"And therefore?"
"That their interests are antagonistic to New England and in harmony with the South. Another three months like the last six and we are lost, sir--hopelessly lost!"
"Is it as bad as that Governor?" the sad even voice asked.
A smile flickered across the stern, fine face of the war Governor:
"If you think me a pessimist remember that Van Alen their leader, has just presided over a Democratic jubilee meeting in Ohio which was swept again and again by cheers for Jefferson Davis--curses and jeers for the Abolitionists. His speech has been put in the form of a leaflet which is being mailed in thousands to our soldiers at the front----"
"You know that to be a fact?" the President asked sharply.
"The fact is notorious, sir. It will be disputed by no one. The outlook is black. Meeting after meeting is being held in Indiana demanding peace at any price, with the recognition of the Southern Confederacy--and, mark you, what is still more significant the formation of a Northwestern Confederacy with its possible Capital at your home town of Springfield, Illinois----"
"No, no!" the President groaned.
"Your last call for three hundred thousand volunteers," the Governor went on, "as you well know was an utter failure. Only eighty-six thousand men have been raised under it. I was compelled to use a draft to secure the number I did in Indiana. It is useless to call for more volunteers anywhere----"
"Then we"ll have to use the draft," was the firm response.
"If we can enforce it!" the Governor warned. "A meeting has just been held in my State in which resolutions were unanimously pa.s.sed demanding that the war cease, denouncing the attempt to use the power to draft men, declaring that our volunteers had been induced to enter the army under the false declaration that war was waged solely to maintain the Const.i.tution and to restore the Union----"
"And so it is!" the President interrupted.
"Until you issued your Proclamation, freeing the slaves----"
"But only as a war measure to weaken the South, give us the victory and restore the Const.i.tution!"
"They refuse to hear your interpretation; they make their own. Van Alen boldly declares that ninety-nine men out of every hundred whom he represents in Congress breathe no other prayer than to have an end of this h.e.l.lish war. When news of victory comes, there is no rejoicing.
When news of our defeat comes there is no sorrow----"
"Is that statement really true?" the sorrowful lips asked.
"Of the majority who elected him, yes. In the Northwest, distrust and despair are strangling the hearts of the people. More and more we hear the traitorous talk of arraying ourselves against New England and forming a Confederacy of our own. More than two thousand six hundred deserters have been arrested within a few weeks in Indiana. It generally requires an armed detail. Most of the deserters, true to the oath of the order of the Knights of the Golden Circle, desert with their arms----"
"Is it possible?"
"And in one case seventeen of these fortified themselves in a log cabin with outside paling and ditch for protection, and were maintained by their neighbors. Two hundred armed men in Rush County resisted the arrest of deserters. I was compelled to send infantry by special train to take their ringleaders. Southern Indiana is ripe for Revolution.
"I have positive information that the incoming Democratic Legislature of my State is in quick touch with the ones gathering in Illinois and Ohio. In Illinois, your own State, they have already drafted the resolutions demanding an armistice and a convention of all the States to agree to an adjustment of the war. It is certain to pa.s.s the Illinois House.
"My own Legislature has put this resolution into a more daring and dangerous form. They propose boldly and at once to acknowledge the Southern Confederacy and demand that the Northwest dissolve all further relations with New England. When they have pa.s.sed this measure in Indiana, they expect Ohio and Illinois to follow suit.
"Their secret order which covers my State with a network of lodges, whose purpose is the withdrawal of the Northwestern States from the Union, has obtained a foothold in the army camps inside the city of Washington itself----"
The President rose with quick, nervous energy and paced the floor. He stopped suddenly in front of Morton, his deep set eyes burning a steady flame:
"And what do you propose?"
"I haven"t decided yet. I have the best of reasons to believe that the first thing my Legislature will do when it convenes is to pa.s.s a resolution refusing to receive any message from me as Governor of the State!"
"Will they dare?"
"I"m sure of it. It will be composed of men sworn to oppose to the bitter end any prosecution of this war. They intend to recognize the Southern Confederacy, and dissolve their own Federal relation with the United States. It may be necessary, sir----" he paused and fixed the President with compelling eyes, "---it may be necessary to suspend the civil government in the North in order to save the Union!"
The President lifted his big hand in a gesture of despair:
"G.o.d save us from that!"
"I came here to tell you just this," the Governor gravely concluded. "If the crisis comes and I must use force I expect you to back me----"
Two big rugged hands grasped the one outstretched:
"G.o.d bless you, Governor Morton,--we"ve got to save the Union, and we"re going to do it! Since the day I came into this office I have fought to uphold the supremacy of the civil law. My enemies may force me to use despotic powers to crush it for larger ends!----But I hope not. I hope not. G.o.d knows I have no vain ambitions. I have no desire to use such power----"
The Governor left him gazing dreamily over the river toward Virginia a great new sorrow clouding his soul.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE CONSPIRACY
Lord Lyons, the British Minister, was using smooth words to the Secretary of State. Mr. Seward, our wily snuff dipper, was fully his equal in expressions of polite friendship. What he meant to say, of course, was that he could plunge a poisoned dagger into the British Lion with the utmost pleasure. What he said was:
"I am pleased to hear from your lordship the expressions of good will from her Gracious Majesty"s Government."
"I am sorry to say, however," the Minister hastened to add, "that the Proclamation of Emanc.i.p.ation was not received by the best people of England as favorably as we had hoped."
"And why not?" Seward politely asked.
"Seeing that it could have no effect in really freeing the slaves until the South is conquered it appeared to be merely an attempt to excite a servile insurrection."
The Secretary lifted his eyebrows, took another dip of snuff, and softly inquired:
"And may I ask of your lordship whether this would not have been even more true in the earlier days of the war than now?"
"Undoubtedly."
"And yet I understand that her Gracious Majesty"s Government was cold toward us because we had failed to take such high moral grounds at once in the beginning of the war?"
His lordship lifted his hands in polite admission of the facts.
"The trouble you see is," he went on softly, "Europe begins to feel that the division of sentiment in the North will prove a fatal weakness to the administration in so grave a crisis. Unfortunately, from our point of view, of course, your Government is a democracy, the sport of every whim of the demagogue of the hour----"
Seward lifted his eyes with a quick look at his lordship and smiled: