The following comes from:
Lee Ellsworth Eusey, “The American Civil War: An
Interpretation” (M.A. Thesis; Andrews University, April, 1965), 12-15:
. . . on January 3 [1861] the Crittenden Referendum Propositions
had been placed before the Senate, [5] and this effort with compromise was soon
followed by another, the Thomas Corwin Peace Measure, designed to negate the
Personal Liberty Laws that were to obnoxious to the Southern. [6] Furthermore,
in February delegates from twenty States convened in a Peace Conference at
Washington to compromise differences. [7] And as to the thirty-sixth Congress
was about to expire, a “thirteenth amendment” to the Constitution was rushed
through the legislative process to forever guarantee slavery where it existed.
[8]
So much for statecraft; what of public sentiment—at least
on the surface? To begin with, on December 3, 1860, President Buchanan in his
Annual Message to Congress completely rationalized away any recourse to the
sword when he intoned:
The fact is, that our Union rests upon public opinion, and can never be commented
by the blood if its citizens shed in civil ar. If it cannot live in the affections
of the people, it must one day perish. Congress process[es] many means of
preserving it by conciliation; but the sword was not placed in their hand to
preserve it by force. [9]
A few days later, on December 22, William H. Seward,
secretary of state elect to the Lincoln cabinet, in a Pilgrim Day speech
predicted a tranquil settlement of the national ills within the next sixty
days. [10]
In mid-February, Thomas R. R. Cobb, the ardent Georgia
secessionist who was a member of the committee preparing the Confederate constitution,
wrote to his life, “The almost universal belief here [at Mongomery] is that we
shall not have war.” [11]
And only two days before the inauguration Lincoln
declared in Philadelphia: “I have felt all the while justified in concluding
that the crisis, the panic, the anxiety of the country at this time is
artificial.” [12]
Smal wonder, therefore, that Alexander H. Stephens,
vice-president of the Confederacy, told a Savanah audience on March 21 “that
their revolution had thus far been accomplished without shedding a drop of
blood—that the fear of a deadly collision with the Union they had renounced was
nearly dispelled. . . .” [13]
April, of course, was punctuated by the Sumter fight,
the Proclamation of Blockade of the South, and the call of nearly 75,000 State
militiamen into Federal service. [14] This succession of calamities befell the
Union in the twelve weeks following the Parkville Vision.
Nevertheless, in spite o these harbingers, during the
interim from Lincoln’s call for volunteers till the Bull Run clash, the New
York Times, printed this dictum: “Let us make quick work. . . . A strong
active ‘pull together’ will do our work effectually in thirty days.” [15] And
on May 4, Harper’s Weely editorially concluded that “if Abraham Lincoln
is equal to the position he fills, this war will be over by January, 1862.”
[16]
The President himself must have had the same hope even
as late as July 4 when he wrote to Congress:” It is now recommended that you
give legal means for making this contest a short and decisive one. . . .” [17]
Actually, during these months the anticipated means
chiefly relied upon for quick victory, if war developed, was Union strangulation
of the Confederacy by naval blockade. Thus Harper’s Weekly explained: “It
seems to be expected that by August next there will be a Confederate port . . .
which will not be hermetically sealed by United States ships of war.” [18] And
the New York Times dogmatized: “Whatever war there is, may easily
be made a war at sea,--a war of blockades,--a war having for its sole object
the protection of American property and preservation of American commerce.”
[19] (Italics supplied.)
Notes for the Above:
[5] John J. Crittenden, “Peace of Resolutions,” Documents
of American History, ed. Henry S. Commager (2 Vols., 7th ed.; New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts
Inc., 1963), I, 369-71. Hereafter cited as Documents of American History.
James F. Rhodes, United States History (9 Vols.; New York: MacMillan
Co., 1928), III, 141, 141 n.
[6] Horace Greeley, The American Conflict (2
Vols.; Hartford, Conn.: O. D. Case Co., 1866), I, 386-88.
[7] Ibid., I, 396-405.
[8] John G. Nicolay and John Hay, Lincoln: A
history (10 Vols.; New York: Century Co., 1890), I, 89-90; U.S. Congress,
Senate, Congressional Globe, 36th Cong., 2d sess. (Washington: Globe
Print. Off., 1861), pp. 1283-85, 1402-1403, app. p. 350. Hereafter cited as Globe.
[9] Quoted in James Buchanan, “Annual Message to Congress,”
Documents of American History, I, 366, 369; Greely, op. cit., I,
371.
[10] Ibid., I, 429, 429 n. 2.
[11] Quoted in Edward Channing, History of the
United States (6 Vols.; New York: Macmillan Co., 1905-25), VI, 264.
[12] Quoted in Harper’s Weekly, March 2, 1861,
p. 135. (Re-issue.)
[13] Quoted in Greely, op. cit., I, 437-48.
[14] David S. Muzzey, United States of America
Through the Civil War (New York: Ginn and Co., 1922), pp. 543-45.
[15] Quoted in Robert L. Dabney, Life and Campaigns
of Thomas J. Jackson (New York: Blelock and Co., 1866), 210 n.
[16] Harper’s Weekly, May 4, 1861, p. 274.
(Re-issue.)
[17] Quoted in Greeley, op. cit., I, 557; Globe,
37th Cong., 1st sess., p. 11, app. p. 2; Allan Nevins, War for the Union
(2 Vols.; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1959), I, 153; Nicolay, op. cit.,
IV, 317.
[18] Harper’s Weekly, April 27, 1861, p. 258. (Re-issue.)
[19] The New York Times, January 10, 1861, p.
4.
Further Reading:
