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That man was Abraham Lincoln. The writer was in the office of the Secretary of War when the telegraphic despatch announcing the capture of Mason and Slidell was brought in and read. He can never forget the scene that ensued. Led by Secretary Stanton, who was followed by Governor Andrew of Massachusetts and others who were present, cheer after cheer was heartily given by the company.
Boys and girls of a younger age than that know why Slidell and Mason were arrested, and will tell you why they should have been given up, or why they should have been held in durance. The question of the war with England is debated by every native pavior and hodman of New York. I know what Englishmen will say in answer to this.
All the legal acumen of New England declared the seizure of Slidell and Mason to be right. The legal acumen of Old England has declared it to be wrong; and I have no doubt that the ladies of Old England can prove it to be wrong out of Yattel, Puffendorff, Stowell, Phillimore, and Wheaton.
Baker, Bayard, Benjamin, Bigler, Bragg, Bright, Clingman, Crittenden, Douglas, Fitch, Green, Gwin, Hemphill, Hunter, Iverson, Johnson of Tennessee, Kennedy, Lane, Mason, Nicholson, Pearce, Polk, Powell, Pugh, Rice, Saulsbury, Sebastian, Slidell and Wigfall 29. NAYS. Messrs.
The north had also been much excited by the promptness with which Lord Palmerston had sent troops to Canada when Mason and Slidell were seized on an English packet on the high seas, and by the bold tone held by some Canadian papers when it was doubtful if the prisoners would be released.
Before the ordinance of secession was passed, or the convention had assembled, on the faith of a telegraphic dispatch sent by the two Senators, Benjamin and Slidell, from their seats in the United States Senate at Washington, Governor Moore ordered the seizure of all the United States forts at the mouth of the Mississippi and Lake Pontchartrain, and of the United States arsenal at Baton Rouge.
Buchanan was the victim of both personal and historic injustice. With secession in sight his one aim was to get out of the White House before the scrap began. He was of course on terms of intimacy with all the secession leaders, especially Mr. Slidell, of Louisiana, like himself a Northerner by birth, and Mr. Mason, a thick-skulled, ruffle-shirted Virginian. It was not in him or in Mr.
Among the most prominent members were the accomplished Robert C. Winthrop, who so well sustained the reputation of his distinguished ancestors; Hamilton Fish, the representative Knickerbocker from the State of New York; Alexander Ramsey, a worthy descendant of the Pennsylvania Dutchmen; the loquacious Garrett Davis, of Kentucky; the emaciated Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia, who apparently had not a month to live, yet who rivaled Talleyrand in political intrigue; John Wentworth, a tall son of New Hampshire, transplanted to the prairies of Illinois; Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, a born demagogue and self-constituted champion of the people; John Slidell, of New Orleans; Robert Dale Owen, the visionary communist from Indiana; Howell Cobb, of Georgia, and Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, who were busily laying the foundations for the Southern Confederacy, "with slavery as its corner-stone;" the brilliant Robert C. Schenck, of Ohio, and the genial Isaac E. Holmes, of South Carolina, who softened the asperities of debate by many kindly comments made in an undertone.
"Have you forgotten the affair of the Trent, when Messrs. Mason and Slidell were taken out of an English steamer? The British government made a tremendous tempest, and would certainly have declared war if the two envoys had not been returned to a British ship-of-war. The English flag waves over these islands, and they are supposed to be neutral ground."
Slidell. Colonel Mann wished to work incognito. I was taken on as a kind of go-between and, as I may say, figurehead, on the strength of being my father's son and a very self-confident young gentleman, and began to get my newspaper education in point of fact as a kind of fetch-and-carry for Major Heiss.
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