Never was a spring more delightful than that of 1860. The Marine Band played every Saturday in the President's grounds, and thither the whole world repaired, to walk, or to sit in open carriages, and talk of everything except Adam and Eve politics. Easy compliments to the ladies fell from the lips of the men who could apply to each other in debate abuse too painful to remember. Sometimes we would be invited for the afternoon to sit on the veranda of the White House—and who could fail to mark the ravages of anxiety and care upon the face of the President! All the more because he insistently repeated that he was never better—that he slept finely and enjoyed the best health. Nevertheless, if one chanced to stand silently near him in a quiet corner, he might be heard to mutter, "Not in my time—not in my time." Not in his time let this dear Union be severed, this dear country be drowned in blood.
On other afternoons we visited Mr. and Mrs. Robert E. Lee at Arlington, or drove out to Georgetown through the fragrant avenue of blossoming crab-apples, or to Mrs. Gales's delightful house for tea, returning in the soft moonlight. Everybody in Washington dined early. Congress usually adjourned at four o'clock, and my little boys were wont to be on the roof of our house, to watch for 102 the falling of the flag over the House of Representatives, the signal that we might soon have dinner. The evening meal was late, usually handed. It was considered not "stylish" to serve it at a table. A servant would enter the drawing-room about eight o'clock, with a tray holding plates and little doilies. Another would bring in buttered biscuits and chipped beef or ham, and a third tray held cups of tea and coffee. Some delicate sweet would follow. Little tables of Chinese lacquer were placed between two or more ladies, and lucky was the man who would be invited to share one of them. Otherwise he must improvise a rest for his plate on his trembling knees. "Take care! Your plate will fall," I said to one. "Fall! I wish it would—and break! The only thing that worries me is when the blamed thing takes to rolling. Why, I have chased plates all around the room until I thought they were bewitched or held the secret of perpetual motion!" These suppers were very conversational, and one did not mind their being so light. There would be punch and sandwiches at eleven.
Such were the pleasant happenings that filled our days—clouded now by the perils which we could not ignore after the warnings to which we listened at the Capitol. We were conscious of this always in our round of visits, receptions, dinners, and balls, with the light persiflage and compliments still in our ears.
But when late evening came, the golden hour of reunion in the library on the first floor of our home was marked by graver talk. There would assemble 103 R. M. T. Hunter, Muscoe Garnett, Porcher Miles, L. Q. C. Lamar, Boyce, Barksdale of Mississippi, Keitt of South Carolina, with perhaps some visitors from the South. Then Susan would light her fires and show us the kind of oysters that could please her "own white folks," and James would bring in lemons and hot water with some choice brand of old Kentucky.
These were not convivial gatherings. These men held troubled consultations on the state of the country—the real meaning and intent of the North, the half-trusted scheme of Judge Douglas to allow the territories to settle for themselves the vexed question of slavery within their borders, the right of peaceable secession. The dawn would find them again and again with but one conclusion—they would stand together: "Unum et commune periclum una salus!"
But Holbein's spectre was already behind the door, and had marked his men! In a few months the swift bullet for one enthusiast, for another (the least considered of them all), a glorious death on the walls of a hard-won rampart—he the first to raise his colors and the shout of victory; for only one, or two, or three, the doubtful boon of existence after the struggle was all over; for all survivors, memories that made the next four years seem to be the sum of life—the only real life—beside which the coming years would be but a troubled dream.
The long session did not close until June, and in the preceding month Abraham Lincoln was chosen candidate by the Republican party for the presidency, 104 and Stephen A. Douglas by the Democrats. The South had also a candidate, and hoping to make things better, the ruffled-shirt gentry—the Old-Line Whigs—had also named their man.
My little boys and I were glad to go home to Virginia. A season of perfect happiness awaited them, with their sisters and the dear old people whom they called grandfather and grandmother. Under the shade of the trees, and in the veranda covered with Lamarque roses, who could dream of war?
In the hot and bitter campaign that ensued we are told that "Douglas took the unusual course for a presidential candidate of visiting different parts of the country and discussing the political issues and their personal bearings. Speaking on all occasions, from the platform of the railroad car, the balcony of the hotel, at monster mass-meetings, he said much that was trivial and undignified, but he also said much that was patriotic, unselfish, and pregnant with constitutional wisdom. Coldly received at the South, where he was looked upon as a renegade, he aroused great enthusiasm at the North, and his personal presence was the only feature that gave any life to the struggle against the Republicans."[8]
The words "irrepressible conflict" were much in evidence during this campaign. Seward adopted them, and made speeches characterized as his "Irrepressible Conflict Speeches."[9] Seward reaffirmed almost everywhere the declaration of the "irrepressible conflict," and when challenged because of the 105 term, he "maintained that the Republicans simply reverted to the theory and practice of their fathers," giving no hint of a quotation.
The authorship of these words has always been credited to Mr. Seward. Their true origin may be found in the address of Mr. Lincoln, delivered at Cincinnati, Ohio, in September, 1859. On page 262 of the volume published by Follett, Foster, & Co. in 1860, entitled "Political Debates between Hon. Abraham Lincoln and Hon. Stephen A. Douglas," may be found the following extract from Mr. Lincoln's speech:—
"I have alluded in the beginning of these remarks to the fact that Judge Douglas has made great complaint of my having expressed the opinion that this Government 'cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.' He has complained of Seward for using different language, and declaring that there is an 'irrepressible conflict' between the principles of free and slave labor. [A voice: 'He says it is not original with Seward. That is original with Lincoln.'] I will attend to that immediately, sir. Since that time, Hickman of Pennsylvania expressed the same sentiment. He has never denounced Mr. Hickman; why? There is a little chance, notwithstanding that opinion in the mouth of Hickman, that he may yet be a Douglas man. That is the difference! It is not unpatriotic to hold that opinion, if a man is a Douglas man.
"But neither I, nor Seward, nor Hickman is entitled to the enviable or unenviable distinction of having first expressed that idea. That same idea was expressed by the Richmond Enquirer in Virginia, in 1856, quite two years before it was expressed by the first of us. And while Douglas was pluming himself that in his conflict with my humble self, last 106 year, he had 'squelched out' that fatal heresy, as he delighted to call it, and had suggested that if he only had had a chance to be in New York and meet Seward he would have 'squelched' it there also, it never occurred to him to breathe a word against Pryor. I don't think that you can discover that Douglas ever talked of going to Virginia to 'squelch' out that idea there. No. More than that. That same Roger A. Pryor was brought to Washington City and made the editor of the par excellence Douglas paper, after making use of that expression, which in us is so unpatriotic and heretical."
Before we returned to Washington Mr. Lincoln was elected President of the United States.
On other afternoons we visited Mr. and Mrs. Robert E. Lee at Arlington, or drove out to Georgetown through the fragrant avenue of blossoming crab-apples, or to Mrs. Gales's delightful house for tea, returning in the soft moonlight. Everybody in Washington dined early. Congress usually adjourned at four o'clock, and my little boys were wont to be on the roof of our house, to watch for 102 the falling of the flag over the House of Representatives, the signal that we might soon have dinner. The evening meal was late, usually handed. It was considered not "stylish" to serve it at a table. A servant would enter the drawing-room about eight o'clock, with a tray holding plates and little doilies. Another would bring in buttered biscuits and chipped beef or ham, and a third tray held cups of tea and coffee. Some delicate sweet would follow. Little tables of Chinese lacquer were placed between two or more ladies, and lucky was the man who would be invited to share one of them. Otherwise he must improvise a rest for his plate on his trembling knees. "Take care! Your plate will fall," I said to one. "Fall! I wish it would—and break! The only thing that worries me is when the blamed thing takes to rolling. Why, I have chased plates all around the room until I thought they were bewitched or held the secret of perpetual motion!" These suppers were very conversational, and one did not mind their being so light. There would be punch and sandwiches at eleven.
Such were the pleasant happenings that filled our days—clouded now by the perils which we could not ignore after the warnings to which we listened at the Capitol. We were conscious of this always in our round of visits, receptions, dinners, and balls, with the light persiflage and compliments still in our ears.
But when late evening came, the golden hour of reunion in the library on the first floor of our home was marked by graver talk. There would assemble 103 R. M. T. Hunter, Muscoe Garnett, Porcher Miles, L. Q. C. Lamar, Boyce, Barksdale of Mississippi, Keitt of South Carolina, with perhaps some visitors from the South. Then Susan would light her fires and show us the kind of oysters that could please her "own white folks," and James would bring in lemons and hot water with some choice brand of old Kentucky.
These were not convivial gatherings. These men held troubled consultations on the state of the country—the real meaning and intent of the North, the half-trusted scheme of Judge Douglas to allow the territories to settle for themselves the vexed question of slavery within their borders, the right of peaceable secession. The dawn would find them again and again with but one conclusion—they would stand together: "Unum et commune periclum una salus!"
But Holbein's spectre was already behind the door, and had marked his men! In a few months the swift bullet for one enthusiast, for another (the least considered of them all), a glorious death on the walls of a hard-won rampart—he the first to raise his colors and the shout of victory; for only one, or two, or three, the doubtful boon of existence after the struggle was all over; for all survivors, memories that made the next four years seem to be the sum of life—the only real life—beside which the coming years would be but a troubled dream.
The long session did not close until June, and in the preceding month Abraham Lincoln was chosen candidate by the Republican party for the presidency, 104 and Stephen A. Douglas by the Democrats. The South had also a candidate, and hoping to make things better, the ruffled-shirt gentry—the Old-Line Whigs—had also named their man.
My little boys and I were glad to go home to Virginia. A season of perfect happiness awaited them, with their sisters and the dear old people whom they called grandfather and grandmother. Under the shade of the trees, and in the veranda covered with Lamarque roses, who could dream of war?
In the hot and bitter campaign that ensued we are told that "Douglas took the unusual course for a presidential candidate of visiting different parts of the country and discussing the political issues and their personal bearings. Speaking on all occasions, from the platform of the railroad car, the balcony of the hotel, at monster mass-meetings, he said much that was trivial and undignified, but he also said much that was patriotic, unselfish, and pregnant with constitutional wisdom. Coldly received at the South, where he was looked upon as a renegade, he aroused great enthusiasm at the North, and his personal presence was the only feature that gave any life to the struggle against the Republicans."[8]
The words "irrepressible conflict" were much in evidence during this campaign. Seward adopted them, and made speeches characterized as his "Irrepressible Conflict Speeches."[9] Seward reaffirmed almost everywhere the declaration of the "irrepressible conflict," and when challenged because of the 105 term, he "maintained that the Republicans simply reverted to the theory and practice of their fathers," giving no hint of a quotation.
The authorship of these words has always been credited to Mr. Seward. Their true origin may be found in the address of Mr. Lincoln, delivered at Cincinnati, Ohio, in September, 1859. On page 262 of the volume published by Follett, Foster, & Co. in 1860, entitled "Political Debates between Hon. Abraham Lincoln and Hon. Stephen A. Douglas," may be found the following extract from Mr. Lincoln's speech:—
"I have alluded in the beginning of these remarks to the fact that Judge Douglas has made great complaint of my having expressed the opinion that this Government 'cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.' He has complained of Seward for using different language, and declaring that there is an 'irrepressible conflict' between the principles of free and slave labor. [A voice: 'He says it is not original with Seward. That is original with Lincoln.'] I will attend to that immediately, sir. Since that time, Hickman of Pennsylvania expressed the same sentiment. He has never denounced Mr. Hickman; why? There is a little chance, notwithstanding that opinion in the mouth of Hickman, that he may yet be a Douglas man. That is the difference! It is not unpatriotic to hold that opinion, if a man is a Douglas man.
"But neither I, nor Seward, nor Hickman is entitled to the enviable or unenviable distinction of having first expressed that idea. That same idea was expressed by the Richmond Enquirer in Virginia, in 1856, quite two years before it was expressed by the first of us. And while Douglas was pluming himself that in his conflict with my humble self, last 106 year, he had 'squelched out' that fatal heresy, as he delighted to call it, and had suggested that if he only had had a chance to be in New York and meet Seward he would have 'squelched' it there also, it never occurred to him to breathe a word against Pryor. I don't think that you can discover that Douglas ever talked of going to Virginia to 'squelch' out that idea there. No. More than that. That same Roger A. Pryor was brought to Washington City and made the editor of the par excellence Douglas paper, after making use of that expression, which in us is so unpatriotic and heretical."
Before we returned to Washington Mr. Lincoln was elected President of the United States.
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