Nevertheless they
remained in Washington a few weeks longer, gathering and forwarding to
the Confederate government such information as they could. In this they
were aided by Judge Campbell of Alabama, a Secessionist, who still
retained his seat upon the bench of the Supreme Court. This gentleman
now became a messenger between the commissioners and Mr. Seward, with
the purpose of eliciting news and even pledges from the latter for the
use of the former. His errands especially related to Fort Sumter, and he
gradually drew from Mr. Seward strong expressions of opinion that Sumter
would in time be evacuated, even declarations substantially to the
effect that this was the arranged policy of the government. Words which
fell in so agreeably with the wishes of the judge and the commissioners
were received with that warm welcome which often outruns correct
construction, and later were construed by them as actual assurances, at
least in substance, whereby they conceived themselves to have been
"abused and overreached," and they charged the government with
"equivocating conduct." In the second week in April, contemporaneously
with the Sumter crisis, they addressed to Mr. Seward a high-flown
missive of reproach, in which they ostentatiously washed the hands of
the South, as it were, and shook from their own departing feet the dust
of the obdurate North, where they had not been met "in the conciliatory
and peaceful spirit" in which they had come.
Pages:
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260