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150 years ago today, the US Senate devoted itself to housekeeping matters....what to do about the missing Senators from the States in declared secession?
The debate considered two possibilities. One was to simply declare the seats "vacant", meaning that the offices still existed, but no one presently held them. The other was to declare that the since the States had withdrawn from the Union, those seats no longer existed at all, and thus were not "vacant."
Since the latter action would have been an official governmental acknowledgement of the legality of secession, after a day's debate, the Senate went with the "vacant" option.
Simon Cameron, the last of Lincoln's three major rivals for the GOP nomination, was appointed Lincoln's first Secretary of War. Cameron had held one of the two Senate seats from Pennsylvania and his cabinet posting created a vacancy.
150 years ago today, after a special election, into that vacancy stepped the man of whom it might be said..."He started it all."
This was David Wilmot, who fifteen years earlier triggered the first sectional split in the two party system. Congress was voting on the appropriations bill for funding the Mexican War. Wilmot rose and offered this amendment to the bill:
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"Provided, That, as an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory from the Republic of Mexico by the United States, by virtue of any treaty which may be negotiated between them, and to the use by the Executive of the moneys herein appropriated, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory, except for crime, whereof the party shall first be duly convicted."
Voting in the House was sectional, Northern numbers sufficient to pass to pass the bill there, and the Slave bloc in the Senate sufficient to defeat it.
This was the first breakdown in party discipline. Northern democrats joined with Northern Whigs, Southern Whigs joined with Southern Democrats.
The Wilmot Proviso lit a slow burning fuse that was to reach the powder keg 15 years later.
Not all of the states in secession were confident of the support of the majority of their populations. 150 years ago today, the Louisiana state convention which had voted for secession, rejected a proposal that the new Confederate constitution be submitted to the state's voters for ratification. The request had come from the state legislature.
On this same day, President Lincoln met with an extraordinary 39 year old man who at the moment, held no governmental portfolio, yet was an extremely influential adviser to Lincoln. This was Gustavus Fox, a retired naval officer from Massachusetts who had been in the wool manufacturing trade since his nautical days.
On his own, Fox traveled to Washington and offered his services to the government. Seeing something exceptional in this person, Lincoln appointed him to a non specific naval rank and began to listen to his advice on how to reinforce and resupply Fort Sumter. The day before Lincoln had polled his cabinet and found the majority in opposition to any attempts to sustain Sumter. However, Lincoln had promised in his inaugural address to maintain Federal control of the government's military installations in the South, and Fox was the only one with a plan for how this could be done.
Fox was dispatched on this day to go to Sumter, interview Major Anderson, and report back on the situation. Fox did so without revealing to Anderson that a plan was in the works to resupply and reinforce him.
The plan was put into action later, with Fox sailing aboard the relief ship, the Baltic. Unfortunately, it arrived on the scene just after the Confederates had commenced their bombardment.
In August, Lincoln created the position of Assistant Secretary of the Navy, just for Fox. While the cabinet post of navy secretary belonged to Gideon Welles, Welles recognized that his talents were for administration, and he largely got out of Fox's way and allowed him complete operational control of the department. It was Fox was pushed for the development of the Monitor and other ironclads, and was a strong advocate for new technologies and ideas.
After the war ended, Fox was a passenger aboard the monitor Miantonomoh, which was the first such ship to make a crossing of the Atlantic Ocean.
Since his death in 1883, Fox has had three naval vessels named in his honor.
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" Charleston South Carolina"
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Location: home...finally, home .
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Something that I just read said that the last Civil War soldier (a Confederate) died in 1959. That is after I was born and it makes me feel more linked to the past.
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People may not recall what you said to them, but they will always remember how you made them feel .
150 years ago today,CSA Vice President Alexander Stephens was in Savannah, Georgia where he delivered what has come to be known as "The Cornerstone Speech." It was presented extemporaneously and was designed to spotlight the differences between the US and CS governments.
Stephens could not have been more clear in identifying the reason for the split.
Slavery.
He traced the evolution of Northern negative attitudes toward the institution, and answered with:
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Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition
He identified that truth as the "cornerstone" of the Confederacy. Stephens declared that secession had put to rest that "agitating question."
Stephens closed by predicting that eventually six more states would join the existing seven and looked forward to peaceful relations with the USA.
150 years ago today, President Lincoln received his official recommendation from the General in Chief of the US army regarding the situation at Fort Sumter. Winfield Scott informed the President that both Sumter and Fort Pickens in Pensacola would have to be abandoned if war was to be avoided. Scott was somewhat overstepping his military duties and was making a political evaluation. His advice included the warning that only evacuation would appease the remaining eight slave states which had yet to side with the new Confederacy.
Lincoln listened to Scott's warnings, and not liking what he was hearing, devoted most of the day to going over the resupply and reinforcement plan which was being offered by Gustvas Fox. He then ordered Fox to prepare a list of ships, supplies and personnel which would be needed to carry out the expedition.
That evening Lincoln convened his cabinet and revealed to them Scott's advice. While the cabinet had already expressed a majority opinion that Sumter would have to be abandoned, they were unanimously opposed to the idea of also giving up on Fort Pickens which did not face the immediate danger of starvation with which Sumter's garrison was coping. They were also resentful that Scott was crossing the line from military to political adviser.
This day also revealed that Southern Indian tribes were paying attention to the growing rift between the North and South. Capitalizing on the gap between the withdrawal of Federal troops and the organization of Southern replacements, Comanches in Texas launched the first of a series of raids along the frontiers, causing thousands to have to flee East in search of protection.
150 years ago today, Lincoln convened a full cabinet meeting and revealed for the first time, his own modified plan for dealing with the situation in Charleston. The majority of the cabinet, led by Secretary of State Seward, favored an evacuation. In Lincoln's other ear was the headstrong Gustvas Fox, itching to lead a daring reenforcement and resupply mission. Lincoln rejected the notion of surrendering Sumter without a fight, but also rejected Fox's large scale scheme. Instead Lincoln came up with the solution which was needed. Rather than attempt to send more soldiers or naval war vessels to South Carolina, Lincoln decided to send only food and medicines, no additional soldiers, no aditional arms or ammunition. His idea was to make a very public announcement of this intention, paint the mission as an entirely peaceful, non provocative mercy mission to feed starving US personnel, and force the South to either permit Sumter to continue to be occupied, attack the relief ships, or assault the fort and reduce the garrison.
If the former, then the South would lose face while Lincoln upheld his election pledge to continue to hold and sustain Federal installations in the South. If the leither of latter choices, Lincoln was well positioned to take the stance that the South had started the war by attacking a peaceful mercy mission.
The cabinet discussed it all day without reaching any consensus, but Lincoln had made up his mind. That evening he issued the orders for the expedition to sail.
At this point the game was truly up. Lincoln knew that such an action would never be left unchallenged by the South. Jefferson Davis knew that Southern honor and national integrity demanded that Sumter pass into Confederate hands. All he really had to decide was whether to wait for the relief expedition to arrive and drive it away with artillery, or go ahead and attack Sumter before the relief ship could arrive.
Both sides had made defacto decisions for war. It now waited only for the first shot.
Texas had departed from the Union following a landslide vote by its State Convention, backed later by a solid majority in a popular vote.
But there was one Texan, the most famous and celebrated of them all, who refused to go along with secession.
That was Governor Sam Houston. 150 years ago today, the man who led the victorious Texas army to independence from Mexico, responded to a demand from the Convention to appear before it and take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy. The response was a flat refusal. The Convention reacted by voting to declare the office of governor, vacant. Houston rendered this uneccessary shortly thereafter by resigning from office.
In his message of refusal to the Convention, Houston made it clear that while he would not recognize the legitimacy of the rebel government, he also would not personally raise a hand against Texas and her people.
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Fellow-Citizens, I have refused to recognize this Convention. I believe that it has derived none of the powers which it has assumed either from the people or from the legislature. I believe it guilty of an usurpation, which the people cannot suffer tamely and preserve their liberties. I am ready to lay down my life to maintain the rights and liberties of the people of Texas. I am ready to lay down the office rather than yield to usurpation and degradation.
I have declared my determination to stand by Texas in whatever position she assumes. Her people have decided in favor of a separation from the Union. I have followed her banners before, when an exile from the land of my fathers. I went back into the Union with the people of Texas. I go out from the Union with them, and though I see only gloom before me, I shall follow the “Lone Star” with same devotion as of yore…
With the countdown to war getting shorter, tensions were mounting and rumors were legion. As you might imagine, many were in the grip of extreme partisan mentalities, and thus were prepared to believe, and help circulate, anything negative or threatening about the other side.
150 years ago today, the New York Times was reporting on one such rumor which had been announced as fact in the Charleston Mercury. That story had it that Treasury Secretary Chase would be borrowing eight million dollars which would be used to "arm the free blacks of the North to aid the insurgent negroes in the South." The Times was complaining that Northern newspapers which printed the truth about such stories, were excluded from circulation in the South, and thus, the Southern population had only propaganda as information. “Negro Regiments to be Raised,†New York Times, April 1, 1861 | House Divided
And on this same day in Washington DC, Secretary of State William Seward got his first lesson in ultimate realization that it was going to be Lincoln, not he, who was running the nation's affairs.
Lincoln replied in a formal and unambiguous manner that evening.
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I remark that if this must be done, I must do it. When a general line of policy is adopted, I apprehend there is no danger of its being changed without good reason, or continuing to be a subject of unnecessary debate; still, upon points arising in its progress I wish, and suppose I am entitled to have, the advice of all the Cabinet.
The South did not enjoy a monopoly on the spreading of rumors. 150 years ago today the New York Times led with a story which claimed that Mexico already had an army on the March for Brownsville, Texas, and was planning to exploit the disunity of the US to seize back Texas. The article included the information that Texas was shifting state troops to the border to contest the invasion.
Great story save for none of it being true.
The Virginia Convention which had been meeting for weeks now to consider the question of secession, took a test vote and found that it was two to one against departing the Union.
In Washington, President Lincoln and his cabinet received the news that Fort Pickens outside Pensacola, Florida, had been successfully reinforced and resupplied. (The geography was such that Pickens could be reached by the sea without having to enter Pensacola Bay. That wasn't the case with Sumter in Charleston Harbor.)
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