Sir, he who sees these states, now revolving in harmony around a common centre, and expects to see them quit their places and fly off without convulsion, may look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies rush from their spheres, and jostle against each other in the realms of space, without producing the crush of the universe. What produced this expansion of political and military force, much of it permanent, though unimaginable in earlier American history?ĭaniel Webster (and many others) had warned that factional disputes, intensified without limit, could result only in catastrophe: In the middle of 1861, such events and the emotions that accompanied them produced their final effect - civil war. The passages I cite refer to events of early 1860. I quote from Allan Nevins’ The Emergence of Lincoln (New York, 1950 2.121, 124), the best study I know of American politics in the late 1850s. Supporters of both parties in the galleries also bore lethal weapons, and were ready to use them. A Louisiana Congressman threatened to fetch his double-barrelled shotgun into the House. In both chambers, Senator Hammond said, “the only persons who do not have a revolver and a knife are those who have two revolvers.” For a time a New England Representative, a former clergyman, came unarmed, but finally he too bought a pistol. Practically all members were now armed with deadly weapons. Recurrently, speakers lashed out in passages that threatened to precipitate a general affray. I never said a word to anybody, but quietly cocked my revolver in my pocket and took my position in the midst of the mob, and as coolly as I write it to you now, I had made up my mind to sell out my blood at the highest possible price.Īn historian described the atmosphere in the Capitol in this way: A congressman wrote to a friend about an argument on the floor of the House of Representatives:
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