But such was the general
uncertainty, so doubtful seemed the loyalty of the Democratic Party as
represented by its spokesmen at the North, so irresolute was the tone
of many Republican leaders and journals, that a powerful and wealthy
community of twenty millions of people gave a sigh of relief when they
had been permitted to install the Chief Magistrate of their choice in
their own National Capital. Even after the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln,
it was confidently announced that Jefferson Davis, the Burr of the
Southern conspiracy, would be in Washington before the month was out;
and so great was the Northern despondency, that the chances of such an
event were seriously discussed. While the nation was falling to pieces,
there were newspapers and "distinguished statesmen" of the party so
lately and so long in power base enough to be willing to make political
capital out of the common danger, and to lose their country, if
they could only find their profit. There was even one man found in
Massachusetts, who, measuring the moral standard of his party by his
own, had the unhappy audacity to declare publicly that there were
friends enough of the South in his native State to prevent the march of
any troops thence to sustain that Constitution to which he had sworn
fealty in Heaven knows how many offices, the rewards of almost as many
turnings of his political coat.
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