The Great Conspiracy, Volume 6

The immortal Charter of Freedom had, as we have seen, with comparative ease, after a ten days' debate, by the power of numbers, run the gauntlet of the Senate; but now it was to be subjected to the much more trying and doubtful ordeal of the House. What would be its fate there? This was a question which gave to Mr. Lincoln, and the other friends of Liberty and Union, great concern.

It is true that various votes had recently been taken in that body, upon propositions which had an indirect bearing upon the subject of Emancipation, as, for instance, that of the 1st of February, 1864, when, by a vote of 80 yeas to 46 nays, it had adopted a Resolution declaring "That a more vigorous policy to enlist, at an early day, and in larger numbers, in our Army, persons of African descent, would meet the approbation of the House;" and that vote, although indirect, being so very nearly a two-thirds vote, was most encouraging. But, on the other hand, a subsequent Resolution, squarely testing the sense of the House upon the subject, had been carried by much less than a two-thirds vote.

This latter Resolution, offered by Mr. Arnold, after conference with Mr. Lincoln, with the very purpose of making a test, was in these direct terms:

"Resolved, That the Constitution shall be so amended as to Abolish Slavery in the United States wherever it now exists, and to prohibit its existence in every part thereof forever."

The vote, adopting it, was but 78 yeas to 62 nays. * This vote, therefore, upon the Arnold Resolution, being nowhere near the two-thirds affirmative vote necessary to secure the passage through the House of the Senate Joint Resolution on this subject amendatory of the Constitution, was most discouraging.

It was definite enough, however, to show the necessity of a change from the negative to the affirmative side of at least fifteen votes. While therefore the outlook was discouraging it was far from hopeless. The debate in the Senate had already had its effect upon the public mind. That, and the utterances of Mr. Lincoln—and further discussion in the House, it was thought, might produce such a pressure from the loyal constituencies both in the Free and Border Slave-States as to compel success.

But from the very beginning of the year 1864, as if instinctively aware that their Rebel friends were approaching the crisis of their fate, and needed now all the help that their allies of the North could give them, the Anti-War Democrats, in Congress, and out, had been stirring themselves with unusual activity.

In both Houses of Congress, upon all possible occasions, they had been striving, as they still strove, with the venom of their widely-circulated speeches, to poison the loyal Northern and Border-State mind, in the hope that the renomination of Mr. Lincoln might be defeated, the chance for Democratic success at the coming Presidential election be thereby increased, and, if nothing else came of it, the Union Cause be weakened and the Rebel Cause correspondingly strengthened.

At the same time, evidently under secret instructions from their friends, the Conspirators in arms, they endeavored to create heart-burnings and jealousies and ill-feeling between the Eastern (especially the New England) States and the Western States, and unceasingly attacked the Protective-Tariff, Internal Revenue, the Greenback, the Draft, and every other measure or thing upon which the life of the Union depended.

Most of these Northern-Democratic agitators, "Stealing the livery of Heaven to serve the Devil in," endeavored to conceal their treacherous designs under a veneer of gushing lip-loyalty, but that disguise was "too thin" to deceive either their contemporaries or those who come after them. Some of their language too, as well as their blustering manner, strangely brought back to recollection the old days of Slavery when the plantation-whip was cracked in the House, and the air was blue with execration of New England.

Said Voorhees, of Indiana, (January 11, 1864) when the House was considering a Bill "to increase the Internal Revenue and for other purposes:"

"I want to know whether the West has any friends upon the floor of this House? We pay every dollar that is to be levied by this Tax Bill. * * * The Manufacturing Interest pays not a dollar into the public Treasury that stays there. And yet airs of patriotism are put on here by men representing that interest. I visited New England last Summer, * * * when I heard the swelling hum of her Manufactories, and saw those who only a short time ago worked but a few hands, now working their thousands, and rolling up their countless wealth, I felt that it was an unhealthy prosperity. To my mind it presented a wealth wrung from the labor, the sinews, the bone and muscle of the men who till the soil, taxed to an illegitimate extent to foster and support that great System of local wealth. * * * I do not intend to stand idly by and see one portion of the Country robbed and oppressed for the benefit of another."

And the same day, replying to Mr. Morrill of Vermont, he exclaimed: "Let him show me that the plethoric, bloated Manufacturers of New England are paying anything to support the Government, and I will recognize it."

Washburne, of Illinois got back at this part of Mr. Voorhees's speech rather neatly, by defending the North-west as being "not only willing to stand taxation" which had been "already imposed, but * * * any additional taxation which," said he, "may be necessary to crush out this Rebellion, and to hang the Rebels in the South, and the Rebel sympathizers in the North." And, he pointedly added: "Complaint has been made against New England. I know that kind of talk. I have heard too often that kind of slang about New England. I heard it here for ten years, when your Barksdales, and your Keitts's, and your other Traitors, now in arms against the Government, filled these Halls with their pestilential assaults not only upon New England, but on the Free North generally."

Kelley of Pennsylvania, however, more fitly characterized the speech of Voorhees, when he termed it "a pretty, indeed a somewhat striking, paraphrase of the argument of Mr. Lamar, the Rebel Agent,—[in 1886, Secretary of the Interior]—to his confreres in Treason, as we find it in the recently published correspondence: 'Drive gold coin out of the Country, and induce undue Importation of Foreign products so as to strike down the Financial System. You can have no further hope for Foreign recognition. It is evident the weight of arms is against us; and it is clear that we can only succeed by striking down the Financial System of the Country.' It was an admirable paraphrase of the Instructions of Mr. Lamar to the Rebel Agents in the North."

The impression was at this time abroad, and there were not wanting elements of proof, that certain members of Congress were trusted Lieutenants of the Arch-copperhead and Outlaw, Vallandigham. Certain it is, that many of these leaders, six months before, attended and addressed the great gathering from various parts of the Country, of nearly one hundred thousand Vallandigham-Anti-War Peace-Democrats, at Springfield, Illinois—the very home of Abraham Lincoln—which adopted, during a lull, when they were not yelling themselves hoarse for Vallandigham, a resolution declaring against "the further offensive prosecution of the War" as being subversive of the Constitution and Government, and proposing a National Peace Convention, and, as a consequence, Peace, "the Union as it was," and, substantially such Constitutional guarantees as the Rebels might choose to demand! And this too, at a time (June 13, 1863), when Grant, after many recent glorious victories, had been laying siege to Vicksburg, and its Rebel Army of 37,000 men, for nearly a month, with every reason to hope for its speedy fall.

No wonder that under such circumstances, the news of such a gathering of the Northern Democratic sympathizers with Treason, and of their adoption of such treasonable Resolutions, should encourage the Rebels in the same degree that Union men were disheartened! No wonder that Lee, elated by this and other evidences of Northern sympathy with Rebellion, at once determined to commence a second grand invasion of the North, and on the very next day (June 14th,) moved Northward with all his Rebel hosts to be welcomed, he fondly hoped, by his Northern friends of Maryland and elsewhere! As we have seen, it took the bloody Battle of Gettysburg to undeceive him as to the character of that welcome.

Further than this, Mr. Cox had stumped Ohio, in the succeeding election, in a desperate effort to make the banished Traitor, Vallandigham—the Chief Northern commander of the "Knights of the Golden Circle" (otherwise known as the "Order of the Sons of Liberty," and "O. A. K." or "Order of American Knights")—Governor of that great State.

[The Rebel General Sterling Price being the chief Southern commander of this many-named treasonable organization, which in the North alone numbered over 500,000 men.

August, 1864.—See Report of Judge Advocate Holt on certain "Secret Associations," in Appendix,]

And it only lacked a few months of the time when quantities of copies of the treasonable Ritual of the "Order of American Knights"—as well as correspondence touching the purchase of thousands of Garibaldi rifles for transportation to the West—were found in the offices of leading Democrats then in Congress.

When, therefore, it is said, and repeated, that there were not wanting elements of proof, outside of Congressional utterances and actions, that leading Democrats in Congress were trusted Lieutenants of the Supreme Commander of over half a million of Northern Rebel-sympathizers bound together, and to secrecy, by oaths, which were declared to be paramount to all other oaths, the violation of which subjected the offender to a shameful death somewhat like that, of being "hung, drawn, and quartered," which was inflicted in the middle ages for the crime of Treason to the Crown—it will be seen that the statement is supported by circumstantial, if not by positive and direct, evidence.

Whether the Coxes, the Garret Davises, the Saulsburys, the Fernando Woods, the Alexander Longs, the Allens, the Holmans, and many other prominent Congressmen of that sort,—were merely in close communion with these banded "Knights," or were actual members of their secret organizations, may be an open question. But it is very certain that if they all were not oath-bound members, they generally pursued the precise methods of those who were; and that, as a rule, while they often loudly proclaimed loyalty and love for the Union, they were always ready to act as if their loyalty and love were for the so-called Confederacy.

Indeed, it was one of these other "loyal" Democrats, who even preceded Voorhees, in raising the Sectional cry of: The West, against New England. It was on this same Internal Revenue Bill, that Holman of Indiana had, the day before Voorhees's attack, said:

"If the Manufacture of the Northwest is to be taxed so heavily, a corresponding rate of increase must be imposed on the Manufactures of New England and Pennsylvania, or, will gentlemen tax us without limit for the benefit of their own Section? * * * I protest against what I believe is intended to be a discrimination against one Section of the Country, by increasing the tax three-fold, without a corresponding increase upon the burdens of other Sections."

But these dreadfully "loyal" Democrats—who did the bidding of traitorous masters in their Treason to the Union, and thus, while posturing as "Patriots," "fired upon the rear" of our hard-pressed Armies—were super-sensitive on this point. And, when they could get hold of a quiet sort of a man, inclined to peaceful methods of discussion, how they would, terrier-like, pounce upon him, and extract from him, if they could, some sort of negative satisfaction!

Thus, for instance, on the 22nd of January, when one of these quiet men —Morris of New York—was in the midst of an inoffensive speech, Mr. Cox "bristled up," and blusteringly asked whether he meant to say that he (Cox) had "ever been the apologist or the defender of a Traitor?"

And Morris not having said so, mildly replied that he did "not so charge"—all of which little bit of by-play hugely pleased the touchy Mr. Cox, and his clansmen.

But on the day following, their smiles vanished under the words of Spalding or Ohio, who, after referring to the crocodile-tears shed by Democratic Congressmen over the Confiscation Resolution—on the pretense that it would hunt down "innocent women and children" of the Rebels, when they had never a word of sympathy for the widows and children of the two hundred thousand dead soldiers of the Union—continued:

"They can see our poor soldiers return, minus an arm, minus a leg, as they pass through these lobbies, but their only care is to protect the property of Rebels. And we are asked by one of my colleagues, (Mr. Cox) does the gentleman from New York intend to call us Traitors? My friend, Mr. Morris, modestly answered no! If he had asked that question of me, he knows what my answer would have been! I have seen Rebel officers at Johnson's Island, and I have taken them by the hand because they have fought us fairly in the field and did not seek to break down the Government while living under its protection. Yes, Sir, that gentleman knows that I would have said to him that I have more respect for an open and avowed Traitor in the field, than for a sympathizer in this Hall. Four months have scarcely gone by since that gentleman and his political friends were advocating the election of a man for the Gubernatorial office in my State, who was an open and avowed advocate of Secession—AN OUTLAW AT THAT!"

And old Thaddeus Stevens—the clear-sighted and courageous "Old Commoner"—followed up Spalding, and struck very close to the root and animus of the Democratic opposition, when he exclaimed:

"All this struggle by calm and dignified and moderate 'Patriots;' all this clamor against 'Radicals;' all this cry of 'the Union as it Was, and the Constitution as it Is;' is but a persistent effort to reestablish Slavery, and to rivet anew and forever the chains of Bondage on the limbs of Immortal beings. May the God of Justice thwart their designs and paralyze their wicked efforts!"