USA > Indiana > Howard County > History of Howard County, Indiana, Vol I > Part 10
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33
On the other hand, the South was to consent to the suppression of the slave trade ; that the District of Columbia should not be used as a slave market, and that slavery should be prohibited north of thirty-six degrees, thirty minutes north latitude.
Of the twenty states represented eleven voted for, seven voted against and two divided.
The extreme Southern states were not represented. They were resolved upon breaking up the Government entirely and estab- lishing for themselves a thorough slave-holding oligarchy and re- fused to take any part in the Peace Convention.
Notwithstanding this stand of these Southern states many good and well-meaning citizens of the North petitioned Congress to pass the Crittenden Resolutions, which differed in no great degree from the Peace Conference Resolutions.
Probably the fairest presentation of the views of the anti-slavery people was made by Senator Charles Sumner, November 27, 1861. But looking at the concessions proposed I have always found them utterly unreasonable and indefensible. I should not expose them now, if they did not constantly testify to the origin and mainspring of this rebellion. Slavery was always the single subject-matter and nothing else. Slavery was not only an integral part of every con- cession, but the single integer. The single idea was to give some new security in some form to slavery. That brilliant statesman, Mr. Canning, in one of those eloquent speeches which charm so much by the style, said that he was "tired of being a 'security grinder,' " but his experience was not comparable to ours. "Se- curity grinding," in the name of slavery, has been for years the way in which we have encountered this conspiracy.
I35
OF HOWARD COUNTY.
THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE.
The proposition of the last Congress began with the Presi- dent's message, which was in itself one long concession. You do not forget his sympathetic portraiture of the disaffection through- out the slave states or his testimony to the cause. Notoriously and shamefully his heart was with the conspirators, and he knew inti- mately the mainspring of their conduct. He proposed nothing short of a general surrender to slavery, and thus did he proclaim slavery as the head and front-the very causa causans of the whole crime.
You have not forgotten the Peace Conference-as it was delu- sively styled-convened at Washington, on the summons of Vir- ginia, with John Tyler in the chair, where New York, as well as Massachusetts, was represented by some of hier ablest and most honored citizens. The sessions were with closed doors; but it is now known that throughout the proceedings, lasting for weeks, nothing was discussed but slavery. And the propositions finally adopted by the convention were confined to slavery. Forbearing all details, it will be enough to say that they undertook to give to slavery positive protection in the Constitution, with new sanction and immunity, making it, notwithstanding the determination of our fathers, national instead of sectional; and even more than this, making it one of the essentials and permanent parts of our Repub- lican system.
But slavery is sometimes as deceptive as at other times it is bold; and these propositions were still further offensive from their studied uncertainty, amounting to positive duplicity.
At a moment when frankness was needed above all things, we were treated to phases pregnant with doubts and controversies, and were gravely asked, in the name of slavery, to embody them in the Constitution.
I36
MORROW'S HISTORY
There was another string of propositions, much discussed last winter, which bore the name of the venerable senator from whom they came-Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky. These also related to slavery, and nothing else. They were more obnoxious even than those from the Peace Conference. And yet there were petitioners from the North-and even from Massachusetts-who prayed for this great surrender to slavery.
Considering the character of these propositions-that they sought to change the Constitution in a manner revolting to the moral sense; to foist into the Constitution the idea of property in man; to protect slavery in all present territory south of thirty-six degrees, thirty minutes, and to carry it into all territory hereafter acquired south of that line, and thus to make our beautiful Stars and Stripes, in their southern march, the flag of slavery; consider- ing that they further sought to give new constitutional securities to slavery in the national Capital and in other places within the exclu- sive Federal jurisdiction; that they sought to give new constitu- tional securities to the transit of slaves from state to state, opening the way to a roll call of slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill or the gates of Faneuil Hall; and that they also sought the disfranchise- ment of more than ten thousand of my fellow citizens in Massa- chusetts, whose rights are fixed by the Constitution of that Com- monwealth, drawn by John Adams; considering these things I felt at the time, and I still feel, that the best apology of these petitioners was, that they were ignorant of the true character of these proposi- tions, and that in signing these petitions they knew not what they did. But even in their ignorance they testified to slavery, while the propositions were the familiar voice of slavery crying, 'Give. give.'"
I37
OF HOWARD COUNTY.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
As typifying the feelings of the more radical men on each side these quotations are given. Mr. Lovejoy, in the national house of representatives, said: "There never was a more causeless revolt since Lucifer led his cohorts of apostate angels against the throne of God; but I never heard that the Almighty proposed to com- promise the matter by allowing the rebels to kindle the fires of hell south of the celestial meridian of thirty-six thirty."
Mr. Wigfall, senator from Texas, said: "It is the merest balderdash-that is, what it is-it is the most unmitigated fudge for any one to get up here and tell men who have sense and who have brains, that there is any prospect of two-thirds of this Con- gress passing any propositions as an amendment to the Constitu- tion, that any man who is white, twenty-one years old, and whose hair is straight, living south of Mason and Dixon's line, will be content with."
The following extract from the Mobile Advertiser is but a fair reflection of much of the work of the Southern press to fire the hearts and minds of the Southern people against the North: "They may raise plenty of men ; men who prefer enlisting to starvation ; scurvy fellows from the back scum of cities, whom Falstaff would not have marched through Coventry with; but these recruits are not soldiers, least of all the soldiers to meet hot-blooded, thorough- bred. impetuous men of the South. Trencher soldiers, who enlisted to war on their rations, not on men, they are; such as marclied through Baltimore, squalid, wretched, ragged and half-naked, as the newspapers of that city report them. Fellows who do not know the breech of a musket from its muzzle, and had rather filch a hand- kerchief than fight an enemy in manly combat. White slaves, ped- dling wretches, small-change knaves and vagrants, the dregs and
138
MORROW'S HISTORY
offscouring of the populace; these are the levied forces whom Lin- coln suddenly arrays as candidates for the honor of being slaugh- tered by gentlemen-such as Mobile sent to battle yesterday. Let them come South and we will put our negroes to the dirty work of killing them. But they will not come South. Not a wretch of them will live this side of the border longer than it will take us to reach the ground and drive them over."
RULE OR RUIN POLICY.
There was a large element in the South in the beginning who were opposed to this rule and ruin policy, not only among the masses but many of the prominent leaders.
The Hon. A. H. Stephens, on the 14th of November, 1860, in the hall of the House of Representatives at Milledgeville, Georgia, made these patriotic remarks: "The first question that presents itself is, shall the people of the South secede from the Union in consequence of the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency of the United States ?
"My countrymen, I tell you frankly, candidly and earnestly that I do not think they ought. In my judgment the election of no man, constitutionally chosen to that high office, is sufficient cause for any state to separate from the Union. It ought to stand by and aid still in maintaining the Constitution of the country. To make a point of resistance to the Government, to withdraw from it, because a man has been constitutionally elected, puts us in the wrong. We are pledged to maintain the Constitution. Many of us have sworn to support it. Can we, therefore, for the mere elec- tion of a man to the Presidency, and that, too, in accordance with the prescribed forms of the Constitution, make a point of resist- ance to the government without becoming breakers of that sacred instrument ourselves ?
139
OF HOWARD COUNTY.
"But that this government of our fathers, with all its defects, comes nearer the objects of all good governments than any other on the face of the earth, is my settled conviction. Contrast it now with any other on the face of the earth. ('England,' said Mr. Toombs.) England, my friend says. Well, that is next best, I grant ; but I think we have improved upon England. Statesmen tried their apprentice hand on the government of England and then ours was made. Ours sprung from that, avoiding many of its defects, taking most of the good, and leaving out many of its errors, and, from the whole, constructing and building up this model Republic-the best which the history of the world gives any account of. Where will you go, following the sun in its circuit around the globe, to find a government that better protects the liberties of the people and secures to them the blessings we enjoy? I think one of the evils that beset us is a surfeit of liberty, an exuberance of the priceless blessings for which we are ungrateful.
"I look upon this country, with our institutions, as the Eden of the world-the paradise of the universe. It may be that out of it we may become greater and more prosperous ; but I am candid and sincere in telling you, that I fear, if we rashly evince passion, and without sufficient cause shall take that step, that, instead of becoming greater or more peaceful, prosperous and happy, instead of becoming gods, we will become demons, and at no distant day commence cutting one another's throats."
This speech was received with great applause.
SECESSION AND DISUNION.
Secession and disunion were sweeping over the South like a tidal wave and within three months the author of this patriotic address accepted the vice-presidency of the Southern Confederacy,
I.40
MORROW'S HISTORY
and on the 21st of March, 1861, he made this declaration: "The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution-African slavery as it exists among us-the proper status of the negro in our form of civiliza- tion. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and pres- ent revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this as the rock on which the old Union would split. He was right.
"What was conjecture with him is now realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which the rock stood and stands may be doubted.
"The prevailing idea entertained by him and most of the lead- ing statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution was that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically.
"These ideas were, however, fundamentally wrong. They rested, however, upon the assumption of the equality of the races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation and the idea of a government built upon it, when the storm came and the wind blew it fell. Our new government is founded upon exactly the oppo- site ideas. Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truths, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. Thus our new government is the first in the history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical and moral truth.
"Our Confederacy is founded upon principles in strict con- formity with these laws.
"This stone, which was rejected by the first builders, is become the chief cornerstone in our new edifice."
141
OF HOWARD COUNTY.
1 .
PUBLIC SENTIMENT IN HOWARD.
The cause of the war of the Rebellion and the public sentiments in relation to it have thus been set forth at some length as explain- ing most fully the division of sentiment in Howard county at the beginning and throughout that war.
If there were any at all who really wished the Confederates to win and the Union destroyed they were few indeed. The citizenship of the county were practically unanimous in wishing the Union preserved.
They differed as to methods and policies. The Republicans believed that the Southern states were in rebellion because they were victors in the national election, having elected Lincoln Presi- dent. For that reason they had a personal interest in putting down the rebellion ; they also were in direct opposition to the slave- holders on the slavery question, and because of these antagonisms the feelings between them was hot and bitter, and being largely in the majority in the county, the war sentiment was overwhelmingly in the majority.
These made the same mistake the Southerners had made in underestimating the fighting powers of their opponents. Many of them declared that it would only be a before-breakfast job to put down the rebellion.
Those who had supported Douglas for President were for peace first and war only as the last resort. Their forecast of the impending struggle was more nearly correct than either of the others ; they foresaw that it would be long and bloody and would end only when one side was completely exhausted. They, too, con- sidered slavery the sole issue to wage war for and they did not consider this of such paramount importance to justify a long, bloody and exhaustive war, and so they urged a peaceable settlement if pos- sible. They urged both sides to make concessions in the interests
142
MORROW'S HISTORY
of peace and to cultivate a spirit of friendship rather than hostility. While the war was going on, they urged that every opportunity for concluding an honorable peace with a reunited country be used. At no time did they consent to a dissolution of our Union.
Because of the highly wrought up feelings of all of the people, there was more or less friction between the war and the peace ele- ments and many unkind and unjust things were said and done. Dr. Lewis Kern, in April, 1861, came near being mobbed on the streets of Kokomo, a victim of this excited condition of the public mind because of some alleged saying imputed to him reflecting on the war spirit of the times.
But when Fort Sumpter was fired on and the flag went down in surrender to the rebels, their differences were forgotten and the followers of Douglas followed their leader in offering themselves for service for their country and the Union. It is true that in the Congressional elections of 1862 and the national election of 1864 that party lines were clearly drawn, and the Democrats representing the peace party polled a large vote. They clung tenaciously and fondly to the delusive hope that the people of the South could be induced to lay down their rebellious arms and return to their alle- giance to the Union by making certain guarantees respecting their negro slaves. After more than forty years have passed and time has cleared up all things we are constrained to wonder how those people could so elude themselves. We must remember, however, that the mists of partisan prejudice were all about them and their vision was not clear.
LINCOLN TO THE KENTUCKIANS.
They were wholly ignorant of the feeling and purposes of the Southern leaders; they thought that if Lincoln and his party
I43
OF HOWARD COUNTY.
friends would give guarantees that negro slavery would not be interfered with in the South; that the trouble would end. And yet they had no reason for believing this. Lincoln himself had made this clear. In a speech at Cincinnati, when on his way to Wash- ington for the first inauguration, addressing directly a party of Kenutckians, he said, "You perhaps want to know what we will do with you. I will tell you so far as I am authorized to speak for the opposition. We mean to treat you, as nearly as possible, as Washington, Jefferson and Madison treated you. We mean to leave you alone, and in no way to interfere with your institutions ; to abide by all and every compromise of the Constitution. We mean to remember that you are as good as we; that there is no difference between us other than the difference of circumstances. We mean to recognize and bear in mind always that you have as good hearts in your bosoms as other people, or as we claim to have, and treat you accordingly."
In the same journey, at Philadelphia, he said, "I have often inquired of myself what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the colonies from the motherland; but that senti- ment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but I hope to the world for all future time. It was that which gave promise that, in due time. the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men. This was a sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence.
"Now, my friends, can this country be saved on this basis? If it can I shall consider myself one of the happiest men in the world if I can help save it. If it cannot be saved on that principle, it will be truly awful.
"But if this country can not be saved without giving up that principle, I was about to say, I would rather be assassinated on this
144
MORROW'S HISTORY
spot than surrender it. Now in my view of the present aspect of affairs, there is no need of bloodshed or war. There is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such a course, and I may say, in advance, that there will be no bloodshed unless it be forced upon the govern- ment, and then it will be compelled to act in self-defense."
The fairmindedness of Lincoln is shown in the following extract from a speech delivered at Peoria, Illinois, a short time before :
"I think that I have no prejudice against the Southern people. If slavery did not now exist among them they would not intro- duce it. If it did now exist among us we would not instantly give it up. This I believe of the masses North and South. Doubtless there are individuals, on both sides, who would not hold slaves under any circumstances; and others who would gladly introduce slavery anew, if it were out of existence. We know that some Southern men do free their slaves, go North and become tip-top abolitionists ; while some Northern men go South and become most cruel slave-masters."
Mr. Lincoln closed his first inaugural address with these words : "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without yourselves being the aggressors.
"You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the gov- ernment : while I shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve, pro- tect and defend it.' I am loath to close. We are not enemies but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bond of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle field and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land. will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
145
OF HOWARD COUNTY.
In view of the developments of the past forty-eight years and the light we now have it may be confidently asserted that the real questions and conditions of the country at the beginning of the Civil war were not fully realized and understood by any of the parties then existing. The slavery question was treated and con- sidered the sole question in controversy and as the whole cause of the disruption of the Union. The real cause seems rather to have been a condition growing out of slavery.
VIEWS OF SLAVE-HOLDERS.
The slave-holders, accustomed for generations to having col- ored servants to wait upon them and to do all their various kinds of labor, had come to look upon labor as degrading and to con- sider themselves as socially above the laboring classes. A slave- holding aristocracy had grown up in our country. They had become proud and domineering, and were wholly out of sympathy with the spirit of a free people. The poor whites of the South were ostracised by them and considered by them as little better than the negroes.
Senator Toombs gave expression to this aristocratic feeling when he said to Stephens that England was a better government than ours. He had in mind their lords and titled nobilities.
It was the design of the rebels to overthrow our free institu- tions and to introduce in their stead the reign of slavery. Capital was to own labor. The industrial classes were to be slaves kept in ignorance. The privileged class were to live in indolence and luxury, maintained by the toil of their unpaid serfs.
It was really the old, old problem of the privileged few and the toiling masses being solved again in a new form.
It is said of the Austrian Prince Metternick that, standing IO
146
MORROW'S HISTORY
upon the balcony of his beautiful palace overlooking the Rhine and looking out upon his vineyards filled with men and women per- forming feudal service for their lord, he exclaimed to the brilliant company about him, "Behold the true philosophy of society-gen- tlemen in the palace, laborers in the field, with an impassable gulf between."
That was the philosophy of society that appealed to the slave- holders of the South and the real cause of the rebellion. It is a matter of great wonder that such a gigantic struggle could have been precipitated by so few persons. The whole number of slave- holders in the South did not probably exceed three hundred thou- sand.
Not more than one hundred thousand possessed any consider- able number of slaves. And yet this petty oligarch, entirely subor- dinate to a few leading minds, organized the most gigantic rebel- lion which ever shook the globe. Senator Sumner has said, "The future historian will record that the present rebellion, notwithstand- ing its protracted origin, the multitude it has enlisted, and its exten- sive sweep, was at last precipitated by fewer than twenty men: Mr. Everett says by as few as ten."
PEACE PARTY FAILS.
Notwithstanding the efforts of the peace party of the North to stay the oncoming struggle; notwithstanding Mr. Lincoln's con- ciliatory declarations, the Southern leaders went industriously on in getting ready for the struggle. They planned to precipitate a riot in Baltimore while Mr. Lincoln was passing through and to assassinate him, and had planned a way for the assassin to escape.
Detectives discovered the plot and notified Mr. Lincoln at Phil- adelphia of it. He went on to Harrisburg, as he had planned : but
147
OF HOWARD COUNTY.
at nightfall he stole out with a few friends, took a special train to Baltimore, was transferred from one depot to another unobserved, and was in Washington ahead of time and unannounced. General Scott and Secretary of War Holt took active measures to secure Mr. Lincoln's safety in Washington.
On the morning of April 12th, the rebel batteries opened fire on Fort Sumter, and on the following day the garrison was forced to surrender.
The effect of the bombardment and capture of Fort Sumpter on the North was electrical. As the news of the insult to the national flag, of the battle and the capture of the fort by the rebels, was flashed along the wires, excitement, perhaps unparalleled in the history of the world, pervaded every city and hamlet and almost every heart. All party distinctions seemed to be forgotten. There were only two parties-patriots and traitors. The feeling in How- ard county was intense. The people, in their anxiety for the war news, engaged all the papers of the newsdealers before they arrived and besieged the newsboys on the trains for the daily papers, and often the supply was exhausted before all were supplied.
The writer of this was the newsboy of the rural community in which he lived almost the entire period of the Civil war, and through storm and shine daily he went to the nearest station for the papers. Interest in the war news from the many battlefields of the South never flagged.
NEWS OF FORT SUMPTER.
In speaking of the fall of Fort Sumpter the Tribune said, "Let all old party lines be obliterated and all angry words of other days be forgotten. These are not times in which to remember former difficulties. A dark cloud hangs over the country. All the world
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.