The Lost Gettysburg Address by David T. Dixon Page B

Democrats were busy preparing a conservative platform
that, they hoped, would triumph in the next presidential election and
save the country. The events of the next twelve months exposed that
dream as pure fantasy, however. The most sensational of these events
was certainly the seizure of the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry in
West Virginia by radical abolitionistJohn Brown and his gang in
October 1859. Brown had intended to kindle a slave uprising, leading
many Southerners to recall with horror the murders committed by
escaped Virginia slaveNat Turner’s mob just thirty years earlier. 10
     
    Back in Cincinnati,Larz Anderson was sure that his youngest
brother’s Texas adventure was destined to fail. He knew that the only
way to persuade Charles to abandon his folly would be to appeal to
his latent ambition. With a foreign post unlikely and the prospect
of Civil War looming, Larz succeeded in convincing the Buchanan
administration that his youngest brother was the right candidate for
assistant secretary of state. Postmaster generalJoseph Holt, a former
judge from Ohio, tendered the formal offer on February 3, 1860.
Anderson received it two weeks later. It was a tempting opportunity.
The current secretary,Lewis Cass, was said to be in ill health, and
this appointment could be a stepping-stone to the Cabinet. The
experience would give Anderson national exposure and prepare him for
higher office. It turned out to be one of the most important decisions
of his life.
    After careful consideration, Anderson declined Holt’s offer. His
old colleague was persistent and urged him to reconsider, but Charles
would not budge. He was tired of politics. He could not stomach
working alongside fire-eaters likeJames G. Breckenridge, who
actively advocated disunion. Besides, the Union had been endangered
before and cooler heads had always prevailed. 11 Later that same
month,Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi introduced resolutions
to affirm that the federal government was obliged to protect
slave-holding interests in the territories. Davis knew full well that this issue
would split the Democratic Party in the upcoming convention. The
resolutions would also bluntSteven Douglas’s efforts to establish
popular sovereignty in new states and territories. The Union was in
serious jeopardy. Anderson realized that the “sham of state equality,”
as he called it, was no longer the exclusive doctrine of extremists likeWilliam L. Yancy of South Carolina. The lie had become the favored
dogma of the Southern Democratic Party in what Anderson described
as the “morbid madness of their unbridled lust for power.” 12
    Anderson’s dreams were disintegrating and he could no longer
pretend otherwise. In March 1860 he placed an ad in the Goliad
Messenger , seeking the return of twenty-three Spanish mares, two
saddle horses, a roan, and a sorrel pony that had been “lost.” Stock
not endangered by extended drought, rattlesnake bites, or other
natural hazards were continually at risk of being stolen by Indians,
bandits, or even unscrupulous neighbors. Lawlessness and violence in
Texas was growing as loyalty to the Union ebbed. 13 Independence
Day proved melancholy. Anderson called it “our national Holy Day”
and exclaimed, “Great God! Is it to be our last?” He could now see
that disunion was a distinct probability and his mood was gloomy.
“Poor fool,” he lamented, “to love one’s country to the point of
distress.” When he looked to the future, Anderson saw “a hell of
woes  .  .  .  bleeding, blazing, groaning directly and boundlessly
beyond.” Tragically, this vision would come to pass.
    A few days earlier, workmen constructing his house had found one
of the Andersons’ two slaves, a young black boy named Dan, dead
in the river. Charles was convinced that the boy had been murdered.
By the end of July, violence against blacks had escalated into one of
the most shameful events in the history of the young state. Rumors