Confederate Union

by Alan Sewell

  “The next thing you’d better learn how to do,” replied Cump, “is defend yourselves from the armies Douglas is assembling to reclaim you. For some reason he wants you renegades back in the Union.”

  “Renegades?” John laughed. “It doesn’t sound like you’re ready to come over to our camp just yet.”

  “Well, hell’s bells, it didn’t even seem like a real country from Louisiana,” retorted Cump. “Now that I’m here the ‘country’ seems more substantial. By the way, what did Fremont do to get himself deposed? He was still your president when I left Louisiana.”

  “His arrogance did him in,” answered John, almost laughing. “He surrounded himself with an entourage of pomposities. To get to Fremont you had to get past his Chief of Staff. To get to the Chief of Staff you had to interview the ‘Adletus to the Chief of Staff.’ He must have thought he was Provisional Grand Potentate. But, you know, I don’t think he really wanted to be President. He wants a military command. It will be up to President Lincoln to decide whether he gets one.”

  Cump thought about that and answered, “I was fairly well acquainted with Fremont in California. He’s one of those fellows people either love or hate. I got along swimmingly with him, but I know plenty of others who didn’t for precisely those reasons you mentioned. At any rate he’s one of our bravest men. President Lincoln might well be justified in trusting him with a command.”

  John was astonished that Cump said ‘our bravest men.’ Was he now beginning to consider himself a Free State citizen?

  “You’re right about his being brave,” John agreed. “Even if he wasn’t suited to being a permanent President, he did make a good start of things. No question about that. Irwin McDowell has restored order in northern Ohio. Don Carlos Buell went with him to blast the Confederates out of Cincinnati. Grant got us back Central Illinois and Lew Wallace recovered Indianapolis. These were all Fremont’s appointments. When Fremont got back from Cincinnati he took the field and stabilized the front around New York City. And our new flag and national seals are his designs. Splendid work, indeed. But now it is time to get on to the business of civil government. Lincoln is the right man for that job.”

  That remains to be seen. Cump wanted to say it, but he held his tongue. He did not think highly of Lincoln, based on the little he knew about him, which mostly came from the hostile Louisiana papers that painted Lincoln as a simple minded hick.

  Sherman noted that Fremont had taken all necessary measures to assure Mr. Lincoln’s safety. Every intersection was patrolled by men wearing the blue Free State armbands with gold stars. They were searching anyone who looked suspicious. If one looked carefully one could see the sharpshooters that Fremont had posted on the roofs of all the mansions up and down Euclid Avenue. Cump hoped that none were trigger happy enough to go shooting at innocent bystanders. But the men had to be there to protect against any remaining Douglas partisans bent on assassinating the first president of the Free State Republic.

  Cump saw many rough looking men, no doubt Douglas voters, who might have been prone to making trouble if Fremont had not taken these precautions. He wondered whether the Free State Republic could maintain its existence long enough to win the loyalty of these men. Mr. Lincoln will have to govern firmly enough to keep the Douglas men from rising up against him. But he must not come down on them so hard as to incite them into becoming subversive agents of the Confederates. If he walks the fine line between these extremes it is possible that their loyalty might become firmly attached to the new country.

  Cump’s attention returned to the inaugural party. He saw William Seward, who would be moving into the Cabinet as Lincoln’s Secretary of State, pouting and rolling his eyes under a magnificent oak tree while being harangued by the dour Abolitionist Senators Charles Sumner and Ben Wade.

  Mrs. Lincoln apparently noticed Seward’s discomfort too, for she went over to “rescue” him. Mrs. Lincoln clasped Sumner’s arm and began engaging the group in a cheery conversation about the entertainment arranged for tonight’s Inaugural Ball. At once Sumner’s appearance brightened. Even sour old Ben Wade began laughing. Leaving Sumner and Wade in good cheer, Mrs. Lincoln graciously escorted Seward over to meet her nieces whom she had invited to Cleveland to assist her in her duties as First Lady. Seward was smiling too as he tipped his hat in greeting Mrs. Lincoln’s lovely nieces.

  Cump looked back at John then turned toward Mrs. Lincoln’s party. “I see that Mrs. Lincoln is lacking nothing in the social graces,” he commented. “That’s a trait that might come in handy for Mr. Lincoln’s government.”

  John had noticed it too. “Yes, indeed, Mrs. Lincoln has been a ray of sunshine in an otherwise gloomy season. She’s one of those people who can’t help but inspire optimism and good cheer. Maybe she’ll be able to woo the foreign dignitaries too. That would be important in getting us recognized as a nation.”

  At 11:45 Mr. Lincoln, the members of the Free State Congress, and the newly reconstituted Supreme Court walked in line to the inaugural platform set up in the middle of Euclid Avenue. All waited while Mr. Lincoln gave his inaugural speech. Cump noted that new Supreme Court Chief Justice David Davis stood ready to administer the Oath of Office. Davis was a far cry from the Confederate Union’s slave-mongering Chief Justice Roger Taney of Dred Scott Decision notoriety, whom Lincoln would have been sure to have tangled with had he been elected President of the old United States.

  Lincoln began speaking. Cump noted that his voice was not deep, but it was nevertheless strong enough to make itself heard for blocks down Euclid Avenue.

  Fellow-Citizens of the United States of Free America:

  I appear before you to address you briefly and to take in your presence the oath prescribed by the Constitution. This occasion is both continuity and a new beginning.

  It is continuity because our United Free States are organized under the same Constitution as were all our previous national governments going back to the inauguration of our first President seventy-two years ago. We have changed not a single word of that Constitution, adding only the 13th and 14th Amendments that shall forever abolish slavery within our present territory and all future territories that our Free State Republic may acquire, and shall provide for equal protection under the law for all citizens of the United States of Free America.

  It is a new beginning because any people anywhere, being so inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most sacred right, a right which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.

  We have been so inclined to rise up and dissociate ourselves from that government which now styles itself “The Confederate Union.” We have done so because that government has rejected, by the repeated actions of its Chief Executive, its Congress, and its Courts, our founding principle that “All men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.”

  That government has rejected this founding principle in favor of the new one it claims to have discovered in the Dred Scott Decision --- the decision declaring, in Chief Justice Taney’s words, Negroes to be “so far inferior that they have no rights which the white man is bound to respect; that the Negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic whenever a profit can be made by it.”

  That government has asserted this principle as the basis of its pretended right to enter the Free States in order to kidnap and enslave as many free persons of color as any of its white citizens may desire. This desire was put into effect when an armed party invaded our free soil, kidnapped free Negroes without obtaining the necessary court orders for their removal, and then fired upon and killed the Free State men who interdicted them. When the orchestrators of this scheme were interdicted the government of the “Confederate Union” called upon its Army to become an accomplice not only in the kidnapping of free Negroes, but in the deaths of the Free State men who sought to prevent the
ir kidnapping.

  It is impossible for us to remain associated with any government that orders its Army to kill free men who dare to protect their fellow free citizens from being sold into slavery.

  This so-called “Confederate union” desires not only to subjugate the Free States that were formerly in union with it, but to conquer the neighboring free Republics of Mexico and Central America in order to impose slavery upon them. It has provoked not only the hostility of the free peoples in this hemisphere, but also of the most formidable Powers of Europe who have vowed to oppose, by all necessary measures including war, the enslavement of the people of any free country.

  It is impossible for us to remain associated with a government that would involve us in its wars to impose slavery upon free peoples.

  Let us now compare the condition of our present generation to the generation of our Founders. In 1776 our Founders severed their ties to the British Crown, citing many specific grievances. Today we find these same grievances they rebelled against imposed upon us by the Confederate Union. In addition must be added the kidnapping of free citizens and enslaving them, an outrage that even King George did not dare to inflict on his American Colonists.

  Today, when four generations have passed since that Revolution, we find that the British have abolished slavery in all their Dominions. The so-called Confederate Union alone, of all the English-speaking peoples, continues not only to defend slavery but seeks to expand it, by all measures including war. Before our dissociation from the Confederate Union our free citizens of color could only assure their freedom by removing themselves from our country and emigrating northeast to the lands beyond our borders where the people are governed by the Queen of that very Empire our Founders rebelled against!

  And now consider Mexico. In 1835 American settlers in Texas rebelled because they felt that their rights under the Mexican Constitution had been violated by the Dictator Santa Anna. Yet even Santa Anna did not seek to kidnap any free man in Texas and sell him into slavery. Today we find not a single slave in Mexico. Yet the leaders of the government known as the Confederate Union have fixed themselves upon the conquest of Mexico. They claim to be acting from the humanitarian motive of wanting to “restore order” to that troubled country. Their design is to conquer the land, dispossessing its free inhabitants, and resettling the country with slaves and slave masters! That is their definition of “humanitarian,” but it must never be ours!

  The crowd, which until this point had followed the custom of respectful silence, began to cheer.

  “So what do you think of Mr. Lincoln now?” John whispered to his brother.

  “I’ll let you know when he’s finished,” answered Cump.

  Responding to the cheering crowd, Lincoln began speaking extemporaneously, which he did not often do, especially on such a momentous occasion. He put down his prepared speech and began talking directly to the people.

  I am wondering, now, what those illustrious men of 1776 who pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to vindicate their Declaration that all men are created equal would think of the government that calls itself “The Confederate Union.” I am wondering whether George Washington and his men suffering cold and hunger in Valley Forge would be proud of that government. I wonder whether Thomas Jefferson, author of not only that Declaration, but also of the great Ordinance of 1787 that forbade the spread of slavery north of the Ohio River, would be proud of that government. Would Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, Sam Adams, John Adams, and James Madison be proud of that government?

  “They would not!” roared crowd.

  If they lived today would they stand with the Confederate Union? Or would they stand with us?

  “With us!” the crowd roared louder.

  And did these Founders dream of founding a great Republic that would shine its light of liberty as a beacon to liberate the oppressed peoples of the earth, or did they dream of founding a Slave Empire dedicated to oppressing the free peoples of the earth? What did they dream of --- the liberation of Mankind or its enslavement?”

  “Liberation!”

  And there is one other thing that I must ask you to consider: The President of the Confederate Union has said that it is a principle of his government that men of lighter color may make slaves of men of darker color. He starts by saying that Whites may make slaves of Negroes. Then he expands the concept to include Mexicans, Indians, Chinese, Japanese, and mulattos among his “inferior races.” He says that the men who presume themselves to belong to the most intelligent race have a “sacred right of self government” to enslave the men of those races that they presume to be less intelligent.

  With all this quibbling about which man is entitled to make a slave of another --- by color, intelligence, or some other accidental characteristic of birth --- is there any person in this country who is safe from enslavement? Is every other man to become the slave of the one who has the lightest skin? Is every other man to become the slave of the one presumed to be more intelligent? And how can we be sure that the day will not come when the person of modest wealth must become the slave of the person who has more?

  Is this not opposite to the principle that founded the United States of America, that “All men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life….liberty….and the pursuit of happiness!” Is this the principle for all men, or only some?

  “For all!”

  And is it a principle of the Confederate Union or of the United States of Free America!

  “The United States of Free America!”

  Cump noted that almost all people were shouting with Lincoln, including the rough-looking men he had presumed to be Douglas voters.

  Did the millions who came here fleeing oppression intend for themselves to become masters of a Slave Empire?

  “They did not!”

  Do you want to be part of a slave empire?

  “We do not!”

  Will you pledge your lives, your fortunes, and your sacred honor to save this Free Republic, to pass it down to future generations of free American citizens, just as the Founders pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to pass it down to us?

  “We pledge it!”

  “The United States of Free America!”

  “The United States of Free America!”

  As the roar of the crowd reached its crescendo Cump said to John, “I have made up my mind. I will take my Oath of Loyalty as a citizen of the United States of Free America!”

  23

  The White House, Washington City

  July 15, 1861

  Vice President Jefferson Davis paced the Executive Office on the second floor of the White House while waiting for the arrival of Robert E. Lee.

  This place is ever so dreary without Douglas. Hope the old boy gets well enough to be back here tomorrow. Thank goodness General Lee will be here to breathe some life into this place.

  Lee had been out West for the last five weeks, stabilizing the chaotic military frontier. The Free State’s professional military men, notably Nathaniel Lyon, U.S. Grant, and John Schofield, had made a determined effort to push the Confederate Union out of Indiana and Illinois, and to roll them back to the line of the Missouri River west of St. Louis. Lee had bucked up the commands of the Confederate Union’s spirited but amateur commanders Sterling Price and John “Blackjack” Logan. He had then gone on to Indiana to help General Harney patch together a line held by Indiana and Kentucky militiamen and the Regular Army men who had fallen back with him from Delphi.

  Having stabilized the defensive line in the West, Davis and McClellan had called Lee back East to lead the main offensive against the Free States around New York and Philadelphia. It would begin at noon tomorrow unless the Free States responded by then to Douglas’ ultimatum to return to the Confederate Union. If they returned there would be a general amnesty for those who had defied the government. Those who had lost property in the partisan fighting would be made whole
.

  Davis didn’t expect the Free States to accept the ultimatum, nor did he particularly want them to.

  We must suppress the Abolitionists once and for all and reconstruct the Free States on our terms. They must understand that we are a Confederate Union of Slave States and Free States, not a unitary government of Free States that the Abolitionists and Republicans desire, and which they would have tried to consummate if Mr. Lincoln had been elected. The Abolitionists are crazy in thinking that we would ever force slavery upon their Free States. But they must be taught to keep their mouths shut about slavery in our Slave States. They must be taught to honor their Constitutional duty to help us catch our runaway slaves. They must be taught to stay quiet as we acquire more Slave States from Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean.

  Even more than teaching the Abolitionists those lessons, Davis was looking forward to his role as one of the master planners of the war to decide North America’s destiny. He saw himself, McClellan, and Lee as the greatest troika of military command in history. While Lee had been stabilizing the West, McClellan and Davis had been developing the strategic plans for the East. Davis, knowing McClellan’s fondness for obscuring the larger picture with tedious details, wanted to brief General Lee before bringing him over to the War Department.

  At midmorning Douglas’ secretary announced Lee’s arrival. Davis sprang from his chair and gave Lee a near embrace, one of the few men he would have honored with more than a formal handshake. “Welcome home, General Lee! I trust you are enjoying a pleasant visit with your family at Arlington. Please give my best regards to Mrs. Lee.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Yes, I had a most pleasant homecoming on Sunday. Mrs. Lee and the family are fine. The house and the land are in good condition. Please excuse my tardiness this morning, but I could not avoid tending to some last minute home business.”