Mr. John Van Buren, who had become an earnest supporter of the war,
just before he made a speech at a great Democratic meeting in the city
of New York, in October, 1862, called upon Mr. Tilden.
"We must be for the war," said Mr. Van Buren.
"Certainly," replied Mr. Tilden.
Mr. Van Buren showed a letter from General Scott, in which he proposed
to "let our erring sisters depart in peace." Mr. Van Buren could not
resist the temptation of making an oratorical point upon the letter of
the great military chieftain, and read it to the meeting. An audience
applauds point more than reason. Mr. Van Buren was an orator who
sported with the tumultuous sympathies of a popular assembly, as a
daring horseman rides a fiery steed. In the action and reaction between
the speaker and the auditors, Mr. Van Buren, contrary to his intention,
was carried into some seeming indulgence towards General Scott's idea.
The impression was not satisfactory to his friends or to the leaders of
the Democratic party.
At a casual meeting, at which were present Mr. Dean Richmond, the
chairman of the Democratic State Committee, Mr. Seymour and Mr. Jones,
the Democratic candidates for Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, Mr.
Tilden was consulted. He disapproved the aspect in which the last
meeting had left the matter, and suggested that, as Mr. Seymour was
to speak in Brooklyn on the evening of the next day, he should at the
close of his speech make a more correct and an authoritative statement
of the Democratic position in respect to the war.
Mr. Tilden was requested to reduce to writing what he suggested should
be said. The next morning, on his way down-town, he left with Mr.
Seymour a sketch of a peroration for the speech to be made that evening.
It was in the following words:
"And now, if my voice could reach the Southern people, through the
journals of our metropolis, I would say to them that in no event can
the triumph of the conservative sentiment of New York in the election
mean consent to disunion, either now or hereafter. Its true import is
restoration, North and South, of that Constitution which had secured
every right, and under whose shelter all had been happy and prosperous
until you madly fled from its protection. It was your act which began
this calamitous civil war. It was your act which disabled us, as we are
now disabled, of shaping the policy or limiting the objects of that
war. Loyally as we maintained your rights, will we maintain the right
of the government. We will not strike down its arm as long as yours is
lifted against it. That noblest and greatest work of our wise ancestors
is not destined to perish. We intend to rear once more upon the old
and firm foundations its shattered columns, and to carry them higher
towards the eternal skies. If the old flag waves in the nerveless
grasp of a fanatic but feeble faction to whom you and not we abandoned
it, we, whose courage you have tried when we stood unmoved between
fanaticism and folly from the North and South alike, will once more
bear it onward and aloft until it is again planted upon the towers of
the Constitution, invincible by domestic as by foreign enemies. Within
the Union we will give you the Constitution you profess to revere,
renewed with fresh guarantees of equal rights and equal safety. We will
give you everything that local self-government demands; everything that
a common ancestry of glory--everything that national fraternity or
Christian fellowship requires; but to dissolve the federal bond between
these States, to dismember our country, whoever else consents, we will
not. No; never, never, never!"