Confederate Union

by Alan Sewell

  7

  New York City, September 22, 1860

  George McClellan clasped both his hands on Elmer Ellsworth’s shoulders. “Magnificent demonstration, simply magnificent!”

  Ellsworth saluted crisply. “Thank you, sir! I am truly honored by your approbation. I’m so glad you enjoyed our little drill!”

  McClellan and Ellsworth had come to Battery Park in New York City to cheer their parties, Ellsworth as a Republican and McClellan as a Democrat. Both parties were hosting gigantic rallies. The Republican speakers were allotted the early afternoon. New York Senator William Seward had already spoken, his speech followed by the demonstration by Ellsworth’s militia company. For the evening events the Democrats had booked former New York Governor Horatio Seymour followed by Jefferson Davis, a speaker popular in New York City for his view that Southern Rights must be maintained from within the Union.

  Both parties had spent heavily on their respective rallies because both had reason to hope that they could carry the state. Upstate New York could be expected to vote massively Republican, but New York City and neighboring Brooklyn, with their polyglot workingman’s population and strong business ties to the South, were Democratic strongholds.

  The resurgence of the Democrats with Douglas and Davis at the head of their ticket had turned it into a real contest. That the Republicans had to spend so much time and money here was indication enough that their campaign was not going as well as they had expected. New York’s thirty-five electoral votes should have been safely in their column.

  The Republicans were wooing the voters with a clambake and beer. The Democrats offered roast beef sandwiches and whiskey. McClellan wandered back and forth between the two camps on this beautiful sunny afternoon, partaking of clams and roasted beef sandwiches in a nonpartisan spirit. He had thoroughly enjoyed the Republicans’ rousing patriotic show, especially the drill by Ellsworth’s militia.

  “I am so glad to see old friends from Chicago,” McClellan told Ellsworth. “You and your militia have given the city something else to be proud of.”

  “Thank you again, sir,” Ellsworth replied. “May I ask what brings you to New York? Will you be speaking on behalf of the Democrats this evening?”

  “Oh, no,” McClellan answered. “I wear many hats, but never the hat of a politician! I came to New York on railroad business. When I learned of the great rallies by both parties I found reason to extend my stay. I really do want to hear what both parties have to say, though of course I am partial to the Democrats. Jefferson Davis was like a father to me as Secretary of War. As you probably know he entrusted me with several missions of significance to the nation.”

  “Of course,” said Ellsworth. “I’ve read your articles about the Crimean War. And I know of your work in surveying harbors in the Caribbean. If Mr. Lincoln is elected I am hoping that perhaps he will select me for some of these missions.”

  McClellan smiled. “Don’t worry about that, my friend. I promise that you will have nothing to lose no matter who is sitting in the White House this time next year. I will recommend you to Douglas and Davis if they are elected. You are a worthy military ambassador of our nation regardless of your party affiliation.”

  Ellsworth gave a perfect salute. “I am truly honored beyond words to count you as my friend. I hope we may have a long association in the common cause of serving our country. If you’ll please excuse me I must lead my men to dinner where they will be the guests of honor of Senator Seward. They have had a long day.”

  McClellan watched Ellsworth leave. Ellsworth’s company was privately equipped with money raised by Republican Party men. The Republicans had sponsored many such outfits, but Ellsworth’s was the most professional. The other more amateurish paramilitary groups were called Wide Awakes. Their men didn’t carry arms but did manifest a rudimentary military organization by wearing approximately the same “uniform” and marching in a reasonable semblance of order. They were here by the thousands too, singing Republican campaign songs and easily recognizable by their thick black capes and the torches they would light as evening fell.

  Although the Wide Awakes had given no indication of wanting to make trouble for the Democrats there was something about them that made McClellan uneasy. For one thing they were mostly young men in their twenties, sharp and alert. The ones McClellan had bantered with were articulate in explaining why they backed the Republicans.

  The Democrats had their own paramilitary groups called the United Invincibles here too, but they were older and rougher men who seemed more interested in drinking free liquor than in listening to speeches. They appeared to be mostly rough-and-tumble workingmen who could not articulate any reasons for their Democrat affiliation other than that the Democrats “talked the language” of the uneducated men of the cities who labored with their hands.

  The differences between the two groups alarmed McClellan. If most of the young men in the North, especially the smart and disciplined ones, hitched their wagons to the Republicans then the Democrats’ days would be numbered. McClellan had gleaned from conversations that these young Wide Awakes also had a sense of nationality that was subtly different from his own.

  Whereas McClellan saw himself as an American with warm ties of friendship to the North and South, the Wide Awakes saw themselves exclusively as Free State men. They talked as if the Slave States were another country, mired in backwardness and even barbarism.

  A few told McClellan that they supported Republicans because they thought that the enslaved Negroes should be liberated, but most seemed to want to steer clear of all Southerners regardless of their color. One of them told McClellan that they wanted a free country of their own, untainted by slaves or slave masters. McClellan wondered whether they would still consider the United States to be their country if Douglas and Davis prevailed. Or would they feel that they were aliens in their own land?

  McClellan also knew young men in the Slave States who wanted nothing to do with the Free State North. The young men in both sections were growing apart. Only the old-timers who had come of age in an era of shared national triumphs from the War of 1812 to the Mexican War seemed to want to keep the country united.

  McClellan hoped that the Democrats could hold out against the rising sectionalist tide long enough for Douglas and Davis to win the election. Although he had not been told the secret terms of the Davis/Douglas Compact he surmised that they intended to be aggressive in acquiring new territories, even to the point of going to war.

  McClellan was no warmonger, but he did believe that wars to acquire new territories in Mexico and Canada might be necessary to consummate U.S. hegemony over the whole of North America and to solidify the country’s internal unity. McClellan would of course look forward to personal glory commanding soldiers in the field. His current job as railroad president left much to be desired. He was fatigued with worrying about the minutia of loading passenger cars to capacity every day.

  At that moment McClellan heard cheering on the Democrats’ side of the park, He presumed it heralded the arrival of Horatio Seymour and Jefferson Davis, so he started meandering through the crowd in that direction. He wanted to say “hello” to Davis and invite him to dinner before he left town if his schedule permitted. He had a sudden curiosity to know more about the secret details of the Douglas / Davis Compact, specifically if there might be an opportunity for him to lead troops back into Mexico.

  8

  Boston, October 17, 1860

  William Lloyd Garrison’s face seethed with agitation as he looked at Frederick Douglass.

  “I had expected, and I dare to say that I had hoped, that this election would set the Free States and Slave States to war,” confessed Garrison. “That is the only way I can see of setting your people free. But the Republicans have become as timid as Quakers at an orgy!”

  Frederick Douglass had also been angry but his face brightened as he tried to conjure up Garrison’s unlikely image of Quakers.

  “Yes, no doubt that both parties mean to sa
crifice the Negro, same as always. They are busy kissing each other’s arses while once again conspiring together to sell the Negro down the river.”

  Garrison crumpled up the newspaper article he had just finished reading aloud and tossed it into the fireplace. It was a transcribed speech by Republican Senator William Seward of New York given two days before.

  Seward was the anti-slavery stalwart who had coined the phrase “irrepressible conflict” to describe what he believed to be the impending collision between the Free States and Slave States. But in this most recent speech he had called for “accommodation between the Free States and the Capital States.” Garrison and Douglass had looked at each other in disgust when Garrison had read the “Capital States” euphemism implying that enslaved human beings were just another ledger of capital investment like livestock!

  “I truly am sorry,” offered Garrison. “I expected better of my people. Mr. Lincoln is silent while Seward has withdrawn his friendship from us entirely. They have been chastised by their losses in the state elections, so they are trimming their sails. Their willingness to sacrifice the slaves in order to placate their masters sickens me.”

  “You’ve got nothing to be sorry about,” Douglass assured him. “As long as there are hearts like yours, so brave and true, the Negro will not lose hope. When we first met, you advocated almost alone for my race’s freedom. Now millions are with us. We will never give up. We will raise our children to carry on the fight, and we will carry it on generation by generation until every person born in America is a free and equal citizen.”

  “God bless you for your patience,” answered Garrison. “Only He knows when your race’s shackles will be broken. But that day will come. And it will come sooner than we think.”

  Douglass felt a burden of anxiety lift from his shoulders. He had come here in hopes of renewing an old friendship that had become estranged. He had not been sure that Garrison, a stubborn and egotistical newspaper publisher, would reciprocate.

  “I am so pleased to be back in the embrace of your friendship again,” said Douglass, who had offered to make amends by consolidating his Abolitionist newspaper The North Star with Garrison’s The Liberator. “We should never have grown apart. We are fighting for a cause so much larger than ourselves.”

  “Perhaps I’m becoming more patient in my old age,” replied Garrison. “I always saw the Constitution’s guarantees of slavery in the Southern States as a Pact with the Devil that had to be broken by getting our Free States into a new country of our own. After seeing how the Southern Secessionists are so anxious to break up the Union in order to perpetuate slavery, I’ve become more inclined toward your view that dividing the nation would perpetuate slavery in an independent South. But whatever differences we have on that question, we must agree that it is futile to waste our efforts going off into separate camps and squabbling among ourselves. The Democrats have united their party around a Union with slavery. We must unite our party around a Union without it.”

  “So true, my friend,” confirmed Douglass. “Let’s salute the new united voice of all Abolitionists: The North Star Liberator!”

  “We’re going to have our work cut out for us in stiffening the Republicans’ backbones,” replied Garrison. “After that drubbing they took from the united Democrats in the state elections in Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, they’re running away from their anti-slavery creed like scared rabbits. They’re making it clear that they value preserving the Union far more than liberating the slaves.”

  Garrison sighed. “Every time we get to the verge of accomplishing something definite in the way of limiting slavery the slave masters threaten to leave the Union. Then the Republicans start trying to outdo them in support of slavery. What hypocrites!”

  “Their backsliding only encourages the slave masters to make ever more extreme demands,” agreed Douglass. “Did you see Stephen Douglas’ last speech from Chicago? He said that America’s Manifest Destiny to expand westward to the Pacific Ocean is now complete. He says now we must expand to the north and south. That means Mexico and Canada. The Slavers will conquer Mexico and then they’ll get us into a war with Great Britain over Canada.”

  Garrison threw down the draft of an article he had been writing.

  “So what position should we take now? I am surely not going to endorse the Republicans, not after their cowardly retreat in Seward’s speech. But if we endorse Gerrit Smith’s Abolition Party we will gain the Republicans’ enmity. We may cost them the election by dividing the Abolitionist vote. If we’ve learned anything, it’s not to divide our forces and weaken our chances later on.”

  Frederick Douglass walked over to the window. He saw the sun setting over the tree line. Garrison had a portrait of George Washington on his wall that set Douglass to thinking. He remembered the story he had read about how Washington had seen a carving of the sun cut into his chair at Constitution Hall and had not been sure if it was rising or setting on America. But Washington had persevered long enough to bring the new nation to life. Douglass had read about how he had persevered through bitter defeats and bitter cold at Valley Forge, through political intrigues in the government and incipient rebellion in his army.

  Douglass could likewise persevere in liberating the slaves. He was more patient than Garrison, even though he had the most intensive personal reasons to hate slavery, having been born a slave himself. He had experienced the mind-numbing work, the poverty of inadequate food and clothing, and the brutal discipline. He had seen Negroes beaten and even shot down like dogs for refusing to obey their overseers.

  But Douglass also possessed a wisdom that allowed him to see the fallacy of advocating the end of slavery through violence and civil war. He therefore sought to moderate Garrison’s fiery editorials in the combined North Star Liberator, to channel them away from inciting civil war and towards liberating the slaves constitutionally in a country that remained united. He had an inspiration. He turned from the picture of Washington and toward Garrison.

  “Let’s not waste our efforts tying ourselves to either party. Why don’t we instead take a lesson from the slave owners? What do they do every time they think an election isn’t going to go their way?”

  “They call a convention where they all get together and start shouting about leaving the Union,” Garrison answered. “Then when the North backs down they go back to pretending to be loyal Americans.”

  “Exactly,” said Douglass. “They call a Slave State convention where they huff and puff until the Free States back down. They did that in Nashville in 1850. That’s what they wanted to do in Charleston until Stephen Douglas fooled them with who-knows-what kind of promises. Then why don’t we call a Free State Convention? Let’s do some huffing and puffing on our own and see if we can’t get our Republican friends to take us as seriously as they take the slave masters.”

  Garrison parted his thinning hair. “A Free State Convention? That isn’t at all a bad idea. We should call a convention to put freedom first and parties second.” He paced over to stare outside the window next to Douglass. “We’d better do it sooner rather than later. A couple weeks after the election. If the Republicans lose, their voters will be angry. They’ll want a forum to blow off steam. It will be our chance to make our voice heard loud and clear. I wonder where should we have it --- Boston, New York, Philadelphia, or Washington City?”

  Douglass thought a moment. “We shouldn’t call a Free State convention in Washington City, not with slaves still being held there. There are too many anti-slavery agitators in New York and Philadelphia for that matter who might disrupt the convention. Having it in Boston would make it look like a New England affair. Maybe Chicago? We have enough friends there to fill a convention hall.”

  “Not Chicago,” Garrison replied. “It’s too remote. And it’s associated with the Republican Convention that nominated Lincoln. If he loses it will reflect badly on us to be seen following in his footsteps. If he wins it will look like we’re riding his coattails.”

&nb
sp; “What about Cleveland, then?” Douglass suggested. “It’s a strong Abolitionist city. It has good railroad connections to all the Free States between the Atlantic and the Mississippi. Let’s set the convention date the week before the next session of Congress convenes. The Free State Congressmen will have time to attend and then make their way to Washington City for the start of Congress.”

  Garrison paused to think. “I can’t think of any reason why it shouldn’t be in Cleveland. I was there last summer, and you’re right about the good hotels and rail connections. The 27th of November might be a good date to start it. That’s three weeks after the election, easy to remember, and it’s the week before the next session of Congress. If the Republicans should happen to win I don’t expect they’ll bother to attend. But like you say, if they lose, they’ll want to vent steam. Are you agreed, then, that we should call our Free State Convention in Cleveland on the 27th of November?”

  Douglass liked the proposal. “I think Cleveland will do.”

  “Excellent!” replied Garrison. “Well, our dinner should be about ready. Let’s discuss this convention while we eat, then we’ll come back here and set the type. We can proof it in the morning and go to press tomorrow.”

  The more Garrison thought about the Free State Convention, the more enthusiastic he became. If the Republican Party won the election the Free State Convention would be there to remind them that Abolitionists were a vital part of their constituency. If the Republicans lost, the Convention might become the foundation for a stronger Abolitionist Party. Perhaps it might even become the foundation of a new United States, a nation true to the principle that all men are created equal ---- The United States of Free America.

  9

  Cleveland, Ohio, November 25, 1860

  Why would anybody want to live in Cleveland? Abraham Lincoln wondered about that as he kicked the snow off his shoes and brushed the flakes from his coat before entering the Weddell House hotel. It was only November 25, but snow already covered the ground, at least two weeks earlier than even Chicago’s usual first snowfall. The temperature was well below freezing as a stinging wind blew fresh snow squalls in off Lake Erie, which seemed to have been perfectly placed to convert winter air into wet snow. When he had left Springfield the day before yesterday the temperatures had been twenty degrees above freezing with sunshine.