Confederate Union

by Alan Sewell

  “Yes, here’s to progress! To the future! To Confederate Union, United Expansion!” Douglas shouted, the force of his breath parting the curtains of cigar smoke. He saw his life’s ambition to enter the White House nearing fulfillment. He was exactly the right man at exactly the right time. He would end the country’s internal squabbles over slavery and then direct the national energies outward, towards the acquisition of Latin America to the South and the British Possessions to the North. A new nation, coextensive with North America, would rise, its people for the first time truly united and assuming their rightful place as the greatest power of the Earth.

  The other men present did not know how the plan for “United Expansion” would be carried forth. For that matter Douglas, despite his confident bluster, had not figured it all out either.

  But Douglas’ entourage did understand perfectly well that victory in the election would be very good for them. They would receive their due allotment of Cabinet positions and leadership of Congressional committees. Their party, its Northern and Southern factions united, would finally rule the national roost as one big happy family. Those noisy, trouble-making Republicans would fade off to obscurity, never again to threaten the nation’s unity.

  Douglas knew exactly what they were thinking. He was proud of them and confident of their success in convincing the voters to elect the party to the White House and Congress. He congratulated himself for doing what a party leader was supposed to do, which was to unify the party and provide it with a sensible campaign theme. “Confederate Union, United Expansion” appealed to majorities of sensible people in the North and South who wanted to keep the country together. It had already quashed the fire eating Secessionists at Charleston. He anticipated that in the general election it would teach the militant Abolitionists that their schemes to disrupt the Union were equally futile.

  Each day he felt more confident. His party was united, forcing the crazy Republicans to campaign from divided camps. Some talked like fanatical Abolitionists determined to destroy slavery by making war against the South. Some talked about leaving the Union in a huff. Some bent over backward the other way trying to accommodate the South. Some talked about protecting business with tariffs. Some talked about free trade. The voters were bound to be confused by all those conflicting ideas. His instinct told him that the voters were unlikely to trust a party of such disparate views to govern them.

  While Douglas had been lost in thought the room suddenly grew quiet and he heard the rain pound down. The sudden silence unnerved him.

  “Well, my friends, it looks like we’re going to be here all night, so we might as well make the most of it. Let’s have another round.”

  He puffed heartily on his cigar and poured himself and his friends another round of whiskey. That was enough to get Andy Johnson going with another one of his off-color stories about the backwoods of Tennessee. The silence was replaced by guffaws as Andy unwound his story, the one having to do with the farmer’s daughter and the pumpkin patch.

  5

  Lancaster, Ohio, August 18, 1860

  William Tecumseh “Cump” Sherman was in “high feather” during his visit to the family home in Lancaster, Ohio. It was the return leg of his trip to Washington and New York to purchase equipment for the Louisiana Military Academy. As the recently appointed Superintendent of the Academy, Cump was getting along famously with Louisiana’s governing plantation aristocracy who appreciated his military efficiency and personal character.

  Sherman chuckled to himself as he remembered how his Louisiana friends had asked him to become a citizen of the state so that he could pursue a political career there. He had made it clear that he was a military man who had no use for politics or politicians. During his two days here in Lancaster he had made it abundantly clear to his brother, Congressman John Sherman, how much he detested the politicians of both parties for what they had done to the country with their squabbling.

  The Sherman brothers were having their morning coffee on the veranda, the air humid but pleasantly cool with fog lingering between the hedges.

  “Cump, I want to tell you in confidence that my party is alarmed about the election,” said John. “We have our doubts about being able to beat Douglas and Davis. If those two get to the White House I’m afraid the nation can’t remain united under one flag.”

  “Why the hell not?” Cump answered, with hot breath from his coffee steaming in the foggy morning air.

  John grimaced. “Because we can’t even talk to their party. Every time we confront them about halting the expansion of slavery it turns into a shouting match. Soon it’s going to become fisticuffs. A family that can’t talk to each other can’t live together under the same roof.”

  “And who do you blame for that?” Cump answered with disdain. “You politicians have got things into a hell of a fig, and you may get them out as best you can! Thanks to you this country is sleeping on a volcano that might burst forth at any moment.” He turned his head away to show that he did not want to continue the topic. What would he do if his brother threw in with those Republicans who wanted to bust up the country?

  But his brother wouldn’t drop the discussion. “Cump, another thing is that Douglas looks real bad. He’s drinking himself into an early grave. I’m wondering if he gets elected if he’ll even live out his term. If he is elected and passes away, Jefferson Davis will be the next President. I have no brief against Davis personally, but this country can’t stand another Southern Rights President. I am certain that if Davis does become President, the Northern States will go out of the Union.”

  Cump put down his coffee. “They’re both campaigning on a Union platform. Davis is shouting for the Union as loudly as Douglas. ‘United expansion’ and all that. What’s wrong with that?”

  “It’s the ‘expansion’ part that worries me,” John replied. “The Southerners want to expand their slave territory. How can they do that other than making war against Mexico? Then we’ll get a vigorous enforcement of the Dred Scott Decision that opens the entire country to slavery. Then they’ll bring in the West as Slave States and put a ring around us. They’ll recognize a Slave State constitution in Kansas. They’ll divide California and open up a new Slave State on the Pacific. They’ll use Dred Scott to come chasing after the free Negroes living here in Ohio. They’ll turn this country into the greatest slave empire since Julius Caesar’s!”

  Cump shrugged. “None of the slave owners I know in Louisiana talk that way. As far as I can tell they just want to be left alone to work their Niggers and grow their cotton and rice. Why don’t you people on this side of the Ohio learn to mind your own damn business?”

  John swatted a fly away from his coffee. “You wait and see how they talk after Douglas and Davis put the idea of turning this whole continent into a slave empire in their heads.”

  “It sounds like you’ve given up on the election already.”

  “No, I haven’t given up,” John said sternly. “I’m going to fight like hell to save this country and keep at least part of it as Free Soil. But it is a normal thing in politics to have your ducks in a row in case you lose an election.”

  “So your Republicans are going to take your ‘ducks’ home if you lose, are you?” replied Cump sarcastically. “You’re going to go out of the Union and into your own country? Have you heard Mr. Lincoln say anything about that?”

  “No,” answered John. “I have not heard him say anything other than that we must trust the people to vindicate our position at the ballot box. It’s Chase, Chandler, Sumner, and Fremont, plus the usual Abolitionists who are talking about leaving the Union. They are trying to bring the moderate Republicans into their camp.”

  Cump thrust his chin out defiantly. “Well, they’ll have to get past Stephen Douglas, if you’re right about him becoming the next President. I don’t think he’ll allow the Free States to leave the Union. I don’t think he would mind hanging some of those Abolitionists, and he’ll do it too if they keep talking treason.”


  John guffawed so hard he barely kept from spewing his coffee. “You’ve got to be joking! He’s leading a party committed to State Sovereignty. How can he deny the right of the North to secede after all their hurrahing for the right of the South to go out of the Union any time it pleases?”

  “A few of the Southern Rights fanatics may believe that nonsense,” Cump countered. “But Douglas doesn’t. He’s a patriot. If your Republicans and Abolitionists start making noises about leaving the Union he’ll stop you. So will us old Army men. We’re sworn to uphold the Constitution and we’ll carry forth our duty to maintain the integrity of this Union. You better believe we will. If you participate in any plot to break the Union you will be a party to treason. Think about it before you do anything you’ll later regret.”

  John replied carefully, hoping to avoid inciting his brother to anger. “It’s none of my business, Brother, but I’m guessing you’ve decided to cast your ballot for the Democrats. I wish you’d think about your decision thoroughly because the vote here looks to be very close.” Both Sherman brothers were citizens of Ohio and voted here.

  “If the Democrats had split their party in Charleston I’d vote Republican just to keep the election from being decided by you people in Congress,” retorted Cump. “Now I think the Democrats have the right idea to keep the country united. The Republicans sound confused and desperate. The patriotic vote is for Douglas and Davis.”

  John shook his head. “You’ve been down in Louisiana too long. The heat must have affected your mind.” He went back inside leaving Cump to finish his coffee alone.

  Cump frowned. What if his brother was right about the Republicans wanting to take the Free States out of the Union? Would the Slave States care? The hotheads like Yancey certainly wouldn’t. They’d say, “Good Riddance!” But Cump thought the Douglas Democrats would stand foursquare behind their party’s pledge to maintain the Union.

  Perhaps the Abolitionists would be able to take New England out of the Union. But they’d have a real fight on their hands in the other states that had more significant business interests and family ties to the Slave States. Many voters in these states were Democrats who lapped up their party’s anti-Negro, pro-slavery propaganda as eagerly as any Southern slaveholder. They’d prefer to stay in a Union with the Slave States than go off into another country with Abolitionists. There would be partisan strife, maybe civil war all over Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois if the Republicans tried to bust up the country.

  Cump did not think Douglas, should he become President, would tolerate that for a moment. He’d do what any Union-loving President would do, which would be to march the Regular Army, reinforced by militia from the loyal states, through the disaffected states in a show of federal authority. That had been sufficient for George Washington to put down the Whiskey Rebellion in 1789. It had enabled Andrew Jackson to stare down South Carolina’s Nullifiers in 1833. Cump wondered if he’d find himself called up to lead a division of Louisiana Militia in a war to subjugate Ohio’s Abolitionist rebels. Would he find himself at war with his own family here in Lancaster?

  Cump decided not to continue thinking along these unhappy lines. Perhaps the country would settle down and get back to business, as it always had done before, once the votes had been counted. He stood up and followed his brother back inside the house. He called to him, “Let’s take a walk around town. Who knows when I’ll be able to get back up here.”

  6

  Springfield, Illinois, September 15, 1860

  Stephen Douglas clenched his teeth as he sat down at the back of the podium and waited for Abraham Lincoln to rise and take his turn. Douglas wished to be anywhere other than here with Lincoln, the only man he had never bested in debate.

  Lincoln’s performance in the Lincoln/Douglas debates of the 1858 Illinois Senate campaign had propelled Lincoln to national prominence, though Douglas’ party had retained enough seats in the State Legislature to send Douglas back to the Senate. Now the two candidates from the frontier town of Springfield, Illinois met once again to debate for the highest elective office on Earth.

  Many who had come to hear this great debate wished that it had been held in one of the large cities like New York, Cincinnati, or Chicago. Big-city accommodations would have been more capable of sheltering the throngs of spectators and catering to the expense accounts of newspaper editors. As it was, most had to sleep in the town’s rented rooms at extortionate rates if they could afford them, or out on the fairgrounds if they couldn’t.

  But Springfield served the purpose of maintaining the custom that presidential candidates did not campaign outside of their homes, even though it hadn’t been Douglas’ physical home in more than a decade. After being elected to the Senate in 1852 Douglas had relocated his residences to Chicago and Washington City. But Springfield most certainly was his political home, for here his life had been made as a judge, a Congressman, a Senator, and now his party’s nominee for President.

  Perhaps it was more than coincidence that Lincoln and Douglas both hailed from this little town, for Springfield, by its location along the great divide between North and South, represented the views of the national electorate as a whole. Born of the North, the South, and the West, it had matured their political careers by presenting them with the views of all sectional constituencies, especially on slavery. And Springfield’s voters were important in their own right. Whoever won Springfield would probably win the State of Illinois. Whoever won the State of Illinois would most likely become the next President.

  Douglas looked at the enormous crowd that he estimated to be well over one hundred thousand. At the front were over five hundred reporters taking shorthand notes. Behind them people stood shoulder to shoulder for acres. Further still were those who had ridden in on wagons drawn by horses and oxen. Making themselves heard would strain the well-practiced voices of both candidates.

  This great crowd made Douglas immensely proud of America and its republican form of government. A moist trace of sentimental tear rose in his eyes as he thought of the majesty of popular democracy. The people were here to respectfully listen to him and Mr. Lincoln discuss the great issues of the campaign then use their sober judgment as free citizens to decide who they would elect to be their next President. They had respected the candidates’ wishes to make their voices heard. There had been a few spontaneous cheers from excited spectators on some of the salient points made by the candidates, and there had been some laughter, especially at Mr. Lincoln’s witty lines. But there had been no disruptive shouting or catcalls.

  As thrilling as this debate was, Douglas would have avoided it if he could have done so without hurting his chances in the election. But he had calculated that refusing Lincoln’s challenge would make him appear weak and evasive.

  He grimaced again as he read the paper that Lincoln had handed him as they exchanged places on the podium. The Interrogatories portion of the debate had started. According to the agreed upon rules, Lincoln had written four questions that Douglas was to answer. Then Douglas was to reciprocate with four questions for Lincoln. Each candidate had already given an opening statement. After the Interrogatories each candidate would make closing statements.

  Lincoln had given his opening statement as Douglas had expected. He had spoken his often-repeated position that he had no quarrel with slavery where it already existed in the Southern States. If elected President he would govern with a fair regard to the South’s interests in enforcing the laws of protecting its slave property as every other president since Washington had done. He would only oppose the expansion of slavery into the national territories that had not yet become states.

  Douglas had responded by trying to tie Lincoln into the Abolitionist Camp of Frederick Douglass, John Brown, William Lloyd Garrison, Owen Lovejoy, Wendell Phillips, and Charles Sumner, men who spoke out for the immediate liberation of slaves. Douglas tried, as always, to paint this group as a militant cabal of radical agitators hell-bent on wrecking the Union by constantly insulting Southerne
rs in the vilest terms and doing all they could to incite their slaves to rise up against them.

  If anything Douglas detested these Abolitionists even more than the Southern Fire Eaters.

  The Southerners are prideful and stubborn on slavery because it is the foundation of their society. I might excuse some of them for saying silly things in its defense. But I cannot excuse the Yankee Abolitionists for inflaming and inciting the Southerners, hoping to drive them from the Union. Yancey would never have come close to breaking up our party and endangering the Union if the damn Abolitionists hadn’t paid for John Brown’s lunatics to go down there and try to whip up a slave rebellion. If Lincoln is elected President they’ll keep on trying until they do succeed in wrecking the Union.

  Douglas also sought to undermine Lincoln by appealing to the people’s anti-Negro sentiments. Douglas knew that the Whites whose votes he needed to carry Illinois and Indiana wanted Negroes to remain in bondage so as to prevent them from coming north to compete with white laborers for jobs. Douglas told them that Lincoln not only wanted to set the Negroes free but to grant them social equality with Whites. “Lincoln joins with those who want to free the slaves and then marry them off to your daughters!”

  Douglas felt that he had to use this line of attack to discredit Lincoln, but he did not relish it. Although Lincoln was older by several years, Douglas was his senior in politics, having been nationally prominent long before Lincoln had been heard of outside the State of Illinois. Douglas saw Lincoln as something of a precocious little brother --- a sibling who annoyed his older brother by acting as if he was smarter, but who was loved and admired nevertheless.

  Douglas looked at Lincoln in that fraternal sort of way even while cursing Lincoln’s anti-slavery politics. Douglas therefore read Lincoln’s questions with a mixture of admiration and annoyance. He knew from past debates that Lincoln’s questions could be devastating in cracking open the inconsistencies between the many different positions that Douglas had taken in his attempt to reconcile the Slave State South with the Free State North. In the Senate race of 1858 Lincoln had knocked down Douglas’ Popular Sovereignty platform like an outhouse in a tornado. At the moment Douglas’ campaign had Lincoln’s on the defensive. He could not allow this debate to reverse the situation.