1863. |
Dec. 8. |
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will be some black men who will remember that, with silent tongue, and clinched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation; while I fear there will be some white men unable to forget.
that, with malignant heart and deceitful speech, they have striven to hinder it. Still, let us not be over-sanguine of a speedy final triumph.
Let us be quite sober.
Let us diligently apply the means, never doubting that a just God, in his own good time, will give us the rightful result.”
1
Other encouraging “signs” soon appeared, and gave evidence of a determination of the loyal people to stand by the Government in its struggle with the assassin.
That struggle had assumed, to the view of most thinking men, the grander features of a war for free institutions, rather than those of a strife for party supremacy, and thousands of the Opposition, impelled by patriotic emotions, refused longer to follow the leadings of the disloyal Peace Faction.
When the autumn elections
had passed, it was found that the friends of the Government, who had spoken at the ballot-box, were in overwhelming majorities everywhere.
The majorities of the Opposition the previous year2 were wiped out, and the weight of their numbers appeared largely on the Republican or Union side.
Ohio, as we have observed, gave over a hundred thousand majority against Vallandigham; and in New York, Governor Seymour's majority, of ten thousand in 1862, was annihilated, and a majority of nearly thirty thousand appeared on the opposite side of the political balance-sheet.
Even in Maryland, where the emancipation of the slaves was made a distinct issue in the canvass, there was given a very large Union majority.
This political reaction, and the progress of the National armies in “repossessing” territory, emboldened the Government to take measures for prosecuting the war with great vigor in 1864.
The reports of the Cabinet officers accompanying the President's first message to the new Congress
(XXXVIIIth),3 were very encouraging.
With the hope of weakening the moral as well as the material strength of the Confederates,
1 Letter of President Lincoln, dated August 26, 1863, and addressed to James M. Conkling, in answer to an invitation to attend a mass meeting of unconditional Union men, to be held at Springfield, Illinois.
2 See page 18.
3 There was a good working majority of Republicans and unconditional Unionists in the XXXVIIIth Congress. In the Senate there were 36 Unionists to 14 of the Opposition. In the House of Representatives there were 102 Unionists against 75 of the Opposition.
The following is a list of the members of the XXXVIIIth Congress, with the names of the States they severally represented:-- Senate. California.--John Conness, James A. McDougall. Connecticut.--James Dixon, Lafayette S. Foster. Delaware.--George Read Riddle, Willard Saulsbury. Illinois.--W. A. Richardson, Lyman Trumbull. Indiana.--Thomas A. Hendricks, Henry S. Lane. Iowa.--James W. Grimes, James Harlan. Kansas.--James H. Lane, Samuel C. Pomeroy. Kentucky.--Lazarus W. Powell, Garrett Davis. Maine.--Lot M. Morrill, William P. Fessenden. Maryland.--Reverdy Johnson, Thomas H. Hicks. Massachusetts.--Charles Sumner, Henry Wilson. Michigan.--Zachary Chandler, Jacob M. Howard. Minnesota.--Alexander Ramsay, M. S. Wilkinson. Missouri.--B. Gratz Brown, J. B. Henderson. New Hampshire.--John P. Hale, Daniel Clarke. Yew Jersey.--William Wright, John C. Ten Eyck. New York.--Edwin D. Morgan, Ira Harris. Ohio.--Benjamin F. Wade, John Sherman. Oregon.--Benjamin F. Harding, G. W. Nesmith. Pennsylvania.--Charles R. Buckalew, Edward Cowan. Rhode Island.--William Sprague, Henry B. Anthony. Vermont.--Solomon Foot, Jacob Collamer. Virginia.--John S. Carlile. West Virginia.--Waitman T. Willey, P. G. Van Winkle. Wisconsin.--James R. Doolittle, Timothy O. Howe. Hannibal Hamlin, Vice-President of the Republic and President of the Senate. House of Representatives. California.--Thomas B. Shannon, William Higbee, Cornelius Cole. Connecticut.--Henry C. Deming, James E. English, Augustus Brandegee, John H. Hubbard. Delaware.--Nathaniel B. Smithers. Illinois.--Isaac N. Arnold, John F. Farnsworth, Elihu B. Washburne, Charles M. Harris, Owen Lovejoy, Jesse O. Norton, John R. Eden, John T. Stuart, Lewis W. Ross, A. L. Knapp, J. C. Robinson, William R. Morrison, William J. Allen, James C. Allen. Indiana.--John Law, James A. Cravens, H. W. Harrington, William S. Holman, George W. Julian, Ebenezer Dumont, Daniel W. Voorhees, Godlove S. Orth, Schuyler Colfax, J. K. Edgerton, James F. McDowell. Iowa.--James F. Wilson, Hiram Price, William B. Allison, J. B. Grinnell, John A. Kasson, A. W. Hubbard. Kansas.--A. Carter Wilder. Kentucky.--Lucien Anderson, George H. Yeaman, Henry Grider, Aaron Harding, Robert Mallory, Green Clay Smith, Brutus J. Clay, William H. Randall, William H. Wadsworth. Maine.--L. D. M. Sweat, Sidney Perham, James G. Blane, John H. Rice, Frederick A. Pike. Maryland.--John A. G. Cresswell, Edwin G. Webster, Henry Winter Davis, Francis Thomas, Benjamin G. Harris. Massachusetts.--Thomas D. Elliot, Oakes Ames, Alexander H. Rice, Samuel Hooper, John B. Alley, Daniel W. Gooche, George S. Boutwell, John D. Baldwin, William B. Washburn, Henry L. Dawes. Michigan.--Fernando C. Beaman, Charles Upson, J. W. Longyear, Francis W. Kellogg, Augustus C. Baldwin, John F. Driggs. Minnesota.--William Windom, Ignatius Donnelly. Missouri.--Francis P. Blair, Jr., Henry T. Blow, John G. Scott, J. W. McClurg, S. H. Boyd, Austin A. King, Benjamin Loan, William A. Hall, James S. Rollins. New Hampshire.--Daniel Marcy, Edward H. Rollins, James W. Patterson. New Jersey.--John F. Starr, George Middleton, William G. Steele, Andrew J. Rodgers, Nehemiah Perry. New York.--Henry G. Stebbens, Martin Kalbfleisch, Moses F. Odell, Ben. Wood, Fernando Wood, Elijah Ward, J. W. Chanler, James Brooks, Anson Herrick, William Radford, Charles H. Winfield, Homer A. Nelson, John B. Steele, John V. L. Pruyn, John A. Griswold, Orlando Kellogg, Calvin T. Hulburd, James M. Marvin, Samuel F. Miller, Ambrose W. Clark, Francis Kernan, De Witt C. Littlejohn, Thomas T. Davis, Theodore M. Pomeroy, Daniel Morris, Giles W. Hotchkiss, R. B. Van Valkenburg, Freeman Clarke, Augustus Frank, John B. Ganson, Reuben E. Fenton. Ohio.--George H. Pendleton, Alexander Long, Robert C. Schenck, J. F. McKinney, Frank C. Le Blond, Chilton A. White, Samuel S. Cox, William Johnson, Warren P. Noble, James M. Ashley, Wells A. Hutchins, William E. Finck, John O'Neill, George Bliss, James R. Morris, Joseph W. White, Ephraim R. Eckley, Rufus P Spaulding, J. A. Garfield. Oregon.--John R. McBride. Pennsylvania.--Samuel J. Randall, Charles O'Neill, Leonard Myers, William P. Kelley, M. Russell Thayer, John D. Stiles, John M. Broomall, S. E. Ancona, Thaddeus Stevens, Myer Strouse, Philip Johnson, Charles Denison, H. W. Tracy, William H. Miller, Joseph Bailey, A. H. Coffroth, Archibald McAllister, James T. Hale, Glenni W. Scofield, Amos Myers, John L. Dawson, J. K. Moorhead, Thomas Williams, Jesse Lazear. Rhode Island.--Thomas A. Jenckes, Nathan F. Dixon. Vermont.--Frederick E. Woodbridge, Justin S. Morrill, Portus Baxter. Virginia.--Joseph Segar, L. H. Chandler, B. M. Kitchen. West Virginia.--Jacob B. Blair, William G. Brown, Killian V. Whaley. Wisconsin.--James S. Brown, Ithamar C. Sloan, Amasa Cobb, Charles A. Eldridge, Ezra Wheeler, Walter D. McIndoe. Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the House of Representatives. delegates from Territories. New Mexico.--Francisco Perea. Utah.--John F. Kinney. Washington.--George E. Cole. Nebraska.--S. G. Daily. Colorado.--Hiram P. Bennett. Nevada.--Gordon N. Mott. Dakota.--Contested seat. Idaho.--W. H. Wallace. Arizona.--No Delegate.
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