We Have the War Upon Us by William J. Cooper

Author:William J. Cooper [Cooper, William J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-96088-7
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2012-09-11T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

“Fraternity Is the Element of Union”

MERICANS DID NOT all greet the arrival of March 1861 in the same spirit. Some eagerly anticipated Lincoln’s inauguration, four days away. Others dreaded it. Still others remained ambivalent. Hopes, stretching back to December, that Congress would resolve the national crisis, had been dashed. But Congress had yet to adjourn, and there was still a chance for it to assert itself before Inauguration Day, while the president-elect was in the city.

But neither they nor he seemed to know what could possibly be done to end the impasse. Results of the Peace Convention and reports from the Committee of Thirty-three faced obstructionist interference. New Mexican statehood was front and center, and fit squarely into the North-South dispute. A proposed Thirteenth Amendment, guaranteeing the continuation of slavery where it existed, would have a final hearing. John J. Crittenden and William H. Seward, two men of different political stripes but a common interest in seeking compromise, would each have a last chance to be heard.

While the Peace Convention deliberated and the president-elect made his way to the capital, Congress was still in session but remained stalled. For most of February mind-numbing motions and speeches on the reports from the Committee of Thirty-three consumed the House of Representatives. Unending obstruction on both sides of the Capitol blasted wishes for any substantive action. At the end of the month, with the measures from the Committee of Thirty-three languishing, the Peace Convention report reached Congress.

It did not receive a hearty welcome. Because of the lateness of the congressional hour and a full calendar, taking up the report in the House would necessitate suspending the rules, which required a two-thirds vote. Signaling general Republican unwillingness even to discuss its contents, Speaker Pennington, who received it on February 27, did not try to bring it before the House for two days, not until March 1. A few Republicans thought the House should permit its consideration. Because the report advocated peace and came from respectable men, Charles Francis Adams believed suspension of the rules appropriate. Even a hard-liner member of the convention concurred with Adams, though both men said they opposed the report.

But, on March 1 the attempt to get the report before the House failed, 93–67, far short of the needed two-thirds, with but few Republicans like Adams and Corwin in the majority. The bulk of House Republicans ensured its defeat. They concurred with Owen Lovejoy of Illinois, who declaimed there was “no peace congress at all. There is no such body known to this House.” He asserted that ten thousand matters should go ahead, anything but serious compromise measures.1

In the Senate, the procedure differed, but not the outcome. When the Peace Convention report reached the upper chamber, Senator Crittenden got it referred to a select committee of five, two Democrats, two Republicans, and himself. By a 3-to-2 margin this committee backed the report and urged its adoption. The two Republicans, Seward and Trumbull, cast the negative ballots. For both of them,

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