true, fascinating for at least two, maybe three reasons. First, there is the abstract legal question. I suppose it is possible for a proposed constitutional amendment to provide by its terms that, upon ratification, it will not go into effect until some time thereafter. But can a state ratify “prospectively”, in the sense described by Lincoln, an amendment that contains no such limitation? And what if an amendment were ratified by three-quarters of the states, but one-third of those votes in favor included “prospective” provisos specifying various different periods (e.g., one year, three years, five years, ten years) before the amendment would become effective? Whose period, if any, would control? Or could opponents maintain that a state’s ratification subject to such a proviso was no ratification at all, much as Federalists argued in 1788 that conditional state ratification of the Constitution would be equivalent to rejection?

Second, the incident is remarkable because it suggests that Lincoln was prepared to send the slaves and freedmen back into captivity, at least for a period. Lincoln no doubt understood that the Emancipation Proclamation, as an exercise of war powers, would lapse following the cessation of hostilities. And what if southern states then began demanding the return of slaves who had fled to Union lines and thence to northern states under the Fugitive Slave Clause? The mind reels.

Finally, one wonders what light this incident sheds on the hypothetical actions of a Reconstruction Abe. Lincoln defenders generally sheepishly admit that his actions and words before his death indicated that he was planning a relatively quick and gentle (and Andrew Johnson-like) Reconstruction, but tend to emphasize the president’s flexibility and capacity for growth, leading them to claim that southern intransigence would have quickly moved him toward a firmer and more “radical” policy. Ironically, Harris in his article provides a perfect illustration of this mode of thought. After recounting Lincoln's “harsh” Illinois farmer story (described above), Harris immediately proceeds to suggest that he would have changed his mind. I provide the complete paragraph for context (emphasis added):

This anecdote, which appears in both Stephens' and Campbell's accounts and which Lincoln later repeated to his portraitist, reveals a harsh side to Lincoln, perhaps caused by his desire to reassure the Confederates that he did not seek a social revolution in the postwar South. The story also belies Lincoln's earlier expressions of sympathy for black refugees from slavery and his approval, one month after the Hampton Roads Conference, of the Freedman's Bureau bill providing temporary aid for the former slaves (and white refugees) in their adjustment to freedom. Still, Lincoln, like most Americans at the time, optimistically expected emancipation itself to be "the king's cure" for blacks in the South. Lincoln believed that a free person, now including blacks, should be able to make his way in America through his own ability and effort without the assistance of the state. Though he had admitted the difficulties of the white and black races living together in freedom (his earlier support for black colonization reflected this concern), the president envisioned a limited role for the federal government in protecting and aiding blacks after the war. Had he lived to witness the postwar threat to black freedom, Lincoln might have changed his mind regarding federal responsibility for black liberty.

Abe might have arrived at a more radical position on Reconstruction. But the fact remains that if, two months before his death, Abe was prepared to send the slaves back into slavery, he sure had a long way to go before he got there.

A Real Lincoln Quote?

At her site, Wisconsin lawprof and blogger Ann Althouse spots a pro-union protest sign that purports to quote the Great Emancipator: "All that serves labor serves the nation. All that harms it is TREASON! — Abraham Lincoln."

OK, you Lincoln scholars, fire up your engines. Is the quote real or bogus?

Lego Lincoln

Knowing how many of you are huge fans of Abe, I wanted to alert you that you can now obtain your very own portrait of the Great Emancipator made from Lego, courtesy of artist Nathan Sawaya.

No word on when the Millard Fillmore edition will be available.

H/T Jonah Goldberg at The Corner and WebUrbanist.

Donald Stoker Gets Two Right

Having given Donald Stoker some grief in a recent post, I feel duty bound to report that in the following pages of The Grand Design: Strategy and the U.S. Civil War he makes two very nice points in quick succession.

First he pinpoints what I believe was the most bone-headed decision of the war: the determination to shell Fort Sumter:

Robert Toombs had warned of the consequences of firing on the fort, believing it would “inaugurate a civil war greater than any the world has yet seen. . . . You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from the mountains to the oceans, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal.”

Not only was Toombs correct regarding the effects of the bombardment, both immediate and long-term, he was also insightful regarding its futility. The South did not need to attack Sumter when it did . . ..

Second, Prof. Stoker crystallizes nicely a key difference – perhaps the key difference – between Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis:

The Union had no real strategy when the war began. Lincoln quickly approached his professional military leaders for guidance . . .. Even in the conflict's opening days, Lincoln was asking Winfield Scott what plans he had for winning the war. Lincoln always pondered how to achieve victory, and . . . was willing to do what was required. David, historian David Potter argued, “always thought in terms of what was right, rather than in terms of how win.” Lincoln tried to get his generals to figure out the path to victory. If they could not, he would try to figure it out for them. By contrast, “there is no evidence in the literature that Davis ever at any one time gave extended consideration to the basic question of what the South would have to do in order to win the war.” This is perhaps the most important difference in how these men led.

Donald Stoker Gets the Small Stuff Wrong

If you're going to write a “big” book, you'd better get the small stuff right, or you're going to lose me pretty fast.

In the opening pages of The Grand Design: Strategy and the U.S. Civil War, Donald Stoker has already raised my eyebrows several times. Neither misstep may be central to his study, but still the nagging thought enters my mind: if I can't trust him on the small stuff that I, a mere history buff, happen to know something about, why should I trust him on anything else?

Example no. 1 is Stoker's characterization of Jefferson Davis as a “rabid secessionist[].” The context suggests that this was Davis's position throughout the 1850s: “The compromise's [the Compromise of 1850] tenets cut the feet out from under rabid secessionists such as Davis, at least for a while.”

But William Freehling and others have explained that Davis was anything but. Ironically, the opening pages of the first volume of The Road to Disunion refer to the fundamental differences between an essentially conservative politician such as Davis and radical disunionists such as William Lowndes Yancey and Robert Barnwell Rhett:

How Rhett must have winced as citizens [of Montgomery, Alabama] screamed approval [in February 1861 upon hearing that Davis had been selected to be provisional president of the confederacy]. For Jefferson Davis had long cooperated with Disunionists' foe, the Southern National Democratic Party. Whether manipulating presidential cabinets or maneuvering the United States Senate, Davis had usually advocated the National Democrats' main line – that disunion was folly because the South could rule the Union through the party. In 1858, when Davis came close to breathing northern territorial heresies, Mississippi's legislature had demanded explanations. In November 1860, he had warned Rhett against disunion. Would he now lead a retreat back into the Union?

Example no. 2 is Stoker's portrayal of Abraham Lincoln as all-wise statesman with fixed ideas from shortly after his election as to how to respond to threats of secession (emphasis added):

As 1860 swept to its end, a New York journalist asked the president-elect how he would deal with secession. Lincoln said [on December 29, 1860], “I think we should hold the forts, or retake them, as the case may be, and collect the revenue.” Clearly, Lincoln's mind was made up on the North's initial strategic response . . ..

But anyone who has read Russell McClintock's Lincoln and the Decision for War will know that the assertion that Lincoln had made up his mind about anything in December 1860 is ludicrous.

It is certainly fair to say that Lincoln's instinct was to hold or retake the forts, and it is equally fair to say that he ultimately acted in accordance with his instinct when he directed the resupply of Fort Sumter four months later. But the real-life Lincoln was assailed by doubts and indecision before he gave the fateful order. Here, for example, is McClintock on the state of Lincoln's thoughts as of about March 21, 1861, when he sent several people to South Carolina to collect information on public opinion there:

Plainly Lincoln was torn. On the one hand, even if the fort [Sumter] could be provisioned without starting a war, which did not seem possible, it could not be held indefinitely. It had no real military value, and could not even be used for collecting the revenue offshore. Evacuation would remove the primary irritant to Southerners and, by signaling the administration's pacific intent, strengthen Southern unionism by cutting the ground from under those who charged coercion. It would also remove the danger that a successful attack would invigorate disunionism. On the other hand, evacuation might embolden secessionists and could have a demoralizing effect on the already strained Republican Party. The results of evacuating Sumter were simply impossible to predict. Would it encourage border-state loyalty and lead to the peaceful restoration of the Union, as Seward and his Southern friends believed? Or would it encourage disunionism and cement the existing division, as Blair and the stalwart Republicans insisted? Lincoln wanted as much information as possible before making his final determination.

Update: Post edited to change "March 21, 1860" to "March 21, 1861", and "was" to "wanted".

Millard Loses a War He Didn't Fight

In At the Edge of the Precipice: Henry Clay and the Compromise that Saved the Union, Robert V. Remini makes clear that he believes that the Compromise of 1850 saved the Union. “By 1850 . . . it appeared likely that the nation would descend into secession and civil war. . . . The resulting Compromise of 1850 delayed the catastrophe of civil war for ten years.”

Prof. Remini likewise does not equivocate in his opinion concerning the importance of those ten years. Had civil war broken out in 1850, he maintains, the Union would not have survived:

[T]hose ten years were absolutely essential for preserving the American nation under the Constitution. Had secession occurred in1850, the South unquestionably would have made good its independence, and the country might well have split permanently into two nations. . . . Even ten years later, when war finally did break out, the South almost succeeded militarily in establishing its independence Why it failed was largely due to the Compromise of 1850.

Prof. Remini argues that those ten years made a difference for two reasons. Here is where the good Professor and I come to a parting of the ways. His first reason I agree with. To his second I register my vehement objection.

The first consideration to which Prof. Remini points is continued industrialization by the North during the 1850s:

First, [the Compromise of 1850] gave the North ten years to further its industrialization, by which it strengthened its ability to survive a protracted military conflict. The South did not have that capacity. It did not have the railroad system by which to move men and material to the areas where they were most needed. It did not have the factories or industries by which it could indefinitely sustain a fighting army and functioning government.

Prof. Remini's second factor refers to specific personalities. Basically, he asserts, only Abraham Lincoln could have saved the Union. In the process, he goes out of his way to dis poor Millard, which as you may imagine gets my goat:

Second, the Compromise gave the North ten years to find a statesman who would provide the wisdom and leadership the Union needed to successfully fight a war . . . Abraham Lincoln. By the 1850s . . . leadership of the nation had been reduced to such figures as presidents Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan, not one of whom had the talent, the skill, or the intelligence to prevent secession and civil war. By the end of the decade, Lincoln had appeared . . ..

Now them's fighting words. To begin at the end, it's worth noting that Prof. Remini is mixing his fruit. Abraham Lincoln didn't have “the talent, the skill, or the intelligence to prevent secession and civil war” either, so that's not the question. Come to think of it, Millard did have the talent, skill and intelligence to preserve the Union without war, so I suppose that puts him one up on Abe.

More fundamentally, it's just absurd to lump Millard together with Pierce and Buchanan. While it's impossible to prove a counterfactual, there is no particular reason to believe that Millard would have made a bad war leader. Look at Lincoln himself. Based on his uncertain and indecisive performance during his first six weeks in office, who would have predicted his growth?

Pace Prof. Remini, as I have documented here in many posts, Millard was a talented and intelligent man who, although he had no military experience (as Lincoln, for all practical purposes, had none), was utterly devoted to the Union. During the period before he resolved the Crisis of 1850 (with some help) he displayed decisiveness and boldness in matters both political and military – issuing a measured but stern warning to Texas not to send a military force against New Mexico, and issuing orders directing United States troops to New Mexico to back up that warning. See here, here, here and here.

If civil war had erupted in 1850-51 (probably starting as hostilities between United States and Texas troops in New Mexico, then spreading as southern states sided with Texas), technology and other considerations would probably have resulted in southern independence. Maybe Millard would have developed into a good war leader, maybe not. But there's no reason to identify his presumed incompetence as one of two key reasons for the North's hypothetical loss in a war that Millard never had an opportunity (if that's the word) to direct.

Immediate Secession: Were Southerners Afraid of Southerners?

Historians have puzzled over the reasons for immediate secession in the South in 1860-1861. Why did advocates believe that that it was imperative that their states secede even before Abraham Lincoln's inauguration? Why were they convinced that their States should not await specific evidence demonstrating Republican bad acts and bad faith – for example, refusal to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act?

A number of historians have posited that Southern fear of other Southerners was a substantial motivating factor among advocates of immediate secession. Immediate secessionists feared, so the argument goes, that the Republicans would use patronage and other devices to induce some southern whites to form the nucleus of a Republican party in their state. In other words, the South contained whites who formed a potentially disloyal fifth column that might later betray their States if secession were not promptly accomplished.

Historians making this argument usually contend that direct evidence of this motivation is hard to come by, because it was not the sort of thing advocates could state in so many words. Because they also maintained that all elements of southern society uniformly supported that society and southern institutions, they could not admit that differences among supposedly equal whites festered below the surface.

Editors William W. Freehling and Craig M. Simpson have produced a valuable new volume of excerpts of the speeches from the Virginia secession convention of 1861, Showdown in Virginia: The 1861 Convention and the Fate of the Union. As I began the book yesterday, I thought it would be a good opportunity to test the hypothesis described above (among others). As I read the arguments of advocates of immediate secession, could I find arguments that suggested that southerners were afraid of other southerners?

Remarkably, the very first speech in the volume seems to validate the hypothesis. Jeremiah Morton, a wealthy planter representing Orange and Greene Counties in the western Piedmont, was “the anomalous former Whig who was a prominent disunionist.” On February 28, 1861, Morton delivered a speech in favor of immediate secession. The speech includes a lengthy passage in which Morton argued that, without secession, “Black Republicans” would “spoils” and “public patronage” and “fat office” to lure southern whites into the Republican party:

They [the Black Republicans] will administer the Government for the strengthening of the party; they will make capital out of every appointment; and, Mr. President, with a Government, every Department of which shall be in the hands of the Black Republicans, administered upon the principles upon which William H. Seward and Abraham Lincoln will administer it, how long would our institutions be safe? . . . Whenever it comes to the administration of the spoils with the view to the advancement of party – and that for many years has been the general type of all administrations – what are the number that will be purchased up by the patronage of the Government? I do not mean to say, Mr. President, corruptly. But when there is a fat office which is tendered, and the aspirant for that office knows how important it may be that his opinions should be identical and should assimilate with the powers that be, how natural it is for a man under circumstances like these to satisfy himself that he once was a little wrong, and that the sober, second thought, is the best position. This is human nature. . . .

And I tell you, Mr. President, that Abraham Lincoln will seek to hold a power over all the Southern States. . . . If you stay . . . [in the Union] for the next twelve months there will be more beneficent showers of public patronage upon Virginia and Maryland and Tennessee – I think he would hardly go to North Carolina – but he will go to Kentucky and Missouri, sooner than to any other States.

And, Mr. President, when a man gets a rich office, how many friends circle around him to congratulate him. . . . The donee of a fat office – be it a Judgeship, be it a Collectorship, be it a Postmaster of this city – has much power, and each one will form a nucleus of sympathizing friends with the powers that be. . . . Let us acquiesce, and I tell you that in the next Presidential canvass – if not in the next, in the second; certainly in the third – you will find Black Republicans upon every stump, and organizing in every county; and that is the peace that we shall have from this “glorious Union.”

About the illustration at the top of the post, entitled Virginny:

An old woman is surprised by a skull coming out of a teapot. Cream envelope with blue ink. Image on left. Virginny, mother of "Old Dominion" presidents and other ([Henry A.] Wise) things, is asked by Mrs. [Varina] Davis to try a cup of secession tea – and finds death in the pot!

About the second illustration, entitled Secession Web:

[Jefferson] Davis as a spider catching the secession states in his web strung from the American flag. There is a skull and cross bones on his spider back and he is dripping blood and clutching Virginia. Cream envelope with red and blue ink. Image on left side. "Walk into my parlor," says the Spider to the Fly.

Jefferson Davis's Freeport Doctrine

I recently posted, in the form of a quiz, a quote from a speech delivered by Jefferson Davis in Portland, Maine on September 11, 1858 in which the former Secretary of War and then current Senator from Mississippi made a point identical to that expressed by Senator Stephen A. Douglas the prior month in a debate with one Abraham Lincoln in Freeport, Illinois.

Here's Douglas:

The next question propounded to me by Mr. Lincoln is, Can the people of a Territory in any lawful way, against the wishes of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from their limits prior to the formation of a State constitution? I answer emphatically, as Mr. Lincoln has heard me answer a hundred times from every stump in Illinois, that in my opinion the people of a Territory can, by lawful means, exclude slavery from their limits prior to the formation of a State constitution. Mr Lincoln knew that I had answered that question over and over again. He heard me argue the Nebraska bill on that principle all over the State in 1854, in 1855, and in 1856, and he has no excuse for pretending to be in doubt as to my position on that question. It matters not what way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to the abstract question whether slavery may or may not go into a Territory under the Constitution, the people have the lawful means to introduce it or exclude it as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist a day or an hour anywhere, unless it is supported by local police regulations. Those police regulations can only be established by the local legislature; and if the people are opposed to slavery, they will elect representatives to that body who will by unfriendly legislation effectually prevent the introduction of it into their midst. If, on the contrary, they are for it, their legislation will favor its extension. Hence, no matter what the decision of the Supreme Court may be on that abstract question, still the right of the people to make a Slave Territory or a Free Territory is perfect and complete under the Nebraska bill. I hope Mr. Lincoln deems my answer satisfactory on that point.

And here's Davis:

If the inhabitants of any territory should refuse to enact such laws and police regulations as would give security to their property or to his, it would be rendered more or less valueless, in proportion to the difficulty of holding it without such protection.

In the case of property in the labor of man, or what is usually called slave property, the insecurity would be so great that the owner could not ordinarily retain it. Therefore, though the right would remain, the remedy being withheld, it would follow that the owner would be practically debarred by the circumstances of the case, from taking slave property into a territory where the sense of the inhabitants was opposed to its introduction.

So much for the oft repeated fallacy of forcing slavery upon any community.

William W. Freehling describes the aftermath. Not unexpectedly, Davis's remarks generated anger and suspicion in his home state. In November 1858, Davis appeared before the Mississippi legislature to explain himself and to execute a “guarded retreat.”

“The difference between us is . . . wide,” [Davis explained] for I only conceded that “all property requires protection,” or it cannot be “held.” Douglas sees no governmental obligation to protect. But I know that a hostile community's power to free a slave generates not “a right to destroy but an obligation to protect.”

Davis did not explain what form the “obligation to protect” should take until eight months later. In a speech to the Democratic state convention in July 1859, he laid out a surprisingly moderate position. Protection of slavery in the territories did not require Congressional enactment of a slave code unless legal remedies failed:

Davis there declared that courts could prevent a hostile community from robbing a slaveholder. Thus our “right to protection does not necessarily involve the enactment of additional laws.” Maybe someday, if courts fail a slaveholder, we may need congressional protection. We must now claim our right to national protective laws in that possible future contingency. But as for Northern Democrats' fear that we now demand a national slave code, “you know it to be utterly unfounded and . . . absurd.”

Consistent with his stated approach, on February 2, 1860 Senator Davis submitted to the Senate a series of seven resolutions concerning slavery and slavery in the territories. As modified by Davis on March 1, 1860, the key resolutions provided that a slave code was not necessary at present, although it might be in the future:

4. Resolved, That neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature, whether by direct legislation or legislation of an indirect and unfriendly character, possesses power to annul or impair the constitutional right of any citizen of the United States to take his slave property into the common Territories, and there hold and enjoy the same while the territorial condition remains.

5. Resolved, That if experience should at any time prove that the judiciary and executive authority do not possess means to insure adequate protection to constitutional rights in a Territory, and if the territorial government shall fail or refuse to provide the necessary remedies for that purpose it will be the duty of Congress to supply such deficiency.

The Senate passed Davis's resolutions on May 25, 1860. The vote in favor of the key 5th Resolution was a surprisingly lopsided 35 to 2.

Isn't the advertisement at the top of the post, which was printed in Washington, DC in 1860, wonderful? Apart from the fact that it refers to Jefferson Davis, it's irrelevant to the subject matter of the post, but I couldn't resist.

Abe as Good as Millard: Alexander Stephens

In the summer of 1860, Georgia radicals were warning that the election of Abraham Lincoln would mean disaster for the south. Secession would be the only remedy.

Cooperationist (and future vice president of the Confederate States) Alexander Stephens was unconvinced. Writing to a friend in July 1860, Stephens opined that Lincoln, if elected, would be as good as, and perhaps better than, . . . wait for it . . . Millard Fillmore!

"I know the man [Lincoln] well," [Stephens wrote], "he is not a bad man." In fact, Stephens predicted, "He will make as good a President as Fillmore did and better too in my opinion."

Michael P. Johnson, Toward a Patriarchal Republic: The Secession of Georgia.

Its the Thought that Counts

We are not enemies, but freinds. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have straind, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory . . . will . . . swell . . . when again touched, as surley they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Abraham Lincoln

H/T 10 Misspelled Tattoos.

Dithering

This article will no doubt set Dimitri's teeth on edge, combining as does his favorite general, George Brinton McClellan, and his least favorite author, Doris Kearns Goodwin (as well as Abraham Lincoln and the One):

On the Charlie Rose Show, presidential biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin said President Obama mustn't be rushed to make a decision. After all, she noted, Lincoln waited until the right time to make the Emancipation Proclamation. I'm curious how a Pulitzer-Prize winning historian who has written a fantastic book on Lincoln's political genius would make such a poor analogy -- not merely because of the incongruity of the conflicts, but because it's a tragic example of dithering that cost lives.

The Emancipation Proclamation did indeed require good timing, thus it followed on the heels of the victory of the Battle of Antietam. But Lincoln had already set his mind on freeing the slaves -- the wording and political support merely needed to be solidified. He already knew of his strategy. The person who was causing the delay was in fact General George B. McClellan, whose willingness to delay action and refusal to do so allowed enemy forces to prepare and react.

McClellan's, shall we call it, dithering, caused Antietam to become the bloodiest day of the Civil War, in fact, the single bloodiest day in American military history. General Lee had said of him, "He is an able general but a very cautious one. His army is in a very demoralized and chaotic condition, and will not be prepared for offensive operations—or he will not think it so—for three or four weeks."

Abe Says "Cheese!"

Now my day is complete, thanks to Woman's Day magazine:

Taking a stand as “the big cheese” in Washington, DC, this sculpture of the 16th President of the United States was made from a 1,000-pound block of mild Cheddar cheese by sculptor Troy Landwehr. Photo courtesy of Tiffany Bridge.

Team of Dysfunctional Schemers?

Dimitri will greatly enjoy this quote from Sean Wilentz's essay in The New Republic, Who Lincoln Was:

[Harold] Holzer's intense admiration of Lincoln sometimes leads him to make too much of a good thing. In accord with the argument presented by Doris Kearns Goodwin's recent book describing Lincoln's cabinet as a "team of rivals" -- an easily exaggerated view cited so often during the Obama transition that it became one of the platitudes of our day--Holzer is persuaded of the brilliance of Lincoln's selections. Holzer accurately presents Lincoln the cabinet-maker as a hard-nosed politician, who made good on promises extended during the fight for the Republican nomination (although the book could have said more on this), and who sought to placate every element of his faction-ridden party. Yet Lincoln's approach to the task was nothing new. Moreover, the cabinet that he picked was a dysfunctional collection of schemers far more than it was a team of any kind.

(Emphasis added)

Anna Ella Carroll

Although I had not heard of her, the Wikipedia entry for Anna Ella Carroll, mentioned in my last post, is very intriguing. A Maryland Whig and Know-Nothing (and Fillmore supporter in 1856!), she freed her slaves, opposed secession, supported Lincoln and allegedly forwarded intelligence of Confederate plans.

Most interesting probably to Civil War buffs, in 1861 Carroll allegedly investigated and advocated the use of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers as an invasion route into Tennessee, the basis for Grant's Forts Henry and Donelson campaign, and later in the War advised Lincoln on colonization and emancipation. I don't vouch for the Wikipedia description of her role, but here it is:

In the fall of 1861, Carroll traveled to St. Louis to work with secret agent, Judge Lemuel Dale Evans, who had been appointed by Secretary of State William H. Seward, to assess the feasibility of an invasion of Texas. Carroll worked on her second war powers paper at the Mercantile Library where she sleuthed out information from the head librarian who was Confederate General Joe Johnston’s brother. She took military matters into her own hands when she initiated an interview with a riverboat pilot Capt. Charles M. Scott about the feasibility of the planned Union Mississippi River expedition. Scott informed her that he and other pilots thought the advance ill conceived due to the fact that there were many defensible points on the Mississippi River that could be reinforced and it could take years just to open it up to navigation. Carroll then questioned Scott about the feasibility of the use of the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers for a Union invasion. Scott provided Carroll technical navigation details. Based on this information Carroll wrote a memorandum that she sent to Assistant Secretary of War Thomas A. Scott and Attorney General Edward Bates in late November 1861, advocating that the combined army-navy forces change their invasion route from the Mississippi to the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. Scott took the plan to Lincoln who deemed the plan viable, although no actual documentary evidence of this meeting exists. Evidence indicates that on the advice of Senator Benjamin F. Wade, chairman of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, Lincoln appointed Edwin Stanton secretary of war in January 1862 to implement the Tennessee River plan. Lincoln scholar Doris Kearns Goodwin, on the other hand, argues in her Pulitzer-Prize-winning book, that Lincoln chose Stanton to replace the crooked Simon Cameron on the advice of Secretary of State William Henry Seward and Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase, surprising the entire Cabinet with his selection, having consulted no one but Seward and Chase, the latter of whom claimed full credit for the choice of Stanton.

Meanwhile in St. Louis, Major General Henry W. Halleck was planning the same movement without Lincoln’s knowledge. Upon learning that Confederates were possibly sending reinforcements west from Virginia, Halleck ordered Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant and Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote to immediately move on Fort Henry and Fort Donelson on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers in a telegram dated January 30. Scott was dispatched to the Midwest to mobilize reinforcements for Halleck on the night of January 29. On February 6, Fort Henry fell to Foote’s gunboats and on February 13, Fort Donelson fell to Grant’s and Foote’s combined forces. These comprised the first two “real victories” of the Civil War for the Union as Gen. William Sherman wrote later. Thus Carroll’s submission was critical to providing needed reinforcements for Grant and to gaining Stanton the appointment as secretary of war. At the time Carroll’s role in the effort was kept secret, and immediately following the war, she herself gave credit for the plan to Capt. Charles Scott in a letter printed in a leading Washington newspaper, but years later Assistant Secretary of War Scott and Senator Wade testified to it before Congress.

During the remainder of the war, Carroll worked with Lincoln on issues pertaining to colonization and emancipation. She and Aaron Columbus Burr lobbied him to establish a colony of freedmen in British Honduras, today Belize. Although Carroll had freed her own slaves, she lobbied Lincoln against issuing the Emancipation Proclamation fearing that support of Southern Unionists would be lost and resistance to the Union would be stiffened. But, she wrote that Lincoln did have the constitutional right to free the states as a temporary war measure under his power as commander-in-chief, since the proclamation would help cripple the organized forces of the rebellion. Yet the measure was not a transfer of title and would have to be suspended once the war emergency ended. To free the slaves required a constitutional amendment.

Wikipedia further asserts that the empty chair at the right of the painting at the top of this post, First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation by Francis Bicknell Carpenter (1864) is "believed by some to be an allusion to Carroll."

Andrew Jackson's Proclamation Regarding Nullification 4: The Union is "coeval with our political existence"

Both Daniel Webster and Abraham Lincoln famously held that the Union was older than the Constitution. By way of a refresher, here they are:

Daniel Webster, February 16, 1833:

In 1789, and before this Constitution was adopted, the United States had already been in a union, more or less close, for fifteen years. At least as far back as the meeting of the first Congress, in 1774, they had been in some measure, and for some national purposes, united together. Before the Confederation of 1781, they had declared independence jointly, and had carried on the war jointly, both by sea and land; and this not as separate States, but as one people. When, therefore, they formed that Confederation, and adopted its articles as articles of perpetual union, they did not come together for the first time; and therefore they did not speak of the States as acceding to the Confederation, although it was a league, and nothing but a league, and rested on nothing but plighted faith for its performance. Yet, even then, the States were not strangers to each other; there was a bond of union already subsisting between them; they were associated, united States; and the object of the Confederation was to make a stronger and better bond of union. Their representatives deliberated together on these proposed Articles of Confederation, and, being authorized by their respective States, finally "ratified and confirmed" them. Inasmuch as they were already in union, they did not speak of acceding to the new Articles of Confederation, but of ratifying and confirming them; and this language was not used inadvertently, because, in the same instrument, accession is used in its proper sense, when applied to Canada, which was altogether a stranger to the existing union. "Canada," says the eleventh article, "acceding to this Confederation, and joining in the measures of the United States, shall be admitted into the Union."

Abraham Lincoln, March 4, 1861:

Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was "to form a more perfect Union."

I mention this because one of the more remarkable aspects of Andrew Jackson’s December 10, 1832 Proclamation Regarding Nullification is that he anticipated them both:

[The South Carolina nullification ordinance has] for its object the destruction of the Union – that Union, which, coeval with our political existence, led our fathers, without any other ties to unite them than those of patriotism and common cause, through the sanguinary struggle to a glorious independence – that sacred Union, hitherto inviolate, which, perfected by our happy Constitution, has brought us, by the favor of Heaven, to a state of prosperity at home, and high consideration abroad, rarely, if ever, equaled in the history of nations.

Lincoln's 1864 Vice Presidential Possibilities

In a recent post, Kevin Levin was kind enough to link to a question I had raised as a comment to a post at Brian Dirck’s A Lincoln Blog. Prof. Dirck had cited Abraham Lincoln’s "worst flub" as the acceptance of Andrew Johnson as his vice presidential running mate in 1864. I asked, Well who, then, should Lincoln have pushed for the post? I qualified my question by noting that a fair answer required that the basic parameters be retained: basically, a Democrat (or Unionist) or conservative Republican from a border state or the lower reaches of the North.

When I asked the question, I had no answer in mind. My knowledge of available politicians in the specified categories during this period was and is weak. Like many, I suspect, I know more about the radicals on both sides, such as Clement Vallandigham or Charles Sumner, and far less about the moderates or conservative unionists.

It looks like Kevin (and his commenters), as well as Prof. Dirck, may propose some candidates. Despite my ignorance, I thought I’d take a crack at it too. As a first step, I simply consulted a Wikipedia list of the members of the Senate in the 38th Congress to see who, if anyone, looked like a possibility. Understanding full well that it’s not wise to propose vice presidential candidates based on their Wikipedia entries, I nonetheless thought it would be a fun exercise.

Here are my very brief notes on the possibilities. Among Senators, the candidates I’d be most likely to look at more closely are Garrett Davis, Reverdy Johnson (despite his age) and Waitman Willey.

James A. Bayard, Jr. (Democrat, Delaware) – Definitely not, refused to take loyalty oath.

George R. Riddle (Democrat, Delaware) – Maybe?

Willard Saulsbury, Sr. (Democrat, Delaware) – Definitely not, vehement critic, drunk.

Thomas A. Hendricks (Democrat, Indiana) – Maybe?

Henry Smith Lane (Republican, Indiana) – Definitely not, abolitionist.

Lazarus W. Powell (Democrat, Kentucky) – Definitely not, vehement critic.

Garrett Davis (Unionist, Kentucky) – Promising?

Thomas Holliday Hicks (American, Maryland) – No. Was governor in 1861. Too controversial, too anti-immigrant, too old.

Reverdy Johnson (Unionist, Maryland) – Well known Whig, leading legal figure for decades. Other than age, an interesting possibility. But represented defendant in Dred Scott.

John B. Henderson (Unionist, Missouri) – Maybe?

Robert Wilson (Unionist, Missouri) – Maybe?

B. Gratz Brown (Unionist, Missouri) – Too radical?

John C. Ten Eyck (Republican, New Jersey) – Can’t tell. Not enough gravitas?

William Wright (Democrat, New Jersey) – Maybe? Can’t tell.

John S. Carlile (Unionist, Virginia) – Maybe? Interesting. Too conservative?

Peter G. Van Winkle (Unionist, West Virginia) – Maybe? Interesting.

Waitman T. Willey (Unionist, West Virginia) – Leading western Virginian politician. Possibility.

There are, of course, many other groups to review for possible candidates: governors, representatives, possibly political generals. But at least it's a start.