The Life of Abraham Lincoln (Arnold)/Chapter XIII

by Isaac N. Arnold

The Thirty-seventh Congress convened in an extra and called session, on the 4th of July, 1861. The Thirty-sixth Congress had expired on the 4th of March, without making any provision to meet the impending dangers. It devolved upon this, the Thirty-seventh, to sanction what the President had been compelled to do, and to clothe him with extraordinary war powers, and under his lead to call into the field, and to provide for, those vast armies whose campaigns were to extend over half the continent. It was for this Congress to create and maintain that system of finance, which without the aid of foreign loans, carried the republic triumphantly through the most stupendous war of modern times, and which, in the "green-back" currency, still survives.

Hannibal Hamlin, Vice-President, presided in the Senate; Galusha A. Grow, of Pennsylvania, was elected Speaker, and Emerson Etheridge, of Tennessee, Clerk of the House. In the Senate, only twenty-three, and in the House twenty-two states were represented. No representatives in either appeared from North or South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, or Arkansas. No senators, and only two members of the House, appeared from Virginia. Andrew Johnson, from his mountain home in Tennessee, "faithful among the faithless," alone represented Tennessee in the Senate, and at the second session, Horace Maynard and Andrew J. Clements appeared, and took their seats in the House.

Among the more prominent senators of New England, and men who had already secured a national reputation, were Fessenden and Morrill, of Maine; Hale, of New Hampshire; Sumner and Wilson, of Massachusetts; Collamer and Foot, of Vermont, and Anthony, of Rhode Island. New York was represented by Preston King and Ira Harris.

Mr. Hale, from New Hampshire, had been the leader of the old "liberty party." "Solitary and alone" in the United States Senate, by his wit and humor, his readiness and ability, he had maintained his position against the whole senatorial delegation of the slave states, and their numerous allies from the free states. From Vermont came the dignified, urbane, and somewhat formal Solomon Foot; his colleague, Jacob Collamer, was a gentleman of the old school, who had been a member of cabinets, and was one of the wisest jurists and statesmen of our country. Preston King had been the friend and confidant of Martin Van Buren, Silas Wright, and Thomas H. Benton, and a leader at the Buffalo convention; genial, true, and devoted to the principles of democracy. From Pennsylvania there was David Wilmot, who while a member of the House, had introduced the "Wilmot proviso," which connects his name forever with the anti-slavery contest.

The senators from Ohio were John Sherman, a brother of General Sherman, and late a distinguished Speaker of the House of Representatives and Chairman of the Committee on Finance, and Benjamin Wade, staunch, rude, earnest, and true. From Illinois, came Lyman Trumbull and Orville H. Browning, both distinguished lawyers and competitors at the bar with Douglas and Lincoln. From Iowa, Senators Grimes and Harlan; from Wisconsin, Doolittle and Howe; from Michigan, Bingham and Chandler; from Indiana, Jesse D. Bright and Henry S. Lane, the latter of whom had presided over the Philadelphia convention of 1856.

The House of Representatives of this memorable Congress was composed in the main of men of good sense, respectable abilities, and earnest patriotism. It well represented the intelligence, integrity, and devotion to their country of the American people. The leader of the House, as Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, was Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvania; although a man of nearly three score years and ten, he combined with large experience, the vigor and the energy of thirty-five. He was the most sarcastic and witty, as well as the most eccentric member of the House. Respected, and somewhat feared, alike by friend and foe, few desired a second encounter with him in the forensic war of debate. If he did not demolish with an argument or crush with his logic, he could silence with an epigram or a sarcasm. Ready, adroit, and sagacious, as well as bold and frank, he exerted a large influence upon legislation. He was a bitter and uncompromising party chief, and better adapted to lead an opposition, than to conduct and control a majority.

In the New York delegation was Roscoe Conkling, already distinguished for his eloquence and ability, Charles B. Sedgwick, Chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs, and E. G. Spaulding and Erastus Corning, leading members of the Committee of Ways and Means. From Ohio were Pendleton, Vallandigham, and Cox, leaders of the remnant of the democratic party, and among the republicans was John A. Bingham, one of the most ready and effective debaters on the floor. Schuyler Colfax, from Indiana, a rising member, was then serving his fourth term. He was industrious and genial, with great tact and good sense. Differing from his political opponents, he did not rouse their anger by strong statements, or harsh language, and he was popular on both sides of the House. Illinois was represented by Washburne, Lovejoy, Kellogg, and Arnold, republicans; while among the friends of Douglas were Richardson, McClernand, Fouke, and Logan, and these generally supported the war measures of the administration. They had followed the lead of Douglas; and McClernand, Fouke, and Logan entered the Union army, and, especially Logan, did good service as soldiers during the war.

But many vacant chairs in the House and the Senate, indicated the extent of the defection, the gravity of the situation, and the magnitude of the impending struggle. The old pro-slavery leaders were absent, some in the rebel government set up at Richmond, and others in the field, marshalling their troops in arms against their country. The chair of the late senator, now the rebel President, Jefferson Davis, those of the blustering and fiery Bob Toombs, of the accomplished Hunter, of the polished and learned Jew from Louisiana, Judah P. Benjamin, of the haughty and pretentious Mason, of the crafty and unscrupulous Slidell, and of their compeers, who had been accustomed to domineer over the Senate, were all vacant.

The seat of Douglas, the ambitious and able senator from Illinois, had been vacated, not by treason, but by death. Life-long opponents, recalling his last patriotic words spoken at Springfield, and in Chicago, gazed sadly on that unoccupied seat, now draped in black. Well had it been for John C. Breckenridge, lately the competitor of Douglas, if his chair also had been made vacant by his early death. But still conspicuous among the senators was the late Vice-President, now the senator from Kentucky. His fellow traitors from the slave states had all gone. He alone lingered, shunned, and distrusted by all loyal men, and treated with the most freezing and formal courtesy, by his associates. Dark and lowering, he could be daily seen in his carriage--always alone--driving to the Senate chamber, where his voice and his votes were always given to thwart the war measures of the government. It was obvious that his heart was with his old associates at Richmond. As soon as the session closed, he threw off all disguise, and joined the army of the insurgents. While at Washington, gloomy, and it may be sorrowful, he said: "We can only look with sadness on the melancholy drama that is being enacted."

Hostile armies were gathering and confronting each other, and from the dome of the Capitol, on the distant hills beyond Arlington, and on towards Fairfax Court House, could be seen the rebel flag. President Lincoln, in his message to this Congress, calmly reviewed the situation. He called attention to the fact that at his inauguration the functions of the Federal Government had been suspended in the states of Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Florida. All the national property in these states had been appropriated by the insurgents. They had seized all the forts, arsenals, etc., excepting those on the Florida coast, and Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor, and these were then in a state of siege by the rebel forces. The national arms had been seized, and were in the hands of the hostile armies. A large number of the officers of the United States army and navy, had resigned and taken up arms against their government. He reviewed the facts in relation to Fort Sumter, and showed that by the attack upon it, the insurgents began the conflict of arms, thus forcing upon the country immediate dissolution, or war. No choice remained but to call into action the war powers of the government, and to resist the force employed for its destruction, by force, for its preservation. The call for troops was made, and the response was most gratifying. Yet no slave state, except Delaware, had given a regiment through state organization. He then reviewed the action of Virginia, including the seizure of the national armory at Harper's Ferry, and the navyyard at Gosport, near Norfolk. The people of Virginia had permitted the insurrection to make its nest within her borders, and left the government no choice but to deal with it where it found it. He then reviewed the action of the government, the calls for troops, the blockade of the ports in the rebellious states, and the suspension of the habeas corpus. He asked Congress to confer upon him the power to make the conflict short and decisive. He asked to have placed at his disposal four hundred thousand men, and four hundred millions of money. Congress responded promptly to the message of the President, and voted five hundred thousand men, and five hundred millions of dollars, to suppress the rebellion.

As an illustration of those days and debates, let us recall an incident which occurred in the Senate, on the first of August, a few days after the battle of Bull Run. Senator Baker, of Oregon, Lincoln's old friend and competitor, and his successor in Congress from the Springfield district, was making a brilliant and impassioned reply to a speech of Breckenridge. Charles Sumner, speaking of this, and alluding to Breckenridge, said: "A senator with treason in his heart, if not on his lips, has just taken his seat." Baker, who had entered the chamber direct from his camp, rose at once to reply.^[1] His rebuke of the disloyal sentiments of Breckenridge was severe, and in the highest degree dramatic, and worthy of the best days of that Roman eloquence to which he alluded.

"What" said he, "would the senator from Kentucky have? These speeches of his, sown broadcast over the land; what clear, distinct meaning have they? Are they not intended for disorganization in our very midst? Are they not intended to destroy our zeal? Are they not intended to animate our enemies? Sir, are they not words of brilliant, polished treason; even in the very Capitol of the republic? What would have been thought, if, in another Capitol, in another republic, in a yet more martial age, a senator as grave, not more eloquent or dignified than the senator from Kentucky, yet with the Roman purple flowing over his shoulders, had risen in his place, surrounded by all the emblems of Roman glory, and declared that the cause of the advancing Hannibal was just, and that Carthage ought to be dealt with in terms of peace? What would have been thought, if after the battle of Cannæ, a senator there had risen in his place, and denounced every levy of the Roman people, every expenditure of its treasure, and every appeal to the old recollections, and the old glories?"

There was a silence so profound throughout the Senate and galleries, that a pinfall could have been heard; while every eye was fixed upon Breckenridge. Fessenden exclaimed, in deep, low tones: "He would have been hurled from the Tarpeian rock." Baker then resumed:

"Sir, a senator, himself learned far more than myself in such lore (Mr. Fessenden), tells me, in a voice I am glad is audible, that 'he would have been hurled from the Tarpeian rock.' It is a grand commentary upon the American Constitution, that we permit these words of the senator from Kentucky to be uttered. I ask the senator to recollect, too, what, save to send aid and comfort to the enemy, do these predictions amount to? Every word thus uttered falls as a note of inspiration upon every Confederate ear."

Baker was the man, brilliant alike as an orator and a soldier, of whom Sumner happily said: "He was the Prince Rupert of debate, and if he had lived, would have become the Prince Rupert of battle." It was he who, on the prairies of Illinois, had contested the palm of eloquence with Lincoln and Douglas, who had gone to California and pronounced the memorable oration over Senator Broderic, and who, going thence to Oregon, came to Washington as senator from that state.

Andrew Johnson, in reply to Breckenridge, on the 27th of July, quoted the remark: "When traitors become numerous enough, treason becomes respectable. Yet," said he, "God willing, whether traitors be many or few, as I have heretofore waged war against traitors and treason, I intend to continue to the end."^[2] His denunciation of Jefferson Davis was vehement and impassioned. He said: "Davis, a man educated and nurtured by the government, who sucked its pap, who received from it all his military instruction, a man who got all his distinction, civil and military, in the service of the government, beneath its flag, and then without cause, without being deprived of a single right or privilege, the sword he unsheathed in vindication of the stars and stripes in a foreign land, given to him by the hand of a cherishing mother, he stands this day prepared to plunge into her bosom."^[3]

Senator Fessenden, Chairman of the Committee on Finance, and the successor of Mr. Chase as Secretary of the Treasury, was a very able and learned New England senator. Ever ready, well informed, keen, witty, and sarcastic, as a general debater he had no superior.

At this its first session, Congress inaugurated that series of measures against slavery, which, in connection with the action of the President and the victories of the Union soldiers, resulted in its destruction. Among its members, known distinctly as an abolitionist, was Owen Lovejoy; a man, as has been stated, of powerful frame, strong feelings, and great personal magnetism as a speaker. In February, 1859, during his first term in Congress, in reply to the furious denunciations of the slaveholders, which charged among other things, that he was a "nigger stealer," he indignantly and defiantly exclaimed:

"Yes, I do assist fugitives to escape. Proclaim it upon the housetops; write it upon every leaf that trembles in the forest; make it blaze from the sun at high noon, and shine forth in the radiance of every star that bedecks the firmament of God. Let it echo through all the arches of heaven, and reverberate and bellow through all the deep gorges of hell, where slavecatchers will be very likely to hear it. Owen Lovejoy lives at Princeton, Illinois, and he aids every fugitive that comes to his door and asks it. Thou invisible demon of slavery! Dost thou think to cross my humble threshold, and forbid me to give bread to the hungry and shelter to the homeless? I bid you defiance in the name of God."^[4]

On the 6th of August, a bill introduced by Senator Trumbull, giving freedom to all slaves used by the rebels in carrying on the war became a law. It was vehemently opposed by Breckenridge and other democratic members, as an interference with the rights of the slaveholders, but those who voted for the bill, justified their votes on the ground that in the battle of Bull Run and other engagements, the rebels used their negroes and slaves, not only in constructing fortifications, but in battle against the Union forces. Burnett, of Kentucky, declared that the bill would result in a wholesale emancipation of slaves in the states in rebellion, and some one replied: "If it does, so much the better." Thaddeus Stevens then said: "I warn Southern gentlemen, that if this war continues, there will be a time when it will be declared by this free nation, that every bondman in the South, belonging to a rebel (recollect, I confine it to them), shall be called upon to aid us in war against their masters, and to restore the Union."

From the beginning of the contest, the slaves flocked to the Union army, as to a haven of refuge. They believed freedom was to be found within its picket lines and under the shelter of its flag. They were ready to act as guides, to dig, to work, to fight for liberty. The Yankees, as their masters called the Union troops, were believed by them to come as their deliverers from long and cruel bondage. And yet, almost incredible as it may now seem, many officers permitted masters and agents to enter their lines, and carry away by force these fugitive slaves. Many cruelties and outrages were perpetrated by these masters, and in many instances, the colored men who had rendered valuable service to the Union cause, were permitted to be carried from beneath the flag of the Union back to bondage.

Lovejoy was most indignant at this stupid and inhuman treatment, and early in the special session, introduced a resolution declaring that it was no part of the duty of the soldiers of the United States, to capture and return fugitive slaves. This passed the House by a very large majority, the vote being ninety-three to fifty-nine.

While the President, by his moderation, was seeking to hold the border states, and while his measures were severely criticized by many extreme abolitionists, he enjoyed, to the fullest extent, the confidence of Lovejoy and other radical members from Illinois. This old and ultra abolitionist perfectly understood and appreciated the motives of the Executive. On the death of Lovejoy, in 1864, Lincoln said: "Throughout my heavy and perplexing responsibilities here (at Washington), to the day of his death, it would scarcely wrong any other to say: he was my most generous friend."^[5]

There were, in the border states, many Union men who desired to maintain the Union, and who wished also, that there should be no interference with slavery. These, with the small band of anti-slavery men in Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, had rendered efficient aid in preventing those states from seceding. Their representative man in Congress was the aged, venerable, and eloquent John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky. He had been the confidential friend and colleague of Clay, and had never faltered in his loyalty to the Union. He had been conspicuous in the Thirty-sixth Congress, in attempting to bring about terms of compromise to prevent the threatened war.

On the 15th of July, on motion of General John A. McClernand, the House, by a vote of one hundred and twenty-one to five, adopted a resolution pledging itself to vote any amount of money and any number of men which might be necessary, to ensure a speedy and effectual suppression of the rebellion.

On the 22d of July, 1861, Mr. Crittenden offered the following resolution, defining the object of the war:

Resolved, That the present deplorable civil war has been forced upon the country by the disunionists of the Southern states, now in revolt against the constitutional government, and in arms around the capital; that, in this national emergency, Congress, banishing all feeling of mere passion or resentment, will recollect only its duty to the whole country; that this war is not waged, upon our part, in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest, or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those states; but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several states unimpaired; that as soon as these objects are accomplished, the war ought to cease."^[6]

This resolution was adopted by the House, there being only two dissenting votes. It served to allay the apprehension of the border states, whose sensitiveness had been excited by the agents and abettors of the rebellion.

Congress, after long debate, sanctioned the acts of the President, and, as has been stated, voted more men and money than he had in his message called for. Among the speeches made at this special session, one of the ablest was that of Senator Baker, whose effective reply to Breckenridge has already been noticed. His speech on the resolutions approving the acts of the President, was distinguished for its eloquence, its boldness, and its almost prophetic sagacity. He said;

"I am one of those who believe that there may be reverses. I am not quite confident that we shall overrun the Southern states, as we shall have to overrun them, without severe trials of our courage and patience. I believe they are a brave, determined people filled with enthusiasm, false in its purpose as I think, but still one which animates almost all classes of their population. But however that may be, it may be that instead of finding within a year loyal states sending members to Congress, and replacing their senators upon this floor, we may have to reduce them to the condition of territories, and send from Massachusetts, or from Illinois, governors to control them."^[7]

The military situation was substantially as follows: The Union troops held Fortress Monroe and vicinity, and thus guarded Baltimore and the approaches to Washington; a force under command of George B. McClellan, was driving the rebels out of West Virginia. The Confederates, under Beauregard, confronted the Union army near Washington, holding a position along Bull Run creek, their right at Manassas, and left at Winchester, under Johnston. The people of the North, confident, sanguine, and impatient of delay, through an excited press, urged an immediate attack by the Union troops, and the army, under General McDowell, started on the 16th of July, and on the 21st attacked the enemy. The attack seemed well planned and was at first successful, but re-enforcements under the rebel General Johnston reaching the field at the crisis of the battle, General Patterson, of the Union army, neither holding Johnston in check, nor coming up in time, the Union troops were repulsed, a panic seized them, and they fled towards Washington in great confusion.

The disaster of Bull Run mortified the national pride, but aroused also the national spirit and courage. The morning following the defeat witnessed dispatches flashing over the wires to every part of the North, authorizing the reception of the eager regiments ready to enter the service and retrieve the results of the battle. The administration and the people, immediately upon learning of this defeat, set themselves vigorously to increase and reorganize the army. Grave and thoughtful men left their private pursuits, organized regiments, and offered them to the government. None were now refused. The popular feeling throughout the loyal states again rose to a height even greater than it did at the time of the attack upon Fort Sumter.

Expeditions were organized and sent to the South, and Fort Hatteras was surrendered to the Union troops on the 28th of August. On the 31st of October, Port Royal came into the possession of the Union army. The rebels were driven out of West Virginia, and General George B. McClellan, who had been in command there, and who was believed at the time to possess military ability of a high order, was called to command the armies, again gathering in vast numbers around the capital. In October, General Scott retired on account of age and infirmity, and General McClellan was appointed to the command.

When the war began, John C. Fremont was in Paris. He immediately returned home, was appointed a Major General, and given command of the Western Department, embracing Missouri and a part of Kentucky. On the 30th of August, he issued an order declaring martial law throughout Missouri, confiscating the property of rebels, and saying: "Their slaves, if any they have, are hereby declared free men."^[8]

This grave act was done without consulting the President, and severely embarrassed the Executive in the efforts he was making to retain Maryland, Kentucky, and other border states, in the Union. It was received with the greatest alarm and consternation by the Union men of these states.^[9] The President, on the 2d of September, wrote to Fremont, saying: "There is great danger... The confiscation of property and liberating slaves will alarm our Southern Union friends, and turn them against us, perhaps ruin our fair prospect for Kentucky."^[10]

He asked Fremont to modify his order so as to conform to the act of Congress lately passed on that subject. General Fremont replied, excusing and justifying his acts, and requesting the President himself to modify the order, which the President did, issuing an order himself, altering that of Fremont so that it should conform to and not "transcend" the act of Congress.

The reason for this modification, and also for his action with reference to the suggestions of the Secretary of War, Cameron, as to arming the negroes, and with reference to the emancipation order of General David Hunter, appear in a letter dated April 4th, 1864. in which he says:

When, early in the war, General Fremont attempted military emancipation, I forbade it, because I did not think it an indispensable necessity. When, a little later, General Cameron, then Secretary of War, suggested the arming of the blacks, I objected, because I did not think it an indispensable necessity. When, still later, General Hunter attempted military emancipation, I again forbade it, because I did not yet think the indispensable necessity had come. When, in March, and May, and July, 1862, I made earnest and successive appeals to the border states, to favor compensated emancipation, I believed the indispensable necessity for military emancipation, and arming the blacks, would come, unless averted by that measure. They declined the proposition, and I was, in my best judgment, driven to the alternative of either surrendering the Union, and with it the Constitution, or of laying strong hands upon the colored element. I chose the latter. In choosing it, I hoped for greater gain than loss, but of this I was not entirely confident. More than a year of trial now shows no loss by it in our foreign relations, none in our home popular sentiment, none in our white military force--no loss by it anyhow, or anywhere. On the contrary, it shows a gain of quite an hundred and thirty thousand soldiers, seamen and laborers. These are palpable facts, about which, as facts, there can be no caviling. We have the men, and we could not have had them without the measure.^[11]

The President for a time adhered firmly, and against the earnest remonstrance of many friends, to what was called the border state policy.

Military preparations on a large scale were going on. McClellan, who had, on the resignation of General Scott, been appointed commander in chief, had organized an immense army, which was encamped around Washington. On the 21st of October occurred the fight at Ball's Bluff, at which Colonel Baker, the senator from Oregon, fell, pierced by a volley of bullets. In September, 1861, information was communicated to the government that the Legislature of Maryland was to meet, with a view of passing an act of secession. General McClellan was directed to prevent this by the arrest of the members. His order to General Banks, dated September 12th, 1861, says, among other things: "When they meet on the 17th, you will please have everything prepared to arrest the whole party, and be sure that none escape... If successfully carried out, it will go far towards breaking the backbone of the rebellion... I have but one thing to impress upon you, the absolute necessity of secresy and success."^[12]

This act has been censured as an arbitrary arrest. However arbitrary, it was a military measure of great importance, and in the propriety of which General McClellan fully coincided. Governor Hicks said in the Senate of the United States: "I believe that arrests, and arrests alone, saved the state of Maryland from destruction. I approved them then, and I approve them now."

On the 8th of November, Commodore Wilkes, in the San Jacinto, intercepted the Trent, a British mail steamer from Havana, with Messrs. Mason and Slidell, late senators, and then rebel agents, on their way to represent the Confederacy at the courts of St. James and St. Cloud. He took them prisoners, and bringing them to the United States, they were confined at Fort Warren, in Boston harbor. There were few acts in the life of Lincoln more characteristic, indicating a higher and firmer courage and independence, together with the exercise of a cool, dispassionate judgment, than the release of Mason and Slidell. No act of the British Government, since the days of the Revolution, ever excited such an intense feeling of hostility, as her haughty demand for the release of these rebels. The people had already been exasperated by her hasty recognition of the Confederates as belligerents, and the seizure by Captain Wilkes of these emissaries, gratified popular passion and pride. On the first day of the session of Congress, after intelligence of the seizure reached Washington, Lovejoy, by unanimous consent, introduced a resolution of thanks to Captain Wilkes, which, with blind impetuosity, was rushed through under the call of the previous question.

The position of the President was rendered still more embarrassing by the hasty and ill-considered action of members of his Cabinet. The Secretary of the Navy wrote to Wilkes a letter of congratulation on the "great public service" he had rendered in "capturing the rebel emissaries Mason and Slidell."^[13] Stanton cheered and applauded the act. The Secretary of State was at first opposed to any concession or the surrender of the prisoners.^[14] The people were ready to rush "pell mell" into a war with England. The Confederates were rejoicing at the capture, as the means of bringing the English navy and armies to their aid. But Lincoln, cool, sagacious, and far-seeing, uninfluenced by resentment, with courage and a confidence in the deliberate judgment of the country never exceeded, stepped in front of an exasperated people, told them to pause and "to forbear." "We fought Great Britain," said he, "for doing just what Captain Wilkes has done. If Great Britain protests against this act and demands their release, we must adhere to our principles of 1812. We must give up these prisoners. Besides," said he significantly, "one war at a time." It is scarcely too much to say that his firmness and courage saved the republic from a war with England.

Had the President, yielding to popular clamor, accepted the challenge of Great Britain and gone to war, he would have done exactly what the rebels desired, and would have thus made Mason and Slidell incomparably more useful to the Confederates than they were after their surrender, and while hanging around the back doors of the Courts to which they were sent, but at which they were never received. No one can calculate the results which would have followed upon a refusal to surrender these men. The sober second thought of the people recognized the wise statesmanship of the President. The Secretary of State, with his facile pen, made an able argument sustaining the views of the President. No instance in which Lincoln ever acted from private resentment towards any individual, or nation, can be found. Towards individuals who had injured him, he was ever magnanimous, and often more than just; and towards nations, no more striking illustration of his dignified disregard of personal insult and injustice could be found than that furnished by his conduct towards England at this time. He was not insensible of the personal insults and injuries heaped upon him in England, but he was too great to be to any extent influenced by them. It required nerve and moral courage to stem the tide of popular feeling, but he did not for a moment hesitate. And when the excitement of the hour had passed, his conduct was universally approved. Lovejoy's speech in Congress illustrates the hatred and excitement which the conduct of Great Britain produced.^[15]

Footnotes

1. Congressional Globe, Dec. 11, 1861.
2. Congressional Globe, July 27, 1861, p. 291.
3. See Congressional Globe.
4. At the May term, 1842, of the Bureau County Circuit Court, Richard M. Young, presiding; Norman H. Purple, Prosecuting Attorney pro tem.; the grand jury returned a "true bill" against Owen Lovejoy (then lately a preacher of the Gospel), for that "a certain negro girl named Agnes, then and there being a fugitive slave, he, the said Lovejoy, knowing her to be such, did harbor, feed, secrete, and clothe," contrary to the statute, etc., and the grand jurors did further present, "that the said Lovejoy, a certain fugitive slave called Nance, did harbor, feed, and aid," contrary to the statute, etc. At the October term, 1842, the Hon. John Dean Caton, a Justice of the Supreme Court, presiding, the case came up for trial, on the plea of not guilty. Judge Purple, and B.F. Fridley, State's Attorney for the people, and James H. Collins, and Lovejoy in person, for the defense. The trial lasted nearly a week, and Lovejoy and Collins fought the case with a vigor and boldness almost without a parallel. The prosecution was urged by the enemies of Lovejoy, with an energy and vindictiveness with which Purple and Fridley could have had little sympathy. When the case was called for trial, a strong pro-slavery man, one of those by whom the indictment had been procured, said to the State's Attorney:
   
   "Fridley, we want you to be sure and convict this preacher, and send him to prison."
   
   "Prison! Lovejoy to prison!" replied Fridley, "your persecutions will be a damned sight more likely to send him to Congress."
   
   Fridley was right. Lovejoy was acquitted, and very soon after elected to the State Legislature, and then to Congress, where, as all know, he was soon heard by the whole country.
5. Letter from Lincoln to John H. Bryant, dated May 30, 1864.
6. See Congressional Globe, July 22, 1861, p. 223.
7. Congressional Globe, July 10th, 1861, pp. 44-45.
8. McPherson's History of the Rebellion, p. 246.
9. See Protest of Joseph Holt and other Union men of Kentucky.
10. See McPherson's History of the Rebellion, pp. 246-247.
11. McPherson's History of the Rebellion (letter to Col. Hodge), p. 336.
12. McPherson's History of the Rebellion, p. 153.
13. Benson J. Lossing, in Lincoln Album, p. 328.
14. See Lincoln and Seward, by Gideon Welles, p. 188.
    
    Secretary Welles distinctly says:
    
    "Mr. Seward was at the beginning opposed to any idea of concession, which involved giving up the emissaries, but yielded at once, and with dexterity, to the peremptory demand of Great Britain."
    
    "The President expressed his doubts of the legality of the capture... and from the first was willing to make the concession."
    
    Lincoln and Seward, by Gideon Welles, pp. 186-188.
15. Congressional Globe, Second Session Thirty-seventh Congress, p. 333. Lovejoy said: "Every time this Trent affair comes up; every time that an allusion is made to it... I am made to renew the horrible grief which I suffered when the news of the surrender of Mason and Slidell came. I acknowledge it, I literally wept tears of vexation. I hate it; and I hate the British government. I have never shared in the traditionary hostility of many of my countrymen against England. But I now here publicly avow and record my inextinguishable hatred of that government. I mean to cherish it while I live, and to bequeath it as a legacy to my children when I die. And if I am alive when war with England comes, as sooner or later it must, for we shall never forget this humiliation, and if I can carry a musket in that war, I will carry it. I have three sons, and I mean to charge them, and I do now publicly and solemnly charge them, that if they shall have, at that time, reached the years of manhood and strength, they shall enter into that war."
    
    Senator Hale, of New Hampshire, went so far as to threaten the administration of Mr. Lincoln.
    
    "If," said he, "this administration will not listen to the voice of the people, they will find themselves engulphed in a fire that will consume them like stubble; they will be helpless before a power that will hurl them from their places."
    
    See Congressional Globe, 2d Session 37th Congress, January 7, 1862, p. 177.