In the logic of events violence must have reached the capital before February 1, had not the President and General Scott taken steps to counteract it. Ten days ago everything tended to that catastrophe; for two days I thought it inevitable; I am not sure now that it can be avoided. But a movement of troops from the North would be a hostile step which would surely precipitate events. Our situation, locked within the slave States, exposes us to attack before protection can come from the North. This cannot be changed. Of course, I shall not shrink from any responsibility; but the time has not come for the appeal which you desire. Events will travel with fearful rapidity. Very soon all slavedom will be in a blaze,—Virginia as much as any other State, embittered by the teachings of Wise and Mason. General Scott says: “Since the 2d of January,—yes, sir, since the 2d of January,” the President has done well. Jeff. Davis says that but two men in Washington are frightened,—the President and Scott. I enjoyed Andrew's message. At last Massachusetts is herself!Horace Greeley, appalled with the prospect of civil war with an uncertain issue, hastened to bid the insurgent States to ‘go in peace,’ while at the same time rejecting any compromise. He treated secession as a revolutionary right, and discountenanced coercive measures for keeping the seceding States in the Union.1 Wendell Phillips, in a passionate harangue, affirmed
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to foresee what latent heroism and endurance were to become manifest in the free States in the event of a long, bloody, and costly civil war. The conditions of this extraordinary period thus briefly noted show how much at that time Republican statesmen had to withstand, and may help this generation to accord due honor to those who stood firm, and to deal charitably with those who wavered and temporized.
The anxious question pressing on loyal people during the winter of 1860-1861 was how to secure a peaceful and orderly inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, and how during the critical interval to hold the border slave States, as well as Tennessee and North Carolina, from joining the Confederacy.
Sumner wrote, January 9, to F. W. Bird, who had advised an appeal by the Republican members of Congress to the people, stating the dangers of the government:—
1 New York Tribune, Nov. 9, 26, 30, Dec. 17, 1860; Feb. 23, 1861. Greeley says in his History that ‘several other Republican journals, including some of the most influential, held similar language, and maintained a position not unlike that of the “Tribune.” ’ Later, in the New York Tribune, Aug. 23, 1865, Greeley explained his position in 1860-1861. The Boston Advertiser (Nov. 12, Dec. 12, 1860; Jan. 24, 1861), a conservative journal, published leaders of the same tenor as the ‘Tribune's’ articles. Among Sumner's correspondents who favored non-resistance to secession were Dr. Samuel G. Howe, John G. Whittier, Rev. James Freeman Clarke, and Rev. John Pierpont. Mr. Clarke published an anonymous pamphlet at the time (a letter addressed to Sumner) on ‘Secession, Concession, or Self-Possession,’ in which he said: ‘We cannot coerce a State to remain in the Union against its will; we must not attempt to do this.’ Whittier's poem (Jan. 16, 1861), ‘A Word for the Hour,’ is in the same vein. He wrote Sumner, March 13, 1861: ‘The conflicting rumors from Washington trouble me. I am for peace, not by conceding our principles, but by simply telling the slave States “go,” —border ones and all. I believe in the irrepressible conflict.’
Cambridge, MA. Press of John Wilson and Son. 1877.
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