their system of governing the country by an alliance with the
Democratic party of the Free States, on the basis of a division of
offices, that they dreamed of making their "institution" the chief
concern of the nation. As we follow Mr. Greeley's narrative, we see
them first pleading for the existence of slavery, then for its
equality, and at last claiming for it an absolute dominion. Such had
been the result of uniform concession on the part of the North for the
sake of Union, such the decline of public spirit, that within sixty
years of the time when slaveholders like George Mason of Virginia could
denounce slavery for its inconsistency with the principles on which our
Revolution had triumphed, the leaders of a party at the North claiming
a kind of patent in the rights of man as an expedient for catching
votes were decrying the doctrines of the Declaration of Independence as
visionary and impracticable. Was it the Slave or the Free States that
had just cause to be alarmed for their peculiar institutions? And,
meanwhile, it had been discovered that slavery was conservative! It
would protect a country in which almost every voter was a landholder
from any sudden frenzy of agrarianism! In the South it certainly
conserved a privileged class, and prevented a general debauch of
education; but in the North it preserved nothing but political
corruption, subserviency, cant, and all those baser qualities which
unenviably distinguish man from the brutes.
The nation had paid ten millions for Texas, an extension of the area of
freedom, as it was shamelessly called, which was to raise the value of
slaves in Virginia, according to Mr. Upshur, and did raise it, fifty
per cent. It was next proposed to purchase Cuba for one hundred
millions, or to take it by force if Spain refused to sell. And all this
for fear of abolition. This was paying rather dearly for our
conservative element, it should seem, especially when it stood in need
of such continual and costly conservation. But it continued to be plain
to a majority of voters that democratic institutions absolutely
demanded a safeguard against democracy, and that the only insurance was
something that must be itself constantly insured at more and more
ruinous rates. It continued to be plain also that slavery was purely a
matter of local concern, though it could help itself to the national
money, force the nation into an unjust war, and stain its reputation in
Europe with the buccaneering principles proclaimed in the Ostend
Manifesto. All these were plainly the results of the ever-increasing
and unprovoked aggressions of Northern fanaticism. To be the victims of
such injustice seemed not unpleasing to the South. Let us sum up the
items of their little bill against us. They demanded Missouri,--we
yielded; they could not get along without Texas,--we _re_-annexed it;
they must have a more stringent fugitive-slave law,--we gulped it; they
must no longer be insulted with the Missouri Compromise,--we repealed
it. Thus far the North had surely been faithful to the terms of the
bond. We had paid our pound of flesh whenever it was asked for, and
with fewer wry faces, inasmuch as Brother Ham underwent the incision.
Not at all. We had only surrendered the principles of the Revolution;
we must give up the theory also, if we would be loyal to the
Constitution.
We entirely agree with Mr. Greeley that the quibble which would make
the Constitution an anti-slavery document, because the word _slave_ is
not mentioned in it, cannot stand a moment if we consider the speeches
made in Convention, or the ideas by which the action of its members was
guided. But the question of slavery in the Territories stands on wholly
different ground. We know what the opinions of the men were who drafted
the Constitution, by their own procedure in passing the Ordinance of
1787. That the North should yield all claim to the common lands was
certainly a new interpretation of constitutional law. And yet this was
practically insisted on by the South, and its denial was the more
immediate occasion of rupture between the two sections. But, in our
opinion, the real cause which brought the question to the decision of
war was the habit of concession on the part of the North, and the
inability of its representatives to say _No_, when policy as well as
conscience made it imperative. Without that confidence in Northern
pusillanimity into which the South had been educated by their long
experience of this weakness, whatever might have been the secret wish
of the leading plotters, they would never have dared to rush their
fellow-citizens into a position where further compromise became
impossible.
Inextricably confused with the question of Slavery, and essential to an
understanding of the motives and character of the Southern people as
distinguished from their politicians, is the doctrine of State Rights.
On this topic also Mr. Greeley furnishes all the data requisite to a
full understanding of the matter. The dispute resolves itself
substantially into this: whether the adoption of the Constitution
established a union or a confederacy, a government or a league, a
nation or a committee. This also is a question which can only be
determined by a knowledge of what the Convention of 1787 intended and
accomplished, and the States severally acceded to,--it being of course
understood that no State had a right, or at the time pretended any
right, to accept the Constitution with mental reservations. On this
subject we have ample and unimpeachable testimony in the discussions
which led to the calling of the Convention, and the debates which
followed in the different conventions of the States called together to
decide whether the new frame of government should be accepted or
rejected. The conviction that it was absolutely necessary to remodel
the Articles of Confederation was wrought wholly by an experience of
the inadequacy of the existing plan (under which a single State could
oppose its veto to a law of Congress), from, the looseness of its
cohesion and its want of power to compel obedience. The principle of
coercive authority, which was represented as so oppressively
unconstitutional by the friends of Secession in the North as well as
the South four years ago, was precisely that which, as its absence had
brought the old plan to a dead-lock, was deemed essential to the new.
The formal proposal for a convention, originated by Hamilton, was
seconded by one State after another. Here is a sample of Virginian
public sentiment at that time, from the "instructions to their
representatives," by several constituencies: "Government without
coercion is a proposition at once so absurd and self-contradictory that
the idea creates a confusion of the understanding; it is form without
substance, at best a body without a soul." Oliver Ellsworth, advocating
the adoption of the Constitution in the Convention of Connecticut,
says: "A more energetic system is necessary. The present is merely
advisory. It has no coercive power. Without this, government is
ineffectual, or rather is no government at all." Earlier than this
Madison had claimed "an implied right of coercion" even for the
Confederate Congress, and Jefferson had gone so far as to say that they
possessed it "by the law of nature." The leading objections to the new
Constitution were such as to show the general belief that the State
sovereignties were to be absorbed into the general government in all
matters of national concern. But the unhappy ingenuity of Mr. Jefferson
afterwards devised that theory of strict construction which would
enable any State to profit by the powers of the Constitution so long as
it was for her interest or convenience, and then, by pleading its want
of powers, to resolve the helpless organization once more into the
incoherence of confederacy. By this dexterous legerdemain, the Union
became a string of juggler's rings, which seems a chain while it
pleases the operator, but which, by bringing the strain on the weak
point contrived for the purpose, is made to fall easily asunder and
become separate rings again. An adroit use of this theory enabled the
South to gain one advantage after another by threatening disunion, and
led naturally, on the first effective show of resistance, to secession.
But in order that the threat might serve its purpose without the costly
necessity of putting it in execution, the doctrine of State Rights was
carefully inculcated at the South by the same political party which
made belief in the value of the Union a fanaticism at the North. On one
side of Mason and Dixon's line it was lawful, and even praiseworthy, to
steal the horse; on the other, it was a hanging matter to look over the
fence.
But in seeking for the cause of the rebellion, with any fairness toward
the Southern people, and any wish to understand their motives and
character, it would be unwise to leave out of view the fact that they
have been carefully educated in the faith that secession is not only
their right, but the only safeguard of their freedom. While it is
perfectly true that the great struggle now going on is intrinsically
between right and privilege, between law and license, and while on the
part of its leaders the Southern revolt was a conspiracy against
popular government, and an attempt to make a great Republic into a mere
convenient drudge for Slavery, yet we should despair of our kind did we
believe that the rank and file of the Confederate armies were
consciously spending so much courage and endurance on behalf of
barbarism. It is more consoling, as it is nearer the truth, to think
that they are fighting for what they have been taught to believe their
rights, and their inheritance as a free people. The high qualities they
have undoubtedly shown in the course of the war, their tenacity,
patience, and discipline, show that, under better influences, they may
become worthy to take their part in advancing the true destinies of
America.
It is yet too early to speculate with much confidence on the remote
consequences of the war. One of its more immediate results has already
been to disabuse the Southern mind of some of its most fatal
misconceptions as to Northern character. They thought us a trading
people, incapable of lofty sentiment, ready to sacrifice everything for
commercial advantage,--a heterogeneous rabble, fit only to be ruled by
a superior race. They are not likely to make that mistake again, and
must have learned by this time that the best blood is that which has in
it most of the iron of purpose and constancy. War, the sternest and
dearest of teachers, has already made us a soberer and older people on
both sides. It has brought questions of government and policy home to
us as never before, and has made us feel that citizenship is a duty to
whose level we must rise, and not a privilege to which we are born. The
great principles of humanity and politics, which had faded into the
distance of abstraction and history, have been for four years the theme
of earnest thought and discussion at every fireside and wherever two
men met together. They have again become living and operative in the
heart and mind of the nation. What was before a mighty population is
grown a great country, united in one hope, inspired by one thought, and
welded into one power. But have not the same influences produced the
same result in the South, and created there also a nation hopelessly
alien and hostile? To a certain extent this is true, but not in the
unlimited way in which it is stated by enemies in England, or
politicians at home, who would gladly put the people out of heart,
because they themselves are out of office. With the destruction of
slavery, the one object of the war will have been lost by the Rebels,
and its one great advantage gained by the government. Slavery is by no
means dead as yet, whether socially in its relation of man to man, or
morally in its hold on public opinion and its strength as a political
superstition. But there is no party at the North, considerable in
numbers or influence, which could come into power on the platform of
making peace with the Rebels on their own terms. No party can get
possession of the government which is not in sympathy with the temper
of the people, and the people, forced into war against their will by
the unprovoked attack of pro-slavery bigotry, are resolved on pushing
it to its legitimate conclusion. War means now, consciously with many,
unconsciously with most, but inevitably, abolition. Nothing can save
slavery but peace. Let its doom be once accomplished, or its
reconstruction (for reconstruction means nothing more) clearly seen to
be an impossibility, and the bond between the men at the South who were
willing to destroy the Union, and those at the North who only wish to
save it, for the sake of slavery, will be broken. The ambitious in both
sections will prefer their chances as members of a mighty empire to
what would always be secondary places in two rival and hostile nations,
powerless to command respect abroad or secure prosperity at home. The
masses of the Southern people will not feel too keenly the loss of a
kind of property in which they had no share, while it made them
underlings, nor will they find it hard to reconcile themselves with a
government from which they had no real cause of estrangement. If the
war be waged manfully, as becomes a thoughtful people, without insult
or childish triumph in success, if we meet opinion with wiser opinion,
waste no time in badgering prejudice till it become hostility, and
attack slavery as a crime against the nation, and not as individual
sin, it will end, we believe, in making us the most powerful and
prosperous community the world ever saw. Our example and our ideas will
react more powerfully than ever on the Old World, and the consequence
of a rebellion, aimed at the natural equality of all men, will be to
hasten incalculably the progress of equalization over the whole earth.
Above all, Freedom will become the one absorbing interest of the whole
people, making us a nation alive from sea to sea with the consciousness
of a great purpose and a noble destiny, and uniting us as slavery has
hitherto combined and made powerful the most hateful aristocracy known
to man.
McCLELLAN OR LINCOLN?
1864
The spectacle of an opposition waiting patiently during several months
for its principles to turn up would be amusing in times less critical
than these. Nor was this the worst. If there might be persons malicious
enough to think that the Democratic party could get along very well
without principles, all would admit that a candidate was among the
necessaries of life. Now, where not only immediate policy, but the very
creed which that policy is to embody, is dependent on circumstances,
and on circumstances so shifting and doubtful as those of a campaign,
it is hard to find a representative man whose name may, in some
possible contingency, mean enough, without, in some other equally
possible contingency, meaning too much. The problem was to hunt up
somebody who, without being anything in particular, might be anything
in general, as occasion demanded. Of course, the professed object of
the party was to save their country, but which _was_ their country, and
which it would be most profitable to save, whether America or Secessia,
was a question that Grant or Sherman might answer one way or the other
in a single battle. If only somebody or something would tell them
whether they were for war or peace! The oracles were dumb, and all
summer long they looked anxiously out, like Sister Anne from her tower,
for the hero who should rescue unhappy Columbia from the Republican
Bluebeard. Did they see a cloud of dust in the direction of Richmond or
Atlanta? Perhaps Grant might be the man, after all, or even Sherman
would answer at a pinch. When at last no great man would come along, it
was debated whether it might not be better to nominate some one without
a record, as it is called, since a nobody was clearly the best exponent
of a party that was under the unhappy necessity of being still
uncertain whether it had any recognizable soul or not. Meanwhile, the
time was getting short and the public impatience peremptory.
"Under which king, bezonian? Speak, or die!"
The party found it alike inconvenient to do the one or the other, and
ended by a compromise which might serve to keep them alive till after
election, but which was as far from any distinct utterance as if their
mouths were already full of that official pudding which they hope for
as the reward of their amphibological patriotism. Since it was not safe
to be either for peace or war, they resolved to satisfy every
reasonable expectation by being at the same time both and neither. If
you are warlike, there is General McClellan; if pacific, surely you
must be suited with Mr. Pendleton; if neither, the combination of the
two makes a _tertium quid_ that is neither one thing nor another. As
the politic Frenchman, kissing the foot of St. Peter's statue (recast
out of a Jupiter), while he thus did homage to existing prejudices,
hoped that the Thunderer would remember him if he ever came into power
again, so the Chicago Convention compliments the prevailing warlike
sentiment of the country with a soldier, but holds the civilian quietly
in reserve for the future contingencies of submission. The nomination
is a kind of political _What-is-it?_ and voters are expected, without
asking impertinent questions, to pay their money and make their own
choice as to the natural history of the animal. Looked at from the
Northern side, it is a raven, the bird of carnage, to be sure, but
whitewashed and looking as decorously dove-like as it can; from the
Southern, it is a dove, blackened over for the nonce, but letting the
olive-branch peep from under its wing.
A more delicate matter for a convention, however, even than the
selection of candidates, is the framing of a platform for them to stand
upon. It was especially delicate for a gathering which represented so
many heterogeneous and almost hostile elements. So incongruous an
assemblage has not been seen since the host of Peter the Hermit,
unanimous in nothing but the hope of plunder and of reconquering the
Holy Land of office. There were War Democrats ready to unite in peace
resolutions, and Peace Democrats eager to move the unanimous nomination
of a war candidate. To make the confusion complete, Mr. Franklin
Pierce, the dragooner of Kansas, writes a letter in favor of free
elections, and the maligners of New England propose a Connecticut
Yankee as their favorite nominee. The Convention was a rag-bag of
dissent, made up of bits so various in hue and texture that the
managers must have been as much puzzled to arrange them in any kind of
harmonious pattern as the thrifty housewife in planning her coverlet
out of the parings of twenty years' dressmaking. All the odds and ends
of personal discontent, every shred of private grudge, every resentful
rag snipped off by official shears, scraps of Rebel gray and leavings
of Union blue,--all had been gathered, as if for the tailoring of
Joseph's coat; and as a Chatham Street broker first carefully removes
all marks of previous ownership from the handkerchiefs which find their
way to his counter, so the temporary chairman advised his hearers, by
way of a preliminary caution, to surrender their convictions. This,
perhaps, was superfluous, for it may be doubted whether anybody
present, except Mr. Fernando Wood, ever legally had one, though Captain
Rynders must have brought many in his following who richly deserved it.
Mr. Belmont, being chosen to represent the Democracy of Mammon, did
little more than paraphrase in prose the speech of that fallen
financier in another rebellious conclave, as reported by Milton:--
"How in safety best we may
Compose our present evils, with regard
Of what we are and were, dismissing quite
All thoughts of war."
But we turn from the momentary elevation of the banker, to follow the
arduous labors of the Committee on Resolutions.[4] The single end to
be served by the platform they were to construct was that of a bridge
over which their candidate might make his way into the White House.
But it must be so built as to satisfy the somewhat exacting theory
of construction held by the Rebel emissaries at Niagara, while at the
same time no apprehensions as to its soundness must be awakened in the
loyal voters of the party. The war plank would offend the one, the
State Rights plank excite the suspicion of the other. The poor fellow
in AEsop, with his two wives, one pulling out the black hairs and the
other the white, was not in a more desperate situation than the
Committee,--MacHeath, between his two doxies, not more embarrassed. The
result of their labors was, accordingly, as narrow as the pathway of
the faithful into the Mahometan paradise,--so slender, indeed, that
Blondin should have been selected as the only candidate who could hope
to keep his balance on it, with the torrent of events rushing ever
swifter and louder below. It might sustain the somewhat light Unionism
of Mr. Pendleton, but would General McClellan dare to trust its fragile
footing, with his Report and his West Point oration, with his record,
in short, under his arm? Without these documents General McClellan is a
nobody; with them, before he can step on a peace platform, he must eat
an amount of leek that would have turned the stomach of Ancient Pistol
himself. It remained to be seen whether he was more in favor of being
President than of his own honor and that of the country.
[4] The _Platform of the Chicago Convention_ was published
in the public journals 30th August.