86

WAR PREPARATIONS IN THE NORTH.

Before we met again, Mr. Lincoln’s proclamation and call for 75,000 men forthree months’ service had been issued, and the great mass of the people of theNorth, forgetting all party distinctions, answered with an enthusiasm thatswept politicians olf their feet. When we met again on Tuesday morning,Judge Key, taking my arm and pacing the floor outside the railing, broke outimpetuously, “Mr. Cox, the people have gone stark mad!” — “I knew theywould if a blow were struck against the flag,” said I, reminding him of someprevious conversations we had had on the subject. He, with most of the poli-ticians of the day, partly by sympathy with the overwhelming current ofpublic opinion, and partly by the reaction of their own hearts against thetheories which had encouraged the secessionists, determined to support thewar measures of the Government and to make no factious opposition tosuch State legislation as might be necessary to sustain the FederalAdministration.

The attitude of Mr. Key is only a type of many others, and marks one ofthe most striking features of the time. On the 8th of January the usualDemocratic convention and celebration of the battle of New Orleans hadtaken place, and a series of resolutions had been passed, in which, professingto speak in the name of “ 200,000 Democrats of Ohio, ” the convention hadvery significantly intimated that this vast organization of men would be foundin the way of any attempt to put down secession until the demands of theSouth in respect to slavery were complied with. A few days afterward I wasreturning to Columbus from my home in Trumbull county , and meeting uponthe railway train with David Tod, then an active Democratic politician, butafterward one of our loyal “ war governors,” the conversation turned on theaction of the convention which had just adjourned. Mr. Tod and I were per-sonal friends and neighbors, and I freely expressed my surprise that the con-vention should have committed itself to what must be interpreted as a threatof insurrection in the North, if the Administration should, in opposing seces-sion by force, follow the example of Andrew Jackson , in whose honor they hadassembled. He rather vehemently reasserted the substance of the resolution,saying that we Republicans would find the 200,000 Ohio Democrats in frontof us, if we attempted to cross the Ohio River. My answer was, “We will giveup the contest if we cannot carry your 200,000 over the heads of you leaders.”

The result proved how hollow the party assertions had been, or, perhaps, Ishould say, how superficial was the hold of such doctrines upon the mass ofmen in a great political organization. At the first shot from Beauregard’sguns in Charleston Harbor these men crowded to the recruiting stations toenlist for the defense of the national flag and the national union. It was apopular torrent which no leaders could resist; but many of these should becredited with the same patriotic impulse, and it made them nobly obliviousof party consistency. A few days after the surrender of Sumter, Stephen A.Douglas passed through Columbus on his way to Washington, and, in responseto the calls of a spontaneous gathering of people, spoke to them from the win-dow of his bedroom in the hotel. There had been no thought for any of thecommon surroundings of a public meeting. There were no torches, no music.