Read Online Coming Fury, Volume 1 by Bruce Catton - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Bruce Catton
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wanted in 1860 the nomination of an extremist “for no other purpose than to have it defeated by a line of sections. They desire defeat for no other end than to make a pretext for the clamor of dissolution.” 7
The clamor of dissolution was going on now and it would become stronger, but the extremists were not really in control. Thoughtful Southerners of stature, like Jefferson Davis, did not want the party split made permanent. This could mean only a rise in Republican power and destruction of the South’s traditional control of the Democratic party—along, perhaps, with blood and battle smoke and hundreds of thousands of deaths—and the clamor of dissolution was not attractive. There would be a breathing spell now, and much might happen. Conceivably, the Douglas people could win new Southern delegates who would approach Baltimore with less stiffness in the back; conceivably, on the other hand, Douglas himself might be driven off stage so that the party could reunite behind someone less troublesome. Neither possibility was in the least likely, but almost anything was possible; there would be much electioneering and maneuvering in the Congressional districts back home, especially in the South, and there would also be a great to-do in Congress. Possibly something could be done here that would destroy this Northwesterner and permit all good Democrats to get together? Whatever the odds, the thing would be tried.
The handiest instrument that was available was embodied in the Davis resolutions regarding a Southern-rights code, which had been introduced in the Senate in February, had been endorsed by the Democratic caucus there, and now awaited final disposition. These would be brought up now and driven through to formal endorsement by the Senate, and May 7—four days after the collapse at Charleston—was the day appointed for it.
The Senate galleries were full, and the people who filled them had something to look at. Into the Senate chamber came Senator Douglas—“a queer little man, canine head and duck legs”—who went stumping down to his chair amid moderate applause. He had been through the mill lately, this Senator, and he was not well. (He would die, within little more than a year, a passionate spirit exhausting an inadequate body.) He got to his seat, twisted himself down in it, and put his feet on his desk, his mouth closed in a thin, bitter line. Fidgety, he clasped his hands, lolled in his chair, rubbed his nose, and waited to see what was going to happen.
Next came the man whose long shadow had affected so much that happened at Charleston—Senator Seward, of New York. Seward was in a good mood. As things then stood, he was very likely to be the Republican nominee and the next President, and he knew it. He was also, underneath everything else, a ham actor, and he played up to the limelight that was on him today. He stalked about the Republican side of the Senate chamber, his coat tails adrift behind him, found his seat, took a prodigious pinch of snuff, flourished a yellow silk handkerchief across his beaklike nose, and talked with a studied lack of self-consciousness to Republican die-hards like Ohio’s Senator Salmon P. Chase, who had all of the dignity and the ostentatious integrity which Seward seemed to lack. Seward cracked a joke, flourished the great handkerchief again, and all in all acted the part of a presidential candidate who is aware that things are going his way.
A third man, now: Jefferson Davis, tall and slim and haggard, coming into the chamber to the sound of muted rustlings in the galleries, going to his desk and depositing documents there with thin, bloodless hands, sitting down as if ineffably weary. 8 The Vice-President called the Senate to order and recognized the Senator from Mississippi. Senator Davis rose to speak.
Davis had something to say. The revolution that hardly anyone really wanted was coming closer and he did not like the sound of it; as a reasonable man, he would urge
The clamor of dissolution was going on now and it would become stronger, but the extremists were not really in control. Thoughtful Southerners of stature, like Jefferson Davis, did not want the party split made permanent. This could mean only a rise in Republican power and destruction of the South’s traditional control of the Democratic party—along, perhaps, with blood and battle smoke and hundreds of thousands of deaths—and the clamor of dissolution was not attractive. There would be a breathing spell now, and much might happen. Conceivably, the Douglas people could win new Southern delegates who would approach Baltimore with less stiffness in the back; conceivably, on the other hand, Douglas himself might be driven off stage so that the party could reunite behind someone less troublesome. Neither possibility was in the least likely, but almost anything was possible; there would be much electioneering and maneuvering in the Congressional districts back home, especially in the South, and there would also be a great to-do in Congress. Possibly something could be done here that would destroy this Northwesterner and permit all good Democrats to get together? Whatever the odds, the thing would be tried.
The handiest instrument that was available was embodied in the Davis resolutions regarding a Southern-rights code, which had been introduced in the Senate in February, had been endorsed by the Democratic caucus there, and now awaited final disposition. These would be brought up now and driven through to formal endorsement by the Senate, and May 7—four days after the collapse at Charleston—was the day appointed for it.
The Senate galleries were full, and the people who filled them had something to look at. Into the Senate chamber came Senator Douglas—“a queer little man, canine head and duck legs”—who went stumping down to his chair amid moderate applause. He had been through the mill lately, this Senator, and he was not well. (He would die, within little more than a year, a passionate spirit exhausting an inadequate body.) He got to his seat, twisted himself down in it, and put his feet on his desk, his mouth closed in a thin, bitter line. Fidgety, he clasped his hands, lolled in his chair, rubbed his nose, and waited to see what was going to happen.
Next came the man whose long shadow had affected so much that happened at Charleston—Senator Seward, of New York. Seward was in a good mood. As things then stood, he was very likely to be the Republican nominee and the next President, and he knew it. He was also, underneath everything else, a ham actor, and he played up to the limelight that was on him today. He stalked about the Republican side of the Senate chamber, his coat tails adrift behind him, found his seat, took a prodigious pinch of snuff, flourished a yellow silk handkerchief across his beaklike nose, and talked with a studied lack of self-consciousness to Republican die-hards like Ohio’s Senator Salmon P. Chase, who had all of the dignity and the ostentatious integrity which Seward seemed to lack. Seward cracked a joke, flourished the great handkerchief again, and all in all acted the part of a presidential candidate who is aware that things are going his way.
A third man, now: Jefferson Davis, tall and slim and haggard, coming into the chamber to the sound of muted rustlings in the galleries, going to his desk and depositing documents there with thin, bloodless hands, sitting down as if ineffably weary. 8 The Vice-President called the Senate to order and recognized the Senator from Mississippi. Senator Davis rose to speak.
Davis had something to say. The revolution that hardly anyone really wanted was coming closer and he did not like the sound of it; as a reasonable man, he would urge
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