Congress at the Outbreak of the War

Maynard J. Brichford did his graduate work with Dr. William B. Hesseltine at the University of Wisconsin. This article is one of a series of studies of the wartime congress. Mr. Brichford has been associated with the Wisconsin State Historical Society and is now with the Illinois State Archives. Congress at the Outbreak of the War MAYNARD J. BRICHFORD "The effect of this war will be to consume party politics and its corruptions, and the country will come out of the fire like gold purified of its dross, better and brighter than ever, while the chastisement will suffice for the next half century___" -New York Herald, April 29, 1861. "Must they be let off now, and still be permitted to raise their defiant voices in our council chambers and control and govern the destinies of this government hereafter as for 40 years back God forbid." —Congressman Burt Van Horn to Abraham Lincoln, May 1861. The immense crowd jamming Chicago's MetropoUtan Hall on the evening of April 15, 1861, settled back from the "fervidly eloquent harangue" of fiery aboUtionist Owen Lovejoy to hear Isaac Newton Arnold sound the battle cry for "the loyal people of the United States." In his best jury manner, the new congressman reviewed the momentous events of the secession winter of 1860-1861. Forfour months, he and the other memberselect of the Thirty-seventh Congress had seen "treason and rebellion go . . . unmolested and unopposed . . . ." While Buchanan temporized, the lower South seceded and politicians talked compromise. The "noble old ship of state was dismantled, disarmed, robbed, plundered—holes bored through her keel, ready to be scuttled." Though the prospect of a RepubUcan majority in Congress had increased as one Southern state after another withdrew from the Union, the possibility of a compromise remained to haunt party leaders and threaten the success of their program. 153 154MAYNAHD J. BRICHFORD Now, with the aid of the South Carolina batteries at Charleston, the RepubUcans had won their greatest victory. "All patriots are on one side," Arnold proclaimed, "a unit against treason and rebellion" and for "the Constitution, the Union and the enforcement of the laws."1 Athundreds of "Union" and "war"meetings throughout the North, other congressmen joined their Chicago colleague in proclaiming their support of the government and in calling for action. As the incoming Congress would not normally convene until the following December, senators and representatives shared the crowded political stage with special commissioners , governors, state legislators, and editors, while the President launched his war program. In an April 15 proclamation, Lincoln called for 75,000 militia to suppress illegal "combinations" in the seceded states and summoned an extra session of the Thirty-seventh Congress for the Fourth of July to "consider and determine such measures as . . . the pubUc safety and interest may seem to demand." Illinois Senator Orville Browning mirrored the reaction of Lincoln's party when he jubilantly asserted that "you have them so palpably in the wrong as to unite all men ...."* Republican congressmen promptly pledged their support of Lincoln's war poUcy. In urging his soldier brother to take "a high part in the tragedy," Ohio Senator John Sherman voiced the sentiment of many of his colleagues: "I am for a war that . . . will purify the atmosphere of poUtical hie. We need such a war, and we have it now . . . ." Pennsylvania industrialist John Covode offered to advance $50,000 to his state's war chest. Thad Stevens, lawyer and ironmaster, rallied his local bar behind the government. Vermont's cautious Justin S. Morrill admitted that he knew "very little of all the antecedent facts," but vowed that the "Government must and will be sustained." In Illinois, Abolitionist preacher Owen Lovejoy cautioned that the war would be "no holiday work" but declared that "the expenditure of blood is justifiable at this time." Zach Chandler announced that there were no "sympathizers . . . with treason" in Michigan. The Detroit merchant prince fully endorsed the contention of Ohio's Ben Wade that there was "more sound argument in one eleventhinch [sic] columbiad than in all the Senate speeches or political pamphlets ever issued."3 ? Chicago Tribune, April 16, 1861; New York Herald, April 16, 1861. 2 John G. Nicolay...